Path: ccsf.homeunix.org!ccsf.homeunix.org!news1.wakwak.com!nf1.xephion.ne.jp!onion.ish.org!news.heimat.gr.jp!taurus!newsfeed.media.kyoto-u.ac.jp!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!not-for-mail From: Curt Fischer Newsgroups: fj.life.in-japan,sci.lang.japan Subject: Re: Asians have hijacked Japanese study Date: Sun, 31 Oct 2004 18:20:16 -0500 Lines: 48 Message-ID: <2ula9lF2b94krU1@uni-berlin.de> References: <41836fbb$0$25056$afc38c87@news.optusnet.com.au> <2uhcn9F2b4v8dU1@uni-berlin.de> <2uit00F2b8qlvU1@uni-berlin.de> <3z%gd.35952$E93.23651@clgrps12> <4184c52d$0$3585$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr> <2ul43qF29o3n6U1@uni-berlin.de> <2ul4p5F2ammebU1@uni-berlin.de> <2ul6mlF2bk2csU1@uni-berlin.de> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-2022-JP Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: news.uni-berlin.de ONfmRnF5aqa5d7VGnG5gUwiQzTd0dxeCZiqEE8jPAGyQBA5i7m User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 0.8 (Windows/20040913) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en In-Reply-To: <2ul6mlF2bk2csU1@uni-berlin.de> Xref: ccsf.homeunix.org fj.life.in-japan:20555 Fabian wrote: > Curt Fischer hu kiteb: > >> Fabian wrote: >> >>> b hu kiteb: >>> >>>>> But I was obtusely pointing out that the whole concept of >>>>> race is kind of pointless nowadays >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> well said. the defining characteristics of raciation cannot be >>>> applied to homo sapiens, as humans are too heterogenous. >>>> There is not enough coherence to define "races", unless you want to >>>> extend the word to physical characteristics such as the blond hair >>>> race, whatever... there are physical differences, "ethnic groups" if >>>> you like, but from a scientific point of view the concept of "race" >>>> doesn't hold. >>> >>> >>> >>> From a scientific point of view, the human race is one of the most >>> homogenous on the planet. >> >> >> How is that? > > > There was a big die-off amongst humanity around the time of the first > ice-age, and as such humankind re-grew from a very small stock compared > to most other animals around today. Just because the stock was smaller does not mean it was less diverse, does it? What I think would settle the issue is the degree of variability in the "junk" regions of the genome. If humans have less variability than other species, then I guess I would have to buy your argument, but I am too lazy to look up the details. The scientific argument against the concept of race that I have seen was that there are smooth variations in many traits (skin color, nose shape, etc.) instead of discrete jumps. Since these traits vary from person to person in a smooth, continuum-type way, assignment of a person to a given class based on those features is arbitrary and has no special scientific meaning. -- Curt Fischer