The Genetics of Prehistory.
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the fact that we can locate where someone is from through their genetics does not mean races aren't completely socially constructed. there is simply a huge spectrum and genetics can tell you where on that spectrum an individual places. no one is saying there is no genetic variation.
the part that is socially constructed is how we draw the lines. because, as it is a spectrum, the lines could be drawn eldewhere and we would have entirely different classifications of races, with the same gene material.
think of it like colours of the rainbow. we know that colours are just a range of wavelengths of light. where red ends and where purple begins is simply something we as humans decided. we drew the line, based on how our brains make us interpret the wavelengths. but other beings can see colours differently. some can likely see more, many see less colours than we do. despite us all looking at the exact same light.
now, the same happens with race. obviously some of us have darker skin than others and that is defined by genetics. just to name the most obvious difference, i know there are many more things that are different between different populations. still, it is us who frew the line between what is black, brown or white to put it in simple terms. and as the criteria is defined by humans, race is in fact completely socially constructed, but it refers to genetics.
Date: 2022-07-15
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Comments and reviews: 9
Sam
The 3 points about IQ that you show at 3: 13 are, IMHO, not sufficient. 1) The Military does IQ tests and rejects people of low IQ, so using a sample of people raised on Military Bases is not adequate as they or their parents have all been screened for IQ. 2) & 3) Even proponents of the Race and IQ hypothesis state that IQ can be affected to a certain degree (about 15%, which is huge) based on environmental factors. Even Thomas Sowell covers this in his books when he speaks about how Africans had their genius minds as well, but with few navigable rivers, less access to trade and resources with which to apply that genius, then there was no way for that IQ to manifest itself into useful applications that compared to other world regions. Italians and Brits in Mississippi would have had different environmental factors to overcome than those in NY. There are indeed fluctuations in IQ over time, but that does not mean that a static native population did not settle into in their previously isolated areas.
You may be right, but I think that race and IQ is an issue, but I believe it is one that we can do a lot about. Proponents of Race and IQ state that peaceful parenting, negotiation, stable families etc. can raise IQ enough to make a huge difference in someone's life and so even IF it is true, we have no reason to value people less or treat them as less because we ALL want to see everyone do better.
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The 3 points about IQ that you show at 3: 13 are, IMHO, not sufficient. 1) The Military does IQ tests and rejects people of low IQ, so using a sample of people raised on Military Bases is not adequate as they or their parents have all been screened for IQ. 2) & 3) Even proponents of the Race and IQ hypothesis state that IQ can be affected to a certain degree (about 15%, which is huge) based on environmental factors. Even Thomas Sowell covers this in his books when he speaks about how Africans had their genius minds as well, but with few navigable rivers, less access to trade and resources with which to apply that genius, then there was no way for that IQ to manifest itself into useful applications that compared to other world regions. Italians and Brits in Mississippi would have had different environmental factors to overcome than those in NY. There are indeed fluctuations in IQ over time, but that does not mean that a static native population did not settle into in their previously isolated areas.
You may be right, but I think that race and IQ is an issue, but I believe it is one that we can do a lot about. Proponents of Race and IQ state that peaceful parenting, negotiation, stable families etc. can raise IQ enough to make a huge difference in someone's life and so even IF it is true, we have no reason to value people less or treat them as less because we ALL want to see everyone do better.
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Troy
Genetic variation doesn't equal Race! If that were true, then all the clusters of genetic variation in one geographical place, would all be the same! Do you not see that the concept of race I. e. the ' black races' would then mean that all those with dark skin in that geographical space would therfore be the same culturally, and they are not! That is how
race was used! To define a people based on skin colour! To keep them oppressed! What race is a person or group of peoples who have all been genetically mixing for 400 years with genetic input from European, Indian and African genotypes? Exactly! They are all still considered BLACK which is proof positive that race is a social construct that serves the interests of economic exploitation! As in America for one example, only those still suffered to the label OF BLACK could still be legally exploited despite having clear admixture of other, non- black skinned peoples! Even though they were no longer black skinned and even some famous cases of Afro American descended individuals, despite being virtually white skinned, were still referred to as black for legal purposes and to which so happened the label black then prevented them from any advancement in society, despite having enormous talent!
