Talk:White people

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This article was nominated for deletion on 2007-03-18. The result of the discussion was Speedy keep.

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Contents 1 skin pigmentation study 2 Neolithic 3 Request for Comment 3.1 Original Contentious Text 3.2 Discussion so far 3.3 Proposed text 4 Reversion 4.1 Summarizing Criticism 4.1.1 References for this discussion 5 Genetic History debate 6 Color metaphor 7 Skin as a metaphor 8 Reversion fiesta... 9 Mediation 10 Mustafa Hefny Pic 11 Simple question, Lukas: How white is white? 12 Edit war again. 12.1 Behnam's view 13 Mediation again 14 Merge/move concerns 15 Sexual selection 16 Genetics section 16.1 Systemic problems with genetics section that need ot be addressed 17 have put this article up for deletion 18 LEAD 19 More from www.whites666s999s.info

[edit] skin pigmentation study

I have introduced this skin pigmentation study from 2000:

http://www.bgsu.edu/departments/chem/faculty/leontis/chem447/PDF_files/Jablonski_skin_color_2000.pdf

As it clearly states skin pigmentation has very little to do with "race". I think it is the most complete study I have come across yet. I think it is worth not only reading. Maybe someone here with the will and the energy necessary can include its conclusions, comments, etc in the body of the article. Veritas et Severitas 16:21, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

You mean yesterday? I had added this long before. Look at light skin section. Lukas19 23:28, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Right, my fault, still I think that there are interesting conclusions there that I do not see in the article. In any case, it is just an invitation, I am not going to work on that. 65.8.232.219 Veritas.00:48, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Neolithic

This article: [1] seems to be latest (2006). The Oxford journal article is from 2002. So:

1)I'm gonna delete the claim that R and "I" account for 80% of haplogroups in Europe. If Neolithic contribution is disputed (20% part), so is 80%. Instead I'm gonna change 80% with "most common"

2) Due to length issues I'm just gonna add this: "Genetic studies have failed to settle the controversy so far" instead of the long info about Neolithic contribution. Because there are lots of conflicting reports. For ex:

"The predictions of the alternative models, cultural versus demic diffusion, can now be tested against ancient DNA data. To do that, Haak et al (2005) performed genetic drift simulations to ask whether they could explain by genetic drift alone the change in frequency of a currently rare (<0.02%) haplogroup (N1a) which was found in as many as six of the 24 (25%) DNA sequences. They concluded that Neolithic farmers originating from the Near East left virtually no descendants in Europe and hence favoured the cultural diffusion model."

"Other issues would need to be further explored. Firstly, haplogroup N1a was found to be common in the Neolithic sample, but is virtually absent from modern European populations." etc...Lukas19 14:51, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Request for Comment

White people edit war on the relation of the term to the literal meaning of white prompted protection. In larger discussion, there is debate about whether (1) to describe white as literally inaccurate; (2) skin pigmentation/melanisation might be a better description; (3) the European historical context and/or Eurocentrism should be specified in the text; (4) whether color metaphors for race is an acceptable link. (5) Relevancy of definition of white in physicsLukas19 22:08, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Original Contentious Text

The term white is a misnomer. Most white people are some kind of brown shade, some may even look pinkish or reddish, but none of them looks literally white. The term is the result of a eurocentric view of race. (posted by LSLM)

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a very typical example of the white race hating multicultural cultists to debase and deny at every opportunity the race and ethnic and cultural heritage of the white race nation family, white in usage as a racial term is done for simple convenience to chart differences among people, people from every racial background do this in their own racial-ethnic studies, the fact is each and every 'non-white- identified grouping is set aside for their place and portion under the sun to take their turn in the human self-glory parade, with one notable exception: those people who come under the category of being of white racial heritage, to those the smug marxist multi-cultists only grudgingly permit them their sub-grouping within the vast white race nation, but they are never ever permitted to rally around the title of being 'white people' otherwise they risk committing the multicultural sin of 'racism'

the white race nation family is quite vast and has very significant rootage amongst quite a few civilizations beyond the major heritage home of western europe, their accomplishments and influence are way beyond any other racial nation, were we discussing say the black race the marxist multi-cultists would be speaking about the black raced people in the most revered and polite manner seeking with the most extra ordinary of efforts to find as many uplifting ways to honor and glorify those belonging to the black race, however when the white race or as i like to refer to my people ('the right race') is brought for discussion every effort is expended to villify and minimize and finally make invisible

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[edit] Discussion so far

See Talk:White people#Protection. Also see Talk:White_people#Literal_White

[edit] Proposed text

To facilitate discussion, I compiled 5 options from the discussion. Lukas has added a sixth.--Carwil 18:48, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

1. The term white people is not a literal description as it is used regardless of the fact that nearly all the people described are pinkish, reddish, tan or brown in skin color, extending the perception of white skin to a much broader set of people. In the phrase white people it functions as a color metaphor for race, one that emerged from a racialized, European historical context.
2. White people are not literally white, but they all have a significant depigmentation of their skin. In some regions White people have a near complete depigmentation, whereas in other regions, White people may have a small degree of pigmentation. The degree of melanisation is not a purely inherited trait, the amount of pigmentation can vary due to exposure to sunlight, age and sex. Indeed the amount of pigmentation may vary on an individual, especially extremities that may get more exposure to sunlight may have a darker more brown hue than those regions that are covered such as the torso. The term extends the perception of white skin to a much broader set of people. In the phrase white people it functions as a color metaphor for race, one that emerged from a racialized, European historical context.
3. The term white people does not refer perceived color of skin per se; the people described can be pinkish, reddish, white, tan or brown in skin color, extending the perception of white skin to a much broader set of people. In the phrase white people it functions as a color metaphor for race, one that emerged from a racialized, European historical context.
   1. The term white people primarily describes a relative degree of depigmentation, and is not a literal description of skin tone. The term is also applied by some as a social construct to imply European ancestry or culture.
   2. The term has been discredited by some as being scientifically unsubstantiated or based on an invidious and antiquated classification of human beings based on race.
4. The term white people does not refer perceived color of skin per se; the people described can be pinkish, reddish, white, tan or brown in skin color, extending the perception of white skin to a much broader set of people.
5. No reference to misconceptions, extensions, or European context/Eurocentrism.
6. With the exception of albinos, people with lightest skin color are those who are of predominantly European descent (see the map). Therefore, the word white is used more as a comparison to darker shades of skin tone. The usage of term is also affected by eurocentric view of race.
   1. Europeans have lighter skin (and hair) than any other group on Earth. [2] (Also, refer to the skin colour map) Therefore, the word white is used more as a comparison to darker shades of skin tone. There may be exceptions to this, however, some people recognized as white by some definitions are darker than some of the lighter hued persons of the "brown or yellow races [sic]," as the Supreme Court of the United States recognized in litigation over whiteness in 1923. (source). Hence, the phrase white people is also affected by a racialized, European historical context. (add sources here which are already on the "History of the term" section)
7. The term white or white race is in err and quite incorrect, and by all means should not be used as a category or subcategory of any race of ethnicity of any peoples in the world. (added by Margrave1206) -- futurebird 01:47, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

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VOTES:

I vote for number 1. Veritas et Severitas 19:01, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

I vote for number 7. --Margrave1206 01:44, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

This is an RfC, it is not a vote. We should discuss the relative merits of esch suggestion, and come to a compromise wording through consensus. We could have a vote I suppose if no consensus were reached. Alun 19:06, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

The term is the result of a eurocentric view of race. This sentence should stay in. If not number 3 7 works best. All one needs do is look at old categories for example "white" vs. "colored" --or the way "ethnic" once referred to anything non-white (that misguided idea that white people have no ethnicity and that, once no longer ethni,c European immigrants to the US "became white") to see why a mention of the historical context is need. I was not here for the whole debate, so forgive me if I'm rehashing old points. White implies a "default" color, this has a lot to do with the eurocentric view of race. The term is the result of a eurocentric view of race. should stay. -- futurebird 22:20, 26 January 2007 (UTC) edited by futurebird 01:47, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Neutrality: As an editor who recently took some effort to reform the lead section to be as encyclopedic and professional sounding as possible, (such as starting the article with the dictionary definition, unifying obviously separate contributions, reducing the 'self-argumentation', etc.) all of the above contain some unacceptable 'editorializing.' It should not be possible to read a contribution, and be able to easily guess what "camp" the author is in. That's unencyclopedic and unprofessional.

Number 3 is the closest to a workable text (modified, however by 3.1 below) because it clarifies the dictionary definition, which already includes Europe and skin-tone. Well-researched dictionaries take great pains to produce definitions that are consistent and professional, as discussed previously. Good luck with trying to keep this article "neutral". dr.ef.tymac 03:10, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree with 3.1 too. Other proposed introductions aren't as concise or neutral. The other introductions which further add the fact that whites can get tans are so obvious that they seem to be unnecessary. Some of the definitions should not be used because they give the impression that even the concept of white people is somehow wrong when they describe it as "Eurocentric".--^DarkTea 08:20, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

1. Eurocentric is not bad, it is a fact, and you can clearly infer it from the history section.

2. That the term "white" is a misnomer is as clear a water and should be clarified. People who are called white can look many different colors, but never white, unless you can find people who look like this in their faces, hands and body:

http://www.kabuki.ne.jp/mitsugoro/images/main_image.jpg

So, it is true that this is an Encyclopeadia, the place to uncover superstition and ignorance and to analyze it, not to perpetuate it.

So, I support number 1 and the original number 3, without the reference to white, since there are no white people in terms of color. On the other hand, since white refers to a color and color seems to have been very important in this discussion most of the time, I see no reason why we should not speak of the real colors of so-called white people.

I think we have now two votes for number 3, if we omit "white".. Veritas et Severitas 14:37, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

And two for #7, as is.futurebird 14:43, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

I also would support the idea in number 7, but it should be obviously better elaborated, so I would propose to merge 7 and 3. Still we may risk getting off the subject. That idea can be clearly incorporated in other parts of the article. Veritas et Severitas 14:48, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Strong Oppose 7 based solely on wording: Ignoring for the moment the factual propriety of 7, the current wording simply sounds entirely didactic and unencyclopedic. For example, what is the justification for "should not be used"? Moral? Ethical? Scientific? Grammatical? Philosophical? Social? Public safety? Civility? To put that wording, uncited, into the intro would diminish the credibility of this article. At the very least it needs to be reworded for tone. dr.ef.tymac 16:11, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Well I could think of ethical, moral and historical. The term is the result of a strong racialist if not racist tradition by people of European ancestry and it is strongly abused by fascist movements following that tradition. Still I think that it is covered in the article, though the idea could be reinforced. Right now we may risk getting off the subject. So as said, I support original 3 without white. Veritas et Severitas 16:16, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Follow-up: Ok, makes sense, for an example of a possible rewording to include concepts from 7, see 3.2 above, which could be a sentence immediately following 3.1. Mea culpa if I misrepresented the point that was being made in 7, but you helped to clarify it a bit. dr.ef.tymac 16:26, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

I think your wording is perfect and I would support adding it to the original 3, without white. I would just add something like "supposed races" instead of "race". Veritas et Severitas 16:33, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

The problem with 1,3,4 is "brown". If you people are so careful about "literal colours", I suggest you to click brown. In the upper right corner, you can see the "literal" brown. People with this skin color would be called black. So first of all, brown should be changed to "a shade of light brown". But even then, this is incorrect. A light brown trousers and a light brown skin will differ in "literal" sense of the colour. The human skin would have that reddish, pinkish alive look to it.

And what is the "perceived color of skin"? If you are going to change "perceived color of skin" to just "color of skin", then we should add non-coloured, transperant to the list as well, since we know that many white people are depigmented in the skin and the "perceived color of skin" is due to fat cells, according to Wobble. But if you are going to continue with the "perceived color of skin" there are other concerns.

For example, depending on the body hair, that perceived color can change due to distance. If you get closer to the person you can see the brown, blond or red hue in their "perceived color of skin" due to their body hair. Also, when I look at my arm, I can see blue blood veins. And they definately make a difference in my "perceived color of skin".

So you see where I'm getting at? The color discussions here are unencyclopaediac. They are subjective, unsourced and not scientifically backed (remember the discussion of white in physics)). So even if a couple editors agree on a text here and hence reach a "consensus", they are still bound by core Wiki policies such as Wikipedia:Verifiability or Wikipedia:Neutral point of view. So if you agree on a text but add it without citing a reliable source, I'll enforce the rules regardless of the outcome of RfC. If that leads to edit war, we'll take it to meditation. But wiki is clear: "It is assumed that editors working toward consensus are pursuing a consensus that is consistent with Wikipedia's basic policies and principles - especially the neutral point of view (NPOV). At times, a group of editors may be able to, through persistence, numbers, and organization, overwhelm well-meaning editors and generate what appears to be support for a version of the article that is actually inaccurate, libelous, or not neutral, e.g. giving undue weight to a specific point of view. This is not a consensus." Wikipedia:Consensus

I never was against inclusion of "....one that emerged from a racialized, European historical context." I was only against it being presented as the ONLY reason why the term white emerged. Because this ignores the fact that European people have the lightest skin color, on avarage, and hence the relationship between white and light and lightEST. So, this is my offer again:

Europeans have lighter skin (and hair) than any other group on Earth. [3] (Also, refer to the skin colour map) Therefore, the word white is used more as a comparison to darker shades of skin tone. There may be exceptions to this, however, some people recognized as white by some definitions are darker than some of the lighter hued persons of the "brown or yellow races [sic]," as the Supreme Court of the United States recognized in litigation over whiteness in 1923. (source). Hence, the phrase white people is also affected by a racialized, European historical context. (add sources here which are already on the "History of the term" section) Lukas19 20:53, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Lukas seems to be threatening every one with his sophistry. I do not agree with you and version 3 has now 3 votes, I think. Veritas et Severitas 03:25, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

The use of brown to apply to human skin colors has plenty of support. Lukas, please scroll down the Brown page for examples of overlapping tones with people designated as white people. 1 and 3 remain preferred for me. 3.1 is factually incorrect, as "white people" doesn't describe a phenotype of skin color, but a set of socially determined people. I remain hard against anything that doesn't recognize this. "Europeans have lighter skin (and hair) than any other group on Earth" isn't a characteristic of white people, a group that includes some 200 million U.S.A. residents and 100 million Brazilians. Nor does "Europeans" (in your skin tone description, per the map) include numerous Spaniards, Italians, Greeks, etc. who are darker than many Japanese people.

Veritas et Severitas is right, we are seeing a broad support for some version of 3. Which returns us to the reason for the RfC: do we have an external judgment on whether to override some of the original editors' objections. Please don't be shy, outsiders, let us know.--Carwil 22:08, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Again. Those are shades of brown, not brown. Please look up at top right for the "literal" brown color.Lukas19 04:35, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

200 million USA residents are descandants of Europeans, so that sentence applies.Lukas19 04:35, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

"numerous Spaniards, Italians, Greeks, etc. who are darker than many Japanese people"? That's just a silly unbacked claim. In the map, they are in the same zone, while majority of Europeans are lighter.Lukas19 04:35, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Broad support is irrelevant, if you cant source it...Lukas19 04:35, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Lukas, please consider the map at human skin color. Outside observers, please offer a way out, as I think these literalism discussions are irrelevant. Everyone, please recall that the word "literal" is no longer at issue in the proposed edits, given the growing consensus around 3.--Carwil 18:46, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

If literalism is no longer relevant, then you have to call most white people white since that's the colour most suiting, given its hue is closer to ther real thing than other colours. Lukas19 19:41, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

I vote 3. It doesn't bomble around, and it includes all the issues. ~ Flameviper 18:51, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

There is a critical problem with these definitions. There really isn't enough discussion on the different socio-cultural definitions of white found globally. For instance, I found that, in the 1970's, the OMB standardized "white" in the United States as people of European, North African, and Middle Eastern descent. These definitions are used by he Department of Justice, the FBI, the Census Bureau, etc. Also, Hispanic is labeled as an ethnicity, not a race, and the recognized "indian" groups therein are North American native american groups, not south American. Therefore, many mestizo's are also categorized as white in various statistics where race is measures without ethnicity. This article also has some information on Brazil along this direction.

In other words, the academic mainstream has long acknowledged the social nature of defining white people, and to simply state that social construct to imply European ancestry or culture. ignores the variation where stating European ancestry might be too broad a topic or, more importantly, in nations like the U.S., where European ancestry is clearly too narrow a topic. Wood345 17:04, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Reversion

1) Text supported by editors should comply with Wikipedia:Verifiability. Current text doesnt.Lukas19 16:41, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

2) "Europeans became uniquely fair-complexioned, with lighter tone than any other group on earth, regardless of latitude"

"In any event, tables with unconnected data points, and maps with or without interpolated cline contours, all tell the same story: Europeans have lighter skin (and hair) than any other group on earth. Conversely, equatorial Native Americans are not even remotely as dark as other groups at the same latitude. The traditional explanation was that Europeans had had more time to adapt. The traditional explanation no longer works."

"The most eye-catching feature on the above maps is that the lightest complexion on earth is native only to the region within 600 miles of the Baltic and North seas."

So it must be your imagination that only people native within 600 miles of Baltic are lighter than non-Europeans. The text doesnt specify. It may be that people native within 600 miles of Baltic being the lightest and the rest of europeans still being lightER than non-Europeans. Dont add your biased interpretations to the text. Lukas19 16:41, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Reading contour lines isn't "a biased interpretation of the text." But who cares. On the agreed upon text per RFC, I've added some citations. On the verifiable color range of white people ("pinkish, reddish, white, tan or brown"), I think there's sources for everything, but it seems pedantic to add examples of each color. For any specific fact that not's verified in your opinion, please just add a {{fact}} tag, okay?--Carwil 22:13, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

1) Pinkish what? Reddish what? Tan isnt brownish? The whole sentence is far away from being an encyclopaediac sentence. Besides, according to which definition? The "literal" brown people would be considered black in Norway. So still not verified, vague and definately not staying in the lead. Lukas19 10:34, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

2)The experience with Japan does not neccessitate that the whole concept was based ONLY on a historical context. So still unsourced. If you want to say that the application of whiteness has changed, that's already in the article. "The definition of whiteness has varied in different time periods and locations." Lukas19 20:54, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Our dispute on color is the subject of an RfC process above. It's cited now, except for reddish and white (which I suspect you have a reference for). Leave it, or we can go to arbitration.

Kowner and others don't just discuss Japan. Read the articles before you delete the material they source.--Carwil 16:04, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Where is it cited that white people have brown skin? Where is it cited that there is one universal definition of whiteness and this includes "pinkish, reddish, white, tan or brown in skin color, extending the perception of white skin to a much broader set of people"? What is the criteria for inclusion of temporary skin conditions such as tanning? Why dont we also include skin paintings? The "perceived" skin colors of these white people [4] are blue. Should we also say white people can be blue? I'm sure we can find more such temporary examples, even if we are risking being "pedantic". Should we also say white people can be bordeaux, purple with yellow dots, etc...?

