Talk:Race and genetics/Archive 4

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Shared genetic variation

Percentage of polymorphic SNPs unique to a single continental group (diagonal) or found only in 2 continental groups (lower triangle) based on Supplemental material table 2

	Africa	Asia	Europe	India
Africans	6.63
Asia	0.74	0.24
Europe	1.59	0.10	0.15
India	0.62	0.19	0.56	0.0

This article Fine-scaled human genetic structure revealed by SNP microarrays,[1], has some interesting results regarding the structure of global human genetic variation. It is based on the analysis of 250,000 SNPs. A few excerpts include,

The vast majority of SNPs are polymorphic (MAF > 0) in multiple groups, with 81.2% of all loci being polymorphic in the four major continental groups, 89.2% polymorphic in at least three groups, and 93.0% polymorphic in at least two groups. Almost all of the SNPs that are polymorphic in only one group are unique to Africa (6.6%), while collectively only 0.39% of the SNPs are unique to any of the other three continental groups (Supplemental Table 2). There were no fixed differences between continental populations at any locus. Thus, these results support the emerging conclusion that most common genetic variation is shared among major human population groups.

In 1871, Charles Darwin noted in The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex: ‘‘It may be doubted whether any character can be named which is distinctive of a race and is constant.’’ Modern studies of genetic variation, including this one, have supported Darwin’s observation, showing that most common variants are shared widely among human populations (Altshuler et al. 2005; Jakobsson et al. 2008). Our data confirm what Darwin believed: We found not a single SNP locus, out of nearly 250,000, at which a fixed difference would distinguish any pair of continental populations

What is interesting is that Europeans share a much higher level of unique SNPs with Africans than any other population in this study, the reasons for this were not stated in this study. Wapondaponda (talk) 20:17, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Self-identified ancestry and genetics

There has been a lot of discussion about the correlation between self-identified race/ancestry and genetics. Apparently a figure of 98% is being suggested. Once again some may be insinuating that this is the "silver bullet" that proves the existence of biological races. I believe this is a bit of a misunderstanding. Some of the forensic genetic databases are able to not just discern what "race" a person is, but they can determine what country a person is from, what city or even what village hamlet etc. At the indigenous level, it would become possible to distinguish a Swede from an Italian 100% of the time. In other words, the correlation between self-identified country of origin and genetics will approach 100% with more detailed genetic databases. Indeed the Japanese are already distinguishable from Chinese at the genomic level, does this mean they are two different races. DNA fingerprinting is able to uniquely identify an individual 100% of the time, does this mean that every individual is a distinct race. I believe this is why most of the mainstream studies prefer to view human genetic variation through the prism of geography rather than race, because "isolation by distance" is the main factor influencing genetic variation. Though genetics correlate with continental ancestry, it is just one of many ways at analyzing the data. If one wanted two clusters, then most likely the split would be between Africans and Non-African, and with just a few markers the correlation between self-identified Africanity and Non-Africanity would be close to 100%, but this doesn't make all non-Africans a single race. Wapondaponda (talk) 20:17, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

The point regarding the extremely high correlation between racial self-identification and genetics was brought up in response to a trend witnessed in several race-related articles regarding the extent to which self-identification needed to be stressed. Some editors were arguing that self-identification (as utilized in health questionnaires, intelligence tests and crime reports) has no correlation with anything relating to genetics, and thus the racial aspects of such data were pseudo- or non-scientific, being based on a purely social construction. The documented 98% figure of correspondence between the results of self-identification and genetic testing was brought up in response to this argument. It was hoped that this would allow us to refrain from repeating "self-identified" every time we mentioned "race" in an article. --Aryaman (talk) 20:42, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

This article will be even better after a thorough review based on reliable sources for medicine-related articles.

This article includes many interesting factual statements from a variety of primary sources. Many of those statements could be put into a more illuminating context, and perhaps reworded for greater accuracy, by checking for reliable secondary sources on this topic. A good place to look for advice on what kind of sources would be reliable for an article like this is Wikipedia's guidelines on reliable sources for medically related articles. Genetics is a fast-moving field, and there are a lot of primary research findings that end up not being replicated. Relying on recent practitioners' handbooks and postgraduate textbooks is crucial for sorting through the cacophony of primary sources to know what the established results are in this discipline. A lot of editors have put a lot of good work into this article already, and meshing together the statements in the various sections into an overall encyclopedic whole will be a good improvement for Wikipedia. Let's look for up-to-date, authoritative sources and make sure that they are reflected in the article. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 14:48, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Here's a source list to get editors started on updating this article and moving its content in the direction of being an encyclopedic presentation of the topics found in reliable secondary sources rather than being original research from now obsolete primary sources. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 03:48, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

One important issue that needs to be addressed is the overlap between the human genetic variation amrticle and the race and genetics article. I suggest that the content in this article should cover what is known about human genetic variation and how this relates to perceptions about race. General discussions about human genetic variation should not be covered in this article but in the human genetic variation article. I have removed the section 'Autosomal genetic distances (Fst) based on SNPs (2009)' because it was Eurocentric and inappropriate for this article. Are Finns, Russians and Italians separate races for them to warrant an Fst table in this article, maybe in Genetic history of Europe. I have replaced the Cavalli-Sforza material with content from an earlier version. These changes are only preliminary as the article needs a major overhaul.

The following are a list of sources that would be useful for a future article. I believe these sources directly address the issue of race and genetics, and therefore avoid the OR problem.

• Tishkoff and Kidd (2004). "Implications of biogeography of human populations for 'race' and medicine". {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
• Bamshad; et al. (2004). "DECONSTRUCTING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN GENETICS AND RACE" (PDF). {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help); Explicit use of et al. in: |last= (help)
• Jorde and Wooding (2004). "Genetic variation, classification and 'race'". {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
• Torres and Kittles (2004). "The Relationship Between "Race" and Genetics in Biomedical Research" (PDF). {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
• Soo-Jin Lee; et al. (2008). "The ethics of characterizing difference: guiding principles on using racial categories in human genetics". doi:10.1186/gb-2008-9-7-404. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help); Explicit use of et al. in: |last= (help)CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI (link)
• Olson; et al. (2005). "The Use of Racial, Ethnic, and Ancestral Categories in Human Genetics Research". {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help); Explicit use of et al. in: |last= (help)
• Serre and Pääbo (2004). "Evidence for Gradients of Human Genetic Diversity Within and Among Continents" (PDF). {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)

Wapondaponda (talk) 07:05, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

From how long ago is the version you just reinstated? Looks like at least a year to me, based on the lack of the chart [2] I remember being there since last October.

I agree the article probably is due for some updates to bring it more in line with current research, and I'd be happy to help contribute. But undoing a year's worth of changes just like that without any prior discussion at all is not the way to do it. We should discuss these changes one at a time instead of making massive reverts without consensus. -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 00:21, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

The revert by Wapondaponda enjoys my consensus, because it restored some parts of the article text to a condition based on Wikipedia source policy. It's high time for the articles within the scope of the recent Arbitration Committee discretionary sanctions to be re-edited from the ground up with Wikipedia policies and the best available sources constantly in mind. Of course it would be welcome to go forward with further edits based on very recent authoritative secondary sources. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 01:30, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Like I said, I'm fine with updating the articles. But I really strongly feel like every point of change needs to be suggested on the talk page one at a time and discussed by the editors involved. A full revert to over a year ago definitely does not enjoy my consensus, and I suspect that others who've been involved here would feel the same. Making a huge number of changes at once, without waiting for any discussion whatsoever, does not give other editors the opportunity to offer their opinions on anything being changed. I agree that the article could use some updates, but there's no hurry with it. -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 01:41, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

@Ferahgo, Instead of dwelling on non-content issues, maybe you could discuss specific content issues with that revision that are problematic.

@WBB, Instead of reverting it would make more sense to do the redevelopment in user space, with appropriate discussions here. Once sections of the updated article nears completion, the current article can be swapped out piece by piece. This will prompt more localized content centered discussion as the updates occur, which is a good thing.

aprock (talk) 02:17, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

I don't even know where to begin, and that's one of the problems with making such a massive revert. He reverted literally over a hundred edits in one fell swoop, which makes it almost impossible for editors to focus on specific changes they disagree with. I like your suggestion to WBB better, as long as new sections are added one at a time and gradually enough to allow opportunity for discussion and revision. -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 03:14, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Sorry about the blanked edit...more info on MY MISTAKE here....So lets talk about what is wrong point by point and lets get new refs...i am very familiar with this topic (see here for what i do on genetics).. I believe if we all pitch in we can address all the concerns fast... WeijiBaikeBianji whats the first problem and so on? I see many and dont just want to delete things at will (even though we should with what has no refs)..Moxy (talk) 03:35, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Recent move

The article has recently moved from race and genetics to Genetics and the decline of race. While this was done in good faith, I would suggest that the original name be restored, while we proceed with discussions concerning the article's future. There are some who would suggest that the "decline of race" is only one POV and that including the term in the title makes the title non-neutral. I take the perspective that race as a social construct does exist and that the article should discuss the relationship, or lack thereof, between the social construct and human genetics. What has declined are theories of race essentialism. The view that races are very distinct groups, with all members of a race conforming to an idealized racial type. Wapondaponda (talk) 09:36, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

What the hell...? The new name makes no sense whatsover. Just a couple days ago we had an altercation over WBB's arbitrary changes of article names, and I specifically told him from now on to discuss these sorts of things with others beforehand[3], yet here he is at it again. I reverted it.--Victor Chmara (talk) 13:05, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Good call..looks like an attempt to slip in a POV in the title.Moxy (talk) 16:44, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Now that we've got discretionary sanctions on these articles, I thought admins would be doing something about POV-pushing like this when it happened, but they seem to be ignoring it. GWH told me I should bring it up with an uninvolved admin when this happens, but I tried that and got no response. [4] Discretionary sanctions don't count for beans unless admins are enforcing stuff like this. Any idea what should be done? -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 20:11, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

"Any idea what should be done?". Yes, read WP:AGF, and try to stick to content issues. aprock (talk) 20:19, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

That was a useless post above...Anyways...perhaps if we can get him back to the talk pages we can enlighten him about what are concerns are again more clearly and firmly.Moxy (talk) 20:30, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Assuming good faith has its limits, and I feel WBB is approaching those limits when repeating the same behavior he was admonished for less than two days ago. The whole point of having discretionary sanctions is for admins to deal with these issues, and when they're not, that's a problem. -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 20:35, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Its a little weird that you should be talking about the limits of good faith towards others while being surprised at others limits of good faith towards you at the arbcom amendment page. Give some and you may get some.·Maunus·ƛ· 00:04, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

I was thinking of making the same point to aprock actually. Isn't it odd for him to tell me to assume good faith about WBB's repeated undiscussed renames, when he's unwilling to assume good faith about the history of reaction time testing I'd added to the Mental chronometry article?

