Subject: Re: race...
Date: Sat, 30 Jan 1999 22:28:29 -0800


bob,

try going to http://www.dogpile.com 

and type "myth of race"
and klick on usenet

Separate species, ridiculous fiction


newsgroups    
sci.anthropology,soc.culture.african.american,soc.culture.egyptian,sci.archa
eology

Ahh a bit annoyed were we?  Nothing more ironic than being named ignorant
by
a man who believes I am not the same species as he.  Well, again I await
with great eagerness the explanation of "bicameral" yoyos, although
parenthetically I would like to learn more of your understanding of a 
"bicameral mind."  In any event, hardly a relevent citation in this 
newsgroup.

Now then, you wish to have citations.  Well this is a bit of an empty 
gesture given that you seem not to have mastered elementary anthropology or
biology, with this seperate species silliness.  But, in the interest of
possibly being of use to other readers let me suggest beginning with
Stephen
Gould's "The Mismeasure of Man" New York:  W.W. Norton 1996 (rev'd edition)
as something you might be able to grasp.  Gould, a paleontologist at
Harvard, originally wrote this in 1981 as a history and critique
"scientific
racism."  Chapter Two specifically deals with your quaint old racism of
seperate "species."  Nothing new and long ago refuted.  It is quite
systematic in its analysis of the cooking of data by the racists to force
the data into accord with their views.  In relationship with your fact-free

contentions I draw your attention to page 353:  "Homo Sapiens is, at most, 
a few hundred thousand years old, and all modern human races probably split

from a common ancestral stock only about a hundred thousand years ago.  A 
few outstanding traits of external appearance lead to our subjective 
judgement of important differences.  But biologists have recently affirmed 
--as long suspected-- that the overall genetic differences among human 
races are astonishingly small.  Although frequencies for different states 
of a gene differ among races, we have found no 'race genes' --that is, 
states fixed in certain races and absent in all others.  Lewotin (1972) 
studied variation in seventeen gene coding for differences in blood and 
found that only 6.3% of he variation can be attributed to racial 
membership.  Fully 85.4% of the variation occurred within local 
populations."  In short, no evidence of seperate species. (If you truly
wish 
a more technical and recent citation try starting with Roy
D'Andrade and Phillip A. Morin, "Chimpanzee and Human Mitochondrial
DNA," American Anthropologist 98(2):352-370(June 1996) and working backward

from the bibliography.  They write in part: "Examination of the relation
between lineages and the physically distinct geographic groups that
are called 'races' -- Asians, Europeans, Melanesians, and various
types of Africans -- reveals an interesting phenomenon.  Racial groups
show little or no phylogenetic structure.  There is a complete lack of
distinction between Europeans and Asians, with no markers in this
sample of sites that are unique to Europeans or to Asians or to New
Guineans.  In sum, there is no evidence for a European or Asian or a
New Guinean phylogeny..."  (367) They continue: "With respect to the
various 
African groups, the phylogenetic situation is complex.  While there are a 
number of distinct lineages that contain Pygmies, there is no simple 
one-to-one mapping between lineages and Pygmy groupings.  The lineage 
differentiation within the Pygmy types is very great, indicating a 
considerable time depth for these populations.  Six of the 11 lineages are 
primarily Pygmy lineages.  There is greater differention WITHIN the Pygmy 
group in mtDNA than there is BETWEEN any of the non-African types.  No
single
marker distinguishes all Pygmies or distinguishes eastern from western
Pygmies.  The Pygmies show no evidence of forming a cladelike descent
group, since a common ancestor of the six Pygmy lineages would
necessarily also include !Kung and Yoruba." (367)

In the tradition of Gould, you might also read Claude Fischer, et al. 
Inequality by Design: Cracking the Bell Curve Myth.  Princeton:  Princeton 
University Press 1996 for an expose on the more recent lies behind attempts

to (re)create a scientific basis for racism.

Next you might try the easily readable "The Time Before History: 5 
Million Years of Human Impact" by Tudge (New York:  Scribner 1996).  A bit
of a popular work rather than a scholary treatise, it nonetheless should
prove a healthy corrective to your misapprehensions.  In particular I point
you to pp. 209 - 234.  You will find that the Wolpoff or Candelabra
hypothesis is widely and soundly criticised as unsupportable.  To quote 
"The Candelabra hypothesis is championed mainly by Milford Wolpoff of the
University of Michigan" who hypothesizes the evolution of homo sapiens from
multiple archiac sources, in situ.  He does not posit seperate human
species
--nor would he as there absolutely no reason to-- but rather one species
with mulitple sources blending through constant migration and contact.
(220-221)  Even Neanderthal is lumped into Homo sapiens:  "Wolpoff
obviously
does not regard Neanderthals as a separate species....  At most he see them
only as a subset or subspecies of ourselves: homo sapiens neanderthalensis.
(221)  Wolpoff simply calls for an extraordinary case of convergence and
parallelism.  As Tudge notes:  "such a degree of parallelism over such a
time really does begin to stretch the credulity.  Furthermore we know that
although modern Chinese people do look very different from extreme blonde
Swedes, we also know that the genetic differences between the two are
minute.  If the Chinese and the Swedes really had arisen in situ from the
archaics and the erectus that were in southern Asia or in Scandinavia
before
them, then we would expect to see a much greater genetic difference between
the modern people than is in fact the case."  Wolpoff's response to this
critique is to reaffirm that populations were in constant and continuous
contact "to ensure the near homogeneity of the entire modern human
species..."  (222)  The author notes that "[i]n common with many other
biologists, I find this scenario [of multiple sources but continuous
interflow] broadly implausible."  (ibid)  Over the rest of the chapter he
gives a resume of the Out of Africa hypotheses and suggests a multiple wave
scenario with constant backflow.