And you still havent proven that whiteness emerged ONLY as a result of sociological reasons (ie: racialized european historical context.) While this may be partly true, and it says in the article: "race today is largely considered a sociological construct, the definition of which is subject to change as society evolves", you havent proven that this is the ONLY reason. And that's what is implied in the text you are including. And this is NOT a NPOV summary of the article, given the numerous cited examples of how genetics and whiteness is correlated, etc...

I'm fine with any DR process but we have to try meditation first. Lukas19 20:54, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Summarizing Criticism

Here's the text in dispute:

The term white people does not refer perceived color of skin per se^[1]; the people described can be pinkish,^[2] reddish^{[citation needed]}, white, tan or golden brown^[3] in skin color, extending the perception of white skin to a much broader set of people. In the phrase white people it functions as a color metaphor for race,^[4] one that emerged from a racialized, European historical context.^[5]

Now, let's talk about what's wrong with each part. (Please put everything on the table, as we've been through one process already.):

• The term white people does not refer perceived color of skin per se^[6] i.e., people whose skin is not white in appearance can still be called white by any of the categorization schemes talked about on the page.

• the people described can be pinkish^[7], The cite refers to, "The pinkish colour of 'white' people ."

• reddish^{[citation needed]},

• white^{[citation needed]},

• tan or golden brown^[8] Lukas says "What is the criteria for inclusion of temporary skin conditions such as tanning?." Carwil replies tanning occurs when in the sun in a latitude where there's enough sun to tan, a perfectly natural condition that is only temporary if we remove that person away from that sunlight. Indoors, or only in certain latitudes, is not a more "natural" state for humans. Further, people who meet the criteria for whiteness below, yet who have tan or brown skin in the shade are still white, because it's not a phenotypic category.

• in skin color, extending the perception of white skin to a much broader set of people. This means the same thing as the first clause, except it indicates that the phrase "white people" describes people whose skin "is" white and "is not" white. Thus, "extends the perception." This is the result of a very long approximation process coming out of the word "misnomer," an RfC, etc.

• In the phrase white people it functions as a color metaphor for race,^[9] Carwil says, "Heavily cited material about the emergence of "whiteness" as a metaphor for race. Again, one is ascribed the color white, or called a "white person" based on membership in the social category (and historically, based on evaluation of one's civilizational evolution, as discussed on Japan, China and the South Pacific)."

• one that emerged from a racialized, European historical context.^[5] Carwil says, "This would be true just as a summary of the historical section, but it's also talked about in the cite." Lukas says, "And you still havent proven that whiteness emerged ONLY as a result of sociological reasons (ie: racialized european historical context.) While this may be partly true, and it says in the article: "race today is largely considered a sociological construct, the definition of which is subject to change as society evolves", you havent proven that this is the ONLY reason. And that's what is implied in the text you are including. And this is NOT a NPOV summary of the article, given the numerous cited examples of how genetics and whiteness is correlated, etc..." Carwil replies, "This text, read it carefully, says nothing about reasons, much less the only reason. Nor does it say anything about 19th century head measurements, 20th century facial typing or 21st century genetic studies, because it talks about where white people emerged as a term and a metaphor. So, two points of fact: was that context European? and was it racialized? I think the answers are well cited."--Carwil 15:55, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

1) This is a half truth. Almost nothing is actually white. So if you are going to add "The term white people does not refer perceived color of skin per se", I'm gonna add that as well so people can have a reference as to actually what little is really white. Lukas19 06:09, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

"perceived color of skin" is a way of talking about the fact that people may think that skin appears white (which you insist) without claiming it is white (which you insist can only refer to white light). The awkwardness is to accomodate you.--Carwil 16:10, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

2) First of all, why is tan and golden brown seperate? As in why not just tan?

The cited text says both, so I said both.--Carwil 16:10, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Second of all, your edits violate WP:NOR, specifically WP:NOR#Synthesis_of_published_material_serving_to_advance_a_position. You get pieces from multiple sources, including tannig books (And I dont think a tanning book is a reliable source) and create YOUR own argument. For ex, you argue that tanning is natural and this is unsourced, it is your own personal opinion. I'm guessing you are not white yourself? First of all many people can only tan with the aid of sun creams. Otherwise we get red. And most people tan while lying down in holiday resorts which they fly to with planes. So, for many people, tanning is not natural. Most people do not tan while working in the fields. As for the remainder, are they white? According to which definition? Sources?

We've sourced a variety of phrases, a list including white was meant to accomodate your concerns in the RfC, when you raised no objections re: OR. This phrasing has been vetted, and there is only one proponent of removing it, you.

As for tanning, it is irrelevant whether all white people tan; what is relevant is that some white people are tan. I'm sorry that you think walking in the sun is an unnatural condition. "the remainder" may be white, pinkish, reddish or golden brown, per the text.--Carwil 16:10, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

If it is natural, there are other natural temporary skin changes as well. Body paintings are made of natural ingredients and one may argue that it is also natural. Or some people who are suffering from hepatitis become yellow. While diseases are unpleasant, they are natural. So what's the criteria for inclusion of natural or unnatural temporary skin color change? None, other than your subjective opinion.

Besides, what is "perceived colour of skin"? If I'd see a tanned white and brown Asian whose skin hues are similar, I'd assume the white guy to "whiten" as time passes while the Asian more or less stays same. So even if they have similar skin hues, my perception of their skins may differ due to my fore-knowledge of the temporary effects of sun. And actually, almost noone gets full sun tan, since most people wear at least some clothes. I guess "perceived colour of skin" may change depending on the fact that if you see the person naked or not.

See above.--Carwil 16:10, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Hence, according to your logic, we should say perceived color of skin of white people can be of any color (body paintings, diseases, lightening, etc....) And adding that would be really stupid. Not to mention, it'd probably also violate WP:NOR. To make it short, there are lots of holes in YOUR synthesis, which you fill according to your POV. None of the sources you cite try to define the skin hue variance in whites.

And you said: "Further, people who meet the criteria for whiteness below, yet who have tan or brown skin in the shade are still white, because it's not a phenotypic category." This is also unsourced. You dont know who is considered white or not in every part of the world. Lukas19 06:09, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

It's also written on talk. If it were on the page, we could talk about sources.--Carwil 16:10, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

3)According to Carolus Linnaeus, Europeans were "white, gentle, and inventive" hence he called them the white race. So not everyone thinks whiteness is a metaphor. So your lead is not NPOV, again. To me it's relativistic. Europeans are lightest and hence called white and Africans are darkest and hence called blacks. The colour/"colour" continuum is squeezed to fit into humans. And this relationship is by definition invalidates the usage of metaphor, since metaphor is used to relate things that are seemingly unrelated. See Talk:"Color"_terminology_for_race#Will_Change_the_Title. And color metaphor for race has been changed to "Color" terminology for race.

The source, an intellectual history of the use of "white" in the period of its formation and in substantial European encounters with the rest of the world says skin color was used as a metaphor. The text at issue notes that some "white people" have skin that is "white".--Carwil 16:10, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

And Eastern Asians arent white. I was told, in this talk page, that Aiunu were the "really white" native Japaneese. And their reflectance spectrophotometry results are less white than even Turks. [5]

And note that, in your article, it is Sothern Europeans calling Japaneese white. We dont know if all Europeans agree. My point is that there is no standart definition of white so you cant say it's a metaphor, based on southern definition, at one point. Lukas19 06:09, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

4)Have Americas emerged from European historical context? No. It was already there. However, it experienced significant changes due to European historical context. If white people concept has a genetic correlation, it means that it didnt emerge from an European historical context. It was already in the "nature". You may argue that race is just a concept. Well, so is a continent. It's just a landmass and it is us who name it as such just because it is surrounded by large mass of water. You may think whiteness is totally social construct but not everybody agrees and this is cited in the body of the article. So to say "In the phrase white people it functions as a color metaphor for race,[4] one that emerged from a racialized, European historical context" is not a WP:NPOV summary of the article.

It's a collectively debated (see the RfC) summary of much of the text. And yes, European-initiated settler colonies and slave colonies in the Americas (cited in the History section) are a "European historical context."--Carwil 16:10, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

So to summarize, you violate WP:NOR and WP:NPOV, 2 of the 3 core policies of Wiki. We may either reach a compromise here or go to meditation. Lukas19 06:09, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

There was no support in the RfC for not including this text apart from you, Lukas. I'm restoring the text. Let's request mediation if you can't deal.--Carwil 16:10, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

You havent addressed WP:NOR and WP:NPOV violations. I really dont care if few several other users, like you, dont want to abide by rules. Wikipedia is not a democracy. File a meditation case. Lukas19 16:33, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] References for this discussion

1. ^ "Referring to races by colors, such as White, Black, and Brown, tends to ob-. scure the fact that skin color and race are not the same." Frank F. Montalvo, "Surviving Race: Skin Color and the Socialization and Acculturation of Latinas," Journal of Ethnic & Cultural Diversity in Social Work, 13:3, 2004.
2. ^ "The skin. What the skin is. Why skin colour varies. Skin problems. Look after your skin", Public Health News, 19 Jul 2004.
3. ^ "TAN-TASTIC!; How to look good and stay skin safe.," Wales On Sunday (Cardiff, Wales), May 25, 2003, p42.
4. ^ For extensive discussion on skin color as a metaphor for race (and not just in encounter with Japan), see Rotem Kowner, "Skin as a Metaphor: Early European Racial Views on Japan, 1548–1853," Ethnohistory 51.4 (2004) 751-778. See also, Christine Ward Gailey Politics, Colonialism and the Mutable Color of South Pacific Peoples," Transforming Anthropology 5.1&2 (1994). On historical antecedents during the European medieval period, see James H. Dee, "Black Odysseus, White Caesar: When Did 'White People' Become 'White,'?" The Classical Journal, Vol. 99, No. 2. (Dec., 2003 - Jan., 2004), p. 162ff.
5. ^ ^{a b} Gregory Jay, [Who Invented White People? http://www.uwm.edu/~gjay/Whiteness/Whitenesstalk.html], 1998.
6. ^ "Referring to races by colors, such as White, Black, and Brown, tends to ob-. scure the fact that skin color and race are not the same." Frank F. Montalvo, "Surviving Race: Skin Color and the Socialization and Acculturation of Latinas," Journal of Ethnic & Cultural Diversity in Social Work, 13:3, 2004.
7. ^ "The skin. What the skin is. Why skin colour varies. Skin problems. Look after your skin", Public Health News, 19 Jul 2004.
8. ^ "TAN-TASTIC!; How to look good and stay skin safe.," Wales On Sunday (Cardiff, Wales), May 25, 2003, p42.
9. ^ For extensive discussion on skin color as a metaphor for race (and not just in encounter with Japan), see Rotem Kowner, "Skin as a Metaphor: Early European Racial Views on Japan, 1548–1853," Ethnohistory 51.4 (2004) 751-778. See also, Christine Ward Gailey Politics, Colonialism and the Mutable Color of South Pacific Peoples," Transforming Anthropology 5.1&2 (1994). On historical antecedents during the European medieval period, see James H. Dee, "Black Odysseus, White Caesar: When Did 'White People' Become 'White,'?" The Classical Journal, Vol. 99, No. 2. (Dec., 2003 - Jan., 2004), p. 162ff.

[edit] Genetic History debate

My text: The population of people classified as white has a predominant European ancestry, along with substantial ancestry from other continents. Both maternal and paternal lines among white people trace to European as well as non-European lines. [amending redundancies]

Lukas deleted it saying "(That's for *some* whites, not all. And those whites are white according to US definition which is too stretched. Your addition ignores all these and therefore POV.)"

Now if "some" is not described by the relationship between "substantial" and "predominant", I don't know what is. Of course this is not only true for the USA and Brazil as cited in the article, but for people in Europe, the rest of the Americas and Australia. Lukas, if you want to claim POV, at least state what an alternate POV would be. Otherwise, I'm invoking protection per the WP:3RR.--Carwil 17:17, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

If you say "The population of people classified as white has a predominant European ancestry, along with substantial ancestry from other continents.", you mean every white. You cant make a generalization like that on the whole population. And again, "The population of people classified as white", according to whom? You? You act if there is one single definition.Lukas19 22:21, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

First of all, not every white has a "substantial ancestry from other continents". I think you misunderstood pie charts in Y-Haplagroups and MtDNA. Anyone can have only one YHaplagroup and one MtDNA. This means that while some people have Y-Haplagroups and MtDNAs similar to non-Europeans (It is likely, per probabilty maths, only a slim minority will have both Haplagroups which are similar to non-Europeans), some people will have Haplogroups confined to Europe. Indeed, the sourced text says most of the European MtDNA's are essentially confined to Europe while some of the Y Haplagroups are found in West Asia and South Asia as well. Besides, haplogroup analysis are far from being perfect. It should be approached with caution because they analyze only a tiny fraction of DNA. Anyway...Lukas19 22:21, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

So some whites will have full European ancestry while some will have predominant European ancestry while some (according to some definitions) may have predominantly non-European ancestry (remember the definitions in Latin America which does not correlate with neither Europe nor North America nor Australia&NZ). Since you do not know percentages for each group, this sentence is redundant to add. Once again, you are violating Wikipedia:Verifiability and WP:NOR. Your goal must be to add ^{[citation needed]} to unsourced text and try to provide sources, not add unsourced material based on YOUR interpretations of the citations. I will keep deleting the text. Lukas19 22:21, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Give us a break. Your continuous arguments are sophistry. You seem to do it with everyone who does not share your point of view in racially related issues. You can see the responses that you got in the Rfc above that you opened against me. Europeans share a lot of lineage related genetic markers with Non-Europeans, that does not make anyone either whiter or less white, it is just a fact, whether you like it or not. We are not going to discuss here the sex of angels about every contribution that does not suit your point of view. Stop reverting other people's contributions. Veritas et Severitas 00:45, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Lukas, while I suspect Veritas may also be right, the text stands on narrower grounds. I could say correctly, "The population of Ireland has a substantial presence of red hair" (though the phrasing is awkward), clearly meaning that a substantial number of Irish people have red hair while many (even most) do not. The same thing clearly goes for my text above. I am not, repeat am not, saying in that text that every European, or every white person has substantial non-European ancestry. Read it again, please and suggest modifications. Or, third editors, step in and restore/revert/improve as you think appropriate.--Carwil 02:37, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Apples and oranges. People (naturally) can have only one hair colour. So if you say "The population of Ireland has a substantial presence of red hair", it's clear eventhough you admit phrasing is awkward. However, people can have several ancestries so when you say "The population of people classified as white has a predominant European ancestry, along with substantial ancestry from other continents", it's not clear if you mean some whites have some non-European ancestry or all whites have "substantial ancestry from other continents". I have interpreted it as the second. Any alternative to your wording is irrelevant. There is information about this in the relevant sections. Readers can draw their own conclusions. You do not need to provide a biased vague summary since you are not writing a lead. I'm thinking about requesting peer review for this article so please refrain from adding unsourced material. Lukas19 03:09, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Color metaphor

I propose that this statement, "The term white people does not refer to people who are literally white; their skin color can be near-white, pinkish, reddish, tan or golden brown," be restated as: "Throughout the world, the term white can be applied to any skin color within a range going from tan or golden brown at one extreme to near-white at the other." Or: "the concept of white race differs throughout the world." These statements can be worded better, I'm sure. Either way, they have the advantage of being very easily sourced and, well, self-evident, I would say. After all, who doesn't know that in Brazil there's a different conception of "white skin" and "white race" than there is in Norway, as Lukas and/or associates have reminded us? One of Lukas' allies even proposed we display a picture of Halle Berry since, s/he claimed, Berry's considered white in parts of Latin America. Also, to the statement it can be further added (if is so agreed), "so that some experts have stated/claimed that "white" is a color metaphor for race." After all, it is true that some experts have stated so, which can be sourced. Lukas, do not forget your statement: "To me it's relativistic. Europeans are lightest and hence called white and Africans are darkest and hence called blacks." SamEV 04:29, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

If you can improve the statements, feel free to do so. We'll make any necessary adjustments to your writing. I think that the ideas are good. The Behnam 04:36, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I'd rather someone else did the edit. You, for example. Pretty please? SamEV 05:41, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

The thing is that the previous version was already agreed upon after a long discussion and it is right. What happens it that some people like to call others colors but do not like when they are reminded of the actual colors they look. "White" or any other type of ethnocentrism should not be tolerated, neither in this article nor in others. Veritas et Severitas 17:29, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Ok... Anyway, it seems Lukas didn't get the memo that it was all settled. The edit history and the comments on this talk page lead me (then and now) to believe that the dispute was/is ongoing. I saw something about mediation. My proposal was meant to accomodate Lukas so he'll stop edit warring. Never mind, then. I myself don't really mind the current text. SamEV 00:46, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Skin as a metaphor

Now that others are edit warring over the lead, it might be useful to see the text of Kowner, as cited in the article. One main purpose is to locate the shift from early European visitors' perception that the Japanese were white in skin color, to later descriptions of a "yellow" race.--Carwil 23:10, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

As such, the concept of race was not conceived in the way it would be two centuries later. In the early centuries of their global expansion, European explorers and merchants rarely resorted to racial explanations of the differences between themselves and the newly discovered peoples. Without a conceptual background, categories, and even an adequate vocabulary, these early European visitors to Japan were unable to perceive more than a few divergent features between the Japanese and themselves. Likewise, the seemingly limited difference in culture and technological development between the Japanese and Europeans did not stimulate the latter to devise a satisfactory system of classification. These conceptual constraints seem to support Pierre Van den Berghe's notion that, "it is not the presence of objective physical differences between groups that creates races, but the social recognition of such differences as socially significant or relevant."

...

This system of human taxonomy raised a European racial awareness and a sense of superiority. Although linking specific moral dispositions, behavior, and phenotypic features, it also endorsed popular convictions regarding the existence of a racial hierarchy wherein positive traits were assigned to Europeans and negative traits characterized other races. A new dichotomy emerged: "We, the Europeans," and "they, all the others"; with this, the idea of Europe reached maturity. ... Even earlier, by the end of the seventeenth century, skin color in north America "had become an independent rationale for enslavement," and a system of fine color gradation was established without much theoretical rationalization.56 A century later, the American slave trade reached its zenith,57 and in other colonies as well, extreme forms of exploitation and domination were taking place, leading to rigidly hierarchical ethnic relations. Under these circumstances, Europeans who benefited from the economic exploitation outside their continent started to feel an acute need for ethical justification of their abuse of other human beings

...

The turning point in the European racial view regarding the Japanese, among other ethnic groups, was not based solely on the Other's level of science: It was tied closely to the emergence of scientific trends in Europe, which rationalized natural phenomena in an attempt to account for human behavior. ...

In the beginning of the eighteenth century, George Psalmanaazaar (or Psalmanazar, 1680–1763) was still able to praise the Japanese as having fair skin color. "If we may believe the proverb," he wrote, "Turkey and Japan breed the fairest women in the world."

...

Linne's followers maintained his focus on color as a major component of their racial classification: The Scottish anatomist John Hunter (1728–1793) depicted Mongoloids as brown, whereas Johann Blumenbach was apparently the first to depict the peoples of East Asia as yellow.64 This color better suited the Japanese, for whom the designation brown was frequently far from reality. The Europeans could easily see yellow in others' skin color because it is so vague, and it was enough that a few members of a group were perceived as such to generalize the characteristic to the whole group.

