Talk:Race/Archive 8

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isnt race concluded by simple experiments? like a horse and a donkey reproducing, they can do it, and out will come a diffrent animal, a mule, but this mule cant reproduce itself, so horses and donkeys are diffrent races. i think its a valid explanation of "race". you all know any human who is fertial can have fertile babys with any other humans, so there are no human races, even if there is small genetical diffrences from diffrent regions, the diffrences arent that large to prevent the offspring to be fertile.

P0M: Hi, whoever you are. (Please sign your postings so we can keep track of who is talking.) It's a little more complicated than that, at least if one wants to keep the neutral point of view that is part of Wikopedia policy. Genera are divided into species, and the criterion for whether two creatures are in the same species is, as you say, whether they can produce offspring that are in turn capable of reproducing. Sometimes within a species it is convenient to speak of sub-species. Sub-species generally occur when two branches of one species are separated by a natural barrier and each continues to evolve to meet local conditions. After a time, enough differences accumulate that it becomes easy to determine by examination which area a sample of each group comes from. Take honey bees, for instance. There are actually at least two species of Apis that are kept commercially for honey production and/or pollenization of crops. In the Americas, Europe, and Africa, the honey bees all belong to the same species. However, bees from different areas have different characteristics. For instance, the bees in Cypress and the bees in Italy are, geographically, not very far separated from each other. However, bees almost never travel more than a mile or two when they swarm, and it would be truly rare for a swarm from Cypress to make it to the mainland. It would be even more rare for a swarm from the mainland to fly out over the Mediterranean and just happen to go in the right direction to land in Cypress. (Bees are believed to send out scouts to find a place to build a new hive, so the only reason that a swarm might land on Cypress would probably be that a huge storm had blown them there.) Despite the close physical difference, bees of the Italian lineage are bred and sold all over the world to people desiring to keep bees. There is no market (except perhaps to geneticists, breeders trying to incorporate desirable traits into a commercial line, etc.) for Cyprian bees. The reason is that Italian bees are gentle (i.e., much less likely to fly out and sting when the beekeeper has to open their hive to check for diseases like American foulbrood), industrious (i.e., they a single hive may harvest hundreds of pounds of honey per year), and not terribly likely to swarm (leaving the colony depleted to the point that it cannot make much honey production). As far as I know, the main reason that no commercial breeders have tried to sell Cyprian queens or bees by the pound to start a new hive with is that they are rather likely to sting.

P0M: In the world of commercial beekeeping, what scientists classify as sub-species of bees are called "races" of bees.

P0M: Prior to the arrival of the first Western sailors in Australia, the aborigines living there would have been rather in the same position as the bees in Cypress. But the bees in Cypress have probably been isolated far longer than the humans in Australia. Whether the Australian aborigines evolved any significant different characteristics, characteristics other than adaptations to disease, intensity of solar radiation, amount of fine sand in the air on a daily basis, etc., etc., I do not know. Perhaps significantly, I have never heard anyone interested in promoting the idea of {race} trumpeting the unique adaptations of Australian Aborigines.

P0M: Usually, or maybe I should say inevitably, human populations are not well isolated. In the years B.C., when traders made their way over the Silk Route, it seems highly unlikely to me that no children were sired along the way. The differences between peoples are clinal, which just means that there is no sharp line between the appearance of people in Europe and China, even though if you flew directly from London to Beijing you would see a major difference in skin color, eye shape, etc., etc. That being said, if you looked carefully you would find some Chinese people without the epicanthic fold in their eyelids, some without shovel-shaped incisors, some with wavy black hair, etc.

P0M: So the general tendency of people who are forced to deal with the realities of the situation is to speak of "populations" -- because you can then say something that is statistically grounded and of practical utility, e.g., in conducting famine relief among members of this population, milk should not be shipped because a high percentage of these people are lactose intolerant and much diarrhea, dehydration, and even deaths would follow if they were forced by hunger to eat milk products.

P0M: The people who favor using the term "race" seem to me to have a reason for favoring it over "population," a reason that they seem unwilling to specify. In the past, however, the color of a person's skin was frequently asserted to be a sign of their intelligence, morality, etc. Strangely, the qualities asserted to be associated with different skin colors (other than white) seem to me to have been almost always negative.

