Ethnic Traits

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That's just not true - HIV is on a humanitarian level a catastrophe, on a scientific level it is the great chance to learn much more about the function of the immune system and a prior almost forgotten type of viruses, which turned out to be curial for evolutionary processes. HIV was also one the big boosters of bio-informatics.

I would not call this a "pet project" like perhaps categorized Amazons butterflies sub-species.



I assume you refer to Richard J. Herrnstein's book "The bell curve". Herrnstein has been widely criticized for unscientific methods and less for his findings.



If you refer to current UK-legislation, particularity the "Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006", than you should be aware that the intent of the person committing a specific act is the key test when to apply this act. Beside physical attacks (and threading with physical attacks) an other main test is the use of abusive language. Nothing in this act does prevent a sober discussion.

You don't miss a trick, do you Dussel? As far as the HIV thing goes, the easiest solution would have been to have stopped all immigration from sub-Saharan Africa many years ago. At least our country would have been less severely affected. Anyway, the point I was making is that the politics of our time mean certain things are acceptable, like the research you described, whereas others are not, even if based on a similar scientific premise. Clearly proposing a correlation between IQ and race is currently unacceptable. A discussion around this last year on various TV news channels reflected the current political consensus (that consensus being that ridiculing the idea is the safest bet), and any scientists who contributed chose their words extremely carefully.

I refer to the general political trend of criminalising criticism of politically favoured groups, and of allowing the police to harass those who those politically-favoured groups deem a threat. This is usually justified by invoking"hate" crime in a broad sense. And with regard to the comment on intent, the Public Order Act 1986 uses the words "...having regard to all the circumstances racial hatred is likely to be stirred up thereby...". That leaves it open. At least open enough for Gordon's Gestapo to smash in your door and ransack your office. So, I'd suggest that does somewhat limit the possibility of even the sober discussion you mentioned.

Ascan, the human species originated in Africa, so we're all African. Britain's ethnic makeup is characterized by repeated migrations and immigrations from other parts of the world. And I'm not some type of über-PC liberal, I just don't see a reason to obsess over race. Whatever group differences exist, they are overwhelmed by individual differences as well as cultural factors and so studying them is not useful or, in many cases, feasible.

Nice how you attempt to call me out on hypocrisy ("That coming from a Yank!") while excising the part of my post where I openly referred to myself as a mutt. I'm more ethnically mixed than the typical Brit, but still (as far as I know) all white European.

Quite nonsense - The way HIV reached the UK (and the rest of western Europe) was via the gay scene and the interconnection of the US-gay scene with the scene in western Europe. When HIV entered Europe this way in the 1970s, no one even had a clue that such a virus exists (or could exist).



This is an extra condition. The wording follows well tested continental laws regarding such questions.

That leaves it open. At least open enough for Gordon's Gestapo to smash in your door and ransack your office. So, I'd suggest that does somewhat limit the possibility of even the sober discussion you mentioned.[/quote]

That's simply wrong:



Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006

Using that logic, Orwell, life originated in the oceans so we're all fish.


But it's not. As I said earlier, prior to the destructive mass immigration of last century, the bulk of the population would have been directly related to other N Europeans back to the end of the last glaciation. To be honest, that's most likely still the case. The link I gave to that 9000 year old skeleton and the mitochondrial DNA shows that there's a common female ancestor of that long-dead person and three out of 15 people sampled in the same area the skeleton was found. The whole idea that we're some mixing-pot, like the US, is just leftist propaganda.


Your views are very liberal, Orwell, as is evidenced by the remainder of the above quote.

And the way it enters now is via immigration from sub-Saharan Africa. The effects would have been reduced if that route had been cut off. It would also have reduced the spread of TB.


Well, I've highlighted the bit I think you're refering to, and to be honest it doesn't give me much comfort. The oath of a constable these days isn't worth much.

Africans, Europeans, Asians, etc are all still the same species.