...

This mode of thinking, adopted from the racial discourse that started to develop in the colonies of the new world during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, was now prevalent within European narratives on the Japanese, even though hardly any economic ties existed with Japan. The darkening of the Japanese skin color signified the emergence of color prejudice against them, which was usually the forerunner of intergroup racism.

[edit] Reversion fiesta...

The lead section being reverted repeatedly is now a subject of mediation between Lukas and myself. As much as I appreciate others' support, maybe the best forum for improving this text is to craft it on talk, rather than provoking further edit wars with Lukas.

And Lukas, while seeming to reply to this edit war, you're using reversion which is a very blunt tool (governed by WP:3RR, I might add), and have yet to explain your objections on the issues of Linnaeus or Templeton's research on Genetics. These are my edits, and your deletions are unexplained. Stop already. And critique on talk.--Carwil 14:57, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Linnaeus: Swedish links to Swedish people instead of Sweden. He was not just a botanist. What some people thinks of him now is irrelevant to his arguments. See ad hominem. What he thinks of blacks is irrelevant in white people article.

About Templeton, we can say "Some scientists rejects the existence of distinct evolutionary lineages within humans". But this is already covered by "some think that race is largely a sociological construct". The problem with your edits is that you have added long arguments which also have long counter arguments (which you havent added) such as:

Human genetic variation can be used to deduce the geographical origins of an individual's recent ancestors, this is possible because a proportion of human genetic variation is geographically distributed, with close geographical proximity strongly correlating with genetic similarity.

It has recently been demonstrated in several studies that to a large extent, without prior knowledge of individual origins, the geographic ancestries of individuals can be inferred from genetic markers. In one of the most extensive of these studies to date, considering 1,056 individuals from 52 human populations, with each individual genotyped for 377 autosomal microsatellite markers, we found that individuals could be partitioned into six main genetic clusters, five of which corresponded to Africa, Europe and the part of Asia south and west of the Himalayas, East Asia, Oceania, and the Americas. Some individuals from boundary locations between these regions were inferred to have partial ancestry in the clusters that corresponded to both sides of the boundary. In many cases, subclusters that corresponded to individual populations or to subsets of populations were also identified.^[10]

it is not surprising that numerous human population genetic studies have come to the identical conclusion - that genetic differentiation is greatest when defined on a continental basis........the greatest genetic structure that exists in the human population occurs at the racial level. ^[11]

However, Claudia Travassos and David R. Williams claim that Risch is actually using race to mean continent of origin.

Race is defined by these authors as the person's primary continent of origin based on the evolutionary tree.^[12]

These also have long counter arguments as well. See: Race and genetics So the article will get too long, if we try to make this article WP:NPOV while preserving your edits. Maybe we can summarize Templeton's position and say "some scientists reject that there are distinct races while not disputing the geographically structured human genetic variation." or something like that. Lukas19 15:46, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

While Linnaeus' racist positioning may not be appropriate for all quotes from him, it's quite relevant to his description of white people. It is given undue weight. How's this:

In 1758, Swedish botanist, physician and zoologist, Carolus Linnaeus, who advocated pro-European racism, divided humankind into four, main races loosely based on geographic distribution

I'm not seeing any racism charges to Voltaire, Voltaire#Views_on_race. Are you willing to go over all historical European figures, like him or Churchill? You might be surprised. Lukas19 02:28, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

The disputed text has nothing to do with social construction, it's a summary of quantitative and qualitative analysis of genetic distance data. I'll admit that pushing an extended argument of citations might not be helpful, but what Templeton says about the groups being created by scientists is quite illuminating on the genetic exchange between Europeans and Africans, and on what Europeans (or Europeans plus West and many South Asians, in the case of Risch) are and are not. I didn't include the material to further the "does race exist?" debate, and thus would be comfortable striking race from the second quotation. In the first quotation, "races" has a clear meaning, and Templeton is perfectly entitled to use scare-quotes around an idea he believes is unfounded. He's not arguing about the existence of race, but discussing ancestral population groups and genetic interchange, which is the subject of this section.

In an analysis of molecular genetic data, biologist Alan R. Templeton found "all of the genetic evidence shows that there never was a split or separation of the 'races' or between Africans and Eurasians. Recent human evolution has been characterized by both population range expansions … and recurrent genetic interchange."^[13]

However, Templeton has found that, "The genetic evidence strongly rejects the existence of distinct evolutionary lineages within humans. The widespread representation of human "races" as ... branches on an intraspecific population tree is genetically indefensible and biologically misleading, even when the ancestral node is presented as being at 100,000 years ago."^[14]

--Carwil 00:41, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Too long. Suggested (sources to be added and wording to be improved): Human genetic variation is geographically distributed, with close geographical proximity strongly correlating with genetic similarity. Despite this, some rejects the existence of distinct evolutionary lineages while Some interpret the data as validity for racial categories, especially based on clusters (although clusters overlap on some regions), while some think human genetic variation is clinal while some think both clinal and cluster approach can be reconciled". Lukas19 02:28, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Hi, Lukas. Could you please participate in the mediation section above below, instead of getting sidetracked with tangential issues? Thanks. -Ste|vertigo 08:06, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Mediation

Ive read your complaint. I'm taking a look at the talk record. My first thoughts on the issue of including the section - while perhaps a bit wordy - is that its fine. Thats just a first impression. -Ste|vertigo 08:22, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

I want to add that some of the wordyness, which I'm not attached to, is in response to criticism of using the words "white" and "color" in their normal senses. "Perceived color" is a work-around to the view that "literally white" only refers to white light (as per physics, Lukas would say). More background and attempts to discuss is in Talk:White_people/Archive_9#Unsourced poor WP:LEAD sentence and two of the three sections that follow.--Carwil 14:52, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I disagree with your first thoughts and am ready for the next step in meditation. Lukas19 21:25, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Stevertigo, are you going to take in the above dispute on adding Templeton to the genetic section (I'm refraining from re-adding it in respect towards the process of mediation)? And Lukas, are you up for discussing this here? I don't see any policy-based objection in Lukas' recent responses, and I suspect either third editor, or community discussion processes would work better. But I'm attempting mediation in the first place b/c such processes don't seem to prevent Lukas from reverting.--Carwil 15:36, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Yup, opinions of some third editors can not supersede WP:NOR or WP:NPOV or WP:Verify Lukas19 16:27, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Mustafa Hefny Pic

Reverting Revision as of 07:36, 5 March 2007 (edit) (undo) Lukas19 (No pics of people in this article, see discussion.) since the argument above is in regards to an argument to place examples of white people on the page.

This picture is a cited picture dealing with a specific person mentioned in a subheading. This same picture is used in the cited article. The argument above concerning a dispute on pictures of white people does not cover cited information and pictures dealing directly with named people in the article.68.105.167.227 04:54, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

It's in a subheading but it's the pic I see right at the beginning of the article, if I use Wikipedia:Tools/Navigation popups . So it's a problem. It wouldnt be if we had pictures of real white people but people insisted on adding non-whites. In any case, Hefny's pic is redundant since his case is clear from the text. You may want to create a page for Mustafa Hefny and link here to there. Lukas19 05:07, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

How about a picture of Benjamin Netanyahu as a real white man for introduction, and then further down Mustafa Hefny can be used as an example of a controversial 'white' classification? The Behnam 05:40, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Even if he is white, he is barely. Lukas19 05:46, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

I guess this kind of arbitrary disagreement is why we don't have any pictures of white people in the article. The Behnam 05:57, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Common sense would suggest that, since we have disagrements, the logical step would be to add a pic which EVERYONE would agree that s/he is white, especially considering the limited space. But as Voltaire said, common sense is not that common. Lukas19 06:00, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

But it is hard to get EVERYONE to agree on a "white" picture, because the problem isn't simply "Is he or she white?" but rather "Is he or she an exemplary white?", such that he or she should be 'the' example of white people. How about Ali Larijani? He is white. There is such variance in white people, even within a mainstream definition. The Behnam 06:25, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Why would we add him since there are hundreds of millions of whiter people? Literally. Since he is middle eastern his skin reflectance values is probably lower than Europeans or people of predominantly European descent. In this pic: [6], he looks like brown. So your opinions are subjective and disputed, while noone would dispute that Kimi Räikkönen or Reese Witherspoon is white. Lukas19 07:05, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

LOL, you have a very odd definition of brown! Also, as before I disputed Kimi as possibly of Turkic-related extraction on grounds of both appearance & linguistics. Also, this picture of Reese [7] is 'browner' than the supposedly "brown" picture of Larijani you provided [8]. The Behnam 07:11, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Finnish is one of the Uralic languages, which are in a different language family than Turkic languages. I will not comment on your eye sight. I'd assume that most, maybe all people would disagree with you. Lukas19 07:18, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

I realize that it is generally considered separate from Altaic, but the possibility of a relationship has been raised often, while there is no chance of significant Indo-European relationship. The Behnam 07:25, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

So? In Congo, they speak French. It doesnt mean they are white. While language and ancestry correlate SOMETIMES, that's not always the case, as many Spanish or Portugeese speaking people are not white either, in Latin America. Lukas19 07:29, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

But can you rule it out beyond reasonable doubt? Probably not, so there is room for doubt. The Behnam 07:52, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Of course we can. Finnish genes are 90% European. Lukas19 08:08, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Oh... I thought people had to be 100% white to be "white" (which you equate with European, don't you?) in your book. So being predominantly white is enough, right, Lukas? Just checking. I'm new to this. SamEV 08:56, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Also, now that it's clear that 90% is a pass, where do you draw the line? 80%? 70%? 50%? SamEV 09:04, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

How about Ali Montazeri or Khamenei? They are white, especially Khamenei. The Behnam 07:13, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

LOL. This is actually funny...I guess we'll continue with no pics of people and that means no pics of Henfy.Lukas19 07:20, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Everything was fine with Reese, pelosi, fox, etc....and now...Cali567 07:24, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

The arbitrary European favoritism (inexplicably excluding Ashkenazi Jews) does not manifest itself with selections of supposedly "exemplary" whites. The Behnam 07:27, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

???...I forgot to include Netanyahu...Fox is Mexican. It wasn't exactly "exemplary". Cali567 07:36, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

I mentioned Netanyahu because users such as Lukas19 have inexplicably resisted his inclusion as a white person. My attempts at including him appear to have been the 'last straw' that led Lukas to remove all of the pictures. I didn't mean to imply that you exclude Netanyahu, and I apologize for that implication. The thing is, even if his obvious "whiteness" is put aside, his Lithuanian ancestry matches even the 'Europeans-only' definition, so I really don't know why Lukas thinks he is only "barely" white. And I have yet to encounter a good explanation. The Behnam 07:44, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm, I don't think he can give you one. I think it's fine to add him, Who is the absolute judge of whiteness? nobody. Cali567 07:49, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

The lack of judge is, in a way, the principle behind removing the pictures, though I cannot help but note that it is strange to put Lukas' personal preference above significant sources & governments. I mean, the US & others would consider Netanyahu white; there is overall (aka not 'March of the Titans') little controversy that Ashkenazi Jews are white people. It is even sometimes used against them to claim that Israel, being predominantly Ashkenazi Jew in its makeup, is really a European colony! Lukas considers Ali Larijani "brown" and has alleged that Norwegians would consider King Abdullah "black". Who is more reliable, US & other groups, or Wikipedia User:Lukas19? The Behnam 08:00, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

And we can see the reliability of US definitions in Henfy's case. LMAO. Anyhow, there are bunch of sources in the article which says only Europeans are white (UK, Aus, Norway, Canada, etc...) History section has numerous sources which says Europeans and whites were interchangeable mostly. It's funny that you have forgotten to mention reliable sources "on my side". In this case, it'd be quite stupid to include non-Europeans among 4 or 5 pics. As for jews, they are not really European. [9] [10] [11] [12]. And you have put Netanyahu instead of Räikkönen. I think it'd be really stupid that we dont have a blond in white people article. 08:08, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Wasn't it you who said Fox isn't White? As a Mexican, he is not white? then you say "only European's are white" ???? Maybe the U.S. def.'s aren't the best, but yours stink too.Cali567 08:15, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

I havent said that. I'm not sure about him. When I say Europeans, I also refer to people of European ancestry. If Fox is of 75% Spanish and 25% German ancestry, he is white. But as you can read in the article, Hispanics usually represent a gradient of European, Amerindan and Black mix. Lukas19 08:20, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Haha, I'm not sure about that...Hispanic is not "made up" of these three races, nor should people think that. The Hispanic topic is far too intricate...Again, I'll say the term "usually" is ridiculous to use...maybe the majority is European/Amerindian, but all three? not sure about that. Cali567 08:31, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Also, isn't that under the U.S. article...I didn't know you followed that..Cali567 08:38, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

The logic in removing this picture is completely disconnected to a completely separate argument on posting pictures of 'exemplary' "white People." The argument on defining 'exemplary white people' (so unnecessarily replayed out under this heading in the discussion) does not effect cited and sourced information in subheadings of the article. This is a cited source. It is a reliable source. It is a verified source. It is dealing with a specific person for a specific issue related to the United States classification of "white people." The argument to break various wikipedia rules due to an unrelated argument is wrong. Wood345 19:22, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

I would like to also add that the arbitrariness in finding 'exemplary white people' pictures does not apply to this pic. Under the U.S. government (the subheading under which the picture is labeled) this man is clearly classified as white. The arbitrary distinctions of what is a good example, therefore, do not apply at all. The only reason posted to remove the picture is in regards to a completely separate issue concerning what can be classified as white. Hefny, under the U.S. government is white. Wood345 19:32, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

And the text makes his case clear. Adding his pics as the only "white person" in the article and in the US subsection would be extremely stupid. Lukas19 19:48, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Moving the discussion of 'exemplary white people' pictures here, again, is non-sequitir. This issue is regarding the Hefny pic, and a desire to delete this picture because a consensus could not be reached on that unrelated issue has no effect on WP:RS, WP:V, etc. It seems the only problems regarding this picture revolve around the unrelated issue of 'exemplary white people' pictures. This picture does not suffer from the complaints related to that issue. It is not arbitrary, it discusses a specific person who is categorized as white under the governing body and institution listed in the article subheading - United States / Census. This is cited by a reliable and verified source. If you feel there is a problem concerning the issue of 'exemplary white people' pictures, that discussion should be placed in its appropriate subheading.Wood345 21:27, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

I suggest you to look up Non sequitur and/or examine your logic when you assess the relationships between issues. If Hefny's pic would be the only pic, he'd be the "exemplary white person". And while his case is sourced, it is your subjective judgement that his pic should be included among other people also classified as white by United States / Census in that particular section. Lukas19 21:50, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

"White" is, to a large degree, a social construct. Whether or not Ashkenazi Jews (or Sephardi Jews for that matter) are "white" cannot be decided by any scientific means. You certainly shouldn't put any pictures in the article of people who are "white" unless reliable sources say they are white, and I'd avoid it all together with living people regardless of what the sources say. Jayjg ^(talk) 02:30, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

I suggest you to look up Non sequitur and/or examine your logic when you assess the relationships between issues. Let's refrain from the patronization and keep this civil. I've made the distinction between these two unrelated arguments repeatedly. This sub-heading is for Mustafa Hefny, not a discussion of exemplary white people pictures. A lack of consensus on who might represent a good example of a white person does not affect specific people mentioned by name in the article who listed as white by the corresponding subheading and mentioned as such through WP:RS. living people is another issue entirely. The picture is used in the exact same context of the CNN article, so I don't see a conflict here. However, if there is a breach of any Wiki rule, it should be removed.

it is your subjective judgement that his pic should be included among other people also classified as white by United States. Its not my fault this is the only person named specifically in the article. Please feel free to add to the article more specifically named people who are clearly categorized as white by a government or other reliable sources. Adding reliably sourced information in this manner is the way to add pictures of "white people" as this is a social construct (Jayjg) and not something to be defined scientifically. In other words, to define 'exemplary white people' is to use these corresponding social institutions. It would be interesting to see the differences on how this is defined globally and it would contribute to the quality of the article.Wood345 05:35, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

The US classifies 215,333,394 people as white. So we can add at least thousands of pics into this article, just by using US definition. And there is no source, as far as I know, which says what pics should be used in a white people article. For this reason and the fact that we cant add thousands of pics into this article, we have to reach a consensus among ourselves. And we cant. So you cant add Henfy pic. While you have made the distinction between this section and other sections in talk page, you havent made a distinction about sections in the article. In other words, you are gonna put Henfy under US subsection and you havent sourced why Henfy's pic should be included while thousands of others wont.

Also, if you read the article, you'll see that social construct theory isnt supported by everyone so that course of action wont be WP:NPOV. Lukas19 05:47, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Using an appeal to adverse consequences of flooding the article with 200 million examples ignores the very clear relevance of the Hefny article in elucidating a particular point through a source discussing a relevant point to the 'United States' subheading where millions of other random examples unconnected to relevant WP:RS sources will not. In other words, there will not be millions of articles like the one about Hefny. Furthermore, the problem of consensus, as repeatedly stated involves the non-sequitir issue of an exemplar of 'white people.' This issue of connecting Hefny to the 'exemplary white people' picture issue is non-sequitir because the Hefny picture is, unlike the other issue, dealing with a specific person mentioned in the article cited by a reliable source and used in the exact same context as in the article (see this argument repeated and elaborated on above). The source you are looking for when you say what pictures should be used in a white people article can be found in wikipedias own rules of what sources are used. This picture meets those requirements, and this picture does not fall under the unrelated argument of 'exemplary white people' as stated above. The only concern on this seems to be regarding WP:BLP, and Ive posted my points about this above.

Please stay on topic as this is an issue of Hefny and not part of the unrelated issue of 'exemplary white people.' Also, regarding you haven't sourced why Henfy's picture should be included while thousands of others wont I don't have a problem with other pictures - as long as they fit within the guidelines given by wikipedia and add to the article. While there wont be 'hundreds of millions of these examples,' there should be others; and for other nations as well. Noting that demarcations of clinal human variation as socially constructed have been part and parcel of the academic mainstream for nearly 100 years. It would be interesting to flesh the differences between what different social constructions of 'white people' exist and use appropriately cited examples to illuminate the points therein.Wood345 07:24, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

The problem is, as I've tried to tell you repeatedly, but you have failed to understand, that there are too many pictures which fits Wikipedia's rules and can be included here "legally" so it is us who have to decide which picture will be put. And we cant reach such a decision. And there is no Wiki rules about what pictures should be used in a white people article. There are only rules about what pictures CAN be used (and there must be at least thousands).

And while Hefny's case deals with a specific issue, it'll be POV to just include him while excluding others and that's currently the case, whether you think it's relevant or not.

