Louis
Posts: 6436
Joined: Jan. 2006
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Ghosty,
Once again, the point is over here...
....you are a speck in the distance.
Like I said above I would have no problem with the concept of race as you wish to use it IF it were valid as you wish to use it. I couldn't care less if whites are genetically "superior" to blacks or whatever, it's a total irrelevance. You might as well say Daschund are genetically "superior" to Great Danes. Sure in a stand up fight the Great Dane will most likely win, but try getting one down a rabbit hole. Again, like I said above, the "superior" one upmanship game you are trying to play rests on what you are considering to be "superior" NOT on the organism. Are gibbons superior to humans? How about sharks? So you see the point? Forgive me if I doubt it.
The full quote from the book, and the context it's in, CLEARLY (to anyone with the reading comprehension of a five year old) makes the point that the author is talking about molecular confirmation of migratory and evolutionary models supported by fossil evidence, NOT racial superiority. More significant genetic difference does not mean that one is "superior" to the other, unless one defines the environment in which that "superiority" is expressed very rigourously. Also, the size of that difference (i.e. its overall significance) has to be addressed, which I notice you conveniently ignore.
You can quote mine and blather all you like, but your claims don't stack up. Your strawmen aside NOBODY is denying that genetic profiling based on geographical distribution is a useful tool. NOBODY is denying that the genetic differences between human groups (or races if you like, here it has some validity at least) have demonstrable effects (epidemiology etc etc). These racial genetic differences are useful because there hasn't been complete mixing of the human genome. And this STILL misses the KEY POINT of the limitation of these uses that the genetic differences WITHIN any two races you choose are greater than the genetic differences between those same two races. That is part of the limitation of the usefulness of these differences. The other being, of course, that most of the usefulness of these differences is due to certain key markers (e.g. the marker for Tay-Sachs disease or sickle cell anemia in certain racial populations).
Thalassemia is a good example of this. If you found the genetic marker for thalassemia in a blood sample of a criminal what does it tell you? Well, we know that the approximate prevalence is 16% in people from Cyprus, 3-14 % in Thailand, and 3-8 % in populations from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and China. A lower prevalence has been reported from black people in Africa (0.9%) and northern Europe (0.1%). So immediately you have a good chance that your criminal is Cypriot or Thai. You would have to use OTHER evidence as well to narrow it down, because this racial profile based on one locus doesn't tell you if the suspect is Mediterranean, Thai, Oriental, Indian, Black or White!
Herein lies the point again, since you seem to be hard of thinking: the fact that there are greater genetic differences when we consider the genome as a whole WITHIN two races than BETWEEN those same two races, negates the blanket usefulness of the genetic determination of "race". The definition is useful in specific circumstances and cases, but NOT in the borad sweeping manner you wish it to be and are using it. You are trying to use a forklift truck to do formula 1 racing. The tool you are using is inappropriate for the job you are trying to put it to. That doesn't mean it is 100% useless in every situation.
Louis
P.S. Is anyone else tiring of Ghosty's dishonesty? AFDave jumped the shark a while ago, Ghosty definitely has leap cleanly over the Selachimorphan from day two, the only participant we have left that isn't revving his motorcycle is Skeptic (don't you agree?) although he is looking wistfully towards his hog!
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Bye.
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