The difference that really matters is who's being disruptive. No one seemed to disagree that WBB's undiscussed article moves were a form of POV-pushing, and especially when he continued after being asked to stop. In my case, I'd gladly welcome any discussion on the talk page for MC about how to describe RT history as neutrally as possible. No one has even attempted to demonstrate that anything I've been doing there is POV-pushing, and I certainly haven't been told not to do it (and then gone and continued to do it!). Until that happens, this situation isn't even remotely similar to the thing with WBB. -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 07:03, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

I must agree that this move was a rather crude example of pov-pushing by article title. While it is true that early (1970s, 1980s) genetics came up with the politically convenient result that "race is biologically meaningless". more recent, more advanced genetics (2000s) establish that it is perfectly possible to cast race in genetic terms. The question is, of course, "is it meaningful" or "is it relevant", which are semantic questions that cannot be answered objectively, but if you so wish to construct a genetic system of race, it is perfectly possible to do that. In fact, it is striking how the crude "races of man" maps of the late 19th century, based on measuring skulls and what have you, are reproduced with striking similarity by maps of genetic clustering. If you can really leave aside all the ideology involved, it seems to turn out that the notion of race (which is after all intuitive enough to be used in everyday conversation to describe an individual, never mind genetics) is not quite so meaningless as the 1970s made you believe. So my impression is that the whole story is much rather "genetics and the revival of race". --dab (𒁳) 08:44, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Hi, dab, do you have specific secondary sources for that? I note that the sources currently cited in the article (and the sources I have at hand) largely report a diminishing importance of any form of "race" classification in favor of tracking individual genes down to the level of the individual genome. But perhaps you have different sources in mind. I think this article has suffered for a long time from a disregard of the Wikipedia sourcing guideline that "Articles should rely on secondary sources whenever possible. When relying on primary sources, extreme caution is advised: Wikipedians should never interpret the content of primary sources for themselves. See Wikipedia:No original research." So I would appreciate suggestions from anyone here of current, reliable, professionally edited secondary sources on how genetics research informs race classification. P.S. I do like how the bold edit, revert, and discuss cycle seems to stir up discussion of issues that have lain dormant for quite a while. I'm in no hurry to change article text or titles, but I would like to see more suggestions of current, reliable sources from all editors, and I think it would be helpful to have more editor-to-editor discussion about latent issues that are left out of view by the current article titles and text. One good question for this article is what is its relationship to the main article Race_(classification_of_humans)? Thanks to all of you for your thoughtful comments. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 16:16, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

RE "genetics and the revival of race". I wouldn't characterize it that way. Every newborn child is genetically unique (save for mz twins, or clones), which means that as the world's population increases, we are getting more and more diverse. There are many ways to characterize this genetic diversity. Genetic fingerprinting can accurately identify the owner of a sample of DNA close to 100% of the time. Similarly, genetic fingerprinting can identify parent-child relationships, sibling relationships, cousinships etc with almost pin-point accuracy. With the current technology, investigators would be able to determine an individual's, village, hamlet, ethnic group, city of birth, country of origin, continent and of course racial group. Investigators now know enough about skin pigmentation genes to estimate a person's skin tone by looking at their DNA. So it isn't so much that race is being revived, rather investigators can use DNA technology to extract information from a DNA sample that may be meaningful in some social way, such as predicting a eye color, their skin tone or their race.

Here is a excerpt from a recent genetics paper Xing; et al. (2009). "Fine-scaled human genetic structure revealed by SNP microarrays". doi:10.1101/gr.085589.108. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help); Explicit use of et al. in: |last= (help)

"In 1871, Charles Darwin noted in The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex: ‘‘It may be doubted whether any character can be named which is distinctive of a race and is constant.’’ Modern studies of genetic variation, including this one, have supported Darwin’s observation, showing that most common variants are shared widely among human populations . Our data confirm what Darwin believed: We found not a single SNP locus, out of nearly 250,000, at which a fixed difference would distinguish any pair of continental populations. In addition, because population affiliation is not a reliable predictor of an individual’s specific genotype or haplotype, a self-identified population is at best loosely correlated with disease phenotypes. Nevertheless, the partial isolation of human populations through time has produced a correlation between geographic ancestry and genetic similarity."

Wapondaponda (talk) 21:06, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Anyway, the key idea is what the sources say. If there are sources that say that the idea of "race" is being revived by current genetic studies of human beings, someone will be able to cite a reliable secondary source (or several of those) that say so. Before I did the page renaming the other day, I not only added a source to the list of references for this article, which I found during a Google search on keywords related to genetics, but also checked other references already cited in this article since before I became a Wikipedian. And that evening (before the article renaming) I discovered that Encyclopedia Britannia uses a similar turn of phrase in an encyclopedia article, and since we are editing an encyclopedia here, and since there is already a main article Race_(classification_of_humans), I figured I'd see if this article (which already has supporting sources) is the one best suited to refactor into section like that found in Britannica—perhaps with even better sourcing. I've since found still more sources from the friendly local academic library that underscore the idea that the recent trend is still a decline in race categorization in all aspects of science. Fellow Wikipedians who can point to sources on the issue are welcome to educate me on what the latest trend is, and what the current mainstream view is. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 00:45, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

When I explained my take of the situation, I did not suggest to introduce it into the article in these terms. I have see evidence for a "revival of race" in a number of recent (2000s) publications, but this is an emerging process and are hardly going to be any authoritative evaluations as long as it is ongoing. As for your claim that there is "diminishing importance" of race in biology, I find this dubious as by 1970 this importance must have been virtually zero so that it cannot conceivably diminish any further. --dab (𒁳) 16:00, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

I would like to point out that some studies predict that personalized genetics will somewhat diminish the importance of collecting data concerning racial or ethnic affiliation [5]. Certain conditions are known to have high frequencies in certain ethnic groups. For example the sickle cell trait is common in West African populations, albinism is common among the Kuna people of central America. Knowing a person's ethnic group may be useful when determining an individual's susceptibility to such conditions. However with personalized genomics, a person's ethnic affiliation is less important as the presence or absence of genetic predispositions can be determined by looking directly at the genome. If this prediction were to indeed become a reality, then race will indeed be of less importance in biology. However race will still remain important for political and social reasons if racial disparities in health or other socioeconomic variables persist. Wapondaponda (talk) 19:29, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

Francis Collins: What we do and don't know about 'race', 'ethnicity', genetics and health at the dawn of the genome era

"Is race biologically meaningless? First, it is essential to point out that 'race' and 'ethnicity' are terms without generally agreed-upon definitions. Both terms carry complex connotations that reflect culture, history, socioeconomics and political status, as well as a variably important connection to ancestral geographic origins. Well-intentioned statements over the past few years, some coming from geneticists, might lead one to believe there is no connection whatsoever between self-identified race or ethnicity and the frequency of particular genetic variants1, 2. Increasing scientific evidence, however, indicates that genetic variation can be used to make a reasonably accurate prediction of geographic origins of an individual, at least if that individual's grandparents all came from the same part of the world3. As those ancestral origins in many cases have a correlation, albeit often imprecise, with self-identified race or ethnicity, it is not strictly true that race or ethnicity has no biological connection. It must be emphasized, however, that the connection is generally quite blurry because of multiple other nongenetic connotations of race, the lack of defined boundaries between populations and the fact that many individuals have ancestors from multiple regions of the world.

Race and health disparities What about health disparities? Are genetic differences between populations likely to have a role in health status, both in the US and around the world? In many instances, the causes of health disparities will have little to do with genetics, but rather derive from differences in culture, diet, socioeconomic status, access to health care, education, environmental exposures, social marginalization, discrimination, stress and other factors4. Yet it would be incorrect to say that genetics never has a role in health disparities. This is most obvious in the unequal distribution of disease-associated alleles for certain recessive disorders, such as sickle cell disease or Tay-Sachs disease, but has also been noted recently for certain nonmendelian disorders, such as Crohn disease5."

"Finding common ground A vigorous debate has raged in the scientific and medical literature over the last few years about whether there is any value in using self-identified race or ethnicity to identify factors that contribute to health or disease7, 8. Proponents of maintaining such identifiers argue that even if the genetic component of health disparities is small, self-identified race or ethnicity is also a useful proxy for other correlated nongenetic variables, and to lose the opportunity to explore these would be doing a disservice to the public. Detractors argue that race and ethnicity are such flawed concepts that the persistent use of such descriptors prolongs the delay in seeking real causes and lends more scientific validity to the race-health connection than it deserves.

After reviewing these arguments and listening to the debate during the meeting at Howard University, one could conclude that both points are correct. The relationship between self-identified race or ethnicity and disease risk can be depicted as a series of surrogate relationships (Fig. 1). On the nongenetic side of this diagram, race carries with it certain social, cultural, educational and economic variables, all of which can influence disease risk. On the genetic side of the diagram, race is an imperfect surrogate for ancestral geographic origin, which in turn is a surrogate for genetic variation across an individual's genome. Likewise, genome-wide variation correlates, albeit with far-from-perfect accuracy, with variation at specific loci associated with disease. Those variants interact with multiple environmental variables, with the ultimate outcome being health or disease."

"What additional research is needed? The recent National Human Genome Research Institute's "Vision for the Future of Genomics Research"9 outlined a bold agenda for the future, including a number of compelling research opportunities. The meeting at Howard University underscored the importance of additional research in certain crucial areas:

(i) Without discounting self-identified race or ethnicity as a variable correlated with health, we must strive to move beyond these weak surrogate relationships and get to the root causes of health and disease, be they genetic, environmental or both.

(ii) To determine accurate risk factors for disease, we need to carry out well-designed, large-scale studies in multiple populations. Such studies must be equally rigorous in their collection of genetic and environmental data. If only genetic factors are considered, only genetic factors will be discovered.

(iii) To validate quantitative conclusions about genes, environment and their interactions in health and disease for multiple groups, long-term, longitudinal prospective cohort studies, as well as carefully designed case-control studies, will be needed10.

(iv) We must continue to support efforts to define the nature of human variation across the world, focused primarily on medical goals. The International Human Haplotype Map Project11 will open a new window into human variation and generate a powerful tool for discovering disease associations, but the project will provide a resource, not all of the answers.

(v) We need more anthropological, sociological and psychological research into how individuals and cultures conceive and internalize concepts of race and ethnicity.

(vi) We must assess how the scientific community uses the concepts of race and ethnicity and attempt to remedy situations in which the use of such concepts is misleading or counterproductive.

(vii) We need to formulate clear, scientifically accurate messages to educate researchers, health-care professionals and the general public on the connections among race, ethnicity, genetics and health.

Conclusion The individuals attending the meeting at Howard University represented a group of highly informed and sophisticated thinkers. Many participants had spent more than a decade trying to untangle these complicated concepts. A substantial degree of consensus was achieved regarding what we currently know, but it was impossible to escape the fact that substantial gaps in our current knowledge remain. Therefore, the research and the conversation must continue.

In that vein, the National Human Genome Research Institute convened a Roundtable on Race, Ethnicity, and Genetics on 8−10 March 2004, which was attended by a wide range of thought leaders in genetics, anthropology, sociology, history, law and medicine. A report of that meeting is being prepared for publication. The National Human Genome Research Institute is also sponsoring a consortium of funded investigators, known as the Genetic Variation Consortium (http://www.genome.gov/10001551), which is striving to address many of these unanswered questions.

Much remains to be done, but the meeting at Howard University set the stage for a new era of interdisciplinary inquiry into the challenging topic of race and genetics, an era characterized by openness, freedom of scientific inquiry, an appreciation of history and a respect for differing points of views. It would be naive to portray these early steps as a breakthrough, but the committed efforts of the band of scholars and thinkers involved in these discussions are a good start in that direction." —Preceding unsigned comment added by Maunus (talk • contribs)

can you just link to the text, Maunus? Ideally saying what it is you want to point out? Copy-paste dumps of text are both cluttering talkpages and violating the authors' copyright. I don't see how any of the above is relevant beyond pointing out that "it's complicated, and people have disagreed with one another". --dab (𒁳) 16:11, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

Vogel & Motulsky: Human Genetics 4th edition

"The concepts of race and ethnicity often are highly controversial topics, and the use of supposed racial characteristics in differentiating between human populations has been strongly censured. At the same time, genomic microarray studies have convincingly demonstrated signifi cant differences between major human populations living in different parts of the world, with common genetic variants playing an important role in inter-ethnic gene expression [86] . However, microarray studies also have shown that 93–95% of the total genetic variation was intrapopulation rather than interpopulation in origin [75] . While the proportionally minor genetic differences between populations and the attendant race/ethnicity/ ancestry controversy are widely discussed and argued, an obvious and potentially more signifi cant question arises with respect to the origins and causes of the very high level of intra-population genetic variation. How and why did this variation arise, how and why is it maintained, and what, if any, are the consequences in terms of biological fi tness, and more especially genetic disease? Throughout recorded human history, marriage between a male and female has been the predominant institution within which procreation occurred and genes were transmitted. Therefore a key initial step in investigating intra- and inter-population genetic differences is to examine how and why marriage partners are chosen in different societies. Virtually all traditional societies are divided into long-established communities, with limited inter-community marriage. Indeed, genome-based association studies conducted in industrialized Western societies have revealed similar, if less pronounced sub-divisions, and even in countries with large immigrant communities, such as the USA, Canada and Australia, recent arrivals typically marry within their own ethnic and/or religious community during the fi rst and second post-migration generations. Although offering strong social advantages, this tradi tion has important genetic implications, since it is probable that couples from the same national, ethnic or religious sub-community will have a signifi cant proportion of their genes in common, and therefore that their progeny are more likely to be homozygous for a detrimental recessive disorder [14] ."

