A question, i pose thee

[Meshugger]

I saw a debate the other day on TV about racism in Europe , USA and other places. Except for the old and tried that only caucasians seems to be racist, i heard one of the arguments about race itself:

 

- "There's is no such thing as different races, just different kinds of people".

 

Of some reason, i started to ponder upon it, but got to a dead end. Namely this: If there there is no such as different human races, why do we have, and actively breed different breeds of cats and dogs? We even are racist enough to generalize their characteristics based on breed. Some breeds are calm and needy, some are wild but friendly, some are obiedient but very aggressive, and so on.

 

halp pleez?

[Hurlshort]

I think the human versus dog comparison fails due to the complex nature of humans. Humans are much more a product of their environment than their race.

 

There are some cool genetic difference though, like sherpas.

[Oner]

Animal races are a product of their environment too. Snow foxes don't have white fur out of a fashion sense.

[Enoch]

I think the human versus dog comparison fails due to the complex nature of humans. Humans are much more a product of their environment than their race.

 

There are some cool genetic difference though, like sherpas.

I think the human race v. dog breed comparison fails because they are fundamentally different concepts.

 

Dog breeds are not naturally occuring variations in the species-- they are the results of thousands of years of human-directed selective breeding and culling of a species to highlight certain features and eliminate others. Human intervention caused a species that at one time uniformly looked pretty much like wolves do today, and, based on the needs of particular human populations, bred some of them into Pomeranians, and some of them into Mastiffs.

 

Sure, human races are variations in human genetics based on geographic segregation of populations. But that's not always what we're talking about when people say "race." Generally, they're referring to the social constructs that human societies have built upon those genetic variations-- humanity's instinctive tribalism writ large across a global population. Certainly, nobody can deny that certain genetic traits vary consistently from continent to continent. But those variations aren't all that more significant (except in superficial ways like skin tone) than the variations between individual people, even people deriving from the same general genepool. To say that there are no human "races" is really a shorthand for saying that the social constructs that human societies have built upon these minor genetic differences is without any rational basis.

Edited January 14, 2010 by Enoch

[Killian Kalthorne]

I think that it should be the human species and not the human race. Just as Dog is one species, there are many breeds or races of dogs. At least that is how I figure it.

[Humodour]

I saw a debate the other day on TV about racism in Europe , USA and other places. Except for the old and tried that only caucasians seems to be racist, i heard one of the arguments about race itself:

 

- "There's is no such thing as different races, just different kinds of people".

 

Of some reason, i started to ponder upon it, but got to a dead end. Namely this: If there there is no such as different human races, why do we have, and actively breed different breeds of cats and dogs? We even are racist enough to generalize their characteristics based on breed. Some breeds are calm and needy, some are wild but friendly, some are obiedient but very aggressive, and so on.

 

halp pleez?

 

Genetically speaking, there's definitely such a thing as different human races, or more accurately sub-species. Globalisation is good because it ensures the species doesn't diverge and that the stock is kept healthy by inter-breeding (in fact, children of interracial parents are typically far healthier than their counterparts in either race).

 

We could breed humans like we do cats and dogs but that's called eugenics and some people don't like that. Especially when you act psychopathic about it and start to try and murder one race because they have big noses or black skin.

[Walsingham]

I certainly recall the assertion in Howe's IQ in Question that 'genetics experts' had run the notion of races out of town. That is, while they can and are called upon to do things like help the police to pick up on identifiers of what we would call race, the variation in significant expressed traits is pretty slim.

[Meshugger]

I maybe i mispoke, my question was: If we claim that there's only one human race, why do we actively encourage different breeds of animals?

 

Thus, shouldn't selective breeding for animals considered morally wrong, since it really is eugenics?

[Hell Kitty]

Why do we eat some kinds of animals, but not others?

[Moose]

I think throughout history most animals have been eatten at some point by man.

[Hell Kitty]

Probably, but that's beside the point.

 

Anyway, to simplify things, why do we treat different animals differently?

[Gorgon]

I certainly recall the assertion in Howe's IQ in Question that 'genetics experts' had run the notion of races out of town. That is, while they can and are called upon to do things like help the police to pick up on identifiers of what we would call race, the variation in significant expressed traits is pretty slim.

And theres the fact that if you actually studied it and came up with a genetic variation favoring whitey you would also flush your career down the toilet. The reason not to bother with race as regards intellectual capacity is that there is absolutely nothing you can do about it. You can do something about child rearing and education however. Edited January 15, 2010 by Gorgon

[Killian Kalthorne]

Probably, but that's beside the point.

 

Anyway, to simplify things, why do we treat different animals differently?

 

Because they aren't sapient.

[Gorgon]

Some animals are tastly, some are not, others have been useful to us and we have struck a bargain with them, Cats and dogs for instance, horses, etc.