Looking at the copyrigh of Hefny's pic, all this discussion has been redundant. It's not a fair use image. Lukas19 17:38, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm away from home and youre misreading various things above. We need to arbitrate. Also, if the fair use issue is valid, then the picture must go. However, I am completely unable to check to see if that is true or not. I would appreciate it if you would please set up an arbitration and keep the context within the hefny picture. Thanks (cannot preview here, excuse any mispellings)Wood345 14:19, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Definitely fair use. I'm going to restore it; there is no consensus for your removal and it is critical to illustrating the significant example used in discussing the controversial US classifications. The Behnam 18:09, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

There is no consensus for your inclusion neither. And it currently violates WP:NPOV. If we show only controversial examples of US Census without showing non-controversial ones, that would be biased/POV. There is also issue of undue weight. US Census classifies all people with European origins as white. 60.7% of Americans have European origins. 74.7% of Americans are white by US definition. That means 81% of whites in USA have European origins. ((60.7/74.7)*100). So to include a Mid Easterner, we have to include 8 Europeans first. Lukas19 18:59, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

You seem to misunderstand the reason behind including this picture. The picture is used not to depict 'a white person from the US'; otherwise there are many different people we could use. Rather, the picture is used to illustrate the US controversy discussion, which uses the significant example of Mustafa, who actually is suing the government over the issue. Letting the reader see for himself is one of the benefits of including the picture. This misunderstanding aside, I cannot imagine why you consider this picture detrimental to the page; in no way are we trying to say that he is the standard white man. His pic illustrates his example by giving readers a better picture (no pun intended) of the situation. The Behnam 19:10, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

You seem to be edit warring. There is no consensus for you to add that picture neither. I have removed the parts I added which were being questioned. I note that you havent done the same thing. It's detrimental to the page because it violates WP:NPOV and no undue weight as explained, and because his pic is the ONLY pic of a person in the article. His pic can also be seen right at the lead if you use pop-ups. Lukas19 19:37, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't use popups and I don't most of the general readers do either, but anyway, I'm not seeing what is POV about having his picture to illustrate his example. Also, there is no 'undue weight' on his picture; he happens to be the only notable example of a challenger to the US classification system and so he deserves mention. What is the POV? What are we putting too much weight on? Can you explain why you object to this picture? I'd prefer if your response shows that you have an understanding of what I have already written, or else I'll feel like you aren't hearing me. As I said before, "I cannot imagine why you consider this picture detrimental to the page." Also, Stevertigo, I would like your opinion on this matter. Thanks. The Behnam 21:02, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Read above. Lukas19 21:37, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm doubtful the pic qualifies under fair use. It's my understanding media photos can't generally be used unless their iconic which this one isn't Nil Einne 07:42, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

It illustrates the part about US race classification, specifically the Mustafa example. While I don't know exactly what the uploader thought, a quick glance at the fair use page suggests that this is the most relevant qualification, "The material must contribute significantly to the article (e.g. identify the subject of an article, or specifically illustrate relevant points or sections within the text) and must not serve a purely decorative purpose." Considering that his appearance is part of the issue it illustrates the example well. The Behnam 17:16, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Simple question, Lukas: How white is white?

It's unfortunate that you missed my question, which I posted above. (I know, it's crowded up there, so it's easy to miss it...) Anywho, I'll post it down here. You wrote: "Finnish genes are 90% European." Your position is that that makes them European=white. Would you be so kind as to answer my simple question about where you draw the line between white and non-white? Would Finns, for instance, not be Europeans if their genes were only 65% European? SamEV 02:58, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

My lines are irrelevant as this is not a discussion board. So my answer is whatever you want it to be. Lukas19 05:51, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Well of course they're irrelevant, Lukas. Problem is, you say it but you don't seem to accept it. Still, I was specifically asking for your own views, which you've chosen to make very relevant in this article, at least in my judgment, if not also Carwil's, LSLM's and others'. But you've chosen to dodge. Noted. SamEV 06:06, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Of course my opinions are relevant to me but they are none of your bussiness. Lukas19 06:16, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

You cannot be genetically white based on y-chromosome or mtdna haplogroups or autosmal dna. That is a ludicrous idea that you can because someone who's mother's father is African and who's father's mother is African with the rest of their grand parents being white will appear mixed race (half black half white) and have 100% European dna based on y-chromosome and mtdna. The Welsh and the Irish are pretty identical on both y-chromosome and mtdna yet both nations people look very different to each other with most welsh people having dark hair and dark eyes and having an almost Mediterranean appearance, most Irish people have brown hair, blue eyes and pale skin.

It is also well known that phenotypes correlate INDIRECTLY with haplotypes, so if a population has shares the same proportion of certain haplotypes with another population there is no reason that they must look very similar.

A haplotype is a waste piece of genetic material, it has no known function and does not affect phenotype (physical appearance). Obviously groups with recent ancestry are likely to share phenotypes and haplotypes but the longer the groups stay separated and experience low population sizes the higher the probability that new and different phenotypes will appear in different ratios to each other between the populations and also new haplotypes.

Having a haplotype that originated in Europe does not make you white as your phenotype could come from else where (like the middle east). To assume that all European indigenous haplotypes are responsible for white appearance is a ludicrous and ill thought idea. --Globe01 17:03, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, but don't confuse individuals with populations. SamEV 02:54, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Edit war again.

I am again in an edit war with user Lukas. He seems to have problems with virtually everyone here, pushing his point of view. We seem to have two choices, either give in to him or engage in edit wars with him. Look at him again. Veritas. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 65.3.245.190 (talk) 20:11, 10 March 2007 (UTC).

The study Lukas wants does not explicitly cite this haplotype information as having anything to do with whiteness; it is being used as part of an original synthesis chain. First you put weight on the "white=european" claim, then you connect it to "european associated with certain haplotype", then mention "certain haplotype found in Baltic region". The POV push of these OR violations is "white=Baltic". Of course this OR is unacceptable, so please refrain Lukas. I'll give you credit for being less direct about the push than DarkTea was but the sequence is nonetheless unacceptable OR. The Behnam 20:30, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Nowhere in the study there is a claim "white=Baltic". Therefore there is no OR violation. Please do not delete sourced material solely based on your interpretation of the sourced information. If you want to challenge your imaginary "chain", add counter arguments and/or more data, not delete information. Your deletion of information may be considered vandalism as well as promotion of YOUR OWN POV. Lukas19 20:36, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

I said "Baltic" because the study referred to the area around Scandinavia. It definitely did refer to Scandinavia area. Anyway, there is no reason to mention this study since it does not purport to talk about whiteness. You need to address the OR chain. Thanks. The Behnam 20:38, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

1) Which study?

2) Why is this info irrelevant? Lukas19 20:43, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

I think you need to make a case for why the info is relevant Lucas, rather than the other way around. -Stevertigo 11:56, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Oh, I thought that was obvious, since we already have a sub-section on Y Haplogroups. If that info was irrelevant, then why havent these people objected to the existance of Y Halogroups sub section before? But let me start from beginning. Throughout the article (especially "History of the term", Australia, Canada, Norway and UK sections and in the lead), there are various references as to the terms white and Europeans are either same or almost same. Therefore Physiology and genetics section gives info about Europeans and this info is directly related to this article. And "Y chromosome markers" talks about Y chromosomes. Two most widespread Y chromosomes in European people are "R" and "I". R's subclades are mentioned in the text and shown in the map while "I" hasnt been explained. So there is an inconsistency here. And especially after LSLM's misinformation attempt: "reaching the highest frequencies in southeastern Europe." [13], I thought clarification was needed so I have added this:

"Each haplogroup also have subclades. ^[15] R1a and R1b are subclades of Haplogroup R (Y-DNA) ^[16] Two main subgroups of Haplogroup I (Y-DNA) are I-M253/I-M307/I-P30/I-P40 which has highest frequency in Scandinavia, Iceland, and northwest Europe. The other is I-S31 which includes I-P37.2, which is the most common form in the Balkans and Sardinia, and I-S23/I-S30/I-S32/I-S33, which reaches its highest frequency along the northwest coast of continental Europe.^[17]"

I do not understand how come this was irrelevant. Lukas19 23:22, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

The thing is that user Lukas erased a lot of information in the genetic section claiming it was summarizing. Now that he got rid of a lot of information he is coming back to add what suits his POV only. By the way, sometimes I sign in and others do not. Still, anyone can see which is my IP address. Veritas et Severitas 15:51, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

I'd hate to agree with a statement like that, even if its true, as Lucas is obviously young and under some typically young misconceptions - both about the topic and how Wikipedia should conform to certain views. By not being more conversational with me, Lucas of course makes it easy to agree with your interpretation. I dont think Arbitration is in order, as there is yet no example of incivil behaviour. But I will say that whatever changes he has made should be reversed, and any changes he wants to make to the article will need to be proposed here. At least for now. This will of course bring his issues to the table here and we can sort of hash them out one by one.

That said, I dont find Benham's arguments or methods very coherent or understandable either. I would ask that people be clear as possible, as I am not very familiar with actual focus of these debates.

-Stevertigo 23:05, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

How could I have been more conversational when I was blocked for violation of 3RR rule? Since we are now talking about editors and not just about the text, you should also know about LSLM's history, see: Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/LSLM. You should also note the context of Benham's actions. After LSLM's edits: [14], [15], [16] , he has made the following comments: [17]. The part about making "Neo-Nazis POV promotion too stressful" and the time of his comments which were right after LSLM's comments about me and the location of his comments (LSLM's page) weakened my assumption of good faith on his actions yesterday. Lukas19 23:22, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

I can only cite paranoia as your reasoning. My comment had no relation to those edits. And I don't know what you are worrying about; you aren't a Neo-Nazi POV promoter are you? In any case it shouldn't affect your AGF since opposing POV pushers is a good thing on WP. I suggest that you stop worrying and stop accusing unless you can provide real evidence. Until then stop smearing me. Thanks. The Behnam 00:02, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

See WP:NPA and WP:CIVIL. "I can only cite paranoia as your reasoning" is unacceptable. Lukas19 00:06, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps you should make a real case & provide a real response before you accuse me (or as you disguise it "weakened my assumption") of bad faith. Please see WP:AGF, but also provide a real response as to your claim about me. Thanks. The Behnam 00:23, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Do not call anyone "Neo-Nazi POV pusher". Thats a WP:NPA violation itself, whether it was about me or not. Lukas19 00:32, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Actually, a comment does need to be directed at a certain contributor to be a personal attack. Please read WP:NPA more carefully, as my comment about "Neo-Nazi POV promoters" was not directed at any specific editor, but rather about those POV promoters in general. Heck, it wasn't even about WP necessarily. So please retract your nonsense accusation, thanks. The Behnam 00:45, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Benham, I dislike your argumentative approach here. While I am mediating try to address your comments to me, rather than to Lukas, with whom you only seem to disagree. That will help me understanding whats going on and I dont have to read lots of nonsensical bickering. Thanks. -Stevertigo 04:23, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

PS: Lukas I suggest you do likewise: Ignore any personal comments, address only the issues, and address your comments to me rather than to your opponents. Thanks. -Stevertigo 04:24, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Now that we are meditating this, can people delete their controversial additions? Namely,

1) Pic of African man (See the debate in Talk:White_people#Mustafa_Hefny_Pic 2) Restore the original wording of the source which is:

“

Haplogroup R1b is common on the western Atlantic coast as far as Scotland. Haplogroup I is common across central Europe and up into Scandinavia. Haplogroup R1a is common in eastern Europe and has also spread across into central Asia and as far as India and Pakistan.[18] [19]

”

As opposed to the edits here [18] Lukas19 02:32, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

If there is no response to this by tomorrow, I'm gonna restore the original wording of the source (2) and hence delete the unsourced POV pushing by LSLM which is "reaching the highest frequencies in southeastern Europe." I'm also gonna add the following:

"Each haplogroup also have subclades. [22] R1a and R1b are subclades of Haplogroup R (Y-DNA) [23] Two main subgroups of Haplogroup I (Y-DNA) are I-M253/I-M307/I-P30/I-P40 which has highest frequency in Scandinavia, Iceland, and northwest Europe. The other is I-S31 which includes I-P37.2, which is the most common form in the Balkans and Sardinia, and I-S23/I-S30/I-S32/I-S33, which reaches its highest frequency along the northwest coast of continental Europe.[24]" for the above explained reasons. Lukas19 15:05, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Please do not add more information that is not about "white people" according to its source. Thanks. The Behnam 15:17, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

We had this debate below. It is your personal opinion that this info is not about white people. Your personal opinions are irrelevant. Lukas19 15:23, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Stevertigo, Lukas19 is either building a straw man or completely missing the point. I am simply abiding by WP:NOR by insisting that the sources used are about "white people." I refer specifically to the bolded parts of the policy that insist upon the source publishing its claims in relation to the topic of the article. Hence, the source must be talking about white people. Please communicate this to Lukas19 in a way that he can understand, because I don't know how many new ways I can repeat myself. There is only a certain range of accommodation that I am capable of. Thanks. The Behnam 15:28, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Can you not read below? Lukas19 15:32, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

The argument I was referring to is now bolded. Hopefully, that might aid a bit with your continous incomprehension of the policy and my arguments. Lukas19 15:38, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Stevertigo, please do something. Lukas19 is being uncivil, in addition to apparently not reading the bulleted points at WP:NOR mentioning that the sources must relate themselves to the subject of the article. Hence, the sources must talk about "white people", not a WP editor taking the information in these sources about genetics and applying it to the "white people" article on his own. Please help soon, thanks. The Behnam 15:48, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Ok. Since noone but Benham objected to this, I have added the info I was talking about. Benham only objected on the grounds of OR but Stevertigo has disagreed with him two times now. Lukas19 01:59, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Objection. You asked Stevertigo below to deal with this section, and he said ~ 'one thing at a time please'. Hence, he hasn't shown up here yet. I asked him to take a look above. You can't act until he explicitly takes a look at these developments and has his say. Your anti-consensus edit will be reverted, of course. The Behnam 02:05, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Behnam's view

OK. Basically, nothing should be included unless the source itself explicitly associates itself with "white people." The problem I am seeing is that a source will be used to associate white people with Europeans. Next, a different source will associate Europeans with haplotype groups. Then those haplotype groups will be associated with a certain region or part of Europe to the effect of advancing the claim that "white people" derive from that region. Do you see what I mean Steve? This kind of synthesis is OR. I recommend that we sift through the article and remove claims that aren't explicitly associated with "white people" in the source. I expect that this will make the article much shorter and that this will be appropriate since the topic is a broad & ill-defined topic anyway. Too much emphasis is being placed on the European identification and this is being supported by a chain of citations that aren't about "white people" according to their sources. This OR should be removed.

Most of the problem seems to be located in White people#Physiology and genetics. The Behnam 23:58, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

White usually means European. This is clear in the lead and "History of the term", Australia, Canada, Norway and UK sections. Ex:

• "In basic English usage, white people (also whites or white race) relates "to a human group having light-coloured skin, especially of European ancestry."[1]"
• "Whiteness, then, emerged as what we now call a "pan-ethnic" category, as a way of merging a variety of European ethnic populations into a single "race""
• "In 1758, Swedish botanist, physician and zoologist Carolus Linnaeus divided humankind into four, main races loosely based on geographic distribution: europeaus, the white race;"
• "Morgan Godwyn, found it necessary to explain to the English at home that, in Barbados, 'white' was 'the general name for Europeans."
• "From the late 19th century through 1973, the Government of Australia restricted all permanent immigration to the country by non-Europeans under the White Australia policy,"
• "In the UK white usually refers only to people of European origin."
• "After Norwegians, Sami, Kvens and other Nordics, it is mentioned as white/European."
• And more...

The only exception to this is the legal US definition which includes Mid Easterns and North Africans. Therefore, I think it'd be really silly if we were to remove any info about Europeans since info about Europeans is directly relevant to this article for the sourced reasons. What would be an NOR violation would be if we actually said, "due to sources A and B, white people derive from X region." But this is not the case. Lukas19 00:17, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

That is fine for detailing how various countries define white. But much of the genetic information isn't actually about "white people", it is about European genetics. If the sources don't carry the association, don't make the association. The Behnam 00:20, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Other sources carry the association. However we are not synthesising arguments based on multiple sources. That would be violation of NOR. What we are doing is adding relevant information. And the relevancy is sourced. Lukas19 00:30, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

If you are using "other sources" to "carry the association" you are committing OR. The sources themselves must associate to "white people." Please stop. Thanks. The Behnam 00:46, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Ok. Refer to WP:A#No_original_research. The part we are talking about is this:

introduces an analysis, synthesis, explanation, or interpretation of published facts, opinions, or arguments without attributing that analysis, synthesis, explanation, or interpretation to a reliable source who has published the material in relation to the topic of the article

Do we have any analysis, synthesis, explanation, or interpretation of published facts, opinions, or arguments? No. We have arguments A and arguments B. There is no C synthesis. There is nothing such as "due to sources A and B, white people derive from X region." Therfore WP:NOR is not the policy you are looking for. You are just disputing the relevancy of data. This is your personal opinion. Do not add personal opinions to Wikipedia, see WP:NPOV. The relevancy of the data has been sourced. Lukas19 00:55, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Im inclined to agree with Lucas on this one, provided his statements are represented as a list (as they are here), and the purpose of which is to represent the diversity of views on "whiteness" - not selecting examples which exclusively correlate with "Europeanness." Its an issue of a semantic connection (not a "genetic" one, Lucas) between two words which have some relationship but one that differs by source. It would be interesting to know how the US and UK for example differ on the meaning of the term. -Stevertigo 01:15, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps this is more an issue of undue weight, but I believe OR is still a threat. Extensive information is being provided as background for the "European=White" model. Also, it discusses the 'haplotype' genetic property, which while related to European genetics, is not necessarily related to the 'white' aspect of European genetics. This is what I mean when I say that the sources do not explicitly associate the genetic information with "whiteness." This association should not be made in this article as it is not made in the sources. The Behnam 01:43, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

I think the suggestions that non-Europeans are white is the minority opinion here. By Europeans, I mean people of predominantly European ancestry, not citizens of European countries. And there is no claim that those haplogroups are "white haplogroups". We are giving info about the genetics of Europeans and that info is relevant to the article for the explained reasons. The info is actually small, with the main article being Genetic history of Europe. Genetic history of Europe has lots of room for improvement, so you may appreciate the summary quality here when that article reaches its full potential. Lukas19 02:04, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

I think Lukas just wants language that says, for the most part white = caucasian and to some extent = European. Just as a semantic statement this doesnt seem improper -Stevertigo 04:48, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

That's not what he says, he says I think the suggestions that non-Europeans are white is the minority opinion here. By Europeans, I mean people of predominantly European ancestry, not citizens of European countries. But this is his opinion of what constitutes a minority here. It's clear that in the USA plenty of people who are not of predominantly European descent (whatever that actually means, surely what we mean is people who are perceived/identify/claim to have a majority (or predominantly if you prefer, though predominantly is less specific than majority) and people who are accepted as "white" by others ("White people") and percieved as "White" by other non-white people, it's about perception, not biology/genetics/descent because most of us have absolutelly no idea about our descent farther back than a few generations) are considered "White people". I personally know two US citizens, both women, both of who have at most only 50% European descent (one has less than 50% European descent) who most certainly are considered "White" in the USA. But the point is, surelly, that we do not work by what Lukas thinks is the the minorty opinion, surely the point is that we work by consensus, consensus surely means a solution that is acceptable to everyone. Lukas's opinion of what the majority think is neither an actual representation of the majority (for that we need a vote), and neither does it represent the consensus (for that we need a supermajority). Lukas wants this article to say, that white people are only European, and that people who are not from Europe are never "White". This is firstly untrue and secondly very POV. Lukas has also redirected "Caucasian people" to this article, for some reason known only to himself. Alun 18:00, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Do not clarify my points for me, especially when you dont understand them. When I said minority, I said it based on the article's representation of world views. Only sections that mention non-Europeans are Brazil and USA. And official US definition and informal perception seem to differ.