"Skin color in mammals is infl uenced by a number of genes [65] and differences in skin color can therefore be due to various genetic changes. It has been known for some time that the gene MC1R infl uences both hair and skin color and is under negative selection for full activity in Africa, whereas a number of loss-of-function mutations were found in Europeans at a high frequency, due to either loss of constraint or to positive selection for loss-of-function [116] . A stronger case for positive selection for light skin color in Europeans was made for a gene called SLC24A5. Initially found to be locally selected in humans in a whole genome screen 36] , its function was at that time unclear. However, the same gene was later identifi ed as a key pigmentation gene in zebra fi sh, and analyses of human populations have shown that it accounts for about a third of skin color variation between Europeans and West Africans [88] . Moreover, this gene shows signals of recent positive selection in Europeans, supporting the hypothesis that light skin color was indeed selected for in Europe."

"Most studies of human population genetics begin by citing a seminal 1972 paper by Richard Lewontin bearing the title of this subsection [29] . Given the central role this work has played in our fi eld, we will begin by discussing it briefl y and return to its conclusions throughout the chapter. In this paper, Lewontin summarized patterns of variation across 17 polymorphic human loci (including classical blood groups such as ABO and M/N as well as enzymes which exhibit electrophoretic variation) genotyped in individuals across classically defi ned “races” (Caucasian, African, Mongoloid, South Asian Aborigines, Amerinds, Oceanians, Australian Aborigines [29] ). A key conclusion of the paper is that 85.4% of the total genetic variation observed occurred within each group. That is, he reported that the vast majority of genetic differences are found within populations rather than between them. In this paper and his book The Genetic Basis of Evolutionary Change [30] , Lewontin concluded that genetic variation, therefore, provided no basis for human racial classifi cations. Lewontin’s argument is an important one, and separates studying the geographic distribution of genetic variation in humans from searching for a biological basis to racial classifi cation. His fi nding has been reproduced in study after study up through the present: two random individuals from any one group (which could be a continent or even a local population) are almost as different as any two random individuals from the entire world (see proportion of variation within populations in Table 20.1 and [20] ). An important point to realize is that Lewontin’s calculation (and later work that confi rms his fi nding) are based on the F -statistics introduced in Sect. 20.2.1 (seefor a discussion) averaged across single genetic loci. While it is an undeniable mathematical fact that the amount of genetic variation observed within groups is much larger than the differences among groups, this does not mean that genetic data do not contain discernable information regarding genetic ancestry. In fact, we will see that minute differences in allele frequencies across loci when compounded across the whole of the genome actually contain a great deal of information regarding ancestry. Given current technology, for example, it is feasible to accurately identify individuals from populations that differ by as little as 1% in F ST if enough markers are genotyped. (See discussion below for a detailed treatment of the subject.) It is also important to note that when one looks at correlations in allelic variation across loci, self-identifi ed populations and populations inferred for human subjects using genetic data correspond closely"

"Finally, some studies have led to the provocative claim that local adaptive selection also affected genes infl uencing brain development [42, 98] . The authors studied two genes known to infl uence brain size and to have been under positive selection during human evolution, the microcephalin gene (MCPH1; [42] ) and the ASPM gene (abnormal spindle-like microcephaly associated; [98] ). For both genes, they found alleles that showed strong evidence of having been under recent positive selection, such as extended haplotype homozygosity. Intriguingly, these haplotypes are not fi xed in the human population and their frequency differs between regions from 0 to 60% for ASPM and from 3.3 to 100% for MCPH1. Additional analyses suggest that the selected variant of MCPH1 arose only about 37,000 years ago in the human population [42] and that of ASPM even more recently, i.e., about 5,800 years ago [98] . Whether these alleles confer any functional differences and which evolutionary forces have been driving their increase in frequency are so far unanswered questions. However, a recent study found no association between either of the supposedly selected variants and neither brain size nor measures of cognitive performance, calling into question the initial interpretation that the two genes have been selected for brain-related effects [139] . Yet the MCPH1 story contains another interesting twist. Although the presumably selected haplotypes have a coalescent age of only 37,000 years, their divergence to the nonselected haplotypes dates back as early as 1.1 million years [43] . Applying simulations to obtain data similar to the ones observed, Evans and colleagues concluded that the best explanation for the observed pattern is admixture from an archaic hominid population such as th Neanderthals. However, whether this is true and modern humans thus may have benefi ted from genetic contributions of archaic hominids needs to be tested in further studies."

"Human evolution was clearly a dynamic process and the current human population is the result of numerous migrations and population size changes, as shown above. So, the question of how we are to view modern human genetic diversity remains open. As noted before, humans carry relatively little genetic diversity compared with their closest relatives, the great apes, and all modern humans outside Africa share a recent African origin, so that we all seem to be Africans, either living on that continent or in recent exile” [107] . What is a matter of debate is how much structure the modern human gene pool contains. In 2002 Rosenberg and colleagues [119] argued that given a suffi cient number of markers, humans can be placed into clusters that correspond to a geographical origin, implying – albeit most probably inadvertently – that major genetic differences exist between continental groups such as Africans, Asians, and Europeans. This conclusion has been contested (e.g., [131] ) with the argument that the result of Rosenber et al. [119] was an artifact of the study design, and human genetic diversity is best explained by a clinal model of isolation by distance, without any major jumps in genetic distance over short geographical distances. Thus, rather than being made up of several distinct human groups that are genetically well separated, human genetic diversity changes continuously, with humans living in geographical proximity also being more closely related genetically and humans living at greater geographical distance also being genetically more different. This later view has been confi rmed by additional studies that detected a strong signal for isolation by distance in both the data set of Rosenberg et al. [113] and in other data sets [30] . However, expanding their data set, Rosenberg and colleagues reaffi rmed that human populations indeed cluster by geographical origin [120] . At the same time, they do fi nd a pattern of isolation by distance, with genetic distance generally increasing with geographical distance. The reason why they nevertheless detect clusters lies in the fact that small jumps in genetic distances occur across short distance of geographical barriers. Thus, the clusters are real but they explain only a small proportion of the genetic differences between humans, a result also seen in other data sets. For example, in a compilation of about 1 million SNPs most are shared between Africans, Europeans, and Asians and only a very few represent fi xed differences between the continental groups. So despite some phenotypically obvious differences between human populations, such as skin color, across the whole genome there is very little genetic differentiation between human populations. Given that modern humans originated in Africa only about 200,000 years ago and humans are a notoriously migratory species, it is not surprising that we are all very close relatives."

Maunus, thanks for sharing the text extract from this recent reliable source. The full citation of this source

• Speicher, Michael R.; Antonarakis, Stylianos E.; Motulsky, Arno G., eds. (2010). Vogel and Motulsky's Human Genetics: Problems and Approaches. Heidelberg: Springer Scientific. doi:10.1007/978-3-540-37654-5. ISBN 978-3-540-37653-8. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |laydate= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |laysummary= ignored (help)

has been posted on source lists on my user space for a while. I earlier read the 2nd revised edition (1986) of this venerable medical school textbook in the early 1990s, a while before the third edition was published. This source is one source I had in mind as I think about the time trends in professional opinion on human genetics. Vogel and Motulsky used to devote more page space and more illustrations in the book to endorsing a three-race view of races, which they thought were based on Pleistocene separations of human populations by ice sheets between continents. The changes in this source over successive editions illustrate how race is declining as a concept in the best informed secondary sources on human genetics used for training medical professionals. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 15:29, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

The chapter in the 4th edition is written by authors who all are < 40yrs old. Also, the early '90s version surely could not have covered any of the PCA-based studies which appeared in the 2000s. Tijfo098 (talk) 15:34, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

And so what? Being plus forty years old is generally to be regarded as a qualification in academia. And this is the 2010 version so what was in the 1990 version is irrelevant.·Maunus·ƛ· 15:44, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

And so that counters the argument that that chapter in the 4th edition of the book is out of date with modern science. Tijfo098 (talk) 16:13, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Who made that claim? WeijiBaikeBianji didn't - He made the claim that tracing the references to race through subsequent editions shows that less and less credence is being put in genetical bases for race in textbooks of genetics.·Maunus·ƛ· 16:16, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

"the clusters are real but they explain only a small proportion of the genetic differences" -- I think the basic misunderstanding is the idea that race is somehow expected to explain a significant or "major" portion of human genetic variability. It clearly is not, everyone agrees on that. It explains a small portion, Lewontin's famous 8% I suppose, but this portion is therefore significant for the purposes of the notion of "race" if for nothing else. I really feel that this is an artificial "controversy". If you are interested in race, you focus on these 8%. If you are not interested in race, you do not.

To my mind, saying that you may not focus on these clusters because they "only" account for a small portion of variability is about as pointless as saying that you may not focus on human genetic variability in the first place because it "only" concerns 0.1% of the genome. If you want to believe that all humans are the same, you point to the 99.9% genetic identity. If you are interested in how humans are different from one another after all, you focus on the 0.1%. --dab (𒁳) 16:05, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

Since it's unclear what your definition of race is here, it's difficult to follow you. Maybe citing some secondary source might help here. aprock (talk) 16:18, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

are you sure you have followed the original quote up to "the clusters are real but they explain only a small proportion of the genetic differences"? Because this is the part I am commenting on. The issue is this: human genetic variability is tied to geographical origin. If this variability varied completely smoothly with distance, "race" would be "meaningless in terms of genetics" because any division would be as good as any other. If the distribution can be shown to form "clusters", the concept of race can be argued to be "meaningful in terms of genetics". Assuming this is understood, I think my comment is perfectly lucid. --dab (𒁳) 16:34, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I followed it. You still haven't said what definition of race you are using here. The quoted section only says "classically defined", but doesn't explain what that means. Is it SIRE, is it birth place, is it biological taxonomy, is it something else? All you have is some sort of circular definition. We use "race" to identify genetic clusters, so those genetic clusters identify "race". Some sort of secondary source discussing this sort of reasoning (or whatever you're trying to say) would certainly help. aprock (talk) 18:34, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

Ah, I see rediscovered the wheel (Vogel & Motulsky, 4th ed). I agree with User:Dbachmann's comment on 16:34, 17 September 2010 (UTC) that a lot of the discourse in this area is setting up strawmen by using vague terminology and concepts. The arguments are less on the science findings, and more philosophical these days. It's part of a wider discussion "Are species real?" in the philosophy of biology. I'll add some references to the last/new section at the bottom of this talk page. Tijfo098 (talk) 13:13, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

"Race: the current consensus"

Here is an interesting discussion from 2007: http://www.gnxp.com/blog/2007/01/race-current-consensus.php#. --Maklinovich (talk) 18:49, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Deletions of scholarly material

Maunus, please explain your deletions. I have already reported you to AE case for these deletions so some justification is likely appreciated.Miradre (talk) 16:03, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

Report all you like. Lynn is a psychologist not a geneticist how he chooses to interpret genetic data by others is irrelevant to the topic of race and genetics - including his idiosyncrasies was giving undue weight to a fringe viewpoint. John Goodrum's selfupublished critique of Templeton is not a reliable source and doesn't belong in any wikipedia article untill he gets it published in a peerreviewed journal - interestingly the only web references for "John Goodrum" is his racefaq website and the links to it from stormfront...·Maunus·ƛ· 16:09, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

There is not rule saying that only geneticists are allowed in this article. If so, then we should remove all anthropologists. You removed a sourced article along with the Godrum material.Miradre (talk) 16:11, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

No the only rule is the one you consistently fail to apply: WP:COMMONSENSE. I removed the Smith et al article because it only related to Templeton's argument through Goodrum's "critique". Goodrum uses it as an example to argue that Templeton is wrong in his definition of subspecies, but the article isn't about human genetic variation and doesn't mention templeton.·Maunus·ƛ· 16:25, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

You did not respond regarding Lynn. You misunderstand, this is the paper Templeton's cites as proof. Even if we remove Goodrum completely this paper can still be cited regarding Templeton misinterpreting it.Miradre (talk) 16:29, 9 April 2011 (UTC

Not unless a reliable source says that templeton misrepresents it. Lynn's views are irrelevant and including them here would give undue weight to a fringe viewpoint.·Maunus·ƛ· 16:49, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

We can of course quote what article says. Lynn's views are certainly notable. There is no rule prohibiting anyone except geneticists in this article.Miradre (talk) 16:52, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

Lynn's reinterpretations of genetic data are not notable views regarsing the topic of race and genetics, no. We cannot quote what the article says if that is intended to support any specific interpretation of Templeton's conclusion that is not supported by a separate reliable source - doing so would be synthesis.·Maunus·ƛ· 16:58, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

No interpretation needed. We can simply quote what it states. Obviously Lynn's view is notable. We can also cite Jensen and Rushton. The view that race is genetic is part of the whole race and IQ controversy which is obviously notable.Miradre (talk) 17:03, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

No we cannot just quote what it states, why would we do that? And no about Lynn, Rushton and Jensen neither of whom have any authority or notability regarding genetics or race.·Maunus·ƛ· 17:06, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

You cannot be serious about Lynn, Rushton, and Jensen not being notable regarding race. There is no reason for excluding psychologists. Morphology, genetics, psychology are 3 different aspects of race.Miradre (talk) 17:10, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

Oh, but I can. Firstly this article isn't about race, its about "race and genetics". Find me a basic mainstream text about Race and genetics that even considers their views and we can talk.·Maunus·ƛ· 17:17, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

ALL of the papers in support of racial gaps being genetic are about race and genetics. There are a large number of literature reviews also.Miradre (talk) 17:20, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

No, they are about race and intelligence. None of those scholars can be said to have contributed to the literature on the relation between genetics and race. Since fring eviews like Lynn, Rushton and Jensen cannot be allowed to stand alone including those views here would require including the entire race and intelligence debate here as well which woudn't make sense.·Maunus·ƛ· 17:23, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

Now you are talking like an anthropologist. Genetics influence psychology also. Genetic differences regarding psychology are as important as any other genetic difference like for morphology. Furthermore, Lynn is in fact an expert on another genetic topic, eugenics, where he has written a widely cited book.Miradre (talk) 17:36, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

Eugenics is not a genetic topic that is a political topic. Genetics influence psychology but that doesn't meant that psychology influences genetics.·Maunus·ƛ· 18:33, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

Let me rephrase. He has written a widely cited books that included many genetic topic. Including eugenics, fertility and genetic intelligence, genetic trends regarding health and personality, and so on. Certainly qualifies as being notable regarding genetics, apart just from race and intelligence.Miradre (talk) 07:06, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

You have written a really strange intro.