P0M: Anyway, the task is to explain the phenomenon, and a full historical case study would be valuable. Recently some people have tried to bolster the idea of {race} by pointing out that there are significant genetic differences between people living in widely separated areas of the world -- as though we did not already know that there had to be genetic differences to account for skin color, inborn lack of wisdom teeth, etc., etc. And other people are pointing to {race} as a necessary tool to identify people with higher likelyhood of suffering from things like sickle-cell anemia -- without knowing that sickle-cell anemia follows malaria and crosses {race} divides. Simply stating, "Race is a myth," as I was once inclined to do, will not be sufficient to immunize people against tendentious reasoning.

---

P0M: On another subject, it's time to archive again. I'm inclined to archive everything except whatever comes after the anonymous comment above. Any objections?

just a question. Do you consider anonymous comments are not welcome on wikipedia ? Why would not they be archived ?

To the above anonymous user: Who said the anonymous comments are not welcome on Wikipedia? The anonymous comments should not be archived because they initiate a new thread. If they were archived, then POM's response would be out of context. I agree with POM that we should not archive the anonymous comments, they ought to remain on the talk page! By the way, one can respond to those anonymous comments in a far more succinct way than POM's response: horses and donkeys are of different species, not different races. Slrubenstein

P0M: Thanks, Slrubenstein, for fixinng my inadventant miscommunication. I meant to archive everything before the anonymous question/comment. Working at 4 a.m. sometimes does not bring out the best in me. And thanks for archiving the older stuff.

P0M 04:11, 3 Feb 2004 (UTC): Here is an interesting article: http://academic.udayton.edu/race/01race/race.htm

Things seem to have cooled down. I propose un-protecting the page. I will wait a couple of days just to see if anyone opposes this. Slrubenstein

P0M 16:20, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC):This page is currently under attack by 195.... who has already been threatened with banning. I favor protecting the page once again. Sigh. :-(

Contents 1 Page protected 2 Needed Changes (POV) 3 Topic Sentences 4 Slant

Page protected

To stop the edit war I have protected this page. I was tempted to block the anon (since 195 was deleting text) but protected the page instead. 195 - this is your opportunity to try to convince others that your version is better. If you can't, then you must follow the consensus reached on this talk page. And everybody - please be nice to each other. Saying things like 'Get a life' in edit summaries and talk pages is not acceptable. --mav

I have made numerous efforts to convince others. I was ignored. --195.92.168.174 22:39, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC)

[P0V:] I'm sorry. You're right. I will stop myself from getting vexed in the future.

Needed Changes (POV)

[P0M:] Currently the article has a characterization of Dr. Gould that is dismissive:

Stephen Jay Gould, a Harvard paleontologist better known for his popularizing articles in Natural History Magazine (which have been collected in a variety of mass-marketed books)

[P0M:] To me, that way of putting things says that he is a mere popularizer who writes for mass-market books, not a scientist in whom one could put any trust. I propose leaving out the condescending language. P0M 07:55, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC)

This is tricky. I agree with you that to identify someone as a popularizer is often to be dismissive (e.g. Pinker's popular books are crap). Nevertheless, I do not think that THIS language: "for his popularizing articles in Natural History Magazine (which have been collected in a variety of mass-marketed books)" is condescending or erodes trust. To make nowledge more widely available is agreat service for which one should be recognized; in any event it is a factual claim. I think the problem is the phrase "better known" which is meaningless; I will make a change, let me know, Slrubenstein

[P0M:] Seems better. How come you can edit and I can't?

I can edit because I am a sysop. As I wrote above, I had rather hoped we could unblock the article so that all could edit. Apparently, 165 or someone immediately returned and began reverting or making the same kinds of changes that led to it being blocked before. I hadn't realized that it was blocked to the general population. I am not sure what to do, because it seem like the problem is with only one person. As a sysop I don't like to get involved in edit wars. Do you think you could make a case for banning that particular user? We see banning as an absolute last resort, and frankly I don't think we should ban him/her. But if you want to work on the article, I think you should consult with others who have worked on it and then get in touch with a sysop who has not been recently active on this page (Mav is an obvious good choice) for advice as to how to proceed. Slrubenstein

[Peak to Slrubinstein:] By editing this page while it protected, you are violating two Wikipedia rules ("Thou shalt not edit a protected page"

I don't think you read carefully what I wrote above, Slrubenstein

and "Sysops must not protect articles which they have edited.")

