Eric Stevens wrote:

> It doesn't matter whether we are 99.9% the same and only 0.1%
> different, or 99.8% the same with a wopping 0.2% difference.
> 
> The point is that the human eye and brain can separate the human
> population into groups which we recognise as different races. The
> question is not whether or not there are different groups but how we
> can define the boundaries.

My impression is that this is a politically correct motive running over
a real scientific result, converting it to their own agenda and then
presenting something to the public that doesn't even pass the laugh
test.

The underlying scientific fact of all this is that the genetic
differences between two individuals of different races are, on average,
no greater than the genetic differences between two random individuals. 
This is an important result, and it tells us that race genetically is
not very meaningful in determining how different people truly are; that
is, race is genetically not very important.

This result is important, because it means But it doesn't mean that
there aren't physical differences manifested between people of different
races (examples being so obvious I won't insult anyone's intelligence by
giving them).  Going from "people of different races are no more
genetically dissimilar than two random people" to "race is purely a
social construct" is something of a leap.  That the differences aren't
genetically significant in the big picture doesn't mean that there
aren't differences!

I actually had a discussion with someone on this subject who insisted
that in the South Bay Area (one of the most racially diverse part of the
United States), it was impossible -- _impossible_ -- to identify the
country or region of origin of people simply by looking at their
appearance.  Race has no genetic basis, she said, so therefore race is
totally unusable for identifying origins.  Right data, wrong
simplification, wrong conclusion.  It's this kind of blatant denial of
reality that makes people really, really despise political correctness.

It's like saying that tallness or shortness isn't a good genetic
indicator for how different those people are, therefore there is no such
thing as tallness or shortness.

-- 
 __ Erik Max Francis && max@alcyone.com && http://www.alcyone.com/max/
/  \ San Jose, CA, USA && 37 20 N 121 53 W && AIM erikmaxfrancis
\__/ My life was better before I knew you.
    -- Edith Wharton (to Morton Fullerton)