Talk:Race debate/archive01

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[edit] Misleading (or rather demogogic) statements in the article

"Scientific support for the Caucasoid, Negroid, Mongoloid terminology of racial classification has diminished over the past century. These terms originally denoted skull types and sprang from the technique known as craniofacial anthropometry, but these disciplines have been abandoned by the mainstream scientific community. Today...they are used in forensic anthropology as an indicator of ethnicity of skeletal remains." So the terms were abandoned, because craniofacial anthropometry was abandoned as irrelevant, but people can be classified into these types on the basis of anthropometry? Welcome in the mental house! Centrum99 82.100.61.114 14:52, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

The paragraph "The Marketing of Race: genetic lineages as social lineages" must have been obviously written by an ideologically motivated retard and is a good example of the game full of half-truths and "little shifts" with which left-wing agitators brainwash uninformed people. Since a man with an average intelligence can understand that certain populations share specific haplogroups and when these populations mix, the resulting ratio of haplogroups can give a fairly accurate idea about the genetic composition of the sample when taken as a whole (although the haplogroups may not identify genetic origin in individual cases). So the percentage of European haplogroups in African-Americans is 18-24% (=21%) and European admixture in African-Americans was estimated at 19% based on In autosomal genes. Obviously, these numbers are almost identical. When one studies the topic in depth, he can see the influence of genetic drift and explain, why certain phenotypic traits predominate despite the lack of support by haplogroups. For example, North African Berbers have about 80-90% Y-haplogroups and 20-25% mtDNA haplogroups of Sub-Saharan origin, yet they are traditionally taken as Caucasoids, which is confirmed by 80% Caucasoid origin by autosomes. Why? Simply because the Y-haplogroup situation is a result of genetic drift and the mtDNA percentages reflect the real genetic composition of Berbers very well.

The question, if racial classification has any relevance in humans is actually irrelevant; we all know that humans can be classified to well-defined groups both on the basis of external appearance and genetics. The differences between human groups from extreme climatic regions are so huge that these groups could be separated as single species by an extra-terrestial observer. So the classification of humans is perfectly substantianted. The real reason, why the word "race" is being abandoned in this case is purely political and all the discussion around is a worthles game with words. I must actually check the original sources to the information about "~6-10% variation between groups within the same continent", because I strongly suspect that it was abused by some leftie ignorant, who grouped separated racial groups into one. Since the real racial picture is as follows:

[edit] A key piece of information: How human races actually came into being

The oldest separation of modern humans (according to Y-chromozomes and mtDNA) occured more than 100 000 years ago, and as the branching suggests, it very probably happened not in East Africa, but in south Africa. The group that headed north is classified as "haplogroup BR" by modern geneticists. The groups that stayed in south Africa were characterized by deeply branched Y-haplogroup A and mtDNA haplogroup L0. During the Middle Paleolithic, they further separated into two distinct branches: while Y-haplogroup A3b2 + mtDNA haplogroups L0a/L0f headed north, all remaining A-lineages and mtDNA haplogroups L0d/L0k remained in south Africa.

The group with A+L0d/L0k lineages that stayed in south Africa developed into today's Khoisans. They are subtle people (150-160 cm) with body proportions similar to that of Europeans (trunk index ca. 52%), yellowish skin, "peppercorn" hair and the presence of epicanthus, among other things. During the last millenium, they were significantly influenced by Bantus from the paternal side and from this mixture, a taller subgroup (Khoi/Hottentots) came into being. The presence of "clicks" in Khoisan language supports the idea that these sounds were present in the oldest human "Ur-sprache".

The group that headed north sometimes around 50 000 years BP and bore A3B2+L0a/L0f developed in the dry savannah of south-east Sahara. Today we know them as Nilotes, representatives of the most extreme adaptation to hot, dry climate on Earth (matched only by some Australian tribes). Their trunk index 48% betrays extremely long limbs that dissipate heat more efficiently, their skin is extremely dark, skull is long and narrow (again an adaptation reducing the influence of sun heat). Among pastoral Nilotic tribes we can find the tallest people in the world, whose average height exceeds 180 cm. On the other hand, some agricultural tribes are rather small, 170-175 cm. This is explained as a consequence of the specific diet of pastoral tribes containing lots of milk and heance a lot of calcium.

The people bearing Y-haplogroup BR headed to East Africa. Here they further diverged into two basic lineages marked by Y-haplogroups B and CR. It would be interesting to find out, if this divergence has anything to do with the explosion of Mt. Toba on Sumatra 71-73 500 years ago that was followed by an extremely dry and cold phase. It is possible that bearers of Y-haplogroup B were pushed to the forests in West-Central Africa by the extreme drought, because these rainy and wet places aren't just of the most pleasant ones. This is, after all, clear from the influence that this climate had on their phenotype: Today we know them as small Pygmies, only 145-160 cm tall humans with dark skin, long arms and relatively short legs (trunk index 52-53%), with highly mobile muscle morphology suited for fast movement in the jungle. Besides Y-haplogroup B, they also bear typical mtDNA haplogroups L1 and L2. However, it is interesting to note that the same haplogroups are present in Tanzanian Hadzabe, who were traditionally grouped with Khoisan on the basis of the presence of clicks in their language. Yet the Hadzabe obviously have nothing in common with Khoisan genetically, so this is another evidence that "clicks" were present in the original language of humans.