I haven't clarified anything, I have quoted you. This is exactly what you say. How can me quoting you be a clarificartion? And don't tell me what I do or do not understand, how can you possibly know what I do or do not unbderstand? Remain civil please. Alun 06:27, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

The page was moved to Caucasian people so I moved it back. That's how the page was redirected.

The "Caucasian people" page was redirected to "White people" by you. I have no idea why you did this, I can find no consensus for it. If Caucasian people redirects here, then why not "English people" or "French people"? Caucasian people are the people of the Caucusus, just as "English people" are the people of England. Alun 06:27, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

And I've never said that I want this article to say: "white people are only European". If you want to interpret what I say based on your limited understanding of my views, keep that interpretation to yourself. Lukas19 23:58, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Indeed you have stated above that I think the suggestions that non-Europeans are white is the minority opinion here. Do you accept that many people without European ancestry are "White" then? Do you think you can answer a direct question? Let's see. Alun 06:27, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Mediation again

This proposed text was on the Mediation ticket:

"The population of people classified as white has a predominant European ancestry, along with substantial ancestry from other continents. Both maternal and paternal lines among white people trace to European as well as non-European lines."

I think its just poorly written. Perhaps the author is trying to state some correlation between whiteness and European-ness, but this correlation is semantic, and has too many caveats to state it in an oblique way. Hence the clumsy additional clause "along with substantial ancestry from other continents." -Stevertigo 11:56, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

There is nothing wrong with using genetics in this article but to add in your own POV on how white a population is due to its haplotypes is wrong and incorrect. Genetics do not really have a place in this article apart from extra info but have nothing to do with whiteness, equally europeaness either. --Globe01 12:45, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

I would agree with that on the surface, except to say that after all that can be said about "whiteness" is said, and after any distinctions between "whiteness" and "europeaness"[sic] have been said, it might be appropriate to go wading a little into genetics. Of course "wading" would naturally mean keeping it short and including only the most widely accepted research. Linking (with a little context of course) to articles like race and genetics (hey, there is one!) is not inappropriate. Making or elevating the importance of unqualified statements about "how white a population is" is of course not appropriate. -Stevertigo 23:15, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

My objections to that text was because it made it sound like ALL white people have "predominant European ancestry, along with substantial ancestry from other continents". This is unsourced. While this may be true for some people, it may not be true for every white since some of us may have 100% European ancestry.

And if the information which is being tried to be given here is that some white people may not have full European ancestry, it's already in the article. Look to "Genetic Studies" under US section: "A National Human Genome Research Institute study stated, "In a survey of college students who self-identified as 'white' in a northeastern U.S. university, around 30% were estimated to have less than 90% European ancestry." So this text is redundant at best, misleading and POV at worst. Lukas19 23:32, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

The problem with that view is that "European" itself is not well defined. Does "European" include Slavs? (Russians) Turks? The term "Aryan" itself, though used in a racist sense, refers to people of Iran - whom are generally called "Persians" - a term inherited from the Persian Empire. So if one extreme and highly subjective concept of "whiteness" originates with people who are mostly tan/brown non-European (former Zoroastrians and now Muslims), what meaning does "European" really have beyond the sense that indicates residence or place of origin? Clearly we can say that historically, white skin color carried some connotation of Europe as a place of ancestral origin. But its again subjective, based on some time boundaries for ancestry (it does not include going all the way back to Africa for example) and some general boundaries for "European". The best way to do it is to look at it as a historical connotation, and in that context its a good idea Lucas to trace how this connotation has changed over the years. Its semantics - word and their ever-changing relationship with meaning. -Stevertigo 01:29, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

My original suggestion was not to include anything of this sort. So you do not need to tell me the vagueness of the concepts. So I ask Carwil to tell us what info he is trying to give with that text. Maybe we can work on from there. Lukas19 02:28, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree that Carwil needs to participate in this discussion. But perhaps you could also list your own issues. What points do you want to include?

What do you mean "not to include anything of this sort?" Anytime there is ambiguity, there needs to be some explanation. This includes whether you look at an issue as one of language, belief, or science, (and all the varied interpretations inbetween) etc.

-Stevertigo 04:18, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

I inserted some version of this text because we need to connect "white people" as a page to the succeeding text on genetics. In my honest opinion, the genetic material is primarily here to add material weight to the POV idea that whiteness can be biologically defined. However, assuming that we are to have the genetic material (a merge proposal I put forward produced no conclusion on talk), and given that the bulk of material is not about white people as such, but about Europeans, there must be some explanation that "Europeans" and "white people" are not identical.

The actual work being done on ancestral genetics is overwhelmingly uninterested in these questions of current racial identification, but rather with uncovering ancient population movements. As such, they focus on identifiable, long-term local populations, or ones whose ancestry is clearly traceable for the past 300-500 years. This largely leaves out the many-origined 'white' populations of the Americas, who all have European ancestors, with many also having non-European ancestors. Substituting a section on the Genetic history of Europe for the genetic characteristics of these people is just not accurate. It definitely needs a preface.

I agree that the sentence needs work, but the content heavy sentences have been deleted by Lukas (see Reversion fiesta, above). At least the first could aid in clarifying. If we try to clarify (and shrink my text above and add the first Templeton quote we have:

White people trace their ancestry, genetic material and maternal and paternal lineage, primarily to Europe, but also to other continents. In an analysis of molecular genetic data, biologist Alan R. Templeton found "all of the genetic evidence shows that there never was a split or separation of the 'races' or between Africans and Eurasians. Recent human evolution has been characterized by both population range expansions … and recurrent genetic interchange."^[20]

Lukas' objection that "it made it sound like ALL white people have 'predominant European ancestry, along with substantial ancestry from other continents'. This is unsourced." is sound, as far as I'm concerned (and as I've conceded in talk before). The problem is how to say what we're both saying about ancestry so it's clear to both.

If it were up to me, I would essentially conclude the above then link to various genetic history pages. Lukas, if you could present a case for inclusion of this quite extensive material, that would be helpful. But regardless, some clarification of the relationship white people/European genetics seems essential.--Carwil 05:19, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Starting a statement "white people trace..." is a huge problem. I find myself agreeing with Benham that tying two subjectives together may be tantamount to OR. Consider that "white people" isn't a term of self-identification as much as it is a relativistic description of a characteristic common to people of Europeans ancestry. The term "white" doesnt have much meaning in areas that are racially homogenous, or else outside of an environment where different racial characteristics are represented. In certain cases where those who do identify themselves as "white people" to indicate an ethnic meaning (one that generally dismisses many cultural differences among Europeans) it carries certain controversial political connotation and meaning. The "but also to other continents", again, is clumsy. Of course I think its valid to state the issue as one focusing on migrations rather than "splits". -Stevertigo 07:40, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

"we need to connect "white people" as a page to the succeeding text on genetics". This is unneccessary. Readers will see the connection if they read the article.

"some explanation that "Europeans" and "white people" are not identical": It was already pointed out in many sections. Read Brazil and USA sections. (ex: "That publication defines whites as people with origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa.") So readers will know this. You do not need to make all the inferences.

"Substituting a section on the Genetic history of Europe for the genetic characteristics of these people is just not accurate". Again the genetic history of Europe is central to white genetics due to closeness of the terms. It may not be all but it's central and hence should be in the article.

About Templeton quote: By all means you may add it but it'll lengthen the article since I'm gonna add counter arguments. See the length of Race and genetics. By adding just Templeton you wont be NPOV. Maybe you can find a way of a NPOV summary of Race and genetics.

"Lukas, if you could present a case for inclusion of this quite extensive material": I disagree that it's "quite extensive". But I may shorten it more. As for the case, this is an X people article. Browse around Wikipedia and you'll see that genetics is included in many of them. We have a huge section just dealing with sociological side and it'd be quite stupid and POV to ignore biological side.

In conclusion, I still do not see the need for this text. Lukas19 14:40, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

We can take a vote, and abide by that. Id like to hear responses to Lukas' points. I would suggest, Lukas, that you dont simply assert your view on editorial matters as fact. What the article does or doesnt need is figured out by consensus, right?

-Stevertigo 10:43, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Only if the consensus abide by WP:NPOV and WP:V. Lukas19 16:31, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Again, Lukas with your conditions and lack of WP:AGF! Some of us are very familiar with how NPOV works, so chill out. -Stevertigo 00:44, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

He doesn't appear to have many points beyond his own opinion about relevance. Much of the genetic information is not appropriate on this page because the sources do not associate their genetic studies with "white people." It is original research on Lukas19's part to make this association. The hidden "C" argument is that this information is even related to "white people" as it is being included in the "white people" article, which by WP designation should only include information about the concept of "white people." If the information is not directly related to this concept by the sources, it should not be included. For all we know, the researchers behind these studies may not even believe in the concept of white people. As WP:NOR says, "The only way to demonstrate that material is not original research is to cite reliable sources that provide information directly related to the topic of the article, and to adhere to what those sources say." The Behnam 15:50, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Benham, while I agree that there is some need to be clear and specific, I find the issue to be largely one of semantics, in which case your view that some strict delineation, based simply on the terminology, is somewhat inappropriate. -Stevertigo 00:44, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

"Related to" does not mean having the same name. By your "logic", we wouldnt be able to include a source which mentions only trees in the forest article. Stevertigo, will you deal with "edit war again" section in talk page? Lukas19 16:31, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Stick with one thing at a time Lukas. -Stevertigo 00:44, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Stevertigo replied to me with concerns about OR (which I share in part). The problem remains that we need to set off (that's what I meant by connect, Lukas, to show how they are related but not the same) research on Europeans from that on white people. Benham and Globe01 seem to be suggesting that we not connect them at all, and leave the section out. As I've suggested before, this is fine with me, but the genetic material has clear advocates. I think a paragraph and a link would be ideal (per Stevertigo's suggestion), and I don't want to create OR in crafting it. The following sentences seem to avoid that. Do they survive all policy concerns?

1. The descendants of Europeans include millions of those not identified as white people, including many African Americans, Native peoples of the Americas, Mestizos, Filipinos, and all "Coloured people" in South Africa.
2. Both maternal and paternal lines of white people trace to European as well as non-European ancestors.
3. In an analysis of molecular genetic data, biologist Alan R. Templeton found "all of the genetic evidence shows that there never was a split or separation of the 'races' or between Africans and Eurasians. Recent human evolution has been characterized by both population range expansions … and recurrent genetic interchange."^[21]

Lukas' concern about the last quote (that Templeton has a POV debated on race and genetics), is all well and good for that page. But here Templeton is saying that white people are not genetically separate from other groups, and that Europeans have interchanged genetic material with Africans. This is a conclusion Templeton is making based on data, and I have yet to see any sources disputing it.--Carwil 19:21, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

I think it would be best to not be afraid of OR, if such explanation is agreable to all (or most) and summarises whats actually out there. Someone might cry NOR/synthesis, but summarization is quite different from synthesis. Statements 1 and 2 dont really seem to say much. I think the point of 3 is to distinguish, the difference between racial and genetic differences, as the two terms are used. 20000 yeas may seem like a lot, but its really negligible in terms of genetic time. And because any talk of "splits" is referring to relatively recent events, its unwise to use the language of "genetics" for discussing a matter of "race." I think that's the gist. There are of course people who think that a lot has happened in those 20000 years which affects things like race and intelligence, etc. etc. but they are a fringe view. Its fine to refer to these views, but as long as they are characterised as fringe. -Stevertigo 00:44, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

To paste what I posted at the WP:NOR talk page:

From WP:NOR ... "The only way to demonstrate that material is not original research is to cite reliable sources that provide information directly related to the topic of the article, and to adhere to what those sources say." The genetic studies Lukas19 is trying to add weren't about white people, or even used to bolster the 'genetic' view of white people. But Lukas19 is using them to add to the 'genetics' view. Hence, OR. The Behnam 02:15, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Well that's your opinion on NOR. What's your opinion about the merge of caucasian race to here? -Stevertigo 04:48, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Basicaly Race and genetics boils down to this. There are similarities but there are also differences. Templeton's quote here just mention the "differences side". So how about this?

In an analysis of molecular genetic data, biologist Alan R. Templeton found "all of the genetic evidence shows that there never was a split or separation of the 'races' or between Africans and Eurasians. Recent human evolution has been characterized by both population range expansions … and recurrent genetic interchange."^[22] Nevertheless it has been observed that when individual genomes are clustered solely by genetic similarity, individuals sort into broad clusters that correspond to large geographic regions. ^[23]

This is possible because individuals from geographically proximate regions share much more recent common ancestry with each other than they do with individuals from geographically disparate regions, with the result that they are likely to be genetically more similar, therefore close geographical proximity strongly correlates with genetic similarity.^[24][10]

However, Some individuals from boundary locations between these regions were inferred to have partial ancestry in the clusters that corresponded to both sides of the boundary. ^[23], consistent with claimed clinal nature of human genetic variation. Also, In many cases, subclusters that corresponded to individual populations or to subsets of populations were also identified. ^[23]

About the "connection sentence", how about: "According to most definitions, the population described as white is compromised of individuals with full or predominantly European ancestry. Some whites may have a degree of non-European ancestry while people with mostly non-European ancestry arent usually regarded as white by most definitions, even if they have a degree of European ancestry." ? I think the last sentence is redundant because "predominantly European" already suggests that.

I know these are long sentences but not every article in Wiki needs to be short. Lukas19 05:58, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Found an article that hopefully will contribute. Will paste the first few paragraphs.

Evolutionary biologist: race in humans a social, not biological, concept

May 20, 2003 -- The notion of race in humans is completely a social concept without any biological basis, according to a biologist at Washington University in St. Louis.

There are not enough genetic differences between groups of people to say that there are sub-lineages (races) of humans, said Alan R. Templeton, Ph.D., professor of biology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis. On the other hand, there are different races in many other species, including chimpanzees, our closest evolutionary relatives.

Templeton is a renowned evolutionary and population biologist who has analyzed billions of genetic pairings called base pairs for numerous evolution and population biology studies. He has shown that while there is plenty of genetic variation in humans, most of the variation is individual variation within local populations. While between-population variation exists, it is quantitatively small and does not mark historical sublineages of humanity.

"I'm not saying there aren't genetic differences among human populations," he cautioned. "There are differences, but they don't define historical lineages that have persisted for a long time, which is one criterion for race in a scientific sense."Wood345 06:42, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Lukas, I think I have few objections to the first paragraph (while the latter text seems like overkill). I would add "Our evidence for clustering should not be taken as evidence of our support of any particular concept of “biological race.”" to the citation footnote for Rosenberg et al. Note that Rosenberg et al. are not describing a "white people" cluster, even a "European" cluster as emerging naturally. To restate and refine a bit (changes in italics,

In an analysis of molecular genetic data, biologist Alan R. Templeton found "all of the genetic evidence shows that there never was a split or separation of the 'races' or between Africans and Eurasians. Recent human evolution has been characterized by both population range expansions … and recurrent genetic interchange."^[25] Nevertheless, it has been observed that "when individual genomes are clustered solely by genetic similarity, individuals sort into broad clusters that correspond to large geographic regions"—with Europe, West Asia, and South Asia appearing in the same cluster.^[23]

I have no substantive objection to the following text, but think it is superfluous; the last paragraph seems unnecessary, as well.

This is possible because individuals from geographically proximate regions are likely to share much more recent common ancestry with each other than they do with individuals from geographically disparate regions, with the result that they are likely to be genetically more similar, therefore close geographical proximity strongly correlates with genetic similarity.^[26][10]

--Carwil 15:50, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

On whiteness/European-ness, most definitions don't refer to predominantly European ancestry. The US and Brazil are key here because of their large populations and large white populations: both the US census and Brazilian social convention include large areas of Asia and Africa as homelands for people defined as white. Conversely, historical definitions in the US have at times excluded southern and eastern Europeans. Maybe numbers would be better, "hundreds of millions of white people have ancestors in Europe," "tens and possibly hundreds of millions more have ancestors outside Europe," to play around. Figures on ethnic origin are available from US census data at least.

The following text, I must disagree with Stevertigo, says a lot. So long as we're talking about descendant-based groups (haplotypes), we need to note that non-white people are being described as well. If we abandon haplotype info here, it should go as well.

• The descendants of Europeans include millions of those not identified as white people, including many African Americans, Native peoples of the Americas, Mestizos, Filipinos, and all "Coloured people" in South Africa.

--Carwil 16:01, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

To clarify, a minor point, its not just the U.S. census measuring 'white people' as origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa. its the Office of Management and Budget and not the Census Bureau that defines race. The Census Bureau adheres to the OMB definitions in its data collection and tabulations efforts as do the Department of Justice, the FBI and others as it was an effort in the 1970'd to standardize federal criteria for 'race.' Specifically, in 1977, the OMB issued the Race and Ethnic Standards for Federal Statistics and Administrative Reporting set forth in Statistical Policy Directive No. 13. The definition for White was "a person having origins in any of the original people of Europe, North Africa, or the Middle East, as shown below. After an extensive review process, the OMB issued revisions to the standards in 1997. In that revisions, White was defined as " a person having origins in any of the original people of Europe, the Middle East or North Africa, as shown below. There are no differences in the OMB definition for White, although the terms are not in the same order. Prior to 1970, data by race were collected primarily through direct observation.