I don't believe I have ever done this -- why do you think I broke this rule? Slrubenstein

[Peak:] Please note that my remarks were not meant to imply you should undo the changes. They were made mainly so you could avoid future complications, and to draw to your attention the mess 168... got himself in (to some extent deliberately, it would seem). Also, despite my wording, I did not mean to imply that you had ever initiated protection of an article on which you had worked. If one regards an edit of a protected page as logically equivalent to: "unfreeze; edit; freeze" then perhaps you will see my point, which I could try to summarize by saying: sysops who have edited a page seem to be doubly enjoined not to edit it once it is protected.Peak 07:56, 19 Feb 2004 (UTC)

[Peak:]Personally, I disagree with the first of these rules, but, in case you have not heard, 168... has been desysoped for violations of these particular rules. (See e.g. Wikipedia:Requests for comment/168.) I believe the appropriate thing to do would here would be to request another sysop who has not been a contributor to this page to install any changes that are agreed to on this Talk page after a reasonable period of time has elapsed.Peak 19:00, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Just for things to be clear, 168 is currently under a temporary de-sysoping. Him being made sysop again will depend on what he will pledge to do or not to do I suppose, and likely, the community will apply forgive and forget to his case.

Banning people is something not to be taken lightly :-) fr0069

Fair enough -- as I said I didn't realize it had been e-protected until after I made the change. (I guess I was not clear above, and I apologize: when I wrote "I can edit because I am a sysop" I did not mean that I think I have the moral right to edit; I mean that then I saw POM's query and went to edit the page, the program did not stop me because I am a sysop -- I meant "can" in the literal sense. I do plead guilty to negligence in mistakenly believeing that because I could edit it it was unprotected, and realized that that the only reason I could edit is because I am sysop after POM asked his question. But it was not my intention to violate policy). I'll remove my change to talk. But the real question is, why can't the page be unprotected? Slrubenstein

Here is what I propose to do to respond to POM's POV concern.:

(a Harvard paleontologist known among scientists for his research on the evolutionary development and speciation of the land snail, and his theory (with Niles Eldridge) of punctuated equilibrium, and known among the general public for his popularizing articles in Natural History Magazine, which have been collected in a variety of mass-marketed books)

Whenever someone chooses to unprotect the page, if POM is satisfied with this he should feel free to put it back in. Why was the page re-protected? When will it be un-protected? Slrubenstein

[P0M:] User 195.xxx.xxx... made extreme changes and would not stop reverting to his own changes. (See my comment above.) As a user who does not log on and who did not pay attention (I guess) to the talk page, it must have been difficult to communicate with him or to think of any alternative to an endless cycle of reverts and counter-reverts.

When I paid attention to the Talk page I was simply ignored or brushed off. --195.92.168.174 22:39, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC)

[P0M:] Ego issues seem to be at the heart of much of the wiki-dysfunction. What X regards as a valid edit "should not" be made because it changes what Y regards as his perfect expression of truth. What W regards as errant idiocy "should" be changed by W because he knows his is the only way to think about it and to say it. What seems frequently to be lacking is the ability on all sides to search for the truth and the clearest way of saying it.

[P0M:] Maybe we need to do everything on a "sand box" and then have one trusted sysop change the real page when we have something we can agree to. The alternatives are either frequently protected pages or pages that change from minute to minute. P0M 23:33, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Since 195 has not responded I consider that he/she is not concerned with working with others. If I unlock this article will the users above not get into an edit war with each other? If 195 comes back to revert this article I will block that IP since 195 has failed to discuss the issue here and therefore, IMO, is not acting in good faith. Is everybody OK with that? --mav 00:02, 19 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I have discussed the issue here - at length. --195.92.168.174 22:39, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I believe that we should be able to handle it. What's the best way to handle things if somebody comes out of nowhere and changes half of the article? P0M 01:54, 19 Feb 2004 (UTC)

OK - I will unprotect the article once at least one other person involved here indicates consent. If that person happens to be an admin then just go ahead and show your support by unprotecting the page (consider yourself my proxy for that if you are worried it might look bad). --mav