The branch CR probably stayed in East Africa until the end of the cold phase 60 000 years ago. It is logical to assume that the first migration out of Africa occured just at this time, when the climate on the Northern hemisphere mildened. These humans bearing Y-haplogroup C and mtDNA haplogroup M (a subbranch of L3) crossed the Bab al Mandab strait to Arabia and then followed the South Asian coast to India. They probably weren't capable to compete with Neanderthals in the Near and Middle East yet. The "C-clan" (also called the "Coastal Clan") diverged into several geographically differentiated "sub-clans": C5 in India (Veddids), C3 in East Asia/Siberia (Mongoloids), C4 in Australia (Aborigines), C2 in South-East Asia (negritos, Papuans, Melanesians). Hence, from the genetic point of view, they represent the ancestors of modern Mongoloids and dark groups traditionally classified into the Australoid race (Veddas, negritos, Papuans, Australian aborigines).

About 50 000 years ago, when more sophisticated Upper Paleolithic technologies appear in the Horn of Africa, another group from the branch CR decided to leave Africa and conquer Eurasia. These people were the ancestors of modern Caucasians (Europoids) and bore Y-haplogroup F and mtDNA haplogroup N. Although the first traces of Upper Paleolithic technologies were found in the Levant 47 000 years ago and certainly belong to this "F-clan", the branching of its lineages suggests that the first migration center was somewhere in the Middle East, perhaps in Iran, and the Levantine population is only a result of a secondary migration. After all, the mtDNA lineages coming from N in the Near East originate virtually only from one subbranch of N (R). About 45 000 years ago, during a warm interstadial, the people of the "F-clan" massively expanded from South-West Asia to Central Asia, Europe, North Africa and even East and South-East Asia, where they mixed with local populations of the "Coastal Clan" and created intermediate groups (Polynesians, American Indians, Papuan highlanders, partly even some mongoloid groups). These Proto-Caucasoids were obviously more capable than their Proto-Australoid predecessors and they successfully competed with the Neanderthals - until they completely eradicated them from the planet Earth.



What about the CR-people that stayed in Africa? Well, their fate was very intersting. About 45 000 years ago, when the Saharan plateuau was green and full of lakes, they expanded from the Horn of Africa northwards and westwards. At this time, their L3 maternal lineages were accompanied by a dominant Y-haplogroup E that prevailed after the Proto-Caucasoid's departure. However, about 25 000 years BP, during the advance of the new Ice Age, these people were virtually torn apart by the dissicating Sahara: clans marked by Y-haplogroups E1 and E2 headed to North-West Africa, clan E3a to the lowlands of West Africa, and clan E3b radiated between the Horn of Africa, the Nile Valley and North-West Africa. The bearers of E3a soon came into contact with forest Pygmies and mixed with their women (about 75% West African mtDNA lineages are of Pygmy origin). From this mixture today's "Negroids" (traditionally understood African blacks) speaking Niger-Congo languages, came into being. As the Bantus they later further expanded southwards and largely absorbed their archaic relatives (Pygmies, Khoisan). People from the clan E3b in the Horn of Africa (belonging to its subbranch E3b1) probably bore Afro-Asiatic languages and spreaded them northwards after the end of the Ice Age 8000 BC. Another subbranch E3b2 was already present in North-West Africa, where a mixture of these Sub-Saharans and Caucasoids created modern Berbers. It is very interesting to note that the "purest" descendants of the clan E in Africa are Somalis - they posess 78% E3b1 and 70% L3, by far the highest percentages of these "CR-clan"-lineages documented in Sub-Saharan Africa. This also has far-reaching consequences for the anthropology of Sub-Saharan Africa, because it means that the "Caucasoid profile" of Somalis is a local development and Somalis thus make up a distinct racial group. By the way, it also indirectly indicates that some incipient features of Caucasoid race may have been already present in East Africa 50 000 years ago. The current anthropological picture of the Upper Paleolithic is still very foggy, however, and there doesn't exist much support for this claim. I should also add that Somalis received a certain supply of (Proto-)Caucasoid genes in the Upper Paleolithic (10-15% K2 and pre-HV).

From this description it is clear that the traditional anthropological classification needs a fundamental revision. Only in Sub-Saharan Africa we can find four distinct phenotypes with very deep roots that could be classified as separated racial groups (Khoisan, Nilotes, Pygmies, Somalis). Besides another two mixed racial groups emerge there (West Africans/Bantus, Ethiopids). The non-African human groups make up two basic lineages: the Caucasoid and the Australoid/Mongoloid one. Further, there exist their mixtures (that are predominantly Australoid/Mongoloid in origin): American Indians, Polynesians, many Papuan tribes, Indian outcaste groups, partly even Mongoloids from South-East Asia and Australian Aborigines. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.100.61.114 (talk) 15:13, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

The detailed anthropological description of non-African groups would take too much time, so I won't go into detail now. But I can add some information on request. Centrum99 82.100.61.114 16:50, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] A case of discrimination: Do tigers have a stronger racial lobby?