• "as being divided into continental races is hotly debated." That looks like a straw man, the current proposal does not match continents that well.
• "One question is whether genetic distance between populations is best understood as clinal with frequencies of different genetic traits being gradually distributed with overlap between geographic populatoins or whether it can be represented as an evolutionary tree structure, seeing populations as distinct evolutionary lineages." Seriously, that simply makes no sense. Evolutionary tree structure and clines are not in opposition. Please read some basics on this topics.Miradre (talk) 18:27, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
• Completely POV with only criticisms from your side.Miradre (talk) 18:27, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

What criticism? We can reformulate the bit about clines and trees to show that they are not necessarily in opposition but the question is whether races can be seen as evolutionary lineages/subspecies or whether genetic distance is a function of geographic distance.·Maunus·ƛ· 18:33, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

Evolutionary lineages are not subspecies. Genetic distance is often partly a function of geographic distance. I would suggest that you read something basic on this topic.Miradre (talk) 18:39, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

I would suggest you stuff it. That / obvioulsy doesn't mean that it is the same but that race is neither.·Maunus·ƛ· 19:03, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

Exactly what are you? An anthropology student? I find it weird when you declare that you know that anthropology professors are wrong. Tbe same with this. If you want to write the lead, then you should know the basic concepts.Miradre (talk) 19:11, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

What I "am" has no relevance here, just like it has no relevance what you are. I am not contradicting anyone or saying that they are wrong. I am representing the views of academic specialists working in the field, in this case geneticists like Templeton and Graves and biological anthropologists like Brace. You are the one arguing that you know (based on knowledge from reliable websites such as John Goodrum, and which ever impartial sources the pioneer fund have paid to parade their drivel this year) that these professors and scores of others who have rejected Rushtons, Jensen and Lynns work are wrong. ·Maunus·ƛ· 22:00, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

Actually, I did not add the material regarding Goodurm. Regarding Lynn see above. I have rewritten the lead to be clearer.Miradre (talk) 06:41, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

It's definitely time to dig into the sources here.

I see some new editors are surfing by calling for better sourcing and more specificity in the article. I'll do my part here to recommend the source list most relevant to this article that I keep in user space to share with all Wikipedians. All of you are very welcome to suggest new sources, and I hope to put a big push on this weekend to log into that source list sources that I have already had in my office for weeks or even months. The current secondary sources have done an interesting job of forging consensus from the various primary research studies of the last decade, and the article here should reflect the latest consensus in the professional literature. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 03:08, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Well, consensus is still not universal. A good and up to date source for the (consensus in) genetics is:

• Sohini Ramachandran, Hua Tang, Ryan N. Gutenkunst, and Carlos D. Bustamante, Genetics and Genomics of Human Population Structure, chapter 20 in M.R. Speicher et al. (eds.), Vogel and Motulsky’s Human Genetics: Problems and Approaches, 4th ed., Springer, 2010, ISBN 3540376534

Some sociologists are not convinced by the latest developments in genetics. For example,

• Chetan Bhatt, The Spirit Lives On: Races and Disciplines Chapter 5 in John Solomos, Patricia Hill Collins, The SAGE Handbook of Race and Ethnic Studies, SAGE, 2009, ISBN 0761942203, (particularly pp. 114-117)

It's best we resolve this on sub-articles first, particularly Lewontin's Fallacy, before updating stuff here. Tijfo098 (talk) 12:51, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Per discussion in above sections, some references about the philosophical interpretations of the science here, and in general whether phylogenetic etc. differences can classify any biological entities (and this widening isn't WP:OR or too far fetched, it's the very first question asked in the first of the following references):

• Robin O. Andreasen, Biological Conceptions of Race in Mohan Matthen, Christopher Stephens, Philosophy of biology, Volume 3 of Handbook of the philosophy of science, Elsevier, 2007, ISBN 0444515437, pp. 455-481
• Are species real? Part III (two essays arguing opposing viewpoints) in Francisco J. Ayala, Robert Arp, Contemporary Debates in Philosophy of Biology, John Wiley and Sons, 2009, ISBN 1405159995

(I have the full text of all the above except for the SAGE handbook, which is sufficiently readable on Google books's limited preview.) Tijfo098 (talk) 13:36, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Source 41 (Štrkalj and Solyali, which is btw in an open access journal, so why not give a link: http://www.krepublishers.com/02-Journals/S-EM/EM-04-0-000-10-Web/EM-04-3-000-2010-Abst-PDF/EM-04-3-157-10-153-%C5%A0trkalj-G/EM-4-3-157-10-153-Strkalj-G-Tt.pdf) says quite the opposite of what the wiki article claims it says: "A total of 18 textbooks were reviewed (...) It was found that only four textbooks (...) dealt with and tried to explain human ancestral variation."160.45.20.168 (talk) 13:32, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Redo Lede

The lede is so poor, it is both incomprehensible and incorrect. For example: "Today it is possible to determine, by genetic analysis, from which ancestral geographic regions a person originates and to what degree from each region." A person originates where the individual was born; genetic analysis is used to show the ancient origin of ancestors in a general way. There is too much assumption here of precision that does not exist in the analyses.Parkwells (talk) 15:21, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

I wrote the lead very quickly because the article didn't have one and the article gave the impression that it ws possible to discern race from genes, when what can be determined is the geographic region of ones ancestors, which can in turn be correlated with race. Please do go ahead and improve the lead and everything else in the article that you find problematic.·Maunus·ƛ· 17:52, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

"Africa is the most divergent continent" - isn't exactly the opposite?

I think that the complete opposite being is probably more accurate. Oceania, and secondly Eurasia, are the most divergent continents. If the original population was African (and the current consensus is that it was), albeit we could still say that Africans diverged more from then on, that's not true, as far as I know. The simple fact that the largest population remained there made so that the continent was the most genetically preserved due to the larger population size (nearer to Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium), whereas populations that left Africa were just a small sample from this population and thus inherently genetically divergent (founder effect). Subsequent splits were again a subsample and thus yet more divergent. That's why genetic variation is progressively more "scarce" as you walk away from Africa (American aboriginals having almost a single blood type, for example). If due to large population size, more mutations happened and became widely spread in Africa, that perhaps could achieve the effect of Africa being the most divergent, I guess. I think it's not really far off actually, as Africans can be roughly divided in two major groups that diverged from one another quite a lot if I'm not mistaken, people from other continents being more close to one or the other (to both?) than they're from each other. But if that's really the case, it would be better to be more clearly stated that divergence within Africa is the largest, rather than Africa diverging as a whole from isolated sub populations that somehow (not known to occur at all, AFAIK) remain in relative stasis. --189.18.184.201 (talk) 20:39, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

Exchange moved from Talk:Human_genetic_diversity:_Lewontin's_fallacy_(scientific_paper)#Move.2FMerge

• Comment I've gone ahead and added Richard Dawkins' view into that section in the Race and genetics article. Silverseren^C 21:57, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

I've added the views of C. Loring Brace, Jonathan Kaplan and Joseph Graves. (Why are we writing this here?)·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 00:02, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

I have no idea. What about Sesardic? Silverseren^C 01:08, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

Yes, he is another stooge paraded by "race realists" every now and then. Include it if you must - we can discuss issues of due weight later. I will remove this exchange to ther talk page of that article.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 01:18, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

See, its that sort of comment that makes it seem like you are not neutral enough to be editing this type of article. Silverseren^C 01:22, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

You wouldn't know what neutral is if it kicked you in the face.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 01:24, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

You're not helping yourself here. Silverseren^C 01:43, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

Can someone formally request that Maunus be banned from editing topics related to race? I'm new to wikipedia so I'm not sure how that works. His lack of civility here warrants a ban in and of itself IMO 66.68.87.193 (talk) 01:27, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

You can make such a request at WP:AE.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 01:31, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Lewontin's argument and criticism

You missed a number of critiques of Lewontin's argument. For example, Long (2010):

Earlier in this decade, Rick Kittles and I took an unusually critical look at FST (Long and Kittles 2003). We analyzed a unique data set composed of short tandem repeat (STR) allele frequencies for eight loci genotyped in both humans and chimpanzees (Deka et al. 1995). These data made it possible to see how FST played out when no one could dispute taxonomic and genetic significance. The answer surprised us. FST was pretty close to the canonical 0.15 shown so many times for human populations. In our analysis, FST was 0.12 for humans, but for humans and chimpanzees together, FST rose only to 0.18. Indeed, we found one locus, D13S122, where the size range of human and chimpanzee alleles hardly overlapped, yet FST equaled 0.15 ...Richard Lewontin’s dismissal of race may not have led to the wide popularity of FST in population biology, but it did galvanize anthropology. Lewontin confronted race by trying to show that classical racial groupings accounted for too little of the total diversity to be of any value. In retrospect, it is odd that Lewontin felt that 15% of variation among groups is small and even odder that others have concurred. Sewall Wright, the inventor of FST , believed the opposite. To Wright, FST 0.05 or even less indicates considerable differences, and FST = 0.15 reflects moderately great differences (Wright 1951, 1978). Low values of FST reflect large gene frequency differences in replicate populations (Figure 2). In other words, these seemingly small values of FST permit allele frequencies to drift widely among populations. Unfortunately, Lewontin did not contest the larger issue, which is whether or not races are a good way to portray the pattern of gene frequency differences between populations. (Long, 2010. Update to Long and Kittles’s “Human Genetic Diversity and the Nonexistence of Biological Races”(2003): Fixation on an Index)

(Long is cited by a number of researches who research "race medicine." So he is not an irrelevant player in this debate.)

There really are two issues when it comes to Lewontin's argument -- and I think it might be worthwhile to point this out -- or subdivide the section accordingly: 1) Are taxonomic groups identifiable 2) Is there a significant amount of genetic diversity between populations which could code for socially significant differences

(Lewontin puts these together, saying: racial classifications are "“virtually of no genetic or taxonomic significance.”)

These issues are logically independent. And both points have been critiqued and elaborated on idependently. For examples, Edwards mostly deals with (a) as does Alan Templeton. Long, above, deals with (b) -- and seems to make a case against (a). The section would be more coherent if this point was clarified. (i.e. "Can taxonomic groups be delineated?" versus "Is there socially significant genetic diversity between geographic populations")--Hippofrank (talk) 18:22, 8 October 2011 (UTC)Hippofrank

LOL. This is where they feign ignorance and call the undeniable facts "a minority view".

Also other factors such as endogamy for cultural reasons may give rise to genetically differentiated .