What I'm finding is that Hispanic, the only entry for ethnicity (which is a separate and independent category) is not categorized together (Race and ethnicity were considered separate and distinct identities)1. In other words, when 'race' is mentioned alone -without ethnicity- mestizo populations can also be categorized by default as 'white'. Therefore, there are even more issues to consider when considering the fluid definitions of 'white.'Wood345 22:01, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

I'd point out that wordnet at Princeton (presumably the University?) identifies the terms "White people", "White race", "Caucasian race" and "Caucasoid race" as synonyms. [19] and defines them as a "light skinned race", no mention of Europe here. There is significant POV pushing here. I'd point out that the OED is a British dictionary, and I'd point out that in the UK, and probably in Europe people mainly do think of "White people" as being European (if they think about White people at all, I think most British people actually never use the term, or even think about what it actually means). I do not get the impression that this is the case in North America, where "White people" are often people with significant non-European ancestry. In actual fact two women I have recently worked with who are both from the USA are both considered "White", but one has two native American grandmothers (and two grandfathers from Ireland), and the other has a Japanese mother and a father who has both native American ancestry and European ancestry. Indeed the half Japanese woman told me that when she lived in Texas she only had the oportunity to be "White", "Hispanic" or "Black" on her driving licence. The thing that amazed me most was that they actually put a person's "race" on their driving licence, seems like fascism to me. Why not make people wear yellow stars and have done with it! I suppose the point is, how are we supposed to know if someone has "predominantly" European ancestry or not? There's no way to know, this is why "race" is a social construct, because the truth is that we are talking about people who appear to have a majority (or predominantly if you prefer) European ancestry, (or people who claim to have or identify as having a majority European ancestry). In this sense we are talking about perception and not reality. Alun 13:48, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

1) Indeed, Carwil, that's the cluster. That's why this part is needed:

"However, Some individuals from boundary locations between these regions were inferred to have partial ancestry in the clusters that corresponded to both sides of the boundary. [23], consistent with claimed clinal nature of human genetic variation. Also, In many cases, subclusters that corresponded to individual populations or to subsets of populations were also identified. [23]"

a)For ex (Not to be included in the article, just giving it as an example for discussion): "When a sample of South Indians, who occupy an intermediate geographic position (see also Fig. 1) is added to the analysis (Fig. 3b), considerable overlap is seen among these individuals and both the East Asian and European samples" [20] And in the figure 1 here (same study) [21], Indians form a different branch. So if you are gonna specify regions, we need to explain that. Also, the study says subclusters are also possible. So Europe may indeed have a subcluster within the Caucasian cluster which is within the human cluster which is within the homo cluster etc....Of course I dont think they have made a human cluster, since it's unneccessary but that's how I think of the situation. Kinda lika magnitudes in a microscope.

b)About "biological race", this also needs to be explained. For eX:

"Two arguments against racial categorization as defined above are firstly that race has no biological basis [1,3], and secondly that there are racial differences but they are merely cosmetic, reflecting superficial characteristics such as skin color and facial features that involve a very small number of genetic loci that were selected historically; these superficial differences do not reflect any additional genetic distinctiveness [2]. A response to the first of these points depends on the definition of 'biological'. If biological is defined as genetic then, as detailed above, a decade or more of population genetics research has documented genetic, and therefore biological, differentiation among the races. This conclusion was most recently reinforced by the analysis of Wilson et al. [2]. If biological is defined by susceptibility to, and natural history of, a chronic disease, then again numerous studies over past decades have documented biological differences among the races. In this context, it is difficult to imagine that such differences are not meaningful. Indeed, it is difficult to conceive of a definition of 'biological' that does not lead to racial differentiation, except perhaps one as extreme as speciation." [22]

So, these people mean subspecies by biological, while people who are not biologists like us may confuse/misunderstand the terminology. Lukas19 23:48, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

2) When you make the claim of Templeton, it's also important to specify geographically closer people are genetically closer as well.

However, I'd prefer a direct quote here: "The picture that begins to emerge from this and other analyses of human genetic variation is that variation tends to be geographically structured, such that most individuals from the same geographic region will be more similar to one another than to individuals from a distant region." [23] The authors then go on to validate Templeton. Maybe that whole paragraph could be a good summary.Lukas19 23:48, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

3) Whats the US definition really? The legal definition and informal perception seem to differ. See: "North African and Middle Easterners, however, are usually not included within the general structural concepts of white American society." which is sourced and which is in the article.

I also dont think that African Americans and others are perceived as descendants of Europeans. So "predominantly" European descent seem to be a sub conscious condition when we say descendant of Europeans. Of course, that's my opinion, but it is also your opinion that "The descendants of Europeans include millions of those not identified as white people, including many African Americans, Native peoples of the Americas, Mestizos, Filipinos, and all "Coloured people" in South Africa." You need to source this. If an African has 5% European blood in him, is he a descendant of Europeans? According to whom? Sources? And what's a descendant really? If we go far enough, we are all descendants of eachother? Lots of ambiguities.

In all texts you are suggesting, there are lots of holes. And many points you bring out (Such as genetics) need further explanations to present a NPOV summary of the situation. I hope you can address these issues: 1)NPOV 2)NOR 3)Ambiguities 4)Length. Lukas19 23:48, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

So, on 1a) clusters, you're okay with the text, but you wish that we described a European subcluster. Rosenberg et al. do in fact refer to a European and a Europe + West Asia subcluster in their previous article (Science 2002), but their clustering algorithm fails to meet their tests for similarity (different runs gave different clusters). So, if we're citing them on clustering, we have to accept their clusters (and I'm giving up my own concerns about their selective samples based on non-mobile populations which aren't necessarily representative).

1b) is quite a long objection to text in a footnote, quoting the source you're supplying. Why not let Rosenberg et al. speak for themselves, (and debate them in Race and genetics).

In 2), you prefer your own quote to what Templeton says. Interesting, but it's unclear why you think that Templeton's quote should be replace by it.

And in 3), you question the definition of descendant. I refuse to have another semantic detour (as per "white"). One is a descendant of one's parents, their parents' parents, etc. As discussed in several sections, Negro (now African Americans) was a legally constructed category which was designed by law to include children of African and European parents. Similar things could be said for the other listed categories. You seem to be suggesting that white people (in the racially privileged sense) don't know this history. I assure you that many people who do not have access do that privilege but have European ancestors are quite aware. And they are just as capable of perceiving their own ancestry as people who are ignorant of that history.

Also, the fact that there are conflicting definitions of white is all the more reason to not assume that white is not equivalent to European.--Carwil 21:12, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

You misunderstood some of my points. The best way to explain seems to show an example. How about this:

In an analysis of molecular genetic data, biologist Alan R. Templeton found "all of the genetic evidence shows that there never was a split or separation of the 'races' or between Africans and Eurasians. Recent human evolution has been characterized by both population range expansions … and recurrent genetic interchange."[22]X1 Nevertheless it has been observed that when individual genomes are clustered solely by genetic similarity, individuals sort into broad clusters that correspond to large geographic regions. -Europe and the part of Asia south and west of the Himalayas appearing in the same cluster.- [23] The picture that begins to emerge from this and other analyses of human genetic variation is that variation tends to be geographically structured, such that most individuals from the same geographic region will be more similar to one another than to individuals from a distant region. X2

However, Some individuals, such as Indians, from boundary locations between these regions were inferred to have partial ancestry in the clusters that corresponded to both sides of the boundary. Therefore these clusters may overlap. Also, In many cases, subclusters that corresponded to individual populations or to subsets of populations were also identified.

Some scientists reject this clustering approach and claim that human genetic diversity consists of clines of variation in allele frequencies. While some others think that human genetic diversity consists not only of clines, but also of clusters, which STRUCTURE observes to be repeatable and robust.

In references section:

X1: By races, authorts mean subspecies. In biology, subspecies is the may mean race but there is no consensus on the definition of race(sources)

X2: By geographic regions, authors mean origin. (or something of this sort. We should explain, by geographic proximity, they dont mean one white and one black roommates)

They are all sourced but the wording can be improved, except changing the wording of the quotes. Points to consider:

1) Since we named the region of the cluster, we should also say sub clusters are possible.

2) Templeton's use of race explained in references.

3) The fact that clusters overlapped mentioned.

4) Counter argument of clusters (ie: clines) mentioned.

5) Counter counter argument which is clusters and clines can be reconciled mentioned.

6) The logic behind clusters, which is the fact that people geo closer to each other are also genetically closer are explained.

7) What they mean by geo closer explained (Hopefully). Lukas19 23:00, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

As for 3, I want your text to include that "the descendants of Europeans include millions of those not identified as white people, including many African Americans, Native peoples of the Americas, Mestizos, Filipinos, and all "Coloured people" in South Africa. " BECAUSE these people are NOT mostly European. Not because of some arbitrary criteria. For ex, African Americans are 20% European. They are not called white because they are mostly African. Lukas19 23:00, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Merge/move concerns

The Caucasian Race is a recent, specific term used in the 19th century theory to biologize the white race into a physical type. It doesn't cover the first few centuries of "white people" as a social category, is not universal in its scope of use as a substitute for white people (though popular in the United States), has a different categorization, and is linked to a particular form of racist pseudoscience (Blumenbach thought that people in the C Mtns. were the prettiest in the world, all other humans degenerating away from their ideal). Caucasian people, are, I would suspect, primarily those people from the Caucasus mountain region, if anyone cares to use the term. Let CR stay where it is (maybe with a disambig notice about its use for white people in some US/North American contexts), and avoid using CP at all, unless the Caucasus experts want to pick it up.--Carwil 20:58, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Good summary of most of my feelings on the issue, Carwil Wood345 21:49, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

• and is linked to a particular form of racist pseudoscience

So a bit like the "White people" article then? This article treats "White people" as if they ware a taxonomicaly recognised "race". A few citations about genetics in Europe is not synonymous with these applying to "White people". Ths article has bee hijacked by POV pushers with a racialist agenda. White people are not a homogeneous group, they are not a rce, and whatever anyone says, there is absolutelly no consensus that "White people" have a predominantly European ancestry. What does "predominantly European" mean anyway? Sounds like OR to me. Alun 06:09, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

That's a silly claim to make. We do have a European population sub structure section. The mere existance of that section suggests that even Europeans are not homogenous. And I dont see "White people have a predominantly European ancestry." anywhere in the article. Lukas19 23:28, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

• This is a bad proposal, in usual usage, "Brown" people are also caucasian ... WilyD 14:30, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Sexual selection

the hypothesis that a shortage of men in europe led to men sexually selecting light skinned women thus leading to white people as are today is a little far fetched. wasn't there a shortage of men all over the world.Muntuwandi 21:05, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

White skin was only advantageous in the northern latitudes, so in tropical regions light white skin would NOT have been beautiful, male shortage or no shortage. SamEV 03:11, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes it is true about latitude and skin color. But my issue is with sexual selection and the shortage of men. There does not seem to be much evidence of this other than someone's opinion. Previously before the skin color/latitude some scholars hypothesised that light skin was developed solely by sexual selectionMuntuwandi 03:33, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Please see Jablonski and skin colour. The reason people have a dark skin colour in places with lots of sunlight is due to folic acid degradation by UV light. The reason why people need light coloured skin in regions with little sunlight is due to vitamin D production. Jablonski clearly shows a correlation between the amount of UV light and the skin colour of people living in certain regions of the world. She proposes that skin colour is very labile, and is under intense selective pressure, she concludes that it is likely skin pigmentation has been lost and regained on numerous occasions by the ancestors of numerous populations, depending on where those populations lived at any given time (after all we all came from Africa originally, so we all had ancestors with dark pigmentation relatively recently anyway).

[24] [25] Alun 11:20, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Frost's article is hypothetical, but especially so on skin color evolution, where it probably represents an extreme minority viewpoint, and can be excluded accordingly. His work on hair color, which he misattributes to a single gene location (MC1R), and eye color, are likewise speculative (look up the Thelen study which underlies his thesis, for example). Much contrary material appears in the very papers he cites, and the 800,000 - million years figure for the emergence is a misinterpretation of underlying sources. Unfortunately, we need to tread carefully in pointing out errors to follow WP:V and WP:NOR. I'm here to help.--Carwil 14:57, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree that frost's assertations are hypothetical this is the section in the article

"In contrast, Frost attributes these differences to sexual selection for color traits and color polymorphisms under a male shortage among European hunter-gatherers which "would have increased the pressures of sexual selection on early European women, one possible outcome being an unusual complex of color traits: hair- and eye-color diversity and, possibly, extreme skin depigmentation."[57] A 2006 study by 10 scientists also supported sexual selection theory for light skin. [58]"

Since this is speculative, how relevant is it to the article.Muntuwandi 17:39, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

We already have a counter argument:

"Jablonski attributes the narrow range of traits among African populations to functional problems of lighter skin, such as reduced tanning ability, and high risk of melanoma and nonmelanoma skin cancer.[55] Likewise, Tony Frudakis et al. note that, "genetic determinants for pigmentation in the various tissues [(skin, eyes, hair)] are distinct and that these determinants have been subject to a common set of systematic and evolutionary forces that have shaped their distribution in world populations.""

And it is your personal opinions that sexual selection theory is the minority opinion. See: "A 2006 study by 10 scientists also supported sexual selection theory for light skin. [58]" Lukas19 23:25, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Here's what I was driving at: Jablonski and Frost are both right. Think of this: how successful would someone they have been who chose lighter-skinned mates in the Congo the savanna? Those functional problems that Jablonski mentions would have meant earlier deaths for the offspring (on average) and thus a reduced ability to preserve those lineages. Whereas those who felt greater attraction for darker-skinned people would have had the exact opposite outcome. The same principle would have applied in reverse in northern latitudes: anyone lineages consistently sexually selecting darker mates would have been doomed to disappearance; only those selecting lighter-skinned mates benefitted there. And so we have a confluence of natural and sexual selection. SamEV 01:13, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

I think we are all in agreement about the general hypothesis. what i find odd is the issue of a "shortage of hunter gatherer men" who in contrast to today, had a multitude of women to choose from, thus preferring light skin and thus, through this selection we are where we at today. judging by history, I honestly don't think Mr hunter gatherer would have been too choosy when it came to selecting a partner. Knowing the history of men, even more than one mate would certainly not be too much. I can understand the role of health in regards to fertility and reproductive capacity, but placing much weight on the choices of mr hunter gatherer is where I have a problem.Muntuwandi 02:30, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Don't forget that most of human evolution took place during our long hunter gatherer, prehistoric past (remember, we spent most our existence in the paleolithic). We're just the heirs of what resulted from the environmental conditions, the consequent natural selection, the human choices, etc, of that time. Too little time has passed for us to evolve much and become anything else. (So in a way we're still hunter gatherers) The sexual selection hypothesis is logical, whether or not it is true. If lighter skin in the north was advantageous, and that's not in doubt, that of course means lighter-skinned individuals would have been naturally selected. This means that those who favor lighter-skinned partners had better chance to pass on their genes, along with their preference for lighter skin (is it genetic? cultural? both?) So when you get to a situation where, in a male shortage, Mr Hunter Gatherer gets to pick and choose, he chooses the lighter-skinned women, b/c that predilection is already built into him. The result is that the population's skin color gets lighter by relative leaps after male shortages. Even if he is able to have multiple wives (why not? even those societies which were previously monogamous, why wouldn't they adjust to changed circumstances?), it's still the case that the favored wives would usually be the lighter-skinned ones, which means she'd be the best fed and cared for wife, which in turn means that on average, the lighter-skinned wives would be the more reproductively successful ones. So basically what I'm saying is that natural selection would have killed off the lineages that didn't make the right (i.e. geographically appropriate) sexual selection and reward those who did. So they were like a team, these two selections. And maybe there were other members of the team. SamEV 03:15, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

from your explanation it appears that natural selection and sexual selection are the same thing.Muntuwandi 03:31, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

No, not at all. I just happen to think they're mutually reinforcing. SamEV 03:48, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

If there is no difference why should frost use the term sexual selection. I think that his hypothesis is greatly influenced by modern dating rituals in which personal choice and preference play a major role. In the past, marriage was a necessity with less room for personal choices. Some cultures today still practice arranged marriage. From what frost says it seems as though Mr. hunter gatherer would say I'll choose that mate because she has green eyes and not the one with blue eyes. Muntuwandi 04:00, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

But I did not agree with you there, b/c I think there is a difference.

We're also talking about tens of thousands of years ago, not the Middle Ages or such. Still, our ancestors were cavemen, not monkeys. They were still humans.

And again, we're talking about a shortage of males, so yes, the choice would be theirs. Who else's could it be? Tell me. SamEV 04:17, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes the choice would be theirs but the issue is would he be as concerned about trivial traits as we are today. Given his limited technology, his prime objective would be survival, food and shelter. I think frost is heavily influenced by the modern mindset. Whenever european explorers and sailors travelled the world the always mixed with the local population. The predominantly multiracial population of latin america is a typical case. How then could the hunter gatherer be more choosy. And why is it that only European hunter gatherers were faced with a choice of different eye and hair colors. Wouldn't it be the same for all regions where men were in short supply.Muntuwandi 11:07, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Just so I don't keep repeating myself, I made some clarifications to my previous comments in this thread. Check 'em out. As for Latin America, you are diametrically wrong: there the shortage was of European women, b/c the initial European settlers were overwhelmingly male. That's why dna studies show the mixed population to have Native American, and in certain countries African, maternal ancestry and European paternal ancestry.

Yes, there were shortages elsewhere. But near the middle of the earth natural and sexual selection worked in favor of darker skin. In northern Asia it worked the same as in Europe, so that the result was also depigmentation. Why aren't there dark-skinned aboriginal groups in northern Eurasia? Why no white-skinned aboriginal groups in central Africa, or Australia?

Prehistoric man had room in his mind for things beside food, shelter, survival. Haven't you heard of the magnificent art he painted in his caves in Spain and France? Why are you so sure he would have been color-blind? (no pun intended) SamEV 18:06, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

My point of using the latin america example is just to illustrate that men have not been very choosy, at least where reproduction is concerned. Maybe socially yes, but where reproduction is concerned, as per the dna evidence you have mentioned. Also did not women have a role in sexual selection, is it an established fact that hunter gatherer women so much outnumbered men. Ofcourse prehistoric man had plenty of free time on his hands to produce the Cave paintings all over the world.Muntuwandi 21:06, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Again, how could the early Iberian colonists in Latin America afford to be choosy? They didn't bring women, so they HAD to 'choose' Native and slave women. You're comparing apples to oranges.

I think that people have been choosy since they acquired the ability to think, which means since the very advent of man. I think other creatures are choosy, too. So why not early man, who was far more intelligent than say, gorillas? So even homo's ancestors most likely had the ability to be choosy.

I think it's very probable that early man had skin color preferences and other preferences and gave out preferential treatment to his wives based on skin color and other traits. Probably the offspring too: those who were lighter-skinned, all other things being equal, may have been better cared for and had better survival rates. This happens nowadays, too. So that's another possible element working alongside natural and sexual selection.

Muntuwandi: Frost is talking specifically about a male shortage situation, so of course women would have outnumbered men. Please pay attention.

Now that I thought about it a bit, I guess that sexual selection only had a significant effect on the populations' skin color after shortages of the dominant sex, whereas during normal times it was basically just natural selection that was at work. I don't know if that's what Frost said, since I haven't yet read his study. SamEV 04:08, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes I think, Frost is being very speculative about hunter gatherers being in short supply. Even though women have always outnumbered men, it is not by much( usually less than 1%). Essentially births are equal but female babies have higher probability of surviving through infanthood [26]. It is thus not as though every man had five or six women to choose from. Natural selection was probably the overiding mechanism, how much we can attribute to sexual selection is speculative.Muntuwandi 04:36, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Judging by history, the obsession with skin color seems a very recent phenomenon. Though skin color is mentioned throughout history, it is mentioned only scantily. The ancient egyptians never explicitly mentioned it, thus we have the controversy over how they appeared.

Men could be in short supply after a war with a neighboring tribe, for instance. Or following some epidemic, or killed by herds of dangerous beasts they were hunting, you know? Such events might not be too rare for a band or tribe (they lived in groups composed of dozens of people) in the dangerous world back then, with its fearsome woolly mammoths and saber-toothed tigers, etc.