Dear Mr. Leftie, this is not a personal essay. Reserve several years of your life for checking the data! But as we know, you lefties need no facts; you comfortably manage with fabricated fantasies that have no support in the reality!

As for the variability data showing that 15% genetic variation occurs between human populations, this number betrays "moderate variability" in the animal world and is comparable with the interracial variability in species such as coyotes in North America or Asian dogs, as listed by John Goodrum here: http://www.goodrumj.com/RFaqHTML.html

In fact, it seems that humans are even older and more diverse than tigers, who have the privilege to be grouped into distinct subspecies: http://biology.plosjournals.org/archive/1545-7885/2/12/pdf/10.1371_journal.pbio.0020442-S.pdf I suppose that some wealthy tiger currupted academic elites, otherwise such a grouping would have to be taken as tigerracist.

It is incredibly funny and bizarre, how all those authors mapping human genetic clusters write about the very high accuracy of human classification, yet they warn against "potential hazards" that these discoveries could cause in the society. Obviously, anti-racial mythologists are faced with the reality of human differences and they suddenly don't know, how to get out of it without disgrace.

[edit] Extreme examples of human phenotypic diversity

But we shouldn't forget that the degree of genetic diversity may not be identical with the degree of phenotypic diversity. I could list many good examples of distinct "species", e.g. South American fishes Loricariidae that are so similar that they can't be distinguished without the knowledge of their origin. Since many laymen have no idea, how large the human phenotypic differences are, I would list several extreme examples to illustrate it.

First, if we take height into consideration, the smallest average height can be found in the Mbuti Pygmies from Zaire (145 cm). The tallest human (sub)group in the world are European Caucasians and pastoral Nilotes with 180+ cm. More specifically, the tallest of the tallest are the inhabitants of the Dinaric Alps with 186 cm. This is a difference of 41 cm or 28%, which is roughly 6 standard deviations of a normal European sample.

As for weight, we can again compare the lightest ones (small Pygmies with 45 kg) to the most robust human population in the world, Pacific Islanders (~90-100 kg at 173-179 cm). This is practically 100% difference in weight.

And we can list even another important factor - limb proportions that are tightly bound with adaptations to climate. As for trunk index (the ratio between trunk length/body height), we can find heat-adapted extremes like African Nilotes and Australian Aborigines with trunk index roughly 48%, and cold-adapted extremes like Siberian Mongoloids, the Ainu and especially Patagonians with trunk index 54% or even higher. If we take a hypothetical average Nilote with 175 cm height and a hypothetical average Patagonian of the same height, the Patagonian will have 10.5 cm shorter legs than the Nilote. This may equal roughly to 6 standard deviations of the Nilotic population. Obviously, we could hardly find a Nilotic man with the average Patagonian value. In fact, their Gaussian bell curves hardly touch at all.

From memory, I can also list differences in body width, which is again a factor resulting from climatic adaptation. According to "Dupertuis structural profile" (that can be found in the internet), an average Japanese male (i.e. a cold-adapted Mongoloid) matched for height has bitrochanteric width (i.e. hip width) roughly 103% of the average European value. On the other hand, an average youngster from the Ivory Coast has only 93% of the European value. This body width may be typical for all linear African populations.

I hope this will help those, who are looking for information of this sort. Unfortunately, I expect that I will have to regularly revert this text due to repeated sabotages of Mr. Leftie, who created this page. Centrum99 82.100.61.114 01:55, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] purpose of essay posted by Centrum99/82.100.61.114

Wobble, if you have something against these my posts, discuss it here. I understand that erasing opinions that don't agree with your view is in perfect accordance with the left-wing conception of free speech, but I think that Wikipedia is an international web that is not owned by any Neomarxist organization, so every contribution to the topic should be appropriately discussed. Centrum99 17:39, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

I archived these ramblings for several reasons.

  • They do not seem to make reference to the content of the article, and cannot be used to improve the article, in which case they should not be here.WP:TALK#How_to_use_article_talk_pages
  • They are the personal opinions of a specific editor, and therefore irrelevant and represent little more than rather uninformed opinion and distortions of science.WP:V
  • Wikipedia is not a soapbox.WP:NOT#Wikipedia_is_not_a_soapbox
  • Wikipedia is not a forum for discussing personal theories.WP:NOT#Wikipedia_is_not_a_blog.2C_webspace_provider.2C_social_networking.2C_or_memorial_site
  • Wikipedia is not a publisher of original thought.WP:NOT#Wikipedia_is_not_a_publisher_of_original_thought
  • These personal essays are riddled with pompous personal attacks (for example obviously written by an ideologically motivated retard something you repeatedly do and have been blocked for in the past [1]) and factual inaccuracies (for example we all know that humans can be classified to well-defined groups both on the basis of external appearance and genetics. check out any reliable source and it is apparent that this statement is incorrect, people cannot be well classified into a few discrete groups.[2][3] variation is gradual and clinal) Your comments represent a distorted and unbalanced view by a person with a self confessed racist agenda to push.[4][5]
  • As you state I removed these opinions, but not because they "disagree with my view", but because they are simply what you claim, keeyour opinions. If I were the sort of editor who erased any opinion that I disagreed with, then I would have been permanently blocked many years ago, there are a multitude of articles that contain information I disagree with totally, but clearly I haven't gone around removing information from them. Alun 10:56, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