I find the meaning to be unclear. FeatherPluma (talk) 15:57, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

For example would the jewish tendency to marry other jews inevitably homogenize them into a race within a couple of generations. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.116.164.130 (talk) 10:50, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

A genetically differentiated population does not mean a race - it just means that certain genes vary in frequency between populations that have a more geneflow internally than between them. Some Jewish groups, e.g. Ashkenazi Jews, that have higher frequencies of some genes (e.g. the genes for Tay-Sachs disease) than other populations - this is of course an artefact of cultural endogamy. ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 23:20, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

"A genetically differentiated population does not mean a race" and that's your opinion? Here's my opinion: yes it does. 94.116.120.5 (talk) 10:48, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Ok, then you have removed all meaning from the word race. It is possible to genetically determine with very high certainty whether a person is from Belgium, based on allele frequencies. That makes Belgians a race in your logics. ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 13:09, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Lead problem

reading this for the first time, as a lay person, it seems the lead is not the best, it should summarise the entire body of text, it doesn't, and the first sentence ("The relationship between race and genetics has relevance for the ongoing controversies regarding race") does not tell us about the subject title, instead it tells us that the subject is relevant to a different topic, one entitled "controversies regarding race." Surely there's a better way to approach this, so that the lead functions in an informative and encyclopaedic fashion? --Semitransgenic (talk) 17:40, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Protected

I protected the article for three days due to this content dispute. Would a visit to WP:DRN help? causa sui (talk) 18:46, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

three days is overkill, it's a minor disagreement, between two editors, not an all out edit war. Semitransgenic (talk) 18:55, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

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section clean up

I've removed several sections that do not discuss the topic of race and genetics in a meaningful or reliable manner. I did leave the race and medicine section despite the fact that this is not a discussion about race and genetics, but a discussion about genetics and medicine, where racial correlates are used as a proxy for genetics. I'm not sure that it really belongs here though, as the topic of racial/genetic correlation is discussed extensively in the text and the main article is already linked to in the sidebar. aprock (talk) 09:56, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

If that section discusses how "racial correlates are used as a proxy for genetics" then it is clearly about.... race and genetics. I don't see the problem.

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Not Moved Mike Cline (talk) 15:04, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

---

Race and genetics → Human population genetics – Article content is primarily about human population genetics, and not about race. The sections which discuss race are reviewed below. For the most part, the sources tend to focus on population genetics, referring to race as a correlate with clustering techniques applied to genetic data. aprock (talk) 17:00, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

Visible traits, proteins, and genes studied: This section discusses race outside the rubric of genetics, and is presumably included to provide some background.

Race and population genetic structure: This section is an extended discussion of whether or not race can be predicted using genetic markers. I think this is an important topic, and one which deserves discussion in the article. However, this discussion clearly falls out of recent advances in population genetics, which in turn has necessitated a rethinking of whether classical definition of race have any valid meaning. In particular, the discussion makes it clear that insomuch as races "exist" it is to the extent that they mirror the genetics of geographically isolated humans. That is, it's the population genetics which are redefining race.

Race and medicine: only mentions genetics as a correlate of race.

Based on the actual content in the article, and the strong emphasis on population genetics, I think a page move which matches the title with the article content only makes sense. aprock (talk) 17:58, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

• Oppose The subject is race and genetics, which is clear from reading the material and related sources. Some more tentative language may be used on occasion by academics to avoid the political sensitivity of the term "race", but it is fundamentally the subject of race and genetics.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 21:30, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

How is it a misinterpretation of Templeton's position?

ArtifexMayhem removed Templeton's position from the article stating that it's misinterpreted although hasn't stated in what way. Here is the disputed text:

Alan Templeton (2003) stated that although small genetic differences do exist among human populations that can have evolutionary and genetic significance, they do not define races under any of the definitions currently applied to nonhuman organisms.

Now here is Templeton's exact quote:

"Although human populations do not define races under any of the definitions currently applied to nonhuman organisms, genetic differences do exist among human populations as noted above and quantified by the Fst value of about .15 - a small value but one greater than zero. These modest genetic differences can still have evolutionary and genetic significance. Therefore, the evolutionary significance of genetic differentiation among human populations (not races, since none exist) is a legitimate issue."

"Genetic nature/culture: anthropology and science beyond the two-culture divide". pg 248.

Please show where the misinterpretation is. And again, the solution should be to adjust the text rather than completely remove relevant cited material. BlackHades (talk) 03:24, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

The most glaring would be the inference that human populations and "race" are synonymous and Templeton is simply committing Lewontin's so-called fallacy. It would be helpful if you would explain how you see the material as being relevant to "Lewontin's argument and criticism". — ArtifexMayhem (talk) 06:50, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

The terms "race" and "human populations" are consistently used interchangeably. Templeton's position that races doesn't exist would be not because "races" (or human populations if you prefer), can't be distinguished genetically but that the difference is short of the threshold that he considers to be Fst .25. BlackHades (talk) 07:28, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

1. The terms "race" and "human populations" are not interchangeable (emphasis mine)...

The word race is rarely used in the modern, nonhuman evolutionary literature because its meaning is so ambiguous. When it is used, it is generally as a synonym for subspecies(Futuyma 1986: 107–9), but this concept also has no precise definition. All concepts of a subspecies are based on genetic differences between populations living in different geographic areas; but these differences alone are insufficient to define a subspecies because genetic surveys usually reveal so much variation that some combination of characters distinguishes virtually every population from all others (Futuyma 1986). As a consequence, if genetic differentiation alone were required to recognize a subspecies or race, then every local population would become a race, making the category of race superfluous. — (Templeton 2003, pg.237)

2. Your summary of Templeton's position is factually incorrect. Templeton finds human "races" (or subspecies if you prefer) have no biological validity because human genetic variation does not satisfy any of the biological definitions of subspecies (emphasis mine)...

[T]o prevent the term subspecies from being a synonym for local population, it is necessary to add further conditions beyond mere genetic differentiation among populations in order to recognize a race or subspecies. Three main additional criteria are applied: (1) a quantitative threshold of genetic differentiation among populations, (2) a genetic differentiation marking the qualitative state of being an isolate or distinct evolutionary lineage, and (3) genetic differentiation for special "racial" traits. — (Templeton 2003, pg.237)

The genetic data are consistently and strongly informative about human races. Humans show only modest levels of differentiation among populations when compared to other large-bodied mammals (Templeton 1998a), and this level of differentiation is well below the usual threshold used to identify subspecies (races) in nonhuman species. Hence, human races do not exist under the concept of a subspecies defined by a threshold level of genetic differentiation. A more modern definition of race designates it as a distinct evolutionary lineage within a species. The genetic evidence strongly rejects the existence of distinct evolutionary lineages within humans. The widespread representation of human "races" as branches on an intraspecific population tree is genetically indefensible and biologically misleading, even when the ancestral node is presented as dating to one hundred thousand years ago. Attempts to salvage the idea of human races as evolutionary lineages by presuming that greater racial purity existed in the past and was followed by recent admixture events fail the test. Instead, all the genetic evidence shows that there never was a split, or separation of races, between Africans and Eurasians as postulated by the out-of-Africa replacement hypothesis. Recent human evolution has been characterized by both population range expansions and recurrent genetic interchange among populations. There has been no split between any of the major geographic populations of humanity, with the temporary exception of the split between Native American and Old World populations. — (Templeton 2003, pg.252)

• Templeton, Alan R. (2003). "Human Races in the Context of Recent Human Evolution: A Molecular Genetic Perspective". In Goodman, Alan H.; Heath, Deborah; Lindee, M. Susan (eds.). Genetic nature/culture: anthropology and science beyond the two-culture divide. Berkeley: University of California Press. pp. 234–257. ISBN 0-520-23792-7.

In other words, Templeton cannot be used to support the fallacy—as believed by Edwards and very few others—that genetic variation alone implies the existence of race. — ArtifexMayhem (talk) 11:07, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

That isn't Edwards position at all. His position is that random facts about the genome (such as the ratio of genetic variation within and between groups) cannot be used to deny the validity of race, especially when the same facts apply between species. PsychKitten (talk) 13:14, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Templeton wasn't being used to support Edwards. His position was given in the most neutral and accurate representation of his position. Nothing you cited above contradicts it. He clearly states that human races does not exist per guidelines of non-human organisms but that this doesn't mean that what's being classified as "race", which he refers to as human populations, has no genetic significance. He clearly states it does have genetic significance. BlackHades (talk) 07:09, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

The cherry picked quote does appear to support your beliefs, however the source does not. — ArtifexMayhem (talk) 07:27, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

How is it cherry picked? Are you saying this is not his position? Your quotes are simply Templeton stating repeatedly that there is no races in human. Which we already know. You and I have both acknowledged this is true in regards to Templeton's position. But this is an incomplete statement of Templeton. He clearly states that even though human races do not exist, there can be genetic significance between human populations. Is there a reason why this more complete and accurate presentation of Templeton's position shouldn't be stated? BlackHades (talk) 08:13, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

This article is about race and genetics not human populations and genetics. — ArtifexMayhem (talk) 09:10, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

This is WP:CHERRY. It's not appropriate to just state "Templeton states that human populations do not define races." and simply omit his full position on the issue which is certainly related and relevant. BlackHades (talk) 16:19, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

Hello, from a DR/N volunteer

This is a friendly reminder to involved parties that there is a current Dispute Resolution Noticeboard case still awaiting comments and replies. If this dispute has been resolved to the satisfaction of the filing editor and all involved parties, please take a moment to add a note about this at the discussion so that a volunteer may close the case as "Resolved". If the dispute is still ongoing, please add your input. aprock (talk) 23:22, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

Dawkins quote.

The Dawkin's quote is an example of quote mining, and has been taken out of context. The quote comes from the chapter "The Grasshopper's Tale" from the book "The Ancestor's Tale". From the book:

The Grasshopper's Tale is about races and species, about the difficulty in defining both, and what all this has to say about human races.

The chapter then goes on to make the case that races are not a genetically useful term.

Whatever we may think as observers of superficial appearances, the human species today is, to a geneticist, especially uniform. Taking such genetic variation as the human population does possess, we can measure the fraction that is associated with the regional groupings we call races. And it turns out to be a small percentage of the total: between 6 and 15 percent depending on how you measure it - much smaller than in many other species where races have been distinguished. Geneticists conclude, therefore, that race is not a very important aspect of a person.

And concludes with the genetic significance of superficial traits:

Inter-observer agreement suggest that racial classification is not totally uninformative, but what does it inform about? About no more than the characterisics use by the observers when they agree: things like eye shape and hair curliness - nothing more unless we are given further reasons to believe it.

The paragraph from which the out of context quote is mined starts with the observation that most human variation occurs within a race, not between races. The quote itself is used to refute the very fine point that while races are not genetically important, their taxonomic significance is non-zero. The specific statement being refuted here is that race is of 'virtually no genetic or taxonomic significance.' Dawkins is saying that while race is not genetically meaningful, it still has some taxonomic utility. aprock (talk) 10:39, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

I concur. The Dawkins source is (was) being used improperly. The whole "Lewontin's Fallacy" fallacy is getting a bit old. — ArtifexMayhem (talk) 11:59, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

"But that doesn't mean that race is of ‘virtually no genetic or taxonomic significance’. This is Edwards's point, and he reasons as follows. However small the racial partition of the total variation may be, if such racial characteristics as there are are highly correlated with other racial characteristics, they are by definition informative, and therefore of taxonomic significance."