[Peak to Mav:] OK - Please unprotect the page. That way, P0M can make the change. I am reasonably confident that none of Slr, P0M or I will ever get into an edit war with each other, here or elsewhere :-) Also, thanks for offering to deal with 195 should that be necessary. Peak 23:44, 19 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Thanks Mav. Peak and POM -- I appreciate your variuous points but for the sake of consensus I will not put my proposed paranthetical about Gould back in myself -- if either of you feel it is an improvement, feel free to put it into the articel. To respond to POM's questions and suggestions, personally I am opposed to putting a sysop "in charge" of a page. This far exceeds my understanding of a sysop's authority, and it would reflect a way of thinking that I think is incompatible with wikipedia. What happens if a newbie changes half the page? We should read the revision -- it might be a drastic improvement! If it isn't, we should assume that the newbie, being new, isn't sensitive to the nuances of wikiprocess. We should revert, ask the newbie to review the history of the page, and to suggest changes at a smaller scale and slower rate. In my experience, this almost always works very succesfully. The reason it did not work with 195 is that 195 was not a newbie; s/he has popped in and out of these pages over the past few years, always with the same agenda and uncompromising attitude. When these things happens sysops can block a page as a temporary solution (one of a sysops few powers and one that ought to be used, as Mav used it in this case, judiciously and in an emergency). In my experience this is usually an effective solution as the trouble-maker gives up and goes away. In extreme cases a user may be banned, and this happens only after considerable experience and discussion. The struggle to educate a troublemaker or to get him or her to leave often takes a long long time, but personally I much much prefer that over giving anyone (sysop or other) authority to moderate a page. The only reason I came to wikipedia in the first place, and in my opinion its singular virtue, is that anyone can make any edit at any time. I value this system so much I happily pay any price -- including months of arguing with an abusive contributor and reverting. It takes energy and time but ultimately the results are pretty good. Frankly, if wikipedia changed this policy I would leave. Slrubenstein

I am actually a 'newbie'. I have not popped in and out of these pages 'over the past few years'. I've known about Wikipedia for only 6 months. I notice that most of the User Contributions for 195.92.168.173 are not actually by me, probably because I use an ISP which assigns an IP whenever I connect. This kind of attitude to truth you display is symptomatic, and explains why I had to act as I did. None of my original concerns about the article were addressed, and now the revisionist history that you peddle suggests I never even discussed the changes.--195.92.168.174 22:39, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC)

195.*.*.* is a standard freeserve proxy address. You can't really tell authorship from it. Freeserve is a large British ISP. Secretlondon 22:40, Feb 23, 2004 (UTC)

And yet Mr Rubenstein writes The reason it did not work with 195 is that 195 was not a newbie; s/he has popped in and out of these pages over the past few years, always with the same agenda and uncompromising attitude. (!!!!) I'm sure everyone can see why it's difficult to argue with a person who, in his eagerness to defame me, manages to defame countless others.--195.92.168.174 22:59, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Then perhaps you are not the 195 to whom I was referring. If so, my apologies. It really doesn't matter as I stick to the point I was making: we shouldn't have a sysop or some special person manage this article. Slrubenstein

Topic Sentences

Here are the revised topic sentences for the present article. I would like to make the minor changes to make one small step forward. What does everyone think?

Preface: Race is a type of classification used to group living things based on such elements as....

The term “race” is rarely used in contemporary scientific classification, but is sometimes used within, and often outside of, the scientific community in much the same sense as the terms subspecies, population or breed are used in biology.

I. Overview (changes made)

A. Many people believe that physical characteristics of various Homo sapiens justify the classification of humanity into various races. Such characteristics include... but do not include...

B. In the early-to-mid 20th century many scientists began questioning the heretofore accepted causal relation between biological and cultural attributes, and some scientists also began questioning the taxonomic validity of race attribution.

C. In biology, a race was defined as a recognisable group forming all or part of a monotypic or polytipic species.

D. Humans clearly vary considerably -- enough to make early scientists accept the view of Carrolus Linaeus that humans should be divided into several sub-species

E. However, a distinct difference is only one of the two conditions that must be satisfied before a different form can be classified as a sub-species or even as a race -- lack of significant gene flow between populations.

F. Historians are apt to describe the notion of race as it applies to human beings as a “social construct”, preferring instead the to use the concept of “population”, which can be given a clear operational definition.