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Genetic variation doesn't equal Race! If that were true, then all the clusters of genetic variation in one geographical place, would all be the same! Do you not see that the concept of race I. e. the ' black races' would then mean that all those with dark skin in that geographical space would therfore be the same culturally, and they are not! That is how
race was used! To define a people based on skin colour! To keep them oppressed! What race is a person or group of peoples who have all been genetically mixing for 400 years with genetic input from European, Indian and African genotypes? Exactly! They are all still considered BLACK which is proof positive that race is a social construct that serves the interests of economic exploitation! As in America for one example, only those still suffered to the label OF BLACK could still be legally exploited despite having clear admixture of other, non- black skinned peoples! Even though they were no longer black skinned and even some famous cases of Afro American descended individuals, despite being virtually white skinned, were still referred to as black for legal purposes and to which so happened the label black then prevented them from any advancement in society, despite having enormous talent!
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Derek
there is a lot wrong in this video. 1. European ancestors werent in Egypt 50 kya. Europeans have neanderthal dna which they picked up from the common ancestors of Europeans and East Asians while they were outside of Africa. Some of the ancestors of Europeans may have been isolated in Egypt or the ME which would explain why they have less neanderthal than East Asians. 2. Europeans and white people, are just derived from middle eastern Farming populations. Ice Age WHG and EHG european populations left a huge genetic impact on modern Europeans. 3. Native Americans do not have polynesian like ancestry. The supposed polynesian signal was ONLY found in Amazonians and it has since been very disputed as to what that actually means. 4. The Asian side of Native Americans is not inuit like. It was North Asian like. 4. The mixing of North East Asian and Ancient North Eurasian that would lead to the typical Native American composition occurred in Siberia, not North America. There was never a pure East Asian or ANE like migration into the Americas.
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there is a lot wrong in this video. 1. European ancestors werent in Egypt 50 kya. Europeans have neanderthal dna which they picked up from the common ancestors of Europeans and East Asians while they were outside of Africa. Some of the ancestors of Europeans may have been isolated in Egypt or the ME which would explain why they have less neanderthal than East Asians. 2. Europeans and white people, are just derived from middle eastern Farming populations. Ice Age WHG and EHG european populations left a huge genetic impact on modern Europeans. 3. Native Americans do not have polynesian like ancestry. The supposed polynesian signal was ONLY found in Amazonians and it has since been very disputed as to what that actually means. 4. The Asian side of Native Americans is not inuit like. It was North Asian like. 4. The mixing of North East Asian and Ancient North Eurasian that would lead to the typical Native American composition occurred in Siberia, not North America. There was never a pure East Asian or ANE like migration into the Americas.
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Troy
You are on the one- hand trying to equate distinct genetic clusters with race yet claiming that modern humans all evolved out of Africa. Doesnt it make sense then that, your labeling this genetic drift into distinct genetic clusters, as proof a distinct races as false, since all these examples of distinct genetics are merely the end point of evolutionary variation of the same HUMAN RACE AND SPECIES? By your logic then the differences in primates species, would all make them different races. the macaque race, the columbin race, the baboon race, . sed how insane it is? They are all primates, with variation of behaviour and phenotypic expression - that makes them a different species of the same genus, right? The only race is the human race with genetic variability due to a plethora of complex factors, that were gained over 10s of thousands of years -
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You are on the one- hand trying to equate distinct genetic clusters with race yet claiming that modern humans all evolved out of Africa. Doesnt it make sense then that, your labeling this genetic drift into distinct genetic clusters, as proof a distinct races as false, since all these examples of distinct genetics are merely the end point of evolutionary variation of the same HUMAN RACE AND SPECIES? By your logic then the differences in primates species, would all make them different races. the macaque race, the columbin race, the baboon race, . sed how insane it is? They are all primates, with variation of behaviour and phenotypic expression - that makes them a different species of the same genus, right? The only race is the human race with genetic variability due to a plethora of complex factors, that were gained over 10s of thousands of years -
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rs
I think you're contradicting yourself in another video. Here you say race and IQ doesn't have any correlation, but in the other video describing ethnicities in the US you emphasized that both Jews and Asians have a focus on education and this has been going on for centuries (in the case of the Jews they were also somewhat inbred, low generic variance, which reinforces some genetic effects.
Basically they grew up in an environment positively reinforcing academic results, over time and generations therefore raising IQ, actual meritocracies.