There was no misuse of the Dawkins quote. Octoink has provided the quote with some of the preceding comments, which clearly indicates the context of the Dawkins quote as being the question of race and genetics. Indeed, it is quite implausible to imagine anyone reading the surrounding pages of material could come away with the impression that his quote did not concern race and genetics.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 21:43, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

I don't know where any doubt might have come from but Dawkins definitely covers race and genetics in the source. And therein lies the rub... Given the fact that Dawkins is in complete agreement with Lewontin's science, which is highly respected and not in doubt, using a single quote to "debunk" said science without any explanation as to Dawkins reasoning is not appropriate and is, by definition, cherry picking. As Dawkins says: "Some people may find the evidence of biochemical genetics unsatisfying because it seems not to square with their everyday experience. Unlike cheetahs, we don't 'look' uniform. Norwegians, Japanese and Zulus really do look rather dramatically different from one another. With the best will in the world, it is intuitively hard to believe what is in fact the truth: that they are 'really' more alike than three chimpanzees who look, to our eyes, much more similar." — ArtifexMayhem (talk) 01:06, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

Agreed. Presenting Dawkins' discussion in The Ancestor's Tale as a refutation of Lewontin is cherry picking at it's worst. To the extent that Dawkins disagrees, it is to say specifically that the visible traits that we use to distinguish race are indicators that can be used to predict the visible traits which we use to distinguish race. aprock (talk) 02:18, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

It seems pretty clear to me from reading the source that Dawkins was saying that racial classification does have genetic significance as it correlates with observed differences in races. The position is that the differences are not particularly extreme, but are still there. As opposed to the position that race is so muddled that it is useless as a genetic classification this is a noteworthy point of disagreement between two mainstream academics on the issue.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 04:30, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

"Dawkins was saying that racial classification does have genetic significance as it correlates with observed differences in races": If the Dawkins source were being used to say that observable characteristics are genetic, there wouldn't be much of an issue. That's not what it's being used for. aprock (talk) 04:56, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

I am saying that the source supports presenting Dawkins as disputing Lewontin's claim about the validity of race as a genetic classification.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 06:50, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

The fact that Dawkins is disputing Lewontin's "inference that race is therefore a meaningless concept" cannot be used to infer Dawkins supports "the validity of race as a genetic classification". — ArtifexMayhem (talk) 07:55, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

If the experiment were to be done, I do not think Lewontin would expect any other result than the one I have predicted. Yet an opposite prediction would seem to follow from his statement that racial classification has virtually no taxonomic or genetic significance. If there is no taxonomic or genetic significance, the only other way to get a high inter-observer correlation would be a worldwide similarity in cultural bias, and I do not think Lewontin would want to predict that either. In short, I think Edwards is right and Lewontin, not for the first time, wrong. Lewontin did his sums right, of course: he is a brilliant mathematical geneticist. The proportion of the total variation in the human species that falls into the racial partition of variation is, indeed, low. But because the between-race variation, however low a percentage of the total variation, is correlated, it is informative in ways that could surely be demonstrated by measuring the inter-observer concordance of judgement.

We can all happily agree that human racial classification is of no social value and is positively destructive of social and human relations. That is one reason why I object to ticking boxes in forms and why I object to positive discrimination in job selection. But that doesn't mean that race is of ‘virtually no genetic or taxonomic significance’. This is Edwards's point, and he reasons as follows. However small the racial partition of the total variation may be, if such racial characteristics as there are are highly correlated with other racial characteristics, they are by definition informative, and therefore of taxonomic significance.

If Dawkin's position wasn't accurately portrayed, the solution would be to adjust it not delete relevant content. Dawkin's position appears to be that the majority of genetic differences are within population and not between population, and that genetic differences between populations is small. But he clearly states that it doesn't mean that race is not of genetic significance. He makes it repeatedly clear time and time again that race is of genetic significance however small the genetic difference may be. BlackHades (talk) 22:24, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Aprock or ArtifexMayhem, what would your suggestions be in regards to accurately representing Dawkins. Aprock stated "If the Dawkins source were being used to say that observable characteristics are genetic, there wouldn't be much of an issue." Any suggestions on how you would like to draft this? BlackHades (talk) 07:15, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

Some of the important bits would be:

1. No objective criterion exist that would allow us to determine if any two people are of the same race or not.
2. No objective criterion exist that would allow us to determine how many races there are.
3. Racial classification is informative about "no more than the characteristics used by the observers when they agree: things like eye shape and hair curliness — nothing more unless we are given further reasons to believe it. For some reason it seems to be the superficial, external, trivial characteristics that are correlated with race — perhaps especially facial characteristics."
4. The "superficial differences that helped our ancestors to prefer insiders over outsiders have been enhanced out of all proportion to the real genetic differences between us".
5. Individuals are "far more different from other members of their group than their groups are from each other".

It would not be appropriate to infer from Dawkins that "between-race variation" is or might be of genetic significance in relation to any complex trait (e.g., intelligence) or that said variation supports the concept of genetically defined races. — ArtifexMayhem (talk) 08:44, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

Dawkins clearly agrees with Edwards. No argument to the contrary has been presented, so I think the original content should be restored. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.61.165.78 (talk) 23:53, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

Aprock previously stated that there would be no issue with the source if it refers to observable characteristics. So I added text that better explained Dawkins' position using the example he gives to why he disagrees with Lewontin based on observable characteristics. BlackHades (talk) 22:03, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

On the contrary, what I wrote was: "'Presenting Dawkins' discussion in The Ancestor's Tale as a refutation of Lewontin is cherry picking at it's worst.'". It appears that you are now cherry picking my comments as well. aprock (talk) 22:48, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

Explain exactly what am I cherry picking? Not to mention you are completely wrong. Dawkins DOES disagree with Lewontin. This is not a cherry picking. It is a mere fact that he makes repeatedly clear. I don't understand how anyone can misinterpret the line by Dawkins.

"In short, I think Edwards is right and Lewontin, not for the first time, wrong."--Richard Dawkins.

Dawkins also makes this repeatedly clear on his website where he gets into disputes against other readers that do not accept biological races here:

"I was concerned to disprove Lewontin's assertion that there are no racial distinctions in the human species."--Richard Dawkins

"But Lewontin is wrong to suggest that therefore 'race' has no taxonomic meaning because, as Edwards points out, such variation as there is between races is correlated. I gave a simple demonstration of the validity of the concept of race in The Ancestor's Tale."--Richard Dawkins

"OK, but all I need in order to disprove Lewontin, is to show that there are SOME races that are unequivocally distinguishable."--Richard Dawkins

This fact has now been expressed to you by several different editors which you continue to ignore. Your cherry argument fails. Dawkins does agree with Edwards and disagrees with Lewontin and you've provided absolutely zero evidence to the contrary. If the text actually was WP:CHERRY, you should be more than capable to alter the text in accordance with WP:V. But you've been unable to do so despite being encouraged to. Why? Because there is no WP:CHERRY and Dawkins was already being accurately represented in regards to his views on Lewontin. This is a classic case of WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT. BlackHades (talk) 23:31, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

Have you read the chapter from which your quoting? All indications are that you have not. If you think that that chapter is relevant to the article, by all means include a discussion of the chapter. Selecting only the short portions of the chapter that you can twist to your own POV isn't going to cut it. Refer to the opening comment in this section if you need help finding the broad theme of the chapter. aprock (talk) 01:51, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

Your entire premise is based entirely on straw man arguments that has nothing to do with the underlining fact. That Dawkins agrees with Edwards and disagrees with Lewontin. Difficulty defining races is a straw man argument. When you're quoting Dawkins that he believes in between genetic variation of races is small, this is another straw man argument. This is both Edwards and Dawkins position, which is in agreement with Lewontin, and was clearly stated as such in the article. All this is unrelated to Dawkins' specific criticism of Lewontin's claim that race has 'virtually no genetic or taxonomic significance' which Dawkins is heavily critical of. When provided repeated evidence that Dawkins disagrees with Lewontin, you ignore it. When given the opportunity to freely edit and represent Dawkins view on Lewontin the way YOU want, you don't use it. Instead you've now made SIX reverts to remove Dawkins from the article entirely simply because it doesn't align with your POV. Do I really have to explain why Dawkins' criticism of Lewontin is relevant in a section titled "Lewontin's argument and criticism"? This should be pretty self evident. BlackHades (talk) 04:08, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

"Difficulty defining races is a straw man argument." Actually, it's the thesis of the chapter. If you deem the chapter thesis to be irrelevant, there's nothing left to discuss. aprock (talk) 06:00, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

Yes it is straw man argument as the difficulty defining races has absolutely nothing to do with Dawkins' specific criticism of Lewontin. You keep bothering to make points nobody is even disputing. None of which even remotely conflicts with Dawkins' criticism of Lewontin position that race is 'virtually no genetic or taxonomic significance.' While not giving a single shred of evidence to dispute the actual text in question. Do you or do you not realize "difficulty defining races" does not equal "race has no genetic or taxonomic significance"? Because it doesn't seem like you do. BlackHades (talk) 07:44, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

In summary, Dawkins agrees with Edwards and the deleted section should be restored. This particular part of the article is about Lewontin's argument not an attempt to precisely summarize Dawkin's views on race and genetics. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.61.181.253 (talk) 13:12, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

@84.61.181.253: You have been added as a party to the dispute resolution case pending at Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard#Talk:Race and genetics. This notice is being posted here in addition to your talk page due to the dynamic nature of your IP address. You are not required to participate; however, you are invited to help find a resolution. Please join us to help form a consensus. Thank you! (If other editors in this dispute have been missed and wish to participate, please feel free to do so as well.) — TransporterMan (TALK) (as DRN volunteer) 14:30, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

Removed Chart

I've removed the cluster tree chart. The source used for that chart is nearly 20 years old, and the presentation of the data appears to be based on editor synthesis, not on a presentation from the book. There is no page number citation, or indication that the authors find this particular presentation of the data to be representative of their conclusions. Current presentations of similar data tend to be multidimensional, and inclusive of more population groups than the ones selected here. However, even those present genetic distance of a subset of the genome, not the entire genome as a whole. It's important that graphical presentations of data be supported, not just by data, but also by high quality secondary sources which give weight to whether such a representation is appropriate for the topic at hand. aprock (talk) 17:55, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

The cluster tree chart is on page 80 of the book. It is not editor synthesis. Such presentation of data is supported by high quality secondary sources. Including:

Jorde, Lynn B., and Stephen P. Wooding. "Genetic variation, classification and'race'." Nature genetics 36 (2004): S28-S33.

Nei, Masatoshi, and Arun K. Roychoudhury. "Evolutionary relationships of human populations on a global scale." Molecular Biology and Evolution 10.5 (1993): 927-943.

Livshits, Gregory, and Masatoshi Nei. "Relationships between intrapopulational and interpopulational genetic diversity in man." Annals of human biology 17.6 (1990): 501-513.

As the chart and data is supported and similar to other high quality secondary sources and the original assertion of "editor synthesis" has been shown to be wrong, I am restoring this cluster tree chart. BlackHades (talk) 21:50, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

The ordering of the population labels by skin-color, African, New Guinean ... European Caucasoid, Non-European Caucasoid, was violently misleading. — ArtifexMayhem (talk) 04:10, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

It wasn't by skin color but by genetic clusters. BlackHades (talk) 07:17, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

Really? What numeric property of a genetic cluster was used to determine the ordering of the population labels? — ArtifexMayhem (talk) 07:34, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

It's in the source. It's actually quite an extensive amount of genetic data. The formula itself is two pages long. Cavalli-Sforza, Luigi Luca (1994). The History and Geography of Human Genes. BlackHades (talk) 08:01, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

You stated the ordering of the population labels "wasn't by skin color but by genetic clusters" and now you've stated that "It's in the source" and now I'm asking you to backup your claims (and yes I do have a copy of the source). — ArtifexMayhem (talk) 09:02, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

If you have the source, look through chapter one. You want me to name every piece of the formula used? It consistently mentions polymorphic markers. Where's your evidence that it's by skin color? BlackHades (talk) 16:10, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

L. Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza (1994). The history and geography of human genes. Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-08750-4. .copy for all.Moxy (talk) 22:12, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Thank you Moxy. Let's all please drop the WP:OR argument now. BlackHades (talk) 22:19, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Other than the problem that the chart has been re-ordered from the source, there is the problem that this article is specifically about Race and genetics, not Population clusters and genetics. The source is being used to imply population clusters and "race" are equivalent when the source explicitly states that this is not the case (Internal footnotes omitted, emphasis mine)...

The nine clusters chosen differ in their genetic homogeneity, but we are interested in establishing history and not in generating a classification scheme. A criticism raised by Bateman et al. (1990a) on this point misses the difference between taxonomy and phylogenetic analysis. Even if we were interested in taxonomy, calibrating the homogeneity of clusters on the basis of genetic distance in a tree would still generate an arbitrary classification that would inevitably depend on the sample of populations chosen. Lest there be no misunderstanding, we, unlike others do not give to the clustering obtained in the tree of figures 2.3.2 or 2.3.3 any "racial" meaning, for reasons discussed in the first chapter. Clusters were formed for reducing the complexity of the data and were given specific names in order to simplify discussion.

And some of the "reasons discussed in the first chapter" are (emphasis mine)...