II. History of the term (changes made)

A. The definition of race, before the development of evolutionary biology, was that of common lineage, a vague concept interchangeable with species, breed, cultural origin, or national character.

B. The word race, interpreted to mean common descent, was introduced into English in about 1580.

C. This late origin for the English term is consistent with the thesis that the concept of “race” as defining a very small number of groups of human beings dates from the time of Columbus.

D. The first published classification of humans into distinct “races” seems to have been Francois Bernier’s Nouvelle division de la terre par les differents especes ou races qui l’habitent, published in 1684.

E. The 19th century concept of race was based primarily on morphological and cosmetic characteristics such as skin color.

F. Because people of different races can interbreed, this method of classification is "weak" in the sense that it can be difficult to determine to which categories some borderline individuals belong.

(Contrast the difficulty of determining to which group a child of mixed parentage belongs with the much more clear-cut decisions involved in determining membership in species.)

G. Among the 19th century naturalists who defined the field were Georges Cuvier,...

H. In Blumenbach’s day, physical characteristics like skin color, cranial profile, etc., went hand in hand with declarations of group moral character, intellectual capacities, and other aptitudes.

I. Modern criticism of the biological significance of “race” can be dated to the publication in 1935 ...

III. Politics of race (changes made)

A. The concept of race was applied at the time of Blumenbach by political theorists such as... to nationalist theory to develop a militant ethnic nationalism.

B. Inequalities based on presumed racial differences have been a concern of United States politicians and legislators since the country’s founding.

C. Religious leaders active in the United States began to decry segregation and discrimination based on race in the latter half of the 20th century.

IV. Anthropological and genetic studies of race (changes made)

A. In the 19th century many natural scientists made three claims about race:

B. Since human beings are the most complex entities we know of, the empirical study of man is in many ways the most difficult of all, making problems in fields like physics and chemistry look elementary in comparison.

C. A rejection of 19th century assumptions was initiated by Franz Boas, the founder of American academic anthropology.<<Remove the question mark originally found here.>>

D. By the 1950s, anthropologists had come to question the very existence of race as a biological phenomenon.

E These developments had important consequences. For example, some scientists developed the notion of "population" to take the place of race.

F. The "populationist" view does not deny that there are physical differences among people; it simply claims that the historical conceptions of "race" are not particularly useful in accounting for these differences scientifically.

G. Since the 1960s, some anthropologists and teachers of anthropology have re-conceived "race" as a cultural category or social construct, in other words, as a particular way that some people have of talking about themselves and others.

H. Two examples, one from the United States and one from Brazil, further illustrate the majority view.

I. One of the most striking consequences of the Brazilian system of racial identification was that parents and children and even brothers and sisters were frequently accepted as representatives of opposite racial types.

J. So although the identification of a person by race is far more fluid and flexible in Brazil than in the USA, there still are racial stereotypes and prejudices.

V. Race and intelligence (changes made)

A. Lately people have tried, once again, to associate intelligence with race.

B. In his book The Mismeasure of Man, Stephen Jay Gould makes three criticisms of Jensen's work.

VI. Phylogenetic representations (changes made)

A. Recent genetic analyses have enabled the concept of race to be represented in somewhat cladistic terms.

End of proposed topic sentences. P0M 00:29, 25 Feb 2004 (UTC)

This is good -- my only complaint is that it is U.S. cnetric. For example, the line in IA: "Many people believe that physical characteristics of various Homo sapiens justify the classification of humanity into various races." It is true that 19th century European theorists of race saw it in biological terms, and today there is a debate in the US over whether it is biological. But these debates are laregely between scholars or limited to the U.S. and Europe. But people in many countries believe that race is real -- and do not necessarily conceive of it in pysical or biological terms. I am NOT talking about the main opposition theory in the US (Social constructionism), I am talking about non-U.S. folk or lay theories of race. In Brazil, at least until recently, people -- I mean non-specialists and the vasat majority of people -- believed that races are real and unequal but identified race in terms other than physical appearance. It is simply a fact that historically people have used the word race in different ways. Obviously we want an article that is fair to, and will inform, current debates. But these debates shouldn't color our portrait of how race has been used in the past or in other countries. Slrubenstein

[P0M:] I guess pulling the topic sentences out of the existing article and cleaning them up a little has some merit. Would you mind fixing the above draft topic sentences so they are more to your liking? Perhaps you could isolate an offending sentence, drop down below it one line, indent, and put it a suggested replacement.

