Talk:Social interpretations of race
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[edit] Footnotes
Should I start converting the references in this spin-off article to footnotes? -- Frank W Sweet 21:53, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
- I don't think it would be easy, but if you do it it would be praise-worthy. AucamanTalk 01:49, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
Okay. It's done. The only one that gave me a problem was "(Kressin, 2003)," but I figured it out by searching in pubmed. -- Frank W Sweet 13:09, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
[edit] subspecies?
This article introduces the idea of different human races as subspecies. I have never heard any serious scholar suggest that different races constitute different subspecies, or even that such a model is useful. Does anyone have a source for this? --Allen 00:34, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
- I think that this may be a semantic issue more than a substantive issue. I do not recall any serious researcher since Carleton S. Coon in the mid-60s refering to different human populations as "subspecies." (For example of Coon's usage, see the map at craniofacial anthropometry in phylogeography). But the point of the sentence, I think, is that whether you call them "ethnicitites," "endogamous groups," "populations," "varieties," "breeds," "clines," "clusters," "races," or what-have-you, it is often coventient to hypothesize groups in order to study social phenomena. If it were up to me, I would reword the paragraph thus:
Historians, anthropologists and social scientists often describe human "races" as a social construct, preferring instead the term "population," which can be given a clear operational definition. Even many of those who reject the formal concept of "race," however, still use the word in day-to-day speech. This may be an effect of the underlying cultural significance of "race" in racist societies. Regardless of the term used, a working concept of population grouping can be useful, because in the absence of cheap and widespread genetic tests, various group-linked gene mutations (see Cystic fibrosis, Lactose intolerance, Tay-Sachs Disease and Sickle cell anemia) are difficult to address without recourse to a category between "individual" and "species". As genetic tests for such conditions become cheaper, and as detailed haplotype maps and SNP databases become available, the need to resort to "race" should diminish. This is fortunate, as increasing interracial marriage in the United States is reducing the predictive power of "race" in the United States. For example, most babies born with Tay-Sachs in North America at present are not from Jewish families, despite stereotypes to contrary. -- Frank W Sweet 02:36, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Casta paintings and the like
I'm adding this topic to the Talk pages for the main race article as well. There should be some kind of subarticle on the casta concept and paintings from the era of Spanish and Portuguese control of Latin America. This is a well-known area of Latin American art and there are whole books on the topic. The paintings seem to have been an attempt at a racial version of a biological taxonomy, purporting to show what different racial combinations looked like and assigning each a name. Typically, the paintings had at least 16 categories, though some had more.
I am adding this issue to the Talk pages of three different related articles in hopes of prodding someone more knowledgeable to give this article a shot. I personally know only a little, having been introduced to the subject by a web site I've long since misplaced and an art exhibition here in Dallas (probably at the Meadows Museum of Art, which specializes in Latin-American art).Lawikitejana 20:14, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