As for my politics, so what? I freely admit I am a political person, it is absurd to try to claim that you are apolitical, looking at the pov you are pushing and the aggressiveness of your messages it is clear that you are far more pushing a political agenda than I am. I know what your political agenda is, but I don't resort to impugning your motives, this is because I am on safe scientific ground, whereas you are pushing a personal racist-political agenda with no science to support your claims, therefore you are left with nothing but the figleaf of innuendo and personal attack. Alun 10:56, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Although your ramblings have little or no merit with regards to the article I don't see the point in edit warring over them. They have no use and when the page fills up with proper discussion regarding the article then they can be archived. Alun 10:56, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Of course Centrum99, Wobble doesn't consider himself bound by these rules. Savignac 17:59, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

All wikipedians are equally bound, you have no justification for making such comments. Alun 18:20, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
I posted this, because it is absolutely fundemental for the understanding of the origin of human variation. It is a simple synthesis of what has been collected in genetics, anthropology and archeology up to the beginning of the 21th century. NOWHERE it appears in the internet, not speaking about Wikipedia. Why? WHY??? This is a mystery for me. If you have any concrete objection against it, please let me know. I will be glad, if I improve the model. But I am afraid that you are unable to add anything fundamental to it, because it needs knowledge from more fields than just genetics. Hence the empty claims like "a distorted and unbalanced view", "personal opinions of a specific editor" blah blah blah etc. (But if you can really object something concrete, it would be a nice surprise.)


I have about 700 articles about population genetics and anthropology saved on my computer, and from what I have read, I would like to ask you: IS THERE ANY LARGE-SCALE GENETIC STUDY THAT WASN'T ABLE TO CLASSIFY PEOPLE INTO WELL-DEFINED POPULATIONS? I mean except the nice try of Serre and Paabo, who lowered the number of their samples to create a "smooth cline". The clusters may differ a little bit from study to study, but it is understandable for those, who know the mixed genetic history of some populations. The "cline model" is again a mythology that is never explained in detail. During the last Ice Age, there were no "clines", but clearly separated refugial groups, who were isolated from others for many thousands of years. For example, since the arrival of the Gravettian culture ca. 29 000 BP, there was no further significant migration to Europe until 8000 BP. This means that Europeans have been separated from the rest of humankind for 21 000 years. The same is valid for other refugial groups that are ALL CHARACTERIZED BY A SPECIFIC Y-HAPLOGROUP that prevailed in the isolated area during the time. The fact that populations from these refugiums can mix and create intermediate mixed areas is a proof that these populations are races, not different species.


