EYES TIGHTLY SHUT RIPPED WIDE OPEN

People regularly confuse “used slaves” with “built on slaves”.

Social Justice:

that’s what anon said

"Groups of people" exist, do they not?

Validating The Concept of Race

Is Homo sapiens Polytypic? Human Taxonomic Diversity and its Implications:

The term race is a traditional synonym for subspecies, however it is frequently asserted that Homo sapiens is monotypic and that what are termed races are nothing more than biological illusions. In this manuscript a case is made for the hypothesis that H. sapiens is polytypic, and in this way is no different from other species exhibiting similar levels of genetic and morphological diversity. First it is demonstrated that the four major definitions of race/subspecies can be shown to be synonymous within the context of the framework of race as a correlation structure of traits. Next the issue of taxonomic classification is considered where it is demonstrated that H. sapiens possesses high levels morphological diversity, genetic heterozygosity and differentiation (FST) compared to many species that are acknowledged to be polytypic with respect to subspecies. Racial variation is then evaluated in light of the phylogenetic species concept, where it is suggested that the least inclusive monophyletic units exist below the level of species within H. sapiens indicating the existence of a number of potential human phylogenetic species; and the biological species concept, where it is determined that racial variation is too small to represent differentiation at the level of biological species.http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19695787https://lesacreduprintemps19.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/woodley-2009-is-homo-sapiens-polytypic-human-taxonomic-diversity-and-its-implications.pdf

The Genomic Challenge to the Social Construction of Race:

Recent research on the human genome challenges the basic assumption that human races have no biological basis. In this article, we provide a theoretical synthesis that accepts the existence of genetic clusters consistent with certain racial classifications as well as the validity of the genomic research that has identified the clusters, without diminishing the social character of their context, meaning, production, or consequences. The first part of this article describes the social constructionist account of race as lacking biological reality, its main shortcomings, and our proposed solution: the concept of clinal classes. The second part discusses the character of the group differences that would be consistent with clinal classes and introduces the concept of genomic individualism, which extends an emerging model for understanding biosocial causation to include the genetic effects of ancestry.http://stx.sagepub.com/content/30/2/67.short

Race: A Social Destruction of a Biological Concept:

My aim is to challenge the arguments that are usually thought to invalidate the biological concept of race. I will try to show that the way ”race” was defined by biologists several decades ago (by Dobzhansky and others) is in no way discredited by conceptual criticisms that are now fashionable and widely regarded as cogent. These criticisms often arbitrarily burden the biological category of race with some implausible connotations, which then opens the path for a quick eliminative move. However, when properly understood, the biological notion of race proves remarkably resistant to these deconstructive attempts. Moreover, by analyzing statements of some leading contemporary scholars who support social constructivism about race, I hope to demonstrate that their eliminativist views are actually in conflict with what the best contemporary science tells us about human genetic variation.http://www.ln.edu.hk/philoso/staff/sesardic/Race.pdf

The Race Concept: A Defense:

It is argued against critics that the concept of race is well-formed. The issue is formulated in terms of the classic sense/reference distinction and shown that “race” has a sense specified in terms of geographic ancestry, and thereby a reference. Excessive constraints on “race,” for instance that races must by definition have signature genes, are rejected. Empirical validation is considered, although the emphasis here is to place empirical validation in a philosophical context, not answer the empirical questions themselves. At several junctures the familiar divisions of the races are compared to the stellar luminosity types of astronomy, which are still serviceable although representing an earlier state of astrophysical knowledge.http://foster.20megsfree.com/313.htm

Lewontin’s Fallacy

An argument is that there is more variation within races than between them, therefore race does not exist. This is known as Lewontin’s fallacy and it is fallacious because it:

"ignores the fact that most of the information that distinguishes populations is hidden in the correlation structure of the data and not simply in the variation of the individual factors"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12879450

Another false argument is that human populations have not been separated long enough to be considered different races, yet one study listed 11 other mammal species with major phylogroups that diverged around the same time the human races did:http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1689361/

It is a statistical fallacy which works by ignoring correlations or combined effects. Genes vary much more within than between human populations only if we look at one gene at a time. The pattern reverses if we aggregate variation at several gene loci. The more we aggregate, the more the genetic variation will exist between populations and not within them.

This point was first made by Cavalli-Sforza back in 1966 and later by Mitton (1977, 1978), Edwards (2003), and Sesardic (2010).

Steve Hsu, who has recently been involved at the Beijing Genomics Institute (BGI), also explains this here:

"No scientific basis for race""It’s just a social construction" — a picture is worth a million words…

One thing commenters seem particularly confused about is the difference between phenotypic and genetic variation. The clustering data show very clearly that, in certain subspaces, the genetic variation within a particular population cluster is less than between clusters. That is, the genetic "distance" between two individuals within a cluster is typically much less than the distance between clusters.