I've also seen a study that supports this.
I'm not saying this is truth, but there definitely is something not intuitive here.
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I think you're contradicting yourself in another video. Here you say race and IQ doesn't have any correlation, but in the other video describing ethnicities in the US you emphasized that both Jews and Asians have a focus on education and this has been going on for centuries (in the case of the Jews they were also somewhat inbred, low generic variance, which reinforces some genetic effects.
Basically they grew up in an environment positively reinforcing academic results, over time and generations therefore raising IQ, actual meritocracies.
I've also seen a study that supports this.
I'm not saying this is truth, but there definitely is something not intuitive here.
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Richard
Race used to mean ethnicity, and ethnicity is real.
The collections of ethnicities that we call race is a social construct grown from cultural modern history.
The Toba event seems to have caused a change in human psychology in that we became natural Truth Speakers, believe it or not. As the global Volcanic Winter subsided, the ability to find food locations became extremely important. Large Apes like chimpanzees have no natural Truth telling instinct, and assume that the other is lying if the hearer cannot directly see the thing described. Modern humans are not that way and so we can cooperate more with each other and this was a critical survival tool for us.
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Race used to mean ethnicity, and ethnicity is real.
The collections of ethnicities that we call race is a social construct grown from cultural modern history.
The Toba event seems to have caused a change in human psychology in that we became natural Truth Speakers, believe it or not. As the global Volcanic Winter subsided, the ability to find food locations became extremely important. Large Apes like chimpanzees have no natural Truth telling instinct, and assume that the other is lying if the hearer cannot directly see the thing described. Modern humans are not that way and so we can cooperate more with each other and this was a critical survival tool for us.
reply
alex
Pretty good, but I have a couple critiques. The only one I'm going to bring up though is the sahara jungle hypothesis. The only evidence used for that claim is analysis of a handful of mud off the west coast of africa. In my opinion that's not enough evidence to claim it as a reality. Really it's my opinion that the people pushing that study for political reasons.
The whole ancient history is filled with this. People making claims with little to no evidence to support them. Sure it's fine as a hypothesis, but presenting it as undisputed fact is disingenuous.
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Pretty good, but I have a couple critiques. The only one I'm going to bring up though is the sahara jungle hypothesis. The only evidence used for that claim is analysis of a handful of mud off the west coast of africa. In my opinion that's not enough evidence to claim it as a reality. Really it's my opinion that the people pushing that study for political reasons.
The whole ancient history is filled with this. People making claims with little to no evidence to support them. Sure it's fine as a hypothesis, but presenting it as undisputed fact is disingenuous.
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Anders
Good summary of what genetics can tell us about human pre-history, one quibble I would make is calling the farmers who displaced Hunter-Gatherers genocide, I think although there was probably violence, it was more a case of the farmers simply out breeding and overwhelming their hunter gather neighbors. Indeed, there is even some anecdotal evidence that Hunter-Gatherers had male dominated resurgences, as evident by the prominence of haplotype I2 in Europe, and the prevalence of Papuan ancestry in some south sea Islanders.
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Good summary of what genetics can tell us about human pre-history, one quibble I would make is calling the farmers who displaced Hunter-Gatherers genocide, I think although there was probably violence, it was more a case of the farmers simply out breeding and overwhelming their hunter gather neighbors. Indeed, there is even some anecdotal evidence that Hunter-Gatherers had male dominated resurgences, as evident by the prominence of haplotype I2 in Europe, and the prevalence of Papuan ancestry in some south sea Islanders.
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Troy
If you believe that RACE is a real and scientific concept, then define it. Any talk of race as being real is indeed racist as it is only based on the most basist of surface phenotypic features. As Cavelli-Sforza
SAYS, as a concept that is useful in explaining the differences between different peoples, it is TOTALLY useless and without merit. I feel you should retract your statement that race is real, and is not social construct or, try to get a peer reviewed paper published claiming that 'race is real. '
reply
If you believe that RACE is a real and scientific concept, then define it. Any talk of race as being real is indeed racist as it is only based on the most basist of surface phenotypic features. As Cavelli-Sforza
SAYS, as a concept that is useful in explaining the differences between different peoples, it is TOTALLY useless and without merit. I feel you should retract your statement that race is real, and is not social construct or, try to get a peer reviewed paper published claiming that 'race is real. '
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