As for my "aggressivenes", yes, I am irritated by liars and drugged fanatics building shining multicultural utopias that will inevitably collapse in rivers of blood. But perhaps I should calm down. The excitement that these experiments will bring to Europe may not be bad for people loving a lot of adrenaline, after all. And I wonder, what you mean by "safe scientific ground". I am not aware of any scientific research that would support your ideology. All evidence that has been collected so far speaks otherwise. Maybe you should reveal your secret sources to us all here, who are curious about the latest scientific progress. Centrum99 82.100.61.114 23:42, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
You have clearly stated that the opinions you have given are your own synthesis of the papers you have read.
Well, but why must the whole world wait for me? The data that I present should be familiar to every geneticist. Why don't geneticists, archeologists and anthropologists make such a synthesis? You must understand that I already lost patience and I had to do it on myself. Centrum99 (talk) 11:02, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
The world is not "waiting for you". Your analysis is your own, but we do not include original research on Wikipedia. Please see no original research. Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia, it is not a repository of the personal unpublished observations of it's editors. Alun (talk) 19:47, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
Therefore they are clearly irrelevant to Wikipedia, as is your own personal opinion that just because Ice Age refuges may have existed this "proves" that race is real, I know of no mainstream academic who has made such a claim based on genetics. If you can cite one than please do. Ice Age refuges may or may not have existed, but no one has claimed that there was no migration between these refuges at all.
There was no migration worthy of note, because glacial refugia were separated by vast depopulated areas of tundra and desert. There was no reason why people should migrate through them, because there was nothing to eat. You don't need any academic; just check the data. However, basic racial divergence started before the Ice Age; the separation in glacial refugias led only to local phenotypic variations (a nice example are European Dinarics). Centrum99 (talk) 11:02, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
Whether there was migration between refugia is unknown. Indeed the refugia hypothesis may be very popular at the moment, but it is an hypothesis, not an established fact. If there were Ice Age refugia, then there is no reason why movement of peoples may not have been possible between these refugia during summer months for example. Frankly your claim that "there was no migration worthy of note" is pure speculation on your part. Alun (talk) 19:47, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
The clinality of human genetics is not in dispute, some genes are clinal and some are clustered, clearly this is what one would expect, I don't think anyone has ever claimed that mutation has suddenly halted as the world has become more populated, clearly more recent mutations are likely to be more geographically localised, and therefore clustered. You ask about large scale genetic studies and classifying people into well defined populations, but most large scale studies do not classify people into well defined populations, the clusters observed by Rosenberg et al. (2002, 2005, 2007) for example are not well defined, these studies actually find that most individuals belong to more than a single cluster, even though most individuals have majority membership of a single cluster, furthermore these clusters are poorly defined because the HGDP did not sample by geography, therefore we do not know where the boundaries of the so called clusters are supposed to be. Even Risch (one of the biggest proponents of the "cluster=population=race theory") states that intermediate populations are likely to display significant membership of more than a single cluster, but that these intermediate populations have not been sampled. Serre and Pääbo's paper is very interesting, but clearly because it does not support your personal beliefs you have chosen to dismiss it.
You must be kidding??? The clusters are very well separated. Look at Luciana Bastos-Rodrigues et al.: The Genetic Structure of Human Populations Studied Through Short Insertion-Deletion Polymorphisms. Annals of Human Genetics (2006) 70,658–665 Your friends Serre and Paabo must be yelling in hell. Common sense can tell us that populations sharing a more common genetic history will make up a tighter cluster. A child from a basic school can understand that an Uyghur or a Hazara will be positioned between Mongoloid and Caucasoid cluster, because they came into being relatively recently as a racial mixture, but unmixed people from China/Vietnam/Japan and Iran/Turkey/England will always make up distinct clusters separated by a marked genetic distance. It seems that unlike children, many professors can't understand it and they think that people of East Asia and Western Eurasia were in close uninterrupted touch during the last 50 000 years and their visible physical differences were simply suddenly created by magic. Centrum99 (talk) 11:02, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
I don't know what you mean by "the clusters are very well separated", do you mean geographically or genetically? Either way it is an incorrect assertion. Clustering may well be due to sampling strategy, ie non-continuous sampling of a continuum, this has been claimed in reliable sources, and so is perfectly relevant for inclusion in Wikipedia. If you mean that the clusters are geographically separated then this is unknown due to the fact that there was no continuous sampling of the human population in the HGDP, we only have a small group of not very well spaced samples derived from ethnic groups. If you mean that the clusters are well genetically separated then no one actually claims this, we are talking about a tiny proportion of human variability, in an organism noted for it's lack of variation, indeed most individuals sampled had membership of multiple clusters rather than membership of a single cluster. Frankly the clustering only accounts for a small degree of divergence between human populations, far too small to be considered relevant enough differentiation for subspecific classification purposes. The paper you cite "The Genetic Structure of Human Populations Studied Through Short Insertion-Deletion Polymorphisms" uses the same Structure programme as Rosenberg, which has been found to produce too small an estimate for populations, and it is clear that these groups identified do not represent genetic populations in any meaningful way, it is clear that a British person does not have the same chance of mating with, say, a North African person as they do with another British person, which just goes to show that they do not belong to the same population. The study also uses the same HGDP samples as Rosenberg, and so suffers from the same sampling flaw. Indeed it even makes the error of claiming that Rosenberg found five clusters in 2002 when in fact they found six, the Kalash were actually a cluster of their own, this in itself shows the dubiousness of these clusters, but there's more. In 2006 Rosenberg published another paper,[6] where he included samples from the Indian subcontinent, and he found another cluster, so now Rosenberg has seven clusters, still most people belong to more than a single cluster.