The Biological Case Against Race

American Outlook, publication of the Hudson Institute ^ | Spring 2002 | Joseph L. Graves Jr.

[MissAmericanPie]

There is only a 3% difference between humans and corn. Kinda puts it in perspective doesn't it?

[Interesting Times]

Then why not Sephardic or Oriental Jews?

Why? I have no idea. We're a long way from having a causal handle on any of this...

Still, Ashkenazi Jews seem to have significantly higher IQs than Sephardic Jews, Asians, whites and blacks.

[ConsistentLibertarian]

OK, let's take a case where race actually does some explanatory work. Question: Why did Europeans enslave Africans when it would have been cheaper to ensalve other Europeans? It's tempting, if the background presupposition is true, to venture that race plays an exlanatory role in this case. But not in virtue of any intersting biological fact. It's not the bare fact of skin pigmentation that does the explanatory work. It's the attitudes Europeans had towards differences in skin pigmentation: Imagine if they had the same attitudes towards differences in one's abilitly to taste the bitterness in fennel ...

[wardaddy]

So does Africa if you include the Northern coast of Arabs and other Caucasian tribes....some of which are mixed to varying degrees with the Negroid tribes from the South but the difference in Africa is a North/South issue...or in a limited manner between the interior and the coast which had more contact with the outside world.

It's not much different than the Americas before Colombus. Yes you had the Incas, Mayans, and Aztecs but aside from those it was all a relatively similar cultural hodgepodge. And least we forget, all the vaunted American Indian cultures of note were subdued handily by a few mean as hell Spainards on horseback with primitive firearms. Ironically, the less advanced but hardier and simply tougher Plains Indians put up a much better fight proportionately.

[ConsistentLibertarian]

You said before you were having a hard time understanding. I believe you.

[Question_Assumptions]

You need to travel to Haiti and Jamaica and observe.

You'll notice that there is a substantial difference between conditions in Haiti and Jamaica. Those differences are largely cultural.

[ConsistentLibertarian]

"Or has anyone forgotten the O.J. trial - at which his black-led legal defense team argued that DNA comparisons had to be made to the same racial group?" Your citing Johnnie Cochran as an authority? I can't imagine a weaker argument.

[wardaddy]

Askhenzim Jews even with their near Asian Khazar melding(to arguable degrees) are still what I would consider "white".....most of them I know emphatically would insist they are white....LOL

[William Terrell]

Beats me, to be honest.

Well, I think it's an important question to get at the truth of the issue.

I'm no historian, but I managed to walk over some lengthy stretches of world history reading here and there over the years. It appears that caucasian cultures are very different than, say, oriental cultures. As oriental cultures are very similar within themselves, so are caucasian cultures. That is contrasted against those of black, browns and reds, which in turn are contrasted against one another. The rule seems to remain true, alien to one another and similar within one another.

Why are people so afraid of race that they would makes fools of themselves with articles that try to refute what is as plain as a green elephant in a herd of jack rabbits? Sometimes I wonder if they think all people are born complete idiots, and have to complete at least four years at a major US university to acquire intelligence.

[wcbtinman]

"Actually, I have right in my own family."

Given all of the blacks I have observed in my lifetime, I would say that if there is someone in your family who is the offspring of unmixed negroid ancestry, and has blue eyes, I would have to consider that possible, but statistically akin to a birth defect. No offense meant, and if someone can provide some documentation to the contrary, I will gladly stand corrected.

Actually I was being flippant towards ConsistentLibertarian for trying to put up a meaningless argument.

[Poohbah]

As oriental cultures are very similar within themselves, so are caucasian cultures.

Anyone who has studied the differences between French, English, and German common law wouldn't say that. They are VERY different, to the point where England would be far better served if she entered an EU-type relationship with the ANZAC nations rather than the EU, and when France and Germany try to harmonize their laws under the EU, they're going to be bickering for years, or until Germany says "BOO!" and the Frech surrender =:o)

[LWalk18]

Who is Caucasian? Traditional scientific grouping include Europeans, Arabs, and Asian Indians in that catagories, yet those three cultures are rather different.

[wardaddy]

I have lived and worked in dozens of "black countries" around the globe. Poverty, serial illegitimacy, tolerated polygamy, rampant crime,inability to self govern, etc are endemic in all of them....sans Bermuda and the Cayman Islands (which is mostly mulatto)...and perhaps a few other heavy tourist spots(some of the Windwards). Zim and SA are soon to follow. Is this strictly cultural, racial or is it simply that most of these countries(and cultures) are playing catch-up civilization-wise? I think it is a bit of all of it and a result of one aspect affecting the other and so on.

[William Terrell]

*sigh*

[Poohbah]

"Rather" different? =:o)

[Godel]

Question: did they correct for the nurture end of things?

Yes, that's why they do studies on monozygotic twins RAISED APART, i.e. in different environments.

[wardaddy]

Jamaica outside of the touristy areas is mired in serious poverty and crime (even though guns are nearly outlawed). Haiti would be Sierra Leone or Liberia were it not so close to the US or shared it's island with the Dom Rep which btw is no poster child for posterity but benefits Haiti to a degree.

[Godel]

This is not logical -- but it is politically correct.

And given the priorities in our Universities today, the latter is all that really matters.