The silence your propositions may have met would not be due to a lack of
refutation, but rather the inverse.  There is barely a need to refute your
propositions as they have been substantially refuted for over 60 years. 
Few
people wish to waste their time explaining such elementary principals to
someone who has so clearly taken a parti prise.

Now, finally with regards to your "observations" on behaviour, I cite for
you 
the words of Ibn Battuta, the celebrated muslim voyager and chronicaler of 
the 14th century (died 1368/9):

(From Ibn Batoutah trans from Arabic by C. Demfremery and B. R. Sanguinetti

(Paris 1863) v. IV 421-424.))

What I Found to be Praiseworthy about the conduct of the blacks (sudani) in

contrast to what I found to be bad:

Among the good qualities of this people, we must cite the following:
One, the small number of acs of injustice that take place there (in Mali)
for 
of all people, the blacks abhor it (injustice).  Two, the general and 
complete security that is enjoyed in the country.  The traveller, just as
the 
sedentary man, has nothing to fear of brigands, theives, or plunderers.  
Three the blacks do not confiscate the goods of white who die in their 
country, even when these men possess immense treasures.  On the contrary,
the 
blacks deposit the goods with a man respected among the whites, until the 
individuals to whom the goods righfully belong present themselves and take 
possession of them."

Battuta could not say the same for the contemporary europeans.  What can we

say, other than the primacy of historicity and the importance of 

Ramira Naka



Ramira Naka


MrTruth-AT-IamRight.net says... 

----------
> From: bob scheetz <rscheetz-AT-cboss.com>
> To: heidegger-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
> Subject: Re: race...
> Date: Saturday, January 30, 1999 6:50 PM
> 
> js,
> 
> permiso.
> 
> isn't "race" one in that series -self, family, class,
> region, ethnicity,...,  of identity constructs  constitutive of
> human existentiality; and having little or nothing to do with
> biology?
> 
> ought a naive racism discredit that  construct any
> more than naive religion, a thing equally prone to
> the chauvinist pathology, disqualify religion?
> 
> pc thot police notwithstanding,
> isn't racism as necessary  as gender identity?
> 
> bob
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: heidegger-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
> <heidegger-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu>
> To: Rscheetz <Rscheetz>
> Date: Friday, January 29, 1999 5:21 PM
> Subject: race...
> 
> 
> >
> >Jim;
> >interesting comments and actually I agree with a lot of them. I do
however
> >think there is a question here, and maybe I can use the example of "mix"
> that
> >was cited. I see nothing in the word that would lead directly to
assuming
> >something perjorative and implying "pure race" . Is it simply in your
mind
> >impossible and not acceptable to discuss "race"? If I say that I'm part
> German
> >and Polish, what am I saying? Only that my parents were from those
> countries.
> >Now if one of them was of Indian descent and I said Polish, but of
ethnic
> >Indian origins...what then? I see how ludicrous the discussion of race
can
> >become, and usually how meaningless, but if I wanted to communicate my
> parents
> >ethnic and cultural background...how should i do it? Is it wrong to say
Im
> a
> >mix of Polish and German, those were two languages spoken in my house as
a
> >child, along with English. Where is the problem? I would argue that
"mixed
> >race' does not mean "mix of pure race"...not at all. If I say my Mom was
> >Polish...that only means she was born in Poland, spoke Polish, and grew
up
> >with Polish cultural conditioning...NOT that she belonged to some
imagined
> >pure race of Poles (the last people by the way who would sugges anything
> like
> >that). It does not grant legitimacy on regressive notions of "purity".
If
> one
> >cannot make the distinction in one's language and vocabulary (and hence
in
> >thinking) between pure race hate mongering and scapegoating, and the use
of
> >useful terms like "mix' in the discourse of everyday life (as Marcuse
put
> it)
> >then that person has a seriously impaired speech condition. I think I
know
> >what you wnat to say with this, and I think i was guilty in my remarks
of
> >sounding offhand and cavalier, which is a wrong tone to take about a
topic
> >this serious. So I apologize for that, but I think you must not create
> these
> >hard line positions where people who probably share your (at least to
some
> >degree) positions on matters of rascism and intolerance are going to be
> >attacked for using words like 'mix"...and I guess I still find nothing
> >offensive in that word.  Anyway, thanks for your thought out
response...I'm
> >still thinking on it. js
> >
> >
> >     --- from list heidegger-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
> >
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
>      --- from list heidegger-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---


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