[7] What will be the end result? Will we get new clusters whenever a new geographic region is sampled? Probably we will due to the discontinuous nature of the sampling and the fact that a great many individuals are sampled from ethnic groups, giving a biased result, ie sampling a large number of people from geographically distant regions will not give a true picture of the distribution of diversity. Here's the thing, you are assuming that modern ethnic groups represent genetically homogeneous populations, but where is the evidence for this? This is the great flaw in the sampling strategy, most anthropologists reject this claim and point out that ethnic groups are social-cultural constructs and not biological populations. Furthermore you seem to be implying that just because physical or genetic differences exist between people from different regions this is somehow a proof or "race", well it isn't, no one rejects that people from different parts of the world are different from each other, it is not a definition of race to say "look there are differences between these people", and it never has been. As for "burning in hell", what a strange comment to make about people who are still alive. Your comments about professional academics are irrelevant, we do not discount perfectly good academic work just because it isn't "common sense", after all common sense told people many years ago that the world was the center of the Universe, and that was wrong. Common sense can't explain the Big Bang or Black holes or Particle physics. If you want to bring "common sense" into science, then nearly all science would fail your test. Alun (talk) 19:47, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
And you are allowed to administer Wikipedia? I suspect that you are a standard product of the American school system. I can give you some advice: Find some geographical atlas and then continue - in small steps preventing the overheating of the brain - to some popular ethnographic publications and maybe after some 50 years, you will be able to understand even sophisticated books about human anthropology. And for your information (and for the information of all liberal fools), here is a study describing how social constructs can be identified by population genetics:
http://genetics.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pgen.0030185&ct=1 I think that the authors should be burned at the stake, shouldn't they? Give up your flat-earth philosophy! You yourself must know that you are fighting a lost battle. Centrum99 16:29, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
I am neither an administrator nor an American, I have never even visited North America. The study you refer to does not show how social constructs can be identified by population genetics. This study samples by "ethnic group" and will therefore give biased results, the sampling makes the groups real. The correct way to sample is geographically. If you want to read a study where sampling was by geography then see A Y chromosome census of the British Isles. In this study you will observe that they did not sample a "Welsh group" and an "English group" and a "Scottish group", but rather laid a grid over the Islands and sampled from the grid. This is the difference between sampling by geography and sampling by ethnic group. You will also note that by sampling by geography Capelli et al. produce a clinal distribution of variation and not a clustered one. Alun (talk) 07:47, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
P.S.: And how does it look with the tigers? Do they have a stronger racial lobby than humans or not? Centrum99
The last time I checked Tigers and Humans were not part of the same species. A recent phylogeographic analysis of tigers classified them into several subspecies, so what? Phylogeographic analyses are very species specific because they take into account the ecology of the organism, but the last paper I checked even from a simply genetic point of view tiger populations were much more diverged than human populations, with tiger mtDNA having an FST of 63% (compared to 25% for humans) and a genomic FST of ~30% (compared to 6-10% for human continental groups). We are not tigers and it is biologically incompetent to claim that species are all equivalent. Alun (talk) 07:53, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
It is the cherry piking of science that you personally think supports your racialist pov that is unacceptable. Discussion of genetic variation in humans, and how much genetic material is shared between populations is not confined to Serre and Pääbo, Bamshed et al. (2004) also have a great deal to say about this, and Witherspoon et al. (2007) have a long discussion regarding the utility of clustering analyses, and how they tend to mask a great deal of between group genetic similarities.
Bamshad et al. and Witherspoon et al. bring nothing fundamentally new. And nothing too interesting. Hopefully you don't want to tell me that with the use of some sophisticated genetic analysis, my brother would turn out to be more closely related to an Eskimo from Alaska than to me? Centrum99 (talk) 11:02, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
I agree Bamshad et al., Serre and Pääbo and Witherspoon don't bring anything particularly new. They are saying what anthropologists have been saying since the time of Franz Boas, that "races" are a myth when we look at the distribution of biological traits in humans. Your comment about your brother and Eskimos is confusing, I don't understand what you mean. Have you found any genetic analysis that claims that human groups are somehow homogeneous? I don't understand the point you are trying to make. Alun (talk) 19:47, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
Besides much of the claims you make are not supported by mainstream science. Your attempts to link Y chromosome haplogroups with specific ancient material culture is just plain daft. Y chromosome/mtDNA haplogroups represent only a tiny proportion of any individual's ancestors, and coupled with the known high extinction rate of Y chromosome haplogroups and the slower, but still high extinction rates of mtDNA haplogroups, it is impossible to know what the Y chromosome or mtDNA composition was for the founders of any given population.[8]
Hmm, but when all people coming from a certain founding population share distinct lineages, irrespectively of how far and where they migrated, it would be an incredible coincidence, if only these lineages survived, wouldn't it? Centrum99 (talk) 11:02, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
I don't follow what you are saying. You don't seem to have understood my point. My point is that only a small amount of the male line and femal line diversity has survived because these molecules have a tendency to suffer from drift in small populations. Therefore the genetic diversity of a population cannot be estimated from Y chromosome or mtDNA data. Or if you like, just because your paternal lineage can be traced back via a certain migratory route, it does not mean that all of your ancestors took the same route. Or to put it another way, knowing where 12.5% of your great grandparents came from (ie your father's father's father) doesn't tell you a thing about the other 87.5% (ie the other 7 of your great grandparents). The diversity of Y chromosomes in the past is an unknown, and is unknowable, as it gets easier to isolate ancient DNA maybe we will get some idea of the Y chromosome composition of paleolithic populations, but it is not correct to assume that the level of diversity seen in modern populations is a direct reflection of the level of diversity seen in ancestral populations, especially in Y chromosomes, and this is a citable observation. Alun (talk) 19:47, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