[P0M:]I agree that the discussion is almost entirely from the point of view of someone who is in the U.S. I would need some grist for my mill in regard to how people conceive of race as real and as not being a matter of physical or biological differences. If they are saying, e.g., Vietnamese are a different "race" from Thais, how do we know what word is getting translated into English as "race"? P0M 07:47, 26 Feb 2004 (UTC)

A good question, and alas I do not have a good answer. But I do have a good observation: this is precisely why Wikipedia must be a collaborative act, and no article can be authored by one person. But I do have some practical advice (which I sometimes don't follow myself! But I try to.) -- whenever asserting a fact or making a proposition, frame it as clearly as possible and be as precise as possible. If you are generalizing from cases from the United States, precede general statements with "In the United States..." If you are using cases from the US and UK, say something like, "In the West..." If you are representing a scholarly view, give the attribution: "According to Stephen J. Gould ..." or "According to Western philosophers" or "According to biologists" or whatever. Not only does this communicate more information, it leaves room for someone who can add other views or examples. Slrubenstein

Since I do not understand exactly what "But people in many countries believe that race is real -- and do not necessarily conceive of it in pysical or biological terms." means, I will leave it to somebody who does understand it to draft changes. Meanwhile, I will fix the topic sentences as indicated above. That won't make any difference to the meaning. P0M 21:06, 26 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Sounds good. Just to be clear, the sentence "Many people believe that physical characteristics of various Homo sapiens justify the classification of humanity into various races" is true, meaningful, and important -- nevertheless, this section should not be written in a way that suggests that physical characteristics are the only way people have justified classification of humanity into races. This is just one application of a general point, to be careful not to write in sweeping generalizations. If you read further down in the article, you will see that people in Brazil justified the classification of races by economic and educational differences and not just (or not even) physical characteristics. Slrubenstein

The term used in Brazil is not "race" per se: "In Brazil, people are labeled not by race, but by 'tipo,'" [1] P0M 03:49, 27 Feb 2004 (UTC)

[Peak:] I'm editing this section to fix the above link that was "broken" because of a right parenthesis, but since I'm here, I'd like to mention that we've discussed various topics related to how "race" is conceptualized in non-English speaking parts of the world before. As P0M is implicitly pointing out, one has to be very careful because of problems of translation, especially since the English word "race" has no single referent. Even cognate words often have significantly different meanings in different languages. So let's continue to welcome additional information about how speakers of other languages think about concepts related to 'human classification', while not confusing the issue by equating such concepts with "race". The practical side of this is very similar to what SLR said above (be accurate, avoid unwarranted generalizations, etc). At the same time, I believe that so long as it is made explicit that, unless otherwise stated, the word "race" is being used as it is understood in English, there should be need for tedious and elaborate qualifications everywhere.Peak 05:26, 27 Feb 2004 (UTC)

[P0M:] The term definitely needs to have its lineage sketched out and verified before we can assume that, e.g., "tipo" means "race" because it sounds like the Brazilians are talking about the "same thing" that we are when we say "race." The Chinese have a couple of terms that they use to translate "race," but it appears in compounds like "racial equality, racial segregation, apartheid, race relations, genocide, racial prejudice, racial discrimination, racial accomodation, racial traits, racial assimilation, racism, racialism, and racist" -- a pretty clear indication in itself of how and where they got the concept. While I was a definite source of fascination to children during my 7 years in Taiwan, I was never called "white man," nor was I subjected to anything I could remotely call racial discrimination. I and my French, German, and whatever white-skinned friends and schoolmates were all "Americans", "Soldier-Brother," and occasionally and with great relish "hook-nose, beak-nose" individuals.

[P0M:] We've traced the history of "race" down from its earliest known occurrencess to the multiple uses it has in English. Probably the Brazilian mention needs to be fixed to reflect "tipo," which is more like "what type of individual is s/he". But people who read an article on race in an English-language article should not, and probably will not, expect it to reflect how, e.g., the Ainu refer to people outside their own group in their language. P0M 16:36, 27 Feb 2004 (UTC)

[P0M:] Changes have been made to the topic sentences in I. and II. according to the proposal shown above. P0M 03:11, 4 Mar 2004 (UTC)

[P0M:] I have finished the changes according to the proposal above.