Technical comment: this depends on the number of loci or markers used. As the number gets large the distance between clusters becomes much larger than the individual cluster radius. For continental clusters, if hundreds or thousands of markers are used the intercluster distance dominates the intracluster size.

Further technical comment: You may have read the misleading statistic, spread by the intellectually dishonest Lewontin, that 85% percent of all human genetic variation occurs within groups and only 15% between groups. The statistic is true, but what is often falsely claimed is that this breakup of variances (larger within group than between group) prevents any meaningful genetic classification of populations. This false conclusion neglects the correlations in the genetic data that are revealed in a cluster analysis. See here for a simple example which shows that there can be dramatic group differences in phenotypes even if every version of every gene is found in two groups — as long as the frequency or probability distributions are distinct. Sadly, understanding this point requires just enough mathematical ability that it has eluded all but a small number of experts.

Steve Hsu’s blog:http://infoproc.blogspot.co.uk/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Hsu

The top image is from the Nature paper: European Journal of Human Genetics (2008):

Each point is an individual, and the axes are two principal components in the space of genetic variation. Colors correspond to individuals of different European ancestry.http://www.nature.com/ejhg/journal/v16/n12/full/ejhg2008210a.html

Some interesting points from this study:1) Significant East-West and North-South substructure is apparent already from the figure. The resolution of the study is sufficiently high that Swedes and Norwegians can be distinguished with 90 percent accuracy (Table 4):http://www.nature.com/ejhg/journal/v16/n12/fig_tab/ejhg2008210t4.html#figure-title2) Genetic distances between population clusters are roughly as follows: the distance between two neighboring western European populations is of order one in units of standard deviations and the distance to the Russian cluster is several times larger than that — say, 3 or 4. From HapMap data, the distance from Russian to Chinese and Japanese clusters is about 18, and the distance of southern Europeans to the Nigerian cluster is about 19. The chance of mis-identifying a European as an African or E. Asian is exponentially small (Table 5):http://www.nature.com/ejhg/journal/v16/n12/fig_tab/ejhg2008210t5.html#figure-title

Bottom image:Human genetic variation - major continental groups (“races”) form distinct clusters:http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/gnxp/2010/08/genetic-variation-within-africa-and-the-world/#more-5802

Race Is A Social Construct?

The Immune System: How Important Is Race?

"If Nick Glasgow were white, he would have a nearly 90 percent chance of finding a matching bone marrow donor who could cure his leukemia."http://m.phys.org/_news162659550.html

The reason that mixed-heritage patients are so hard to match can be found in the immune system. Different races have developed certain proteins, or markers, that are part of the body’s natural defenses. These markers help the immune system determine which cells are foreign and should be rejected.Are cells racist?A match between two people who share more genetically in common significantly reduces the risk of the donor and recipient cells attacking each other. (READ: cells from people of two different races will attack and fight each other as though they are an invading virus)The more people of different backgrounds who produce offspring = the more types that are harder to match.Multiracial patients have uncommon profiles and since there can be many possible racial/ethnic combinations in multiracial societies, finding a match can still be extremely difficult:http://m.phys.org/_news162659550.htmlAs an example, a White mother of mixed-race child would have more genetically in common with a random White person on the street than with her own child.If such a dramatic and fundamental alienation from your own parents is not horrific enough, with a mixed-race child diagnosed with leukaemia, every member of the child’s own family becomes an incompatible donor for a bone-marrow transplant, and finding a compatible donor is unlikely:

One obstacle to finding a matching donor was her mixed ethnic background. Her father is black, with West Indian and Panamanian roots. Her mother is white, with Russian-Jewish roots. In addition, only 5 percent of registered donors are black.http://www.nytimes.com/1996/04/18/sports/baseball-rod-carew-s-daughter-dies.html

Bone Marrow Transplants: When Race Is an Issue

”Compared to organ transplants, bone marrow donations need to be even more genetically similar to their recipients. Since all the immune system’s cells come from bone marrow, a transplant essentially introduces a new immune system to a person. Without genetic similarity between the donor and the patient, the new white blood cells will attack the host body.”http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1993074,00.html

Race matters when a patient needs a stem cell or marrow transplant

If you become ill with a blood cancer or other disease that requires a stem cell transplant, here’s an uncomfortable fact: Your race matters. Diversity is a strength in much of life, [citation needed!] but it’s a curse when finding a stem cell donor match.http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-08-05/national/41085742_1_stem-jeffrey-chell-ancestors

__________________________________The Race for Ancestral Genetics in Clinical Trials

A seasoned cancer researcher would never set up a study in which all the ill patients were, say, Canadian, and all the healthy controls were Japanese. And yet cancer researchers risk making a similar mistake if they overlook genetic information that fleshes out what many of us like to think of as race or ethnicity, some experts say.