Your argument about Y chromosomes defining specific refugia is circular, Y chromosome distributions support refugia theories, but only due to the known high extinction rates of Y chromosomes and the very small effective population size of the refugia that would lead to founder effects and drift, differentiation of the Y chromosomes of a relatively isolated population is not evidence of significant differentiation of the population in other aspects of their biology (FST of Y chromosomes and mtDNA are nearly always significantly higher for populations than the FST of autosomal genetic elements). Indication that certain populations may be genetically different is a far way from showing that any differentiation amounts to the level of subspecies. This is one of the greatest problems with your analysis, you want to interpret any and all genetic variation in terms of "race". It is the constant refrain of the racialist, that any and all differences between populations are evidence of subspecies/"race", while claiming that scientists that reject subspecies in the human global population are claiming that all humans are genetically homogeneous. Something no one is doing.
Available data are obviously sufficient to validate racial classification in humans. I don't know why tigers, lions or leopards can have the privilege to be grouped into geographical races, while humans not. This is a sort of animal discrimination! Centrum99 (talk) 11:02, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
Phylogeographic analysis is a new discipline and the methodology is often different between different species, this is because different species have different a ecology and the ecology of a species is taken into account when phylogeographic analysis is employed. Generally these big cat species are far more differentiated than the human species is. The extent of differentiation is quite important, but also the distribution of the variation is also important. Taxonomists, anthropologista and biologists reject the concept of subspecific classification for the human species for very good biological reasons. Basically there is only such a thing as "race" if we define it accurately, and no one has ever managed to do this for humans. This is usually explained by the lack of good differentiation between human population groups. This lack of differentiation is probably due to two factors, firstly our species may be very recent in origin, which means that we have not had time enough to differentiate to any great degree. Secondly there may well have always been a lot of reproduction between people from different groups. All of this can be verified form reliable sources. Alun (talk) 19:47, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
Furthermore if you care to read Bauchet or Seldin you will observe that their clusters are generally north-south and support a demic diffusion in the neolithic, indicating that the European population may be an admixed population of paleolithic hunter gatherers and middle eastern neolithic farmers. See also "Estimating the Impact of Prehistoric Admixture on the Genome of Europeans" [9]which concludes that neolithic settlement and mixing probably occurred even quite north in Europe (20% neolithic even in Great Britain and Ireland, and 50% in Northern France), so there may well be very large neolithic Near Eastern contributions to the European population, this would lead to clinal variation between northern Europe and the Anatolia/The Levant.
So what? The contribution of Anatolian agriculturalists is a well-known thing. The extent of this contribution is a matter of dispute. Centrum99 (talk) 11:02, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
So it shows that there is clinal variation between groups, and not clustered variation. Alun (talk) 19:47, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
Also the distribution of Y chromosomes is clearly clinal, as one would expect, Y chromosome and mtDNA haplogroups act like single genes when it comes to heredity, so claiming that they can help to define "races" is like claiming that everyone with blood group A belongs to a single "race". Y chromosome haplogroups are distributed in an east-west cline in Europe, and what do we see when we look at clustering analyses of autosomal data? We see a north south cline, so these systems clearly do not show a similar patterns of genetic variation.
The clustering of European populations is still in its embryonic stadium. The only difference in these clustering studies actually lies in the different clustering of Spaniards, who can make up a separate cluster, but another time they cluster together with South Italians/Greeks/Near Easterners. Apparently, the genetic separation during the Ice Age was different from the genetic separation in postglacial times, when the only significant geographic bareer were Mediterranean mountains. Centrum99 (talk) 11:02, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
Clustering of European populations is clearly dependent upon sampling strategy and type of genetic element used for the study, just like any other analysis. If one looks at Bauchet for example one can see that apparently Finns form a discrete cluster, but also that Swedes and Russians have partial membership of this cluster, but it would be obvious that if there was a continuous sampling from Finland through to Karelia and down to Estonia then we'd get a clianl pattern, and not the apparently discontinuous pattern we see between Russia and Finland. likewise we'd see that Swedes who live closer to Finalnd will be more like Finns, while those that live further from Finland will be more unlike Finns. Sampling strategies are all important, but no study has ever made a serious attempt to sample human variation geographically. Alun (talk) 19:47, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
If you want to know about clustering analyses you should read the paper "What is a population? An empirical evaluation of some genetic methods for identifying the number of gene pools and their degree of connectivity",[10] which gives a good critique of the STRUCTURE computer programme used by many population geneticists. Briefly STRUCTURE seems to give underestimates of the numbers of populations, especially when populations with high migration rates or genetic elements with low mutation rates (eg SNPs) are considered. You should also understand that sample collection has been highly criticised for the HGDP which are the samples used for most clustering analyses. Sampling by "ethnic group" is considered to give biased results. Whether you like it or not these claims have been made by reputable scientists and published in reliable sources. Until you can cite reliable sources to support your claims, which appear to be your personal opinion, then they cannot be included in Wikipedia. Your constant personal attacks are simply unacceptable, if you want to contribute to Wikipedia then you need to learn to work with people who hold different opinions to you, if you cannot be civil, then you will get blocked again. Please think about what you want to do.
First of all, I will always be hostile to drugged left-wingers, who want to turn Europe into a Third World hell hole, and they want to (ab)use science for it. Whether you like it or not, marked human differences will persist irrespectively if some academic bootlickers ban using the word "race". I can understand that they yell in panic, when their anti-racial mythologies now collapse, but they can't accuse computers, but rather face the reality. Centrum99 (talk) 11:02, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