Huh? The rest of the quote is just a statement of fact. If you take two random Scandinavians, you would expect the genetic differences to be greater between those two individuals than the average group difference between Scandinavians and Africans. The individual differences are much more pronounced and important than the group differences, so there is little to be gained by even bothering with looking at the group differences. Besides that, trying to study racial differences in an objective manner is essentially impossible because you can't control for all extraneous variables.

We're not all African. That's like saying all dogs are wolves. All dogs are of the same genus and species. However, look at a chihuahua and compare it to a Saint Bernard. Humans created dogs about 50,000 years ago. That's not that long really if you compare it to how long humans have been selectively breeding for certain traits within their own species.

If scientists can trace our ancestry back to 100 generations and figure out our ethnicity, there must be something concrete which differentiates one tribe from the next. I think the reason why we don't face our differences is because humans have a competitive gene that makes us feel racism.

Most animals are pretty competitive when it comes to passing down their genes, however humans are the most ambitious in this sense. Racism is an inherent human trait, and to deny it just because we can't deal with it leaves us wide open as brain washing targets. If we can't get a grip on what makes us tick, someone else who can might just use this knowledge for their own end.

The importance of establishing the truths about ethnic traits could allow us to learn how to interact with one another better. I'm sorry to keep going back to the dog analogy, but it helps to know a Chow's breeding history to better understand the Chow personality. It helps to gear the dog in the right direction while training it because you can understand it's instincts better. I don't think a Chow is better than a German Shepherd. They are just different.

Which is largely irrelevant since scientists in fact cannot do this. Actually, scientists would have trouble distinguishing your paternal grandfather from your father's full-blood male sibling if they were forced to rely on DNA analysis to do so.

I read that they can determine Jewish blood and connect it to the specific tribe going back 99 generations. I don't know if that is true, but I just assumed it was since I read it from the testing site. Maybe it was a scam. This was the testing site where I first read it which was a few years ago.

http://www.familytreedna.com/faq-markers.aspx#table1

Which is not the same as being able to trace our ancestry back to 100 generations and figure out our ethnicity.

This is simply an examination of DNA that looks for particular markers that probably indicate common ancestry at some time in the past. This test cannot exclude ancestry because of the way DNA is inherited, and is only as accurate as predictions about mutation rates (which evidently can be somewhat controversial). Note that both tests described (Y-chromosome testing and mtDNA testing) on this site can only trace successive paternal or maternal lines (it cannot for instance give you information about your father's mother's ancestors, nor your mother's father's ancestors).

No Orwell, it's not fact. It's a popular belief that is flawed. A guy called Lewontin wrote a paper decades ago that put forward the argument you're using. He concluded that, amongst other things, racial classification was of almost no genetic or taxonomic value. Lewontin was known for mixing science and politics, btw. Anyway, your position is now known as Lewontin's fallacy, after more recent work by a guy called Edwards in a paper "Human genetic diversity: Lewontin's fallacy". Basically, he concludes that because the small differences are highly correlated they are informative, and therefore are of taxonomic significance. If you want further evidence of that as mainstream, then you'll be pleased to know Dawkins explicitly states in at least one of his books that he agrees with Edwards.

Do you have a link to those papers? They might be interesting.

I'm still skeptical of what predictive value there is. I remember reading that traits such as skin color don't always match up with the genetic relationships, which makes it more complicated.

Here you go, Orwell:
http://www.goodrumj.com/Edwards.pdf

I have been watching this thread and still have trouble understanding where it is going. After three whole pages, I am starting to feel dumb because I just do not get it. What kind of traits are we talking about? Like dogs? This breed is smarter, that breed is more vicious, this one is a good work dog, that one is a good family dog? In people these things are so closely linked to culture, I find it hard to truly separate them in humans. In the case of intellect, even diet can play a part. Or, am I just missing the point of conversation?

Oh good I thought it was just me....