Posted: Jul 26, 2011 5:06 am
pinkharrier wrote: You should have some intellectual pride.
^^^ Needle bending irony from the ace avoider of questions and maestro of the non sequitur.
HAJiME wrote; Firstly, why are you assuming I want or need to classify them? Just because I think it's irrelevant what race someone is doesn't change whether or not there are such things as races.
I got the impression you were interested in grouping or classifying from these two statements -
HAJiME wrote; People group other people by their obvious visual differences, differences caused by biology, before considering other social and cultural traits to group by.
HAJiME wrote; The idea that things that look and behave alike are the same is a far more solid way to classify, because in many cases species/sub-species/races wont interbreed because of such differences.
Adding the second part, regarding relevancy, to your question doesn't negate that you observe 'racial' differences. These observations, as you point out in regard to (other) 'people', are usually automatically 'grouped' or 'classified' according to whatever categories one has available.
In your case, one of the categories seems to be on racial lines.
Whether or not you think 'race' is 'relevant', or otherwise, is of no consequence to the automatic mental sorting (classification) strategy your brain employs.
To illustrate what I mean... I don't think separate 'races' of humans exist, it's impossible therefore for my automatic grouping paradigm to put people in 'racial' boxes. Certainly I notice differences, but they're cultural, social, religious, or geographical (et.al.). I may notice further divisions within those groups, such as whether someone appears (from cultural cues), to be from Eastern Europe rather than Western. Or whether they appear to be from this or that quadrant of the Southern Pacific, or of Chinese descent via Malaysia as opposed to Chinese descent via Taiwan or mainland China.
I may notice both similarities and differences between the indigenous peoples of South America and those of Canada, while also noting similarities and differences between the Canadian indigenous peoples versus the people long resident in the Arctic circle, who in turn can resemble both (far) Northern Europeans and (far) Eastern.
I may notice, though my perceptions are weaker due to little familiarity, whether someone appears to be from Southern or Central Africa as opposed to Northern Africa, and then perhaps become confused because, unless cultural cues exist, it's easy to confuse a Northern African person with someone from the Middle East, or even with someone from Southern Italy, or Spain, unless they speak, which is, of course, a cultural difference since language is learned, not inherited or genetically programmed pre-birth by evolutionary forces.
You may resist the idea that you seek to 'classify' people racially, but... you do.
HAJiME wrote; It's not just about being separated off and having a close breeding population, it's about all the factors which would selectively breed. If a group of any species separates off, but lives in almost exactly the same conditions and there is little development socially (as with the Aimish), then of course there will not be any great differences...? That's just common sense.
It is about "being separated off and having a close breeding population", since 99.9999% of the time that's the evolutionary trigger that produces, in the scientific taxonomy sense, races, and/or sub-speciation, of animals.
If any group of animals lives in undivided populations there's no reason, or likelihood, that races or sub-species will appear. Even if they did by single random mutation, proximity and inevitable interbreeding would soon eliminate the potential.
HAJiME wrote; /snip/ ....because in many cases species/sub-species/races wont interbreed because of such differences. Take the example of a chihuahua and great dane, unlikely that they would breed on their own accord. Some sub-species of animals found naturally won't interbreed because they have such particular mating rituals or behaviours. Same can be applied to humans.
I think comparisons to non-human animals are facile, since the combination of differences in social organisation, complexity of the organism, geographical spread, ability to adapt to an enormous range of conditions, longevity (generally) and therefore generational change, are entirely dissimilar to every other species of animal.
However... to address your point, there is a white (albino) Humpback whale that visits Australia every year during the annual migration south. Being completely different visually to every other humpback female has obviously not affected its breeding potential as far as humpback males are concerned, since it has a non-albino calf...
Dogs, including even chihuahua's and great dane's, will attempt to mate (or show interest) regardless of 'visual' differences, they often are careless of gender as well, so pretending dogs are 'race' or breed conscious is nonsensical.
As far as I can tell any animal, including humans, will jump anything practical that might seem half willing regardless of genetic imperative. So I'm not even sure what these probably imaginary restrictions about mating or breeding potential are supposed to signify?
Apart from the potential for conception, possibility of live birth, and fertility of progeny issues of course, which usually are indicators of genetic closeness. Or otherwise.
HAJiME wrote; The thing about this (race) is that, of course there are spills and overlaps, so what? In everything we classify, there are overlapping.
In folk taxonomies perhaps, or in social and culturally relative classifications. But not in scientific taxonomy.
Certainly, a sub-division of an animal species or sub-species may be assigned the label of 'race' if it differs from the species, or sub-species, in significant though perhaps minor, ways. Or, that label may be applied sometimes if the taxonomists are unsure if is indeed sufficiently different to be separately classified at all, whether from the species or sub-species level.
But, biologically speaking, an organism can no more be a member of two 'races' at once than it can be of two species or sub-species.
One might suppose that if an animal appeared to share characteristics of two different 'races', species, or sub-species, then that alone would imply that, scientifically, it is a de facto separate species, or sub-species, separate and different to whichever two, or more, 'races', species, or sub-species it shares characteristics with.
I can't think of any animal, or plant for that matter, that is simultaneously a member of two different species, sub-species, or races. Can you?
If this elastic rule applied uniquely to homo sapiens it would necessarily lead, as others have pointed out, to a proliferation of overlapping human 'races' each about the size of a family.
Which leads one to wonder at the utility of redundant 'racial' nomenclature when we already have perfectly good terms such as 'son', daughter', 'mother', 'father', 'cousin', 'uncle', 'aunt', or indeed, 'family member'. Not to mention perfectly functional geographical indicators such as, 'Londoner' or 'Melbournian', and 'European' or 'African'.
Descriptors such as, for instance, 'short' and 'tall' (not forgetting the infinite graduations between those extreme limits), are adequate to denote physical differences without introducing imaginary, and likewise infinitely variable, racially specific nomenclature that would, necessarily given the complexity of the overlapping relationships, need to be immensely convoluted to maintain clarity.
Which would, paradoxically, make such nomenclature unintelligible.
HAJiME wrote; /snip/ I just think there's something really odd in arguing with biologists over the matter that species is not a set in stone definition.
I'm not arguing about the definition of species. I accept the scientific (taxonomic) definitions of 'species', 'sub-species', and 'race'. My argument is that homo sapiens is a single undivided species because the apparent cosmetic and genetic differences between various populations are rendered insignificant by overwhelming similarities across the population as a whole, and that where differences exist they exist on a continuum that resists taxonomically significant or consistent demarcation.
It seems obvious to me, despite the notable variation in not only geographic location and physical appearance (including height, eye colour, tongue curling ability, how or whether we see colours, ear wax dessication, etc etc), that all humans are fundamentally and inescapably homo sapiens.
It's not proof, but concepts such as that explored in this recent movie support the idea that some things, our humanity for instance, are universal while such things as 'race' and 'culture' are learned.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1020938/
http://www.babiesthemovie.com.au/
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/10012014-babies/