[Mongoose]

Okay, okay, I believe you. I honestly had no knowledge at all about this topic, other than what I remembered of genetics from my high school biology class (i.e., not much).  That's a rather fascinating study, if only because the results are rather counterintuitive.

[General Battuta]

I'm sorry if I came off as too aggressive; I was trying to preempt arguments from a hypothetical, hostile crowd, not from you.

[Ford Prefect]

There's also this little article, if anyone likes anthropology.

[Bobboau]

yes, people who have a common localized set of traits actually don't, black people aren't black asian people aren't asian, its all just a white man conspiracy.

[Meleardil]

...it must be white man conspiracy too, when they give different kind of medicine to black people than to the white.

Told you it was a semantic trap.

[Colonol Dekker]

This is going better than most keep it up
 
My take on the chat, is that culture and genetic heritage aren't always mutually exclusive, for example; someone from japan isn't going to become a massive anime fan and spend all day singing karaoke. I live in England but we don't all stop work for afternoon tea and crumpets every day you're not confined to whatever way of life you happen to be born into.
 My sentiment is that race is a term used. Where as culture is a lifestyle you can aim at.

[Bobboau]

I know, lets cange the definitions of other words to fit cute political ideologies and pretend we're better than the masses for figuring it out. oh I know 'war' will now be a conflict in which one side suffers no defeat, yeah, we now live in a world without war! or oh I got it let's change IQ so it is now divided by the amount of education a person has had, GREAT now some half dead kid in ethiopoi who doesn't even know fully how to speak his own language is now smarter than Steven hawking, EVERY ONE'S A WINNER! oh, and let's completely decouple the concept of gender from any and all references to actual physical sexual capabilities and/or traits, you can be whatever gender you want to be and anyone who tells you different is ignorant of our new samrter world!

[Ford Prefect]

Race has never been well-defined. You're the only one making this an adversarial project. No one is suggesting that you forget about race. Quite the opposite, the fact that it's socially constructed makes it all the more important that we pay attention to how it affects contemporary politics and society. It has nothing to do with finger-pointing, elitism, or settling some historical score. It's just something of which we're in desperate need of a better understanding.

[Bobboau]

if it was purely social then I would not be able to easily identify a person of another race if they were fully integrated into my social group, as in raised by white parents went to 'white' schools got a 'white' job, if it was purely a social thing then you would not be able to tell a fully integrated individual apart. clearly there are physical traits which identify what are known as races.

a race is a population of individuals with a widely shared set of physical traits inherited from common heredity. how is that for a definition? it doesn't matter if there is a large amount of variety within that portion of the population or not, what matters is that there is a much higher probability of a complex combination of traits than in the larger population and that this higher probability is due to heredity. the definition is useful in that it allows one to recognize trends of that subset of the population, such as vulnerability to disease or common genetic defects, knowing someone is black can help in making diagnoses of heart disease stroke and  everyone's favorite genetic disorder sickle cell anemia.

now of course you are going to come back and imply that those similarities are culturally induced. yes a large amount of the commonalities, particularly medical commonalities, could very well be induced by nurture over nature, but if you are going to ignore the fact that subsets of the population share a large number of common physical traits, I don't see how you are going to figure out which ones are which.

as for 'social constructed' give me one word that is not, the whole language is a social construct.

[Meleardil]

I know, lets change the definitions of other words to fit cute political ideologies and pretend we're better than the masses for figuring it out. oh I know 'war' will now be a conflict in which one side suffers no defeat, yeah, we now live in a world without war!

...totally agree. I heard a story once. When political correctness infected Pentagon, they started major renaming in the name of democracy, liberalism and tolerance. In one of the meetings after some ridiculous renaming Carrier Battle Group formation to Carrier Strike Group one of the die hard admiral had an outburst:
"...why the f*ck must be an organization, which kills people for living, politically correct???"

[TrashMan]

f*** political correctness. It's aritificial, forced, overblown and stupid.

[Colonol Dekker]

Mellow guys, mellow cool and calm........

[Bobboau]

do not listen to the weak one, feel your anger, let it run through you, it is your strength, only then will you know true POWER!

[Colonol Dekker]

I've got the power to lock this thread....It's pretty quiet now anyway.

[General Battuta]

a race is a population of individuals with a widely shared set of physical traits inherited from common heredity. how is that for a definition? it doesn't matter if there is a large amount of variety within that portion of the population or not, what matters is that there is a much higher probability of a complex combination of traits than in the larger population and that this higher probability is due to heredity. the definition is useful in that it allows one to recognize trends of that subset of the population, such as vulnerability to disease or common genetic defects, knowing someone is black can help in making diagnoses of heart disease stroke and  everyone's favorite genetic disorder sickle cell anemia.

Just wanted to point out, Bobbau, that if you actually go into the population genetics -- as described in that article -- this does not occur.

There is no 'much higher probability of a complex combination of traits' occuring in the subpopulation as compared to a larger population.

You really can't make a firm statistical, genetic, or biological argument for race. If the human race is a big pool of paint, you can say 'hmm, this zone is particularly blue, but it bleeds smoothly into this red zone, so I can't find any boundary.'

You can point to an individual and say 'ah, he is a black man' easily enough; but if you start going through all his pedigrees you'll have a tough time deciding whether his relatives, ancestors, and descendants are black too, or where to draw the line.

I think you're worried that ignoring race is simply a politically correct delusion, when in fact it's not; it's a scientific issue, in that no one can figure out exactly what a race is.

yes, people who have a common localized set of traits actually don't, black people aren't black asian people aren't asian, its all just a white man conspiracy.

The issue is, again, that there are no common localized sets of traits; there's more in common between locations than there is within locations.

Asia is a particularly good example, because the diversity within the racial group 'Asian' is huge.

Just read the article, it's cool!

[TrashMan]

do not listen to the weak one, feel your anger, let it run through you, it is your strength, only then will you know true POWER!

You're preaching to the Dark Lord of the Sith... I also happen to be Lucifer's nephew. So it's kinda wasted on me....

Black are black, white are white, yellow are yellow, red are red and green are green..or whatever.

[Scuddie]

f*** political correctness. It's aritificial, forced, overblown and stupid.

And not to mention incorrect.

Mentally retarded, mentally disabled, mentally challenged, developmentally delayed, developmentally challenged (and the list goes on and on) are all very different things, but it's only PC to use the term developmentally challenged.

But it is also a necessary evil.  People don't say negroid when referring to sub-species classifications, because it sounds too much like nigger.

[Mars]

My brother is autistic, but intelligent, he is therefore not retarded, but in some ways he is developmentally delayed. To call him retarded would be a fallacy, because he is of average intelligence.

So yes they are all different, and the reason "developmentally challanged" is used is because it's the broadest possible category, including kids who are completely catatonic, and extremely smart kids who's parents believe their kids have ADD.

[jdjtcagle]

My youngest sibling is autistic and gets higher grades than the kids in his class that are normal.  But he still has trouble with his speaking and communication skills.

[Mars]

Don't they all 

I was very pissed when my high school psychology teacher said that autism was very low intelligence. She, as a phyc teacher, should know these things.