If you are always hostile, then you will get banned again. Wikipedia does not exist for you to spout your own personal opinion. It does not exist for you to promote your personal beliefs, and it does not exist so you can include your own interpretation of science. Finally it is irrelevant that you do not agree with most academics and it is irrelevant that you reject their work. As far as Wikipedia is concerned their work is reliable and therefore we can cite it, you don't have the right to ban any reliable academic thought form Wikipedia because you don't like it. On the other hand it is perfectly acceptable for me to remove your unsupported personal opinion. Alun (talk) 19:47, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
If you have as great a knowledge as you claim, then you need to understand that you should be including the conclusions and results from the scientific papers you cite, and not your on synthesis of these papers, even if you do not like the conclusions the papers draw. As you can see there is plenty of evidence that contradicts your assertion, and it is not true to claim that there is only one way to measure or interpret genetic material. No work supports the differentiation of human populations into well defined groups (though some work supports their differentiation into poorly defined groups or clusters), and a significant amount of evidence supports the theory of isolation by distance, rather than a small island model for that small proportion of human genetic variation that happens to be geographically distributed. Because Wikipedia applies a neutral point of view policy, we do not cherry pick only those scientific results that fit with our own preconceived conceptions of the world. All the best. Alun 08:03, 8 November 2007 (UTC). NB amended 08:13, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
I can use my own brain. I don't take any PC twaddle like "well, grass seems to be of green color, but the shadows of green are close to blue, so grass is blue, too". Again, I would like to ask you: Can you list some studies that don't support the differentiation of human populations into well defined groups? A synthesis of human evolution in the last 100 000 years needs a more than basic knowledge of genetics, anthropology, archeology, climatology, linguistics and even many other fields. Hence it is not easy at all and a complete list of reference to such a synthesis would include not much less than 1000 articles. I myself advance only with small steps forward and I can nicely see that some problems that at first seemed to be unsolvable even with the help of several fields, are surprisingly easy to solve with the help of some other field. Centrum99 (talk) 11:02, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
Everyone can use their own brain, so this ability does not make you special. I don't know what you mean by "PC twaddle". You are simply trying to promote your own personal opinion, Wikipedia does not exist for that purpose. If you believe that you have produced some fundamentally important insight into human genetic variation and evolution, then you should not have any problem getting it published in a good academic journal, such as Nature. I suspect you'd have a great deal of problems with the peer reviewing process. The fact is that all you are doing is coming to this subject with a fundamental belief in such a thing as "race". But such a thing is a human invention, sure differences between humans from different parts of the world exist, big deal, but when it is investigated we see that these differences are small relative to other species, and more importantly there are no discrete groups, we see only gradations of change between groups. One question is, are we seeing a small island model, (ie lots of different populations with regions of overlap), as some geneticists think, or are we seeing isolation by distance, (ie continuous change over distance) as others think. The only way to show this is to sample the human population properly, but geography, but no one has done this yet. Furthermore, even if there is a small island model, does it verify the concept of "race"? Most scientists think not because there need to be thresholds for differentiation to be considered "racial", and most biologists think that human differentiation is too small to cross the subspecies threshold. Frankly I think that "race" is a matter of faith with people like you, you believe so fervently that you don't even stop to ask what it is or what it means. Well it's an artificial concept invented by humans in order to help then understand the differences they observe in biology that exist beneath the species level, usually it is applied arbitrarily. There's nothing magic about it, and many biologists reject the idea for all species because there is no consistency of application. Other biologists want to adopt the phylogenetic species concept, which would abolish all subspecies classification altogether, but make more subspecies recognised as species in their own right.[11] Needless to say no human groups would be classified as anything other than Homo sapiens if this idea were adopted by taxonomists. Race cannot be a fact because no biological classifications are "facts", they are only and simply our own rather crude way of dividing the biological world up into understandable systems for us to study, but they remain far less sophisticated than the real world, and often impose artificial boundaries where none exist in nature. Alun (talk) 19:47, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
PS, you ask for me to cite some studies that don't support the distribution of humans into well defined groups, well none of the studies cited here produce well defined groups. So you have answered your own question. The main point though, is that this is the talk page of an encyclopaedia and not a chat forum. I don't need to do anything except support the edits I make with reliable sources and try to make the encyclopaedia as accessible and easily readable as possible. Currently you don't seem to be interested in either contributing to the actual encyclopaedia, or discussing the actual article on this talk page. So just what are you doing here? Alun (talk) 19:51, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
O.K., none of the studies produces well-defined groups. A red cube is a blue ball. I don't trust my liying eyes anymore and I will only listen to liberal professors with superior knowledge about the Emperor's new clothes. I am a 100% multi-culti liberal now. Centrum99 (talk) 16:32, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
If you don't have anything constructive to say then don't post at all. This is not a web forum and it is not a place for you to push your own personal beliefs and theories. Alun (talk) 07:47, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't agree with bell curve studies, but I don't share Wobble's insistence on corrective racism either. This is why I will vouch for neither of you raving racists. 'Nuff said! Savignac 07:31, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Wobble wants you to goose step in line with him; don't march to the beat of a different drum. Savignac 08:05, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia:Harassment. Alun 08:09, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
Looks like They're back. ~Jeeny (talk) 08:12, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Cinderella, if the shoe fits, wear it! Savignac 08:26, 8 November 2007 (UTC)