The classification into races has proved to be a futile exercise for reasons that were already clear to Darwin. ...snip... Although there is no doubt that there is only one human species, there are clearly no objective reasons for stopping at any particular level of taxonomic splitting. In fact, the analysis we carry out in chapter 2 for purposes of evolutionary study shows that the level at which we stop our classification is completely arbitrary. ...snip... All populations or population clusters overlap when single genes are considered, and in almost all populations, all alleles are present but in different frequencies. ...snip... By means of painstaking multivariate analysis, we can identify "clusters" of populations and order them in a hierarchy that we believe represents the history of fissions in the expansion to the whole world of anatomically modem humans. At no level can clusters be identified with races, since every level of clustering would determine a different partition and there is no biological reason to prefer a particular one.

How do the sources make the chart relevant to the topic of this article? Without sources that make the connection assertions of WP:OR and WP:SYNTH still stand. — ArtifexMayhem (talk) 23:03, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

The re-ordering is a non issue. It doesn't change the presentation at all and likely was done to avoid any potential copyright conflicts. As far as the graph's relation to the article, the terms 'human population' and 'race' is used interchangeably constantly throughout this entire article as well as in the science community. These population groups are called "races" for those that accept the concept of biological human races, and are called "human population groups" by those that don't accept the concept of biological human races or even by those that accept the concept of biological human races but choose to avoid the politically sensitive term of "race". But regardless of what they are calling it, they are all referring to the same exact population groups.

If little trivial technicalities like this are going to be used to justify removing relevant content then perhaps we should look into renaming this article "Human Population and Genetics" as Aprock as suggested. Because to anyone that doesn't accept the concept of biological races, none of the material in this article is then relevant and your exact same argument can be used to justify removing any and every content of this article. BlackHades (talk) 03:06, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

Nearly identical charts and data exists in other published mainstream scientific journals that specifically refer to these population groups as "races" rather than "human population groups". So if this trivial technicality is your only objection, we can simply replace this chart with a similar nearly identical chart by another author that refers to these exact same population groups as "races". BlackHades (talk) 03:16, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

• The re-ordering is an issue because it changes the visual perception of the data in a misleading manner.
• As stated very clearly in the source above, "race" and "population" are not synonymous and the scientific community does not use them interchangeably.
• According to reliabale secondary sources scientists are not just being " politically correct" on this issue. Scientists (e.g., most biologists and anthropologists and nearly all geneticists) know for an absolute fact that there is absolutely no biological basis for the belief that humans can be grouped by "race" (other than by trivialities such as skin color and overlapping allele frequencies). Your opinions on what scientists really mean have no place here.
• As currently written the article should be renamed or redirected (I don't know how I missed adding my support to Aprock's proposal above).

A similar chart that is supported by modern mainstream sources would be fine. — ArtifexMayhem (talk) 04:46, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

Please explain specifically how the re-ordering is an issue as the chart is simply a mirror image. What possible misinterpretation are you insinuating could occur? The science community 'does' use the term 'race' and 'human population' interchangeably. The sources I listed above in response to Aprock is a clear example of this. Cavalli-Sforza also does mention that Bateman et al 1990 uses that specific chart for 'racial' meaning.

The big problem with your argument for removal of the chart is that based on your argument, not only would the chart need to be removed, but the entire section of Cavalli-Sforza would need to be removed, as well as likely nearly the entire article. I would advocate a better solution than nuking the entire article to essentially near blank. If renaming the article will prevent the complete nuking of the article, then I will support the renaming as previously stated by Aprock. BlackHades (talk) 05:34, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and again removed the chart. As noted above there are several problems with the chart:

• It does not refer to races, but population groups.
• It represents cherry picking, failing to summarize Chapter 1.6, Scientific failure of the concept of human races.
• It is very old data for such a fast moving field.

The introduction of the specific content culled from the book, and the chart in particular are precisely the sorts of edits used to push specific POV. As it currently stands, the section should be rewritten based on the books treatment of race and genetics instead of misusing primary source data and images to present a false impression of the books themes. aprock (talk) 16:04, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

Based on your 1st argument of 'population groups', why not just move the graph to the 'population genetics' subsection of the article? You've previously stated that you feel most of this article is primarily about population groups so this doesn't appear to be a valid argument unless you're arguing for the removal of the primary aspects of the article. If you felt text from Chapter 1.6 should be added for balance, then the solution would be add the text not remove existing data. If 1994 is going to be the cutoff for sources allowed to be on this article, we are going to have to remove a lot of sources and text from the article. Lewontin's argument would have to be removed. When exactly was it established that 1994 is "too old"? BlackHades (talk) 22:38, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

1994 becomes " too old" for any data or representation of data whenever the mainstream of academia no longer accepts the data of 1994 as accurate or appropriate. Do you have any evidence that the graphic is still representative of current thought of mainstream scholars? -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 00:25, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

I listed several sources that support the chart or similar charts. Including Jorde, Lynn B., and Stephen P. Wooding. "Genetic variation, classification and 'race'." Nature genetics 36 (2004): S28-S33.. I would be okay with replacing the Cavalli-Sforza graph with the more recent graphs published in Nature Genetics. BlackHades (talk) 01:17, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

It's clear that the figures from Jorde/Wooding only bear a superficial resemblance to the removed chart. Similarly, selectively choosing to present charts without proper context is a misuse of sources. If you think any source is worth including in the article, it is up to you to read and use the source properly. For the Jorde/Wooding paper, the high level conclusions is that while race may be sometimes useful for biomedical applications, direct genetic analysis would be more accurate. Presenting the chart in a context which isn't supporting the paper's conclusions is original research. aprock (talk) 02:23, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

It doesn't make sense to say the chart shouldn't be there stating it is undue but for the Cavalli-Sforza text that directly corresponds to the chart to remain. The chart is an accurate representation of the text that is already in the article under "Ancestral populations". If the argument is that the chart data is undue, how does the text that directly describe the chart data still stay? Is there a reason why the corresponding text should still remain? Or should it be removed? If it is removed should it be moved elsewhere?

The big problem is that there is no consistency to the approach of editing. If the argument is 'population groups', then all the other text attributed to 'population groups' should also be removed. If the argument is 'too old', then all the other text sourced to references older than 1994 should be removed. But it appears the reasons stated for removal of the chart is only applicable to the chart and the same reasons are somehow invalid for anything else in the article. BlackHades (talk) 03:29, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

Any thoughts? We need to establish firmer guidelines on what content should belong in this article or this issue will continue to be a problem. BlackHades (talk) 04:49, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Our fellow Wikipedian aprock makes a good point here about reading the reliable secondary sources deeply and then owning your edits by being able to communicate a rationale for choosing one source rather than another in a way that is fair to what the sources say and not giving undue weight to obsolete or minority conclusions. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 19:06, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

Aprock's reasons for removal remain extremely problematic. If it's because the source refers to 'population groups', then why does the corresponding text remain when it's the exact same source? What sense does that make? He previously stated that most of this article is related to population groups and not race. The question then becomes why isn't he advocating for the removal of all these sections based on his reasoning? His other reasoning of being "too old" also is problematic as there are many references here from before 1994. If we consider Aprock's reasoning for removal valid, then we should be moving to make extremely drastic changes to the article. There's a lot of text and references that needs to be removed if his reasons are valid. If we consider the reasons invalid, then we need to set the proper course going forward. But we simply can't nitpick which text will fall under these rules and which are exempt based completely arbitrarily. This is what's currently going on. Either his reasons are valid and we need to work on stripping the majority of the article or his reasons are invalid and we need to set a proper course going forward. BlackHades (talk) 22:15, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

I can support moving the article as suggested by Aprock above. If it stays here the off-topic material will need to be removed. — ArtifexMayhem (talk) 22:41, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

I've been thinking over how we should precede with this article and here is my proposal. We could move/merge text relating to human population genetics in this article, such as Cavalli-Sforza above, to Human genetic variation. Then have this article focus primarily on whether human genetic variation constitutes race. This should shorten the article to about half the size or so. Thoughts on this proposal? BlackHades (talk) 00:42, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

That strikes me as a very good proposal. User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 00:06, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

Discussion of Edwards/Lewontin & Mainstream (copied from my talk)

this discussion on my talkpage seems somewhat relevant to the improvement of the article, although not as much to the ongoing rfC - so I am copying it here into its own section.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 16:06, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

Interesting debate and you do make some good points. If you don't mind though, I'd rather continue the discussion here since the talk page of Talk:Race and genetics is getting cluttered and the focus is getting pulled away from the primary RfC focus regarding Dawkins' inclusion. That is if you want to continue. Regarding your last comment, I'm unsure whether Dawkins' and Edwards' view can be considered the minority view. But stating that race is "biologically meaningful" or "genetically significant" is a minority view, is different from stating that there is a consensus that race is not genetically significant. It is, for example, entirely possible for there to be no consensus that race is not genetically significant and for Dawkins' and Edwards' position to still also be the minority position. I'm not stating this is the case but just giving an example.

Dawkins' and Edwards' view is heavily shared among other scientists. Whether they are the minority or the majority depends on specifically what is being asked and what scientific field is being polled and where. Even if for the sake of the argument, they are the minority position, I don't see any evidence that there is a scientific consensus, across scientific fields, that race is biologically meaningless or genetically insignificant. Scientific consensus implies near universal acceptance and I just don't see that.

The views on race among scientists tend to fluctuate widely, not only from field to field, but also from country to country. Physical anthropologists in the US today do overwhelmingly deny the existence of biological races for example, but this is in stark contrast to certain fields of biology in the US where the existence of biological races is not only overwhelmingly accepted, but often considered quite significant to their field. This is the case particularly in the research of certain diseases and disorders in the field of genetics. This is also the case in the field of forensic anthropology. The view also fluctuates widely from region to region such as in Eastern Europe. Where anthropologists overwhelmingly accept that human races exist in stark contrast to US anthropologists.[6]

In regards to your comment about the mention of race in textbooks. I'm not sure what the frequency is of the argument that race is "biologically meaningful" or "genetically significant" in textbooks today but it is continuously mentioned in major mainstream peer review journals today as detailed here.[7] But really all the controversy regarding this is due to the fact that there is no concrete scientific definitions for any of these terms. Such as "race" or "biologically meaningful" or "genetically significant". It's important to note that all the objective facts that lead to the positions mentioned by Lewontin, Edwards, and Dawkins are all universally accepted. All of them are looking at and accept the exact same data. It's only when you bring in subjective terms like "race", "biologically meaningful", "genetically significant" that the interpretations of the objective data now differ. BlackHades (talk) 03:30, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

I think it is important to note the reasons why different fields come to different conclusions about whether it is meaningful/significant or not. Edwards'/Dawkins' argument which is entirely gene-centric is that any correlation of genes with populations is by definition significant, no matter how minuscule, because it does show that a certain gene has spread more in one population than in another. This of course means that if we can take a group of "white people" and find out they have a slightly higher frequency of x number of genes than "brown people" then the categories of white and brown people are biologically meaningful in their sense. It does however also mean that if we take a population from Liverpool and one from Cornwall and investigate enough loci - there is likely to be a "meaningful" biological difference between those two as well. That of course doesn't mean that the distinction between cornish and liverpudlians is based on biology. But it does mean that the distinction between cornish and liverpudlians is just as taxonomically and biologically siognificant as "race". The issue with forensic and medical practitioners is that they're view of what is meaningful and significant is whether it allows them to do their job. Because in the US skin color people do tend to classify each other by race that is the kind of information that is useful to a forensic anthropologist - therefore being able to tell anatomically what racial category someone is likely to have been classified into is very useful for them. But the problem begins when they then argue that the fact that they can tell whether someone are classified as X means that X is a natural category. This is of course a logical fallacy, because it ignores the fact that the racial categorization was based on those phenotypical traits to begin with. In medicine because of the ease of classification "race" is simply being used as a proxy for geographic ancestry, and again this makes some doctors think that this proves that race is a thing. Which for the same reason as with forensic anthropologists is a fallacy. All it does is that it shows that race correlates with a thing - not that it is the cause of the thing with which it correlates. One might say that "racial classification" and "phenotype" and "risk of disease" are three different symptoms of the same thing: geographic ancestry, which means that they can be usefully used to predict eachother, but not to prove the existence of each other. Forensic anthropologists and racial medicine proponents also tend to downplay the practical problems that result from use of race as proxies - for example the risk of undertreating populations that also have risk but fall outside of the racial category (e.g. sickle cell among mediterraneans) or stigmatizing populations that have only a slightly higher risk than the population at large. The argument made by anthropologists and geneticians studying human population history is generally that the correlation between race and population structure and history is insignificant compared to all the other parameters such as migration patterns, geographic and national boundaries, specific population events etc. because the appearance of "race" is is a symptom of those parameters and not the cause. My problem is this: we know that racial classification has a particular set of historical ideologies connected to it that we know have been and continue to be extremely harmful - and we also know that geneticians, forensic scientists and doctors can do their job just as well without using the category because they only use it as a proxy for geographic - then why not simply use the categories of populations and genetic ancestry instead of race? (which incidentally is what genetics texbooks like vogel and motulsky, and introductions to human genetic diversity, do). I believe it was Lewontin who wrote that categorizing people by race only makes sense in a racist society. Now, society is racist, which is why those categories seem meaningful to us - but wouldn't it be better to make a different kind of society where we don't make our science conform to our political categories but instead make our categories conform to science? User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 11:53, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

I understand your argument and you do make rational points. There are no universally accepted clear defining objective lines for human races. Races are difficult to define. But this would not be an argument that supports the assertion that race doesn't exist. I'm not indicating here that race does or does not exist but simply that difficulty in defining clear objective lines doesn't hold any weight whether race exists or not.