[P0M:] Would it not be better to say that there are many competing systems for dividing humans into groups according to readily visible characteristics such as color of skin, texture of hair, padding or lack of it on the arches of the feet, etc., etc., that American ideas of [race] constitute one system, Brazilian ideas of "tipu" for another system... Where would we put ideas of caste? How do Native Americans conceptualize the fact that people who came among them from China are considerably different from people who came among them from Europe? I'd love to know what the Shawnee did with that issue. P0M 01:47, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Slant

Does anyone else notice the incredible left-wing slant of this article? Instead of getting a balanced idea of the concept of race, we're getting a thinly disguised diatribe on why race doesn't exist. -Jalnet2 10:06, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)

[Peak:] This article is about race, not political labels. The article is supposed to present multiple points of view in an NPOV fashion. It is imperfect, and you are free to suggest improvements, but I don't think adding political labels is particularly helpful. However, I am curious to know whether you think that "NPOV" is itself "left-wing"?

Regarding your footnote, I agree that all statistics need to be treated very carefully, but I don't understand why you think your particular example shows that caution is needed. On the contrary, your example shows quite nicely why it doesn't make sense to classify the numbers from 1 to 20 into two overlapping groups. Accordingly, I plan to modify the footnote to omit the non-NPOV element.Peak 13:49, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Here is a perfect example of a blatantly biased paragraph:

"By the 1950s anthropologists had come to question the very existence of race as a biological phenomenon. This rejection was based on three facts...." Jalnet2 21:18, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)

First, to reject the existence of race is neither intrinsically left wing nor right wing; it can certainly be either one -- or it could be neither. Rejecting the existence of race is a theoretical claim, not a bias. Second, neither the article nor this quoted section in general is POV. Rather, it is describing points of view accurately, without judging them. It is a fact that anthropologists had come to question the existence of race in the 1950s. Many non-anthropologists didn't -- the quote is clear that it was just one specific group of people. The rejection was based on three facts. This does not meant that they were right to reject race, but the three facts they called on to explain their rejection are indeed facts.

I don't know whether you believe race is biologically real or not. And whether you do or not, I don't know whether or even why you would thik you do so for political reasons (left wing or right wing). This article does describe some of the politics of race but it is mostly concerned with the science, and with different scientific disciplines. What's your point? I really don't get it. Maybe it is because you are from a different country. I am from the US, and here "right" and "left" are divided over issues like abortion, military spending, gun control, prayer in schools, and the regulation of police (especially with regards to search and seizure). It seems to me that someone could accept the claims of these scientists, that race is not biologically real, and be right-wing on all of these defining issues. What do you mean by "left-wing" slant? Slrubenstein

Believing that race is not real is left-wing because it diverges from the commonly accepted view that has been held for centuries. It is also left-wing because those who believe race does not exist are more likely to espouse other left-wing ideas, such as affirmative action. Jalnet2 15:36, 27 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Most people I know of who suppoort affirmative action believe that races are biologically real. They are not motivated by any scientific belief (or belief about science) but by certain beliefs about US history, and certain political values. Slrubenstein

[P0M:] How about the people who believe in prions (of "mad cow disease" fame)? Are they leftists or rightists? P0M 19:42, 27 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Neither, because the existence or nonexistence of prions does not have any political implications. Jalnet2 21:00, 27 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I basically agree with Jalnet2 that this page has neutrality issues. I would not necessarily characterize it as a "leftist" bias, however, as both the mainstream left and the mainstream right seem to feel the same about race, although it's true the left is pushier and elements of the right dissent. I do agree this is a political issue as much as a scientific one, just as a matter of fact. And, saying race is a way of classifying people by academic achievement is absurd, and is merely a way of discrediting the concept in order to push the "race-is-not-biologically-real" POV. This is a controversial issue, and both sides should be presented fairly. The rest of the intro seems pretty fair in this respect, but bits and pieces of the article reflect this POV a bit too much, such as constantly quoting "race". It seems to me most of the active editors here have a similar opinion on this issue, and so I think another perspective such as Jalnet2's could be valuable in strengthening the article. I hope the discussion is civil and productive. -- VV 23:09, 27 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I agree with everything you say, VV, although I am not sure what constructive suggestions Jalnet2's comments lead to. Slrubenstein

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