User talk:Orionix

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[[User:Sam Spade|Sam Spade Arb Com election]] 21:06, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)


Orionix, be careful with your editing on the talk pages. You have accidently deleted other people's comments. --Rikurzhen 03:26, Nov 20, 2004 (UTC)

Hi, I had to delete your article New Page, as it was incorrectly titled. There is already an article on Race, which you might like to add to instead of starting from scratch. Deb 12:54, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Discussions regrarding race

Hi,

You had a number of questions, comments, etc. on the race/discussion page. They looked reasonable to me, and I have tried to go back over the discussion and clarify some points where you and Rikurzhen seem to have differences of opinion. I suspect that the real problem is that he has a radically different threshhold for what he is willing to count as a "distinct" group. In your sense (and in mine too), there are no truly separate groups. In his sense, a fifteen percent overlap in inherited characteristics doesn't seem to matter as long as he can see that there are two "separate" lineages involved. He seems to disattend to the occasional cross-border mating.

I want to change the beginning paragraph because a month or so ago somebody started reifying race again. That's what I really object to, not only because it is conceptually sloppy, but also because it gives comfort to racists. I think it is imperative to say, up front, that "race" is just the product of somebody's system of categorization. So there are as many "races" as there are people who come up with a new way of categorizing people. Some of these schemes are both pathetic (as examples of the product of supposedly rational animals) and dangerous. Other schemes acknowledge that they can only provide statistically valid predictions about members of groups on the basis of careful sampling of the group, and that if you want to know something particular about an individual you need to check the individual out.

I hope that we are in major agreement on these matters. Please let me know if you have problems with what I have said here. P0M 06:21, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Re: I realized people define 'race' differently. 'Race' means different things to people, though i have yet to understand how Rekurzhen defines the term. Rekurzhen didn't agree with me when i wrote (supported by evidence of course) that human biodiversity is patterned or gradiently differentiated and not expressed in discrete and objectively verifiable human types.

Stable and discrete sub-species do not exist within the human species. That's because we are relatively a recent species. No population on earth has been isolated long enough to diverge much in genetic terms and given the intense biological mixtures of the last century, such notions are in fact incredibly dangerous. This has been scientifically demonstrated to the nines. -- Orionix 00:23, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I suspect that the real problem is that he has a radically different threshhold for what he is willing to count as a "distinct" group.

Re: Rikurzhen thinks of race more as an ancestral lineage. Still he misses the point when he thinks pure ancestral lineages even exist. Human ancestry is mixed, goes far back and therefore is much more complex than racial theory can deal with. -- Orionix 00:23, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

In your sense (and in mine too), there are no truly separate groups. In his sense, a fifteen percent overlap in inherited characteristics doesn't seem to matter as long as he can see that there are two "separate" lineages involved. He seems to disattend to the occasional cross-border mating.

Re: The within- to between-group variation is very high for genetic polymorphisms (85%). This means that individuals from one 'race' may be overall more similar to individuals in one of the other 'races' than to other individuals in the same 'race'. As Rekurzhen mentioned and correctly, this observation is perhaps insufficient, although it still is convincing because it illustrates the lack of a boundary. -- Orionix 00:23, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I want to change the beginning paragraph because a month or so ago somebody started reifying race again.

Re: No, the paragraph is ok. It's good (and even necessary) you mentioned that sub-species is now a discredited theory in human biology. It's just not in concordence with the genetic make-up and evolutionary history of human beings. History has not permitted enough genetic deviation to give us anything like human subspecies, as Darwin would have been the first to admit if he knew what we now know today.

In the biological tradition, race is considered to be a synonym of "subspecies". Race has historically been defined in the biological sciences as a set subspecies sharing a discrete group of physical characteristics and forming a closed breeding pool. If that thesis of race were correct, as it is for say dogs, horses, or cats, then the same characterisitcs should vary across the same populations no matter how you slice them. This is not true for humans. -- Orionix 00:49, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

That's what I really object to, not only because it is conceptually sloppy, but also because it gives comfort to racists. I think it is imperative to say, up front, that "race" is just the product of somebody's system of categorization.

Re: Well, it is actually. Race is not something objective, like say, the periodic table or the planetary system. Race is contextual. I see race in the cultural and historical context, not in the physical one. To my opinion, one doesn't have to believe in race in order to explain human biodiversity. -- Orionix 00:23, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

So there are as many "races" as there are people who come up with a new way of categorizing people.

Re: True. I guess we agree on that. -- Orionix 00:23, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Some of these schemes are both pathetic (as examples of the product of supposedly rational animals) and dangerous.

Re: Racial notions of human biodiversity are dangerous: it lulls us into thinking that we can divide up the world into a series of discrete genetic units when we cannot. -- Orionix 00:23, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Other schemes acknowledge that they can only provide statistically valid predictions about members of groups on the basis of careful sampling of the group, and that if you want to know something particular about an individual you need to check the individual out.

Re: If i understood you correctly, forensic Anthroplogists are able to assess an individual's geographic ancestry because they are working with a priori agreed upon definition of race. Therefore they guess it right by 2/3 of the time. It's called tautalogical thinking ("given A, then A = A"). Asking "Is A equal to A"? is not a hypothesis: it's a tautology.

I hope that we are in major agreement on these matters. Please let me know if you have problems with what I have said here. P0M 06:21, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Re: I think we largly agree with each other. -- Orionix 00:23, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Mathematics Reading List

Orionix - can you explain the rationale behind the list of books that you have put into the new Suggested Reading section on the mathematics page ? There is a theme to the books in the existing Bibliography section - they are all well known works about the foundations or the history of mathematics, or they have encyclopaedic scope. But the Suggested Reading books seem to be about very specific topics - I am struggling to see why they have been selected out of hundreds of similar textbooks. Gandalf61 09:58, Feb 15, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Big Bang discussions

Thanks, I appreciate your overwhelmingly agreeable response to my criticism of your discussion on Talk:Big Bang. --P3d0 03:09, Apr 16, 2005 (UTC)

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[edit] Energy density

When I hear "energy density", the first thing that pops into my mind is apparently very different than the first thing that pops into your mind. Can both of them co-exist in the energy density article? --DavidCary 17:17, 26 September 2005 (UTC)