Didn't the Egyptians depict neighboring peoples' skin colors? In their art they did differentiate between Egyptians and the Assyrians, the Greeks, the Libyans, the Nubians. http://www.dignubia.org/maps/timeline/img/b1540a-nubian-tribute-huy.jpg

Btw, I restored some material above that you seem to have deleted accidentally. If it wasn't so, then revert. SamEV 06:26, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Surely an excess of women would simply lead to polygamy? Why assume that these tribal people were monogamous? We cannot project our social norms and customs onto these people. In tribal societies is marriage not more like a contract between tribes or bands, rather than one person "selecting" another person? In this case men wouldn't have selected women, but their leaders would have proposed unions for them, arranged marriages would have been the norm surely? Irrespective of this, if there is evidence of sexual selection, or if there is a theory of such from a reliable source then why not put it in the article? This is not the place to discuss whether a theory is correct or not, it's not our job to argue the merrits of any particular theory, but it is our job to discuss what should or should not be included in the article. So instead of debating whether sexual selection could or could not be responsible for light skin pigmentation, let's discuss where it could be included in the article and whether the source is reliable etc. There should also be mention of natural selection of fair skin as per Jablonski, these ideas need to be contrasted in the same section, snd the arguments for and against included, as long as trhe arguments have been published. Alun 06:52, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Surely an excess of women would simply lead to polygamy? Why assume that these tribal people were monogamous? I wrote that anything was possible. That some of those groups might have been monogamous and gone polygamous in the male shortage scenario was only one possibility I speculated about. (It was all speculation, I claim nothing more than that.)

Marriage a contract? I doubt it was so 10k, 15k, 20k and more years ago, which are the times I have in mind. They were humans, not apes, as I kept reminding Muntuwandi, but they weren't civilized. I don't think neighboring tribes/bands sat around a campfire and drew up marriage contracts, man. I think they were usually enemies, who were more apt to steal each other's women than peacefully negotiate marriages. But mostly, they were endogamous, AFAIK.

This is not the place to discuss whether a theory is correct or not... Oh jeez, man, relax. Muntuwandi asked a question, I replied, s/he replied back, etc. You people, or they, if you're new here, have been debating which theory's right, which wrong seemingly for months. If you want, why don't you just delete the thread or archive it, whatever.

I'm watching and learning about this process. I merely said that in my humble judgment both theories are probably correct. Include whatever you guys decide. Bye. SamEV 12:40, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

How much weight should be given to an argument that has not been researched but is the speculative opinion of a scientist. The only studies I have seen on sexual selection are on insects.Muntuwandi 15:17, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Is it published? As long as it's published it can be attributed, but it should probably be noted that it is not a mainstream theory. take a look at Wikipedia:Attribution. Alun 16:30, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

There are millions of publications out there, anyone can publish an article. Our goal should be to evaluate the relevance or reliability or the quality of a source. Wikipedia has several guidlines to help with this. My main issue with frosts publication is that it seems highly specualtive. the publication has no data on gender populations on hunter gatherers, no experiments were carried out. The author, in my opinion, seems to be influenced by modern mating rituals and is imposing them on the hunter gatherer. In light of this how much weight should be given to a speculative opinion by a scientist. We can either mention that it is just an opinion with no hard facts, or we can remove it altogether. see WP:FRINGE Muntuwandi 13:32, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Take a look at the reliable sources guideline. See if it fits into a reliable source. If you think the source is not reliable, then don't include it. You can include it as the speculative oppinon of a single person, as long as they have the authority of an academic I suppose. I don't know much about this work, so I can't really judge the source. Alun 13:41, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

RS sources says: exceptional claims require exceptional sources. In academic terms, we have one paper, Frost's, which states it's claim speculatively:

The European steppe-tundra was distinctive in another way. It took in an area that covers almost the same area where hair and eye color is today most diverse. Could this be an imprint left on the human genetic landscape by sexual selection? Perhaps. But more proof is needed.

Frost is not an evolutionary biologist, holds a Ph.D. in anthropology from Université Laval, but was never on their faculty, and is not an expert on the relevant material ("my academic affiliation has been limited to contracts for a research group on the Inuit and other indigenous peoples ... Most of the work is translation or revision of academic texts, although one contract required a literature review").[27] I'm changing Frost's claims on causes to "speculates" and suggesting that WP:RS tells us this does not belong here. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Carwil (talk • contribs).

I think you are probably correct, the speculation of a non-expert doesn't constitute any sort of reliability for inclusion in Wikipedia. Alun 17:55, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Genetics section

The genetics section consists predominantly (to borrow a word) of quotations. This is in direct breach of the "What Wikipedia is not" policy. Wikipedia articles should explain these concepts in the words of the editors, not by pasting long quotations in articles. This is not only poor editing, it is very likely a breach of copyright, and may constitute plagiarism. Besides which, quotations taken out of context can be used to imply that a scientific paper supports a POV in an article, when in fact the scientific paper itself may take a far more nuanced position. I have seen this tactic to introduce POV into articles used many times, especially for articles regarding "race". It is also the case that the inclusion of out of context quotes displays that either the editor has actually not read the whole article, or has not understood the article.It is clear that editors who do cherry pick ceretain quotations from scientific papers and do not give correct context are pushing a specific POV and are in breach of the neutral point of view policy, as well as deliberately attempting to compromise the integrity of Wikipedia. Alun 18:41, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

The quotations are mentioned under "Lists or repositories of loosely associated topics". The quotes in the article do not belong to loosely associated topics.

Wikipedia is not a List or repositories of loosely associated topics such as quotations. The quotations in the section about genetics are used to avoid a proper discussion of the subject, and are indeed loosely associated topics, they do not refer to the same information, or to the same methodology, neither are they directly relevant to each other nor do they source each other. If you have added these quotes, then I urge you to replace them with a correct discussion of the subject at hand. This is at the very least poor editing. If a child of 12 were to present this as "work" for a project they would be given a zero. Presenting long lists of quotes is not the correct way to edit or write an encyclpoaedia. Indeed your response is lacking in any understanding of the purpose of this project. Please see Wikipedia:Guide_to_writing_better_articles#Provide_context_for_the_reader. I also tend to think that it is common sense to try and avoid the over use of quotation, we are not here just to provide long lists of quotes, whether they are loosely related ot not. Surely this is comon sense? Alun 06:16, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

"Wikipedia articles should explain these concepts in the words of the editors". This seems to be YOUR wording of the policy. In which policy is this mentioned?

No this is common sense, what do you think we are doing here? Do you think that articles should consist of only quotations? What is your point? I think that what I have said is the correct expression of encyclopaedic writing. Encyclopaedias are not simply repositories of quotes, if you think they are then you are very much mistaken. We are editors, not archivers. Alun 06:16, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Which quote is taken out of context? Lukas19 23:23, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

No context is provided for any of the quotes in the genetics section at all. For example the Seldin paper makes several conclusions, but none of these are mentioned in the article. I wonder why this is? Indeed there is only a quote taken directly from the results section for the article, there is no explanation of why the research was conducted, and there is no explanation of how the results have actually been interpreted. I have been reading molecular biology related scientific papers for the last 12 years, both as a student and professionally, and I know that the most important sections to pay attention to are the introduction and the discussion. This is obvious because the introductiuon explains why the work is done, and gives a brief review of the current state of research in the field, and the discussion section explains what the results actually mean, or at least how this group of researchers have interpreted their results. But in this article we simply have a quote from the paper, giving some results completely out of context, with no explanation of what they may mean. Indeed the same goes for the sykes and Oppenheimer quotes. These do not really need to be included, we do not use quotation indiscriminately. Quotation should be saved for use sparingly for the most important observatins, these wuld incude the conclusions of the scientists. See Prooftext, Contextomy and Quote mining Alun 06:16, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Systemic problems with genetics section that need ot be addressed

1. The section begins with a definition of what a haplogroup is. Why is this? Should it not begin with a description of whether "White people" actually form a coherent group that can be genetically defined?
2. The section then continues The examination of population differences within Europe using mitochondrial or Y chromosome haplogroups has been particularly useful in tracing part of the routes of migration and populating of Europe, but these haplogroups do not provide strong inferences on population genetic structure. This would be fine, except that this article is about "White people", but the section only refers to the populating of Europe. There is no explanation for this, it seems to assume that all "White people" are Europeans. But the article clearly states that "White people" has different meanings and deffinitions in different places, and at different times. This sentence at the least seems to be favouring a specific usage.
3. The next part is a single, very long quote from the University of Oulu. It mentions autosomal DNA and mtDNA, but makes no mention of the distribution of mtDNA haplotypes, or what their relevance is. Again it only mentions Europe and not any other groups that may be considered "White".
4. The section discussing Y chromosomes again mentions only Europe and not other "White people". There is no mention that haplogroup R is derived from India or that Haplogroup I seems to be derived from Turkey/Iraq. There is a convoluted and confusing discussion of haplogroup I subclades for no apparent reason. There is no mention of the existence of R1b in Cameroon.
5. Haplogroup N3 is associated with Finland and north eastern Europe, it is thought to be derived from Central Asia, which some geneticists identify as a source for Finno Ugraic speakers (Finns and Hungarians in Europe).
6. European Population Substructure. This section is the worst of all. Why are there three long quotes and no discussion at all? What do the data actually mean? This section needs to explain how this research compares to other research, why it was done and what the conclusions of the researchers who conducted it were. IT should also compare the study with other similar studies, for example Bauchet et al Measuring European Population Stratification using Microarray Genotype Data. The quotes from Oppenheimer and Sykes properly belong in the section dealing with Y chromosome data. There should also be a section dealing wqith mtDNA data.
7. If this article is about "Whiter people" and specifically mentions that "White people" may be considered as coming from several different source populatons, then it is incorrect for the genetics section to only deal with European genetics. There should be sections devoted to:
   1. The genetics of Hispanic people in the USA, I believe Hispanic people are sometimes "White" and sometimes "Hispanic"..
   2. The genetics of other admixed populations in the USA. For example there was a paper cited in this article that states that many "White" Americans have a significant amount of non-European admixture. I wonder why it is not in the genetics setion, but appears in the USA section. This gives the article a bias in favour of "White" being equivalent to "European".
   3. The genetics of North African, Near Eastern and South Asian people, who are also considered "White people" in many circumstances.
   4. The genetics of "Caucasians", in the USA this group is considered the "White" group, it is also recognised as a distinct genetic "cluster" by ceretain geneticists. If it is both "White" by some criteria, and a distinct "cluster", then this should be mentioned. I think work by both Neil Risch and Noah Rosenberg identify this as a coherent group. Alun 14:35, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

All I can say is that I can hardly understand what all those graphs mean.Muntuwandi 15:01, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Exactly, Wikipedia should be accessible to everyone. It needs to be understandable to the non-expert. This is an encyclopaedia, so it's for everyone. The graph in the "Genetics" section should not be in this article, it is irrelevant to the so called "genetics of White people". This graph shows that there is a slight difference between people from northern Europe and people from southern Europe (that they form two clusters), but there is no explanation as to how this is relevant to an article about "White people". An explanation for the graph and a proper discussion about the relevance of this data to "White people" is the least that should be in the article. But there is nothing like this. The graph is simply plonked into the article and anyone reading it is supposed to guess as to the reason for it's inclusion. This graph would be better siuted to a section or article that discusses the theory of demic diffusion in Neolithic Europe. Besides which "White people" are not a genetically homogeneous group, as the current slant of the article implies, the article acknowledges that the term "White people" applies to people with ancestry from many different regions, so the genetics section should reflect this. For example "White people" have ancestors from all other continents besides Europe, the genetics section does not address this at all, even though the article states it explicitly. [28]Various sources agree that, on average, people with 12 percent or less African admixture appear White to the average American and those with up to 25 percent look ambiguous (with a Mediterranean skin tone).30 Given this finding, random chance will produce one such Philadelphian out of every five hundred born to parents who are members of the Black community. [29] see also [30]Alun 16:13, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree with you and support all the changes that you may want to introduce. In my opinion you have demonstrated to be the most reliable contributor in this article, with a genuine knowledge of the subject matter. Although I will probably not participate much (I am a bit tired of this article) here you have my support for what it is worth. Veritas et Severitas 16:34, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

By the way I have made this addition:

Consistent with previous genetic studies, a recent genetic piece of research from 2007 claims: "The Spanish and Basque groups are the furthest away from other continental groups, which is consistent with the suggestions that the Iberian peninsula holds the most ancient European genetic ancestry" [31].

I cannot help finding it very relevant if we speak of European genetic structure. Still, I support now that the genetic section go to its own article and just leave a link here. It is getting too long. Veritas et Severitas 17:09, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

I would support moving the US Genetics section down to main genetics section. This would present genetic information about Hispanics. I'd also support adding genetic info about Mid Easterners, North Africans and South Asians. Some relevant issues are being discussed by me and Carwil in meditation, in an upwards section here. Lukas19 06:11, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] have put this article up for deletion

i ahve put this article on white people and also black,caucasian and asian people up for deletion. i think this is so wrong and veyr racistic to have on a wikipedia. it also causes to many arguments. so have your say, delete or keep? put it on the deletion tag page.--Matrix17 21:22, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Strong objection- Firstly, I have to ask the question which I am sure is at the back of every sane peson's mind, how do you find this article? First point, "racistic", there's one for the books. There is a genuine, biological difference between races. How is acknowledging this difference racist? By simply acknowleding a difference, prejudices don't neccesarily come with that acknowledgement. Should we delete the article on Judaism, Gender or even biological specification simply as they point out a difference (Judaism being a race as well as religion)? Surely there can be no problem having a scientific, well sourced article; remembering that wikipedia does not employ a program of censorship. I can hardly see what is so inherently "wrong" with this article, which seems to be relatively factual and unbiased. While you may not like it, there is a difference between races, which especially considering historical, social and current medical application, makes this article extremely applicable. I believe that while there may be a few people so paranoid about race, that they become far more racist than those who are willing, without prejudice, to acknowledge racial differences, this article should stay. -THobern-80.199.157.175 00:07, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

If you haven't already, please leave your comment on the deletion discussion page. Thanks! --Lukobe 01:15, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] LEAD

"Thus, ancient geographic ancestry, which is highly correlated with self-identified race/ethnicity—as opposed to current residence—is the major determinant of genetic structure in the U.S. population." [32] This and other sources confirm that there are at least some validity in racial classifications, as opposed to being a social construct. Social construct argument has been presented in the article. It wont be NPOV if people remove its counter argument, as Wobble is doing now. Lukas19 06:49, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

But you have to show that "White people" are indeed a "race". The article does not support the assertion that "White people" constitute a race. This article is called "White people", there is no mention of "race" in the title of the article.

This is a stupid circular logic. First of all, Wikipedia can not be a source for itself. Second of all White race also redirects here. And the article starts with "White people (also whites, or white race)". This article is about white people. Some people consider it as a race. Whether you agree with this or not, it has been sourced by reliable sources. Lukas19 20:20, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

No one is asking Wikipedia to source itself. I am merely asking for consistency in the article. For example the article catagorically claims that the term "White people" has different meanings in different places of the world. Hence it is a contradictory statement to claim that "White people" are a specific "race", while also claiming that this "race" is composed of different populations depending on what part of the world the definition comes from. I'm not disputing that "White people" is a racial term. I am saying that neither of the definitions in the introduction define a secific population as "White". Both definitions are ambiguous, these are dictionary definitions and not biological, sociological or anthropological definitions. Neither definition states that "White people" are the race of people indigenous to Europe, conversely neither definition states that "White people" are any race of lightly pigmented people. Sothere's definately a great deal of ambiguity here. This ambiguity may. of course be deliberate. Alun 17:52, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

And? This does not explain your edit. [33] You admitted that white people is a racial term. That means race is relevant to this article. Hence your deletion of the part of the lead was unjustified. Produce coherant positions. You contridict yourself in the same paragraph. Lukas19 01:49, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Maybe you just don't understand. There is a massive diference between a "raceial term" and a "specific race". I never said that "race" is not applicable to the article, I said that the article does not claim that "White people" are a specific defined race. Maybe this is more clear, I don't think I can make this any simpler. Would a diagram help you to understand this very simple concept? Alun 07:44, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

And? If you accept that race is applicable to the article, why have you made this edit? [34]. Your additions and deletions are irrelevant to your claim that white people are not a "specific race". The parts you have deleted make no such claim as to white people are a specific race. Lukas19 07:53, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

The article states clearly that "White people" as a concept applies to people from many different regions, and also applies to people from admixed populations, such as Hispanic people. People who identify as "White" may mainly belong to what is sometimes called the "Caucasian race" (and this seems to be the definition the US government prefers), but this is not always the case, and there is evidence that the US "White" population has a degree of admixture from both Africa and Native Americans, based on an analysis of Ancestry-informative marker in African-American, African-Carribean and "White" American volunteers, see Shriver et al. I don't know of any studies to estimate the degree of African admixture in the "Caucasian race" or the European population (which can be considered a sub-population of the C"Caucasian race".

So? Be concise. We are talking about your deletion of the lead. These are all irrelevant. Lukas19 20:20, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

I never deleted the lead. What are you talking about? I removed a section that was irrelevant (there was a very strange section waffling about the vakidity of "race" as a concept, which had no place in this article), and I rephrased another section I did not delete the lead. This is a very odd accusation. Alun 17:52, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Have you seriously not understood what I was talking about? LOL. Ok. The validity of race is relevant to this article because i) white people is a racial term ii) There is already a claim in the article, which says race is mostly a socialogical construct. The claim should be countered due to WP:NPOV. Lukas19 01:49, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Sometims it is impossible to understand what you are talking about., because you seem to be incapable of sticking to the point. So I cannot possibly say whether I have understood what you are talking about, seriously or otherwise. I try to understand whast you ar5e talking about, but sometimes you diverge at such massive tangents that your posts seem to be completelly irrelevant to the subject at hand, for example here, where I am still baffled as to the relevance of this coment. Alun 07:44, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

So can you show that "White people" are a "race"?