Fortunately, awareness of how ancestral genetics might contribute to risk of disease and drug response in people has risen over the last several years. Studies that look directly at the problem are on the rapid rise, and this increased interest has biotechnology companies lowering the cost of tests that determine genetic ancestry, thanks to a little competition. However, experts have yet to decide on how to genetically define ancestry, suggesting examining anywhere from a handful to hundreds of gene variants.Not including information on the race or ethnicity of study volunteers could skew disease risks as stronger or weaker than they really are."Alzheimer’s disease is the poster child for this problem," says pharmacogeneticist Esteban Burchard, M.D., of the University of California in San Francisco. A variant of the gene ApoE4 is a strong genetic risk factor for early-onset Alzheimer’s disease, and the characteristic most likely to raise or lower that risk is race."It occurs in about 20% of the African American population, and it means nothing. It occurs in about 6% of the Japanese, and it makes their risk six times higher [than that for white people]," Burchard said. "Something about being Japanese unleashes the wrath of the gene, and something about being African American attenuates it."http://jnci.oxfordjournals.org/content/98/18/1270.full

BiDil

The FDA have approved a heart failure drug called BiDil, but only for blacks, as blacks do not benefit from conventional heart failure drugs.http://online.wsj.com/article/SB116096445875393515.html?mg=com-wsj

Sickle-Cell Disease

Sickle cell anemia is a condition found almost exclusively in blacks, about 1 in 4 west Africans carry the gene for it, almost no whites do. Any whites who carry the gene most likely have a black ancestor.As a result of population growth inAfrican-Caribbean regions of overseas France and immigration from North and sub-Saharan Africa to mainland France, sickle cell disease has become a major health problem in France. SCD has become the most common genetic disease in this country.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sickle_cell_anemia

HALDANE’S RULE

A trick employed by race-deniers is to bring up Haldane’s rule, arguing that since races can mix and create fertile offspring the genetic distance is not too great.

[Further explanation of the images can be found at the bottom of the post]

Haldane’s rule is "when in the offspring of two different animal races one sex is absent, rare, or sterile, that sex is the heterogametic [XY] sex."http://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/haldane-s-rule-the-heterogametic-sex-1144Although Black-White mixes are not sterile and males are not absent, males (the heterogametic sex) are more rare than females:http://www.jstor.org/pss/1537084

The argument regarding Haldane’s rule is also meaningless because different species in the animal kingdom can breed and still produce fertile offspring:

The wolf (Canis lupus) and the dog (Canis lupus familiaris), the coyote (Canis latrans), and the common jackal (Canis aureus) are separate species yet can all interbreed and produce fertile offspring:http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/3671304?uid=3739600&uid=2&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=47699085472247

Two species of orangutan (Pongo abellii from Sumatra and Pongo pygmaeus from Borneo) can interbreed despite having different chromosomal numbers:http://www.nytimes.com/1995/02/28/science/orangutan-hybrid-bred-to-save-species-now-seen-as-pollutant.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm

The common chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) and the bonobo (Pan paniscus) and many species of birds, such as the pintail (Anas acuta) and the mallard (Anas platyrhynchos), can interbreed as well:http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/04/070420104723.htmhttp://birdaz.com/blog/2011/02/24/mallards-the-weird-and-the-wonderful/

The gibbon and the siamang can also interbreed to produce a hybrid:http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/451603http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1060807

Some species that aren’t even in the same genus can interbreed:http://aob.oxfordjournals.org/content/74/2/111.full.pdf

FIXATION INDEX

Fixation index or FST, is a way to measure genetic distance between populations.

The FST between Whites (British) and Blacks (Bantu) is 0.23:http://www.genetics.org/content/105/3/767.abstract

The FST between the common chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) and the bonobo (Pan paniscus) is 0.103 which is half the White-Black difference despite the two being classified as separate species:https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0018442X04700335

The FST between two gorilla species, Gorilla gorilla and Gorilla beringei is 0.04 or 1/6 the difference between Blacks and Whites:http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/klu/bioc/2005/00000014/00000009/00004781;jsessionid=ebk3f9ja9mb61.alexandra?format=printhttp://www.berggorilla.org/fileadmin/gorilla-journal/gorilla-journal-20-english.pdf

The FST between humans and Neanderthals is less than 0.08 or about 1/3 the Black-White difference:https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0018442X04700335http://www.pnas.org/content/100/11/6593.abstracthttp://mbe.oxfordjournals.org/content/19/8/1359.full

The FST between humans and homo erectus is 0.17 which is 3/4 the Black-White distance:https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0018442X04700335

Thus, whites and blacks are more genetically distant than two different chimpanzee species, two different gorilla species, humans vs. Neanderthals, and humans vs. homo erectus.

So? (via someofmybestfriendsarewhite)

So if I move to a country where there are no white people and I’m the only white person in the whole country, do I still have white privilege?