Edited January 15, 2010 by Gorgon

[Purkake]

Some animals are tastly, some are not, others have been useful to us and we have struck a bargain with them, Cats and dogs for instance, horses, etc.

Pretty much, I'd try any of them at least once. Who wouldn't want some good ol' cat burgers?

[Hell Kitty]

The cuter the animal, the less likely we are to eat it, but what if the cutest animals are actually the tastiest?

[Purkake]

I'll barbecue some puppies and kittens for dinner and get back to you on that.

[Moose]

Please, we eat cows by the tonne and they're a nice docile animal.

[Hell Kitty]

Cows are not cute. It doesn't matter how "nice" an animal is. Koalas can be real bastards but everyone still thinks they're cute.

[lord of flies]

The reason the human species "races" are really just broad, meaningless subtypes with little differentiation beyond some visible physical traits in terms of skin tone and skull shape, is because we have a radically small amount of genetic versatility in comparison to dogs (or many other species).

[Purkake]

Flipping that around, think how much racial discrimination there would be if dogs were the dominant intelligent species on the planet.

[Oner]

Flipping that around, think how much racial discrimination there would be if dogs were the dominant intelligent species on the planet.

If they still use ass-sniffing to differentiate between each other, then not much.

[Purkake]

So you're saying the great Poodle genocide of 1593 wouldn't happen?

[Gfted1]

Ive eaten monkey before, its delicious. Tastes like BBQ pork. Anywho:

 

Men more evolved? Y chromosome study stirs debate

 

Jan 13, 4:28 PM (ET)

 

By SETH BORENSTEIN

 

WASHINGTON (AP) - Women may think of men as primitive, but new research indicates that the Y chromosome - the thing that makes a man male - is evolving far faster than the rest of the human genetic code.

 

A new study comparing the Y chromosomes from humans and chimpanzees, our nearest living relatives, show that they are about 30 percent different. That is far greater than the 2 percent difference between the rest of the human genetic code and that of the chimp's, according to a study appearing online Wednesday in the journal Nature.

 

These changes occurred in the last 6 million years or so, relatively recently when it comes to evolution.

 

"The Y chromosome appears to be the most rapidly evolving of the human chromosomes," said study co-author Dr. David Page, director of the prestigious Whitehead Institute in Cambridge and a professor of biology at MIT. "It's an almost ongoing churning of gene reconstruction. It's like a house that's constantly being rebuilt."

 

Before men get too impressed with themselves, lead author Jennifer Hughes offers some words of caution: Just because the Y chromosome, which determines gender, is evolving at a speedy rate it doesn't necessarily mean men themselves are more evolved.

 

Researchers took the most detailed examination of the Y chromosome, which females do not have, of both humans and chimps and found entire sections dramatically different. There were even entire genes on the human Y chromosome that weren't on the chimp, said Hughes, also of the Whitehead Institute.

 

The two-year research took twice as long as expected because of the evolutionary changes found, Hughes said.

 

There is a bit of a proviso to the comparison to other chromosomes. While all human and chimp chromosomes have been mapped, only two chimp chromosomes have been examined in great detail: Y and chromosome 21. Yet, there's still enough known to make the claim that the Y is the speediest evolver, Hughes and Page said.

 

Until recently the Y chromosome was considered the Rodney Dangerfield of genetics, especially because it had fewer genes than other chromosomes. A few years ago some researchers even suggested that the Y chromosome was shrinking so that in 50,000 years it would just disappear - and so would men.

 

"The story is not as cut and dried as many would have liked to predict," Hughes said. "It's kind of fun to say that men are going to die out, but the science is proving - now that we've got data - that that's not true at all."

 

Page agreed. "The Y chromosome has many more tricks up its sleeve than it was given credit for," he said.

 

There are a couple of reasons Page and Hughes cite for Y being such an evolutionary powerhouse. One is that it stands alone and isn't part of a pair like 44 other chromosomes. So when there are mutations there's no matching chromosome to recombine and essentially cover up the change, Hughes said. Because women have two X chromosomes, the X chromosome doesn't have this situation.

 

Another reason has to do with the nature of mating. When female chimps are in heat, they mate frequently and with many partners, so there is an evolutionary pressure on the male to produce the most and best sperm to propagate his genes, Page said.

 

To test this out, Hughes said she hopes to soon examine the Y chromosomes of a rhesus macaque, which is fairly promiscuous, and the marmoset, which is more monogamous than early humans probably were.

 

Outside scientists praised the study.

 

"Wow," said R. Scott Hawley, a genetics researcher at the Stowers Institute in Kansas City. "That result is astounding."

 

"The Y chromosome clearly has the strength and tenacity to fight back," said Hawley, who wasn't part of the research. "I certainly think the Y chromosome has taken a bad rap for a long time with people doing maps showing areas for channel surfing."

[Oner]

So you're saying the great Poodle genocide of 1593 wouldn't happen?

You never know. <.< >.>