"Six racial categories were provided (White; Black or African American; American Indian and Alaska Native; Asian; Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islander; Some other race)." [35] Do I also need to show racial adjective of race? Lukas19 20:20, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

What is a "racial category"? I don't know, can you explain it? It certainly doesn't say Six races were provided though. QED. Alun 17:52, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

No, google it. Lukas19 01:49, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

So you accept then that "White people" may be a "racial category", but that this is not the same as a race. Therefore you also accept that this fails to show that "White people" are a specific "race". Alun 07:44, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Again. The issue here is your deletions of the part of the lead. This article contains information about and/or relevant to white people. White people is a racial category. You have admitted this. Racial categories and race are relevant subjects. Will you dispute this? Because of this reason, we can add material about race whether white people are a race or not since both are relevant subjects. This is the 10th time I'm trying to explain this. Hopefully you'll get it this time. Lukas19 07:58, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

You have admitted this. I don't think I'm on trial here, I don't "admit" anything, but I do accept it as a point of view, though I don't think it is the only point of view. As such we can say that "White people" are sometimes considered a racial category and are sometimes considered any people with pale or lightly pigmented skin colour, irrespective of race. So these are the two points of view. Wikipedia works by including all points of view, this is how we maintain neutrality. Currently the article contains both these points of view, but the first POV is far and away the most prominent, one could argue that it is given undue weight, and that as such the article lacks neutrality. Alun 11:28, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

And? The claim that white people isnt considered a race was already covered in the lead by the line "some people think that race is mostly a sociological construct". But you have deleted its counter argument. Do you still not get it? Lukas19 19:11, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

No it wasn't. This is completelly different, and you should know this. There is a massive difference between discussion of race as a valid concept, which is what the "some people think that race is a social construct" line is about, and discussion of whether white people are a specific race, which is the discussion we are having now. Your comment is a deviation from the actual point. We have already established that the validity of race as a concept is not the point of this article, and certainly does not belong in the lead. Wobble

Thats just your opinion. I'll repeat myself: "Again. The issue here is your deletions of the part of the lead. This article contains information about and/or relevant to white people. White people is a racial category. You have admitted this. Racial categories and race are relevant subjects. Will you dispute this? Because of this reason, we can add material about race".Lukas19 20:49, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Lukas19, you claimed that the observation in the lead that race is a social construct addresses the issue that "White people" can be from places as far afield as Morroco and Siberia. I have countered this by saying that this is a different argument. Indeed even if one considers "race" a social construct, Morrocans and Siberians are still different "races", and yet are still both "White people" by some criteria. Now you claim it is irrelevant, but I was only addressing your observation, suddenly it becomes irrelevant when you get a reply you cannot answer?. Besides this is not "just my opinion", it is a valid and concrete concern. You have failed to address this concern. My edit of part of the Lead was perfectly reasonable. I'd like to know just what you think you are accusing me of? Do you presume that this is "your" article? Do you think that other editors have no right to edit this article? The changes I made are perfectly reasonable. Your claim that "White people are a racial category" is not supported by the article itself. In fact the truth is that White people are sometimes a racial category, and the article acknowledges this. My edit was an attempt to make the lead more representative of the content of the article. I see no problem with this. There was nothing wrong with my edit, I have explained it to you, I really don't see what the problem is here. You keep saying that I have "admitted" something, like you are the police and I am a villain or something. What I have done is say that "White people" are sometimes considered a "race" (or "racial category" if you prefer) and sometimes they are simply people with lightly pigmented skin, irresepctive of "race". Both of these POVs need to be addressed in the lead because both occur in the article, and both are valid. To claim that only one of these POVs is valid is a breach of the NPOV policy. As for the argument regarding race as a social/biological construct, this does not belong in the lead at all, and I doubt it belongs in the article anywhere, it is a POV fork. Indeed most impartial observers would agree that "race" is both biological and social, and is not exclusively either. Alun 07:03, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Currently, there is a line which claims race is mostly a sociological construct. This needs to be countered to comply with WP:NPOV. Lukas19 20:49, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

No it doesn't. It needs to be removed to comply with WP:LEAD. Isn't this obvious? Alun 07:03, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Now we need to discuss whether "White people" themselves do in fact constitute a specific "race". I think that the evidence as presented in the article shows that this is sometimes the case, but not always. But the article does not give a neutral point of view. For example the section on "Culture" is clearly POV because it makes the assumption that "White culture=Western culture". The section on "Physiology and genetics" is also POV because it again concentrates on Europe and not other regions where people live who might be considered "White" under some of the definitions. Indeed there is a genetics section in the part of the article discussing the USA, it seems strange to me that this section should be seperate from the rest of the genetics. The section dealing with physiology and genetics should correctly be called "Physiology and genetics of White Europeans", so that it is made clear that this does not apply to all White populations. This would also make the article less POV because it would acknowledge that the article does not consider these people the "correct" White people, but a category of people who are certainly "White", but not the only category of people who are "White". I wonder if we need an article called "White European" or something, because most of this article correctly belongs in such an article. This article can then become a disambig page, which is what it should be anyway. Alun 19:52, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Irrelevant. This section of the talk page deals with LEAD issues. It is already too long. Discuss these in appropriate sections. And you are already repeating some of the points you have made before in Talk:White_people#Genetics_section Lukas19 20:49, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

You seem to be under the impression that by saying the word "irrelevant" enough then it becomes true. LOL. So I'm repeating myself? Big deal. This section does deal with the lead, and you have comprehensively failed to show what is actually wronf with my previous edits. Alun 07:03, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

And more importantly can you show from what geographical region this "race" is descended from? As far as I can see we are talking about a set of humans that has origins in at least four continents, Europe, Asia, North America and Africa (sub-Saharan that is), in the case of some "White" individuals there may actually be recent ancestry form all four geographic regions. "White" Americans have clearly been shown to often have ancestry from at least three continents according to this paper. So can we please have a citation that unambiguously states that "White people" are a recognised "race", and that tells us from what geographic region this "race" comes from? even with such a citation I think the best we can hope for is to claim that "White people" is sometimes considered to be a "race". Alun 08:37, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Irrelevant. There is no source which says we also have to show geographical regions to talk about race. Lukas19 20:20, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

It's not irrelevant just because you say "irrelevant" on the talk page. You have not actually provided a reason for your opinion that it is irrelevant. Simply writing "irrelevant", is not an argument, it is an evasion. What do you mean when you say "there is no source which says we also have to show geographical regions to talk about race." Source from where? Source for what? Races are supposed to be relatively homogeneous groups, that are supposed to be composed of people that occupy geographically proximate regions. Therefore it is quite appropriate to ask this question. If the USA uses the term "White people" to iclude every person who has ancestry from Europe, North Africa, the Levant, south Asia (up untill recently including India) and north eastern Asia, as the map in the article shows, then we have Siberians living on the coast of the Bering Sea in the same "race" as Morrocans Living on the coast of the Atlantic Ocean, I wouldn't call this geographically proximate. Alun 17:52, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

It means that there is no such rule or source which says every discussion about race should also include a discussion about geography. Meaning, I do not have you show from what geographical region this race is descended from. Because there is ambiguity in the definition of white people. There is ambiguity in the definition of race. You have admitted this yourself. And now you expect standart definitions? That's silly. Again, produce coherant arguments. You seem to keep contridicting yourself. USA usage is not the standart definition. And Morrocans and Siberians living on the coast of the Bering Sea is an extreme example. First it uses a specific definition (US) instead of for ex, Oxford definition. Then it uses areas as examples which are almost farthest away from each other in the US definition. You do not need to make arguments for the stupidity of US classifications and then amplifying that stupidity by choosing the most extreme example when it has already been proven by Hefny. Lukas19 01:49, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

No I don't "expect standard definitions", I expect the article to be consistent. I am fully au fait with the fact that "white people" is an ambiguous term (and it makes no sense to me to claim that "race" is ambiguous but "White people" is not). Indeed the whole point of my argument is that there is ambiguity here. How can I be contradicting myself? I am saying that "White people" has different meanings to different people, but that the article as it stands seems to favour one meaning over any other. This is a bias. US usage may not be standard, but it has equal validity to any other usage.

• And Morrocans and Siberians living on the coast of the Bering Sea is an extreme example. First it uses a specific definition (US) instead of for ex, Oxford definition.

No it does not, these people fit the definition of "White people" from the Oxford dictionary as well, both having light skin pigmentation. They may not fit the specific section "especially Europeans", but this is not a requirement, it does not "exclude" other people with pale skin colour. Alun 07:44, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

And? Whats the relevance of this with regards to your edit: [36] ?

It is relevant because people from Morroco are clearly not part of the same "race" as people from Siberia, but both can be "White", therefore the article is clearly not about a specific race, but about the concept of "White people" and how this concept is different in different parts of the world. OF course there are physical similarities between "WHite people", and some definitions do indeed coincide with so called races (for example in the UK "White" would be exclusively used for people of perceived European ancestry) but not all definitions do this. Alun 11:28, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Again, this is irrelevant. Whats the relevance of this with regards to your edit: [37] ? The parts you have deleted DID NOT claim that all defintions of white people constituted a specific race. Lukas19 19:11, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

So what if they didn't? Wobble

That means most of your novel long responses were indeed irrelevant to the issue of this section of the talk page. Lukas19 20:49, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Does it? I don't think so. The definitions we have from the dictionaries claim that "White people" are people with light coloured skin (to paraphrase), the article claims that there are several concepts of "White people", not all of which are to do with "race". So I changed the lead so it more closely complies with the observations in the article and with the actual dictionary definitions. The claim that the deleted parts did not mention that "White people" are a single "race" is not the issue. I don't understand why you think it is. Alun 07:11, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't actually know what part of my edit you are talking about. There are two parts to this edit. One was the removal of totally irrelevant information regarding the validity of "race" as a concept. This article is not about the concept of race. Wobble

Answered above. Lukas19 20:49, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

I do not think it is reasonable to include lengthy discussions regarding the validity of race as a concept in all articles about human populations. Wobble

A couple lines is not lengthy. Lukas19 20:49, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

It is if they occur in the lead section and are not directly relevant to the article. This is in direct contradiction to the guidelines concerning the lead, see WP:LEAD: The lead section should briefly summarize the most important points covered in an article in such a way that it can stand on its own as a concise version of the article. The lead does not do this, it actally has a great deal to say regarding subjects that are not covered in the article in any way.

It certainly makes no sense whatsoever to include such discussion in the lead of the article, the lead should be about the subject of the article, not about the validity of certain concepts related to but not directly relevant to the article, even if these concepts merrit a small mention in the body of the article itself. The other part of this edit was a simple change from "race" to "skin colour", this seems like a reasonable change to me because "White people" are categorised by skin colour and not by "race" when one considers the most inclusive level. I see no real problem, nor indeed any controversy with either of these changes. I really don't understand why you are so het up about such innocuous edits. Alun 19:52, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

"Even though the natural sciences have been used in the past to justify disparate treatments based on racial background, some consider race today as largely a sociological construct, the definition of which is subject to change as society evolves." This part is directly relevant to the previous sentence, demonstrating that definition of whiteness changes. And the part you have deleted is the counter argument of that and hence directly related and hence should be included to be NPOV. Lukas19 20:49, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Besides, you are changing the wording (deletion of "racial") which cites sources. Have you read the sources? Lukas19 20:42, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Um, what an odd comment, doesn't editing always change wording? How do you propose Wikipedia editors actually do editing without changing the wording? Alun 17:52, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

LOL. Read what you are responding to, so that your answers do not sound so absurd. "Wording which cites sources". Now, how can I explain this simpler? The part you are editing is sourced. Are your changes consistent with what the sources say? Have you read the sources? To me, it seems like you were writing what was in line with your "logic" while disregarding the sources. Lukas19 01:49, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Source sections can be changed, can be deleted, they are not sacrosanct. Sometimes editors misrepresent sources, or do not understand them, or simply incorporate inappropriate information that does not belong. So it's sourced? Big deal, my argument is that it shouldn't be in this section. Alun 07:44, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

You cant add YOUR interpretations to cited material. That's OR. Your argument is irrelevant. Lukas19 08:03, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Again, just saying it's "irrelevant" is not an argument. I have no wish nor intention of "adding my interpretation", and neither have I claimed that I want to do such. But in actual fact I was removing someone else's interpretation, which I think is a perfectly valid thing to do. Alun 11:28, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

And I was asking you if you had read the sources?? Lukas19 19:11, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

No you weren't, you wrote You cant add YOUR interpretations to cited material. That's OR. Your argument is irrelevant, this post is not a question, nor does it mention reading sources. Please don't claim to ahve said something you clearly have not, what you wrote is only a few lines above here. Alun 19:52, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

LOL. Can you not read?? "Besides, you are changing the wording (deletion of "racial") which cites sources. Have you read the sources?" [38]

Lukas the paper you cite does not show that there is such a thing as racial classification. You have misinterpreted the data. It shows that there is a strong correlation in genetic markers called haplotypes between people of the same shared recent ancestrty (which is obvious). It does not show anything to do with racial correlation, race is something different to genetic markers, race is also unaffected by the genetic markers used in population genetics, those markers have no affect on physical appearance. So people with the same genetic markers dont neccessarily look anything like each other they just have a more recent ancestry or it is merley chance that they have the same genetic markers in certain ratios. --Globe01 16:04, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

This is your interpretation and hence it is irrelevant. Among many others: " We provide an epidemiologic perspective on the issue of human categorization in biomedical and genetic research that strongly supports the continued use of self-identified race and ethnicity." Also read the section "Are racial differences merely cosmetic?" [39] And I have cited multiple papers, in the article. Lukas19 20:20, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

No editors opinions are irrelevant. We work by consensus here, remember that. He may or may not be wrong, but his opinion is not irrelevant, and you do not have the right to dismiss it in such a condescending way. Anyway, you merely cite the opinions of a few geneticists. Globe is quite right, these geneticists view "race" as "the geographical distribution of variation". While this is a reasonable point of view, it is not the only point of view. It is also not the standard definition of "race". The standard biological concept of "race" is subspecies. Subspecies are not defined as representing the geographical distribution of diversity, they are usually defined as representing seperate lineages, something quite different. The papers you cite are all very well, but please do not try to imply that they represent any sort of "consensus" or discipline wide "definition" of "race". They are generally based on medical epidemiology studies, not on biological criteria, and medicine is a very different discipline to biology. Self described "race/ethnicity" is a social construct and not a biological construct, and may well have medical implications that are not ascociated with biology, for example cultural practices can affect health and may be associated with ethnicity but not with genetics or biology.

Anthropologists long ago discovered that humans’ physical traits vary gradually, with groups that are close geographic neighbors being more similar than groups that are geographically separated. This pattern of variation, known as clinal variation, is also observed for many alleles that vary from one human group to another. Another observation is that traits or alleles that vary from one group to another do not vary at the same rate. This pattern is referred to as nonconcordant variation. Because the variation of physical traits is clinal and nonconcordant, anthropologists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries discovered that the more traits and the more human groups they measured, the fewer discrete differ ences they observed among races and the more categories they had to create to classify human beings. The number of races observed expanded to the 30s and 50s, and eventually anthropologists concluded that there were no discrete races (Marks, 2002). Twentieth and 21st century biomedical researchers have discovered this same feature when evaluating human variation at the level of alleles and allele frequencies. Nature has not created four or five distinct, nonoverlapping genetic groups of people. The human species possesses remarkably little genetic variation when compared with other organisms. Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes), close primate relatives to humans, possess approximately four times as much within-species genetic variation as do humans. From Race and Genetics by Pilar Ossorio and Troy Duster

This information is also available and eminently citable. I wonder why you have not seem fit to add these sorts of citations, you claim to be interested in Neutrality, so why don't you ever "add these counter arguments"? Alun 20:10, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Add yourself. I do not have the time to add ALL counter arguments. Clearly, you could have added those arguments yourself, instead of writing novel long responses here. Lukas19 01:49, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Add myself? How can I add myself to the article? And you accuse me of making stupid comments? It's more like you do not want to add arguments that contradict your POV, this is called POV pushing. LOL. Alun 07:44, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

The problem is when we use information selectively for a particular POV. For example: The articles that you mention include Middle Eastern, Jews and Europeans in the same group called Caucasians. Here you have a quote from above article: "Effectively, these population genetic studies have recapitulated the classical definition of races based on continental ancestry - namely African, Caucasian (Europe and Middle East), Asian, Pacific Islander (for example, Australian, New Guinean and Melanesian), and Native American". These articles speak of Caucasian, not white, including a lot of people who are not of European origins. It could also be argued that we can also find differences among Europeans and Non-Europeans in other articles, but we can also argue that we could find differences between Poles and Swedes and Greeks and Italians and several groups in fact withing the same country, still most people would find it ridiculous to say that there is a Polish race, an Irish race, or Italian race or a race in this part of Poland but not over there, etc. If we want to call a group of people "white" and use the term "race" along with it, then it clearly includes people from outside of Europe, like the Middle East, as the papers that you mention clearly point out. In short, if people want to use these articles to say that there is biological evidence for the concept of race, in this case that race is called Caucasian in all the scientific literature, including the Middle East and North Africa, as you can clearly read yourself.

Another point of POV pushing that I have seen in this article is the attempt of trying to present Hispanics as a race. Here is what the article actually says:

"The most complex group is made up of those who self-identify as Hispanic/Latino. The US Census did not consider this group as a separate race, although 42% of respondents who considered themselves Hispanic checked the category 'other race' for the racial question, while 48% checked 'White'. Hispanics are typically a mix of Native American, Caucasian and African/African American, with the relative proportions varying regionally. Southwest Hispanics, who are primarily Mexican-American, appear to be largely Caucasian and Native American; recent admixture estimates are 39% Native American, 58% Caucasian and 3% African [24]. By contrast, East Coast Hispanics are largely Caribbean in origin, and have a greater proportion African admixture [25]. Thus, depending on geography, self-identified Hispanics could aggregate genetically with Caucasians, Native Americans, African Americans or form their own cluster."

Some people have tried to use this or other articles using information selectively to push a POV on this issue as well. The Hispanic fallacy is easy to understand. It is as if we would create a category called American, and would try and cluster all those who are called Americans together. The results, albeit with different proportions, would be very similar to the ones obtained under the term Hispanic. Needless to say if we create the category "English speaking" and then try to cluster together all the people who speak English in the world.

In short, if we want to use all this information we have to tell the whole story, not cherry pick information to create fallacies. Veritas et Severitas 01:02, 20 March 2007 (UTC) Veritas et Severitas 00:34, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree with veritas and alun 100%. Genetic differences between populations based on autosomal dna and haplotypes does not justify the validity of races! Imagine that people from different regions of the world all wore different coloured wrist bands. So middle easterners, europeans and north africans all wore red wrist bands, just because they all wear red wrists bands does not mean to say they belong to the same race. Race is something subjective based on physical appearances (not haplotypes or autosmal dna) and thus differences in haplotypes or autosmal dna do not justify the existence of a race. Just to give an example that I have already used, the welsh and the irish are genetically very similar but look quite different to each other.

Someone who is of 25% african ancestry and 75% swedish ancestry has the possibility of having 100% swedish haplotypes, but this person would not look typically swedish. Imagine a similar thing happens to small group of hunter gatheres who recently departed from another group of relatives (who dont recieve this newcomer to their clan) and then both their population size increases rapidly, suddenly we have 2 large populations who are genetically very similar but look different to each other. --Globe01 18:22, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

That's why looking at SNPs all over the genome is better than just looking at haplotypes, apperantly. Lukas19 06:06, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] More from www.whites666s999s.info

On 6-9-04, a complaint was filed in U.S. District court in Ann Arbor, Michigan, against Commerce: Bureau of the Census, in response to the words BLACK and WHITE appearing on Census Forms. That lawsuit cited a DISPARITY and more.

A DISPARITY exists in the words BLACK and WHITE as the two words have been applied to humans. BLACK, gives 'full and absolute' consideration to the effects of UV RADIATION on the skin. And WHITE, gives 'NO' consideration to the effects of UV RADIATION on the skin.

In a letter, the federal judge said "colorful / frivolous" complaint. But in a 2nd letter, 8 days later, the judge said "argument may have merit in the area of the social sciences."

71.244.154.15 18:12, 23 March 2007 (UTC)