There are many other scientific terms with similar problems. Species is one of them which is known as the species problem. There are no universally accepted clear defining objective lines for what qualifies as a species. For example, would you consider Neanderthals the same species as Homosapiens? What exactly is the specific scientific criteria for species? If it's the capability of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring, then Neanderthals would be the same species as Homosapiens. But then tigers and lions also would fit this criteria yet they're widely considered to be different species. So evidently the scientific definition of a species is more than just the capability of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. But what is it exactly? Factors such as genetic variation, morphology, ecology are often used to define species. But how much genetic variation is required for something to be considered a separate species? What level of morphological differences constitutes a separate species? Do you see the problem? There are no universally accepted clear defining objective criteria for what qualifies as a species but this doesn't mean species does not exist. Species does exist even if it's difficult to define and even though there's no universally accepted criteria for it.

Now back to the issue of races among humans. Depending on what criteria we use to define races, there are either zero races in the human population or hundreds. If we try to define it from a genetic perspective, Alan Templeton considers the minimum threshold for races to be F_ST .25 and human populations are .15 so he concludes there are no races in humans. But there is no widely accepted rule that F_ST has to be .25 in order to constitute race. What if we set the threshold to .10 how many races would there be? How about .05? .03? We could have zero races or hundreds depending on where you wanted to place the threshold. There's no scientific rule that race has to be defined by genetics either. The concept of race existed long before mankind's discovery of genes. Historically phenotypes were used to define races. But if we were to use phenotypes what levels of differences in phenotypes constitutes race and is there a way to measure such differences objectively?

The question whether race exists or not is extremely muddled. Defining races has the same problem as defining species. There is no universally accepted criteria for either terms. But difficulty defining race does not equate race does not exist. Race may or may not exist and right now it really comes down to subjective criteria often based on the interpretation of objective data. Until a universally accepted objective criteria is established in the scientific field, there will never be a consensus whether races exist or not. Perhaps one day the scientific community can get together and agree on set criterias to what constitutes race. Similar to what the International Astronomical Union did to set the criteria for “planet” which caused Pluto to be demoted from a planet to a dwarf planet. Until then, everyone is just going to use their own subjective criteria even when they're all looking at and agree with the exact same objective data. BlackHades (talk) 19:49, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

You are not really connecting to what I am saying - which is not about whether race does or doesn't exist - but about why different fields differ on the question of whether the correlations between racial categories and genetics are significant. We are not in disagreement about anything regarding the empirical facts - you are basically restating a part of my point namely that any division of "races" is based on arbitrary criteria (I am quite familiar with the species problem, but yet species are not based on arbitrary criteria in the same way that races are - exactly because species have indisputable taxonomic significance, and has a clear causal effect on a lot of visible phenomena). but the important part of my point - namely that the kind of significance that Dawkins and Edwards talk about is not generally considered to be "race", but simply population structure. They are using the word "race" to mean something that no one else uses it to mean. Therefore we do disagree about what is and isn't a minority view regarding race and genetics - and you have not provided any evidence to suggest that Edwards and Dawkins' view is not in the minority as they themselves state it is.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 19:58, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

Or put in another way: Yes the possible biological reality of race is contentious - but Edwards and Dawkins' view is just one of the views that see "race" as having biological validity, and it is not the main contender to the mainstream view (I think just plain, ordinary misinformed racism is still the main contender) - because most genetic scientists and anthropologists agree they are right in their observations of geo-genetic population structure, but not in their conclusions that that phenomenon is the same as "race". Some forensic and medical scientists (many argue the opposite) argue in favor of seeing race as a biological category based on other arguments - namely practical utility in law enforcement and healthcare. User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 20:43, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

Species, while having some objective criteria, do have some arbitrary criteria as well similar to races. Which is part of the reason why there is a controversy among scientists whether Neanderthals should be considered the same species as Homosapiens or not. Dawkins gives specific examples of this in The Ancestor's Tale and explains why it's possible that human populations in the past could have been classified as different species.

"If Chorthippus brunneus and C. biguttulus are separated as two distinct species of grasshoppers because they prefer not to interbreed although they physically could, might humans, at least in ancient times of tribal exclusivity, once have been separable in the same kind of way? Chorthippus brunneus and C. biguttulus, remember, in all detectable respects except their song, are identical, and when they are (easily) persuaded to hybridise their offspring are fully fertile."--Dawkins, The Ancestor's Tale.

I don't know what you mean by "generally" considered as race, as again, there is no universally accepted term for the word. Even the scientists that deny race, they don't all do so based on the exact same criteria. For example, Templeton considers F_ST .25 to be the threshold for race. How many scientists can you name that uses this exact same specific criteria for race? Do you think it would be fair to characterize Templeton's position that race doesn't exist as a minority based on this? To be so heavily focused on only the specific criteria of Dawkins or Edwards for race seems to avoid the more fundamentally important question of how many scientists accept the broader biological validity or genetic significance of race. Yes they are all reaching their conclusions based on a variety of different ranging criteria but the same is also true for the scientists that deny the existence of race. If you refer to the source I linked earlier on a survey of anthropologists in Eastern Europe, the term race is being widely used as a synonym for population groups.[8] I'm not saying this is correct to do. That's a whole another topic of itself. I'm showing that it does happen in the scientific field and is not something "no one else uses it to mean". BlackHades (talk) 22:44, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

Now you are entering the domain of sophistry. When I say "not generally considered to be race" that obviously means that most people do not consider that Dawkins and Edwards concept of race is in fact best understood as race. Race does have a general meaning, both with in science and within society - the contention is not what the word means, but about its scientific status. If you try to argue that there is no consensus about the what the word means then all possibility of having a coherent treatment of the topic, and you are arguing that the vast literature on the topic is null and void. You wordplay leads you to mischaracterize Templetons argument. Templeton doesnt argue that race doesnt exist - he argues that there are no subspecies of Homo sapiens, and thus that racial groups are not subspecies or evolutionary lineages - i.e. it has no taxonomic significance. He is not proposing a definition or redefinition of the word - Dawkins and Edwards on the other hand are redefining the concept to mean something new.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 23:37, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

Who is most people here? The scientific field? Again this heavily depends on the field. Dawkins and Edwards certainly are not the only ones using genetic clustering to define human races. The general meaning of human races would be the classification of people. As to how or what methodology should be used to classify, there is not a consensus in the scientific field.

Absolutely wrong about Templeton. You seem to have missed the fact that Templeton uses the word "race" and "subspecies" interchangeably and does so all the time. He explains several different definitions of race. One of which he makes adamantly clear that subspecies equals race and race equals subspecies.

"The validity of the traditional subspecies definition of human races can be addressed by examining the patterns and amount of genetic diversity found within and among human populations."--Templeton (1998)

"A standard criterion for a subspecies or race in the nonhuman literature under the traditional definition of a subspecies as a geographically circumscribed, sharply differentiated population is to have F* values of at least 0.25 to 0.30"--Templeton (1998)

Would you say Templeton's view on race, as defined here, is mainstream? BlackHades (talk) 00:53, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Templeton provides the reason why he uses race and subspecies interchangeably in the beginning of the piece - because that is the standard meaning of the term in zoology. He is saying that if race is to be biologically valid then it has to be in the sense of a subspecies (because that is the only taxonomically significant unit below the species). His argument is that what we call race is not a subspecies and therefore not biologically valid. You are misrepresenting. or perhaps misunderstanding, his argument. You are right that Templeton's argument is framed in a different way than many other's because he compares it to the concept of race as used for non-human animals - but his conclusion is absolutely mainstream. When I say most people I mean most people - common parlance. But it is also the overwhelming usage within the field - everybody agrees what race means (in the sense of what kinds of human groupings it refer to) - but not what it is (whether it has a biological significance or whether it is primarily an arbitrary social convention dividing people by arbitrarily selected traits). The general meaning of human races is not "classification of people" - people can be classified in endless ways - everyone who uses the term race (except for Edwards and Dawkins and a few others) use the word race to mean classification of people based on specific phenotypic traits which include skincolor, hairtexture, noseshape, and other traits that correlate with continental geographic ancestry.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 01:30, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Templeton makes it very clear in Human Races in the Context of Recent Human Evolution: A Molecular Genetic Perspective that "human races do not exist under the concept of a subspecies defined by a threshold level of genetic differentiation." If Templeton's own words are not sufficent then we have the introduction of Genetic nature/culture: anthropology and science beyond the two-culture divide, "Alan Templeton goes a step further in the formal disproof of race. He applies Wright’s Fst, a measure of diversity within and among groups, to show that humans did not evolve as separate lineages (races)." — ArtifexMayhem (talk) 04:46, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

Artifex, I don't even have the slightest clue what you're even trying to argue against here. Have I, at any point, tried to argue Templeton accepts the concept of human races? I don't think you really understood what I was trying to say about Templeton. BlackHades (talk) 05:13, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

Please, enlighten me. — ArtifexMayhem (talk) 05:19, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

Could you specify what exactly you were trying to respond to? I only ever brought up Templeton to give an example of the variation of the definitions of race in the scientific field. One of which is race equals subspecies and subspecies equals race. Now this isn't the only definition of race that Templeton uses, but it is one of them. Templeton was only ever brought up to highlight one of the many definitions of race that exists in the scientific field. I could of just as easily used any other scientist. My point to Maunus was that among scientists, that both accept and deny the existence of human races, they do so based on a variety of different criteria or definitions and that they're not all using the exact same model to reach their conclusions. Regardless of whether they accept or deny the concept of race. BlackHades (talk) 05:34, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

I never at any point tried to claim that Templeton accepts the existence of human races. He doesn't. He was only ever brought up to highlight one particular definition of race. BlackHades (talk) 05:38, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

Ok. However, I think the main point would be that those that "accept" the race concept are very much in the minority. — ArtifexMayhem (talk) 05:56, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

The answer is more complicated than that as I tried to explain earlier. Among US anthropologists? Absolutely. Among Polish anthropologists? No, as the majority accepted the existence of human races as I cited earlier. In certain specific scientific fields, the race concept is widely accepted. In other scientific fields, not so much. For the sake of the argument, let's say it is a minority. If it is, then it is certainly a significant minority. There is certainly not a consensus, across all scientific fields, regarding the validity of human races. BlackHades (talk) 06:26, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

The idea that polish and chinese anthropologists accept race is based on a single badly done survey, that also does not suggest that this is because they have different evidence or outlook, but simply because they were trained using outdated material. The study very clearly says that their acceptance of "race" is expected to diminish, and that it should be considered a problem. In any case the view is marginal to the entire discipline. They may believe in race, but they don't publish in any of the respected international anthropology journals, and they are not part of the international scholarly dialogue in the discipline. It is a red herring to claim that there isn't a wide global consensus in the discipline that genetics does not support race.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 13:44, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

Again I maintain that if in fact Edwards'/Dawkins' view that discernable clusters of gene frequencies equal race is not a minority view then it should be possible to find a good review or textbook of genetics or human biological variation that states that this is the case. Again, it is not enough to simply say that Edwards is right in stating that there are discernible genetic clusters that can be sampled in such a way as to correlate with continental ancestry, with which everyone agrees, but one which says that this is in fact "race", and that Edwards' argument therefore validates the existence of biologically distinct races. None of the textbooks or reviews I know of make this last conclusion. They all maintain that yes, geographic ancestry can be determined from genes, but at the same time that no this does not validate the concept of "race" or suggest that it is an important taxonomic grouping.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 14:28, 25 June 2013 (UTC)