Are mixed race children healthier.

I seem to remember my high school biology teacher teaching us that children benefit from being the offspring of different races. Something about getting the best of both sides. Children of people of the same race have a greater chance of creating genetic redundancies, for instance, a genetic predisposition for diabetes.

I think the only evidence you’ll find to support this will be anecdotal. As far as I know there is no statistical relationship between miscegenation and health. I could be wrong, though.

Their health depends upon their parents’ and their own access to good nutrition and preventative health care. There is no genetic evidence that there is any such thing as race, so there can be no such phenomenon as “mixed” race.

@pdworkin
Are you saying races don’t exist?

This is completely not the same thing, but it is a fact that with dogs, when two different breeds have offspring, the puppies are healthier and much less prone to the medical issues that tend to plague each of the breeds. It genetically stands to reason that if mixing gene pools up more in other animals produces healthier offspring, the same would be true for people, although I suspect to much less extent since we are all the same “breed” but just different races. Sort of like breeding a yellow lab with a black lab. They’d still have a lot of common genes, but carry different coloring.
There was an extremely interesting experiment done on foxes to change their color. By the time the scientists achieved white foxes, the behavioral characteristics of the foxes changes so much that they became domesticated. That research showed that in foxes, the color traits were on the same chromosomes as some other characteristics, and changing them in the extreme also changed other factors in the behavior and physical make-up of the foxes.
Great question!

I am indeed saying races don’t exist. It has been conclusively proven that there is more genetic diversity within groups than between groups. Race is a cultural construct built of misunderstanding and convenience, but it has no genetic meaning.

@pdworkin
You are saying I couldn’t look at a set of genes and determine what race the person is? I find that very hard to believe.

This idea does seem to fit with the current biological theory that offspring will benefit from being genetically diverse. This is why you’ll hear this “theory” a lot in non-scientific contexts. However, you’d never hear a scientist say anything like this for the reason that @pdworkin said. Human appearances are really not as divergent as you might think if you look at other species. We have much more genetic similarity from person to person, even across “races,” than most other species do. “Racism” is really just “phenotypeism!” (Aaaaand no one else is going to think that’s funny… :D)

High five, @pdworkin!! You type waay faster than me. :)

Race is genetic, which is why black peopl have black babies, Asian people have asian babies, white people have white babies, and when people of two different races have a baby, the child carries characteristics of both races. Evolution created races. That’s not a racist thing to say. It is just a fact.
Side note – my previous post on the related animal research was used because doing controlled genetic engineering experiments on human beings would be completely immoral and unethical, so we have to borrow from the genetic engineering testing done with other mammals.
I certainly agree that we have an almost identical genetic make-up with one another, and the differences, as a percentage, are extremely small. However, in the make up of the human genome, one genetic difference makes numerous differences as we develop.

@jackm You absolutely could not. The work has been done, the results are in, there is no longer any doubt. You may choose not to believe me just as people chose not to believe in Heliocentrism; however, the earth continues to orbit the Sun, and there are no races beside the Human Race. What you observe are merely clinal differences in melanin production, etc. but nothing meaningful about race can be derived from the study of an individual’s genome.

@juwhite1 You are 100% wrong.

Just chiming in to say that all the research on “race” supports @pdworkin .
Now ethnicity may be another factor but it should not be confused with the social construct called “race”.

Thought I’d throw out a nice nature article that might be able to further explain (or at least provide some data for) what @pdworkin was explaining.

@juwhite1 What you mean is that all people have children who are phenotypically (physically) similar to themselves. The word ‘race’ doesn’t have any biological meaning, so evolution can’t be applied to ‘race.’

I’m dying to know if this could be at all true because for generations in our families it’s been said the mixed bloodlines weaken us.

Now you know. It can’t be true.

@hungryhungryhortence Not unless you’re talking about breeding with muggles. Now that weakens the bloodline.~

@fireinthepriory: muggles you say? I’ll have to check but somewhere it’s in family lore that letting one particular uncle marry in and and letting my own father in produced monsters.

@pdworkin
I think you are confused with the difference between there being a single gene for race, and being able to tell the race of a person by looking at their genes. I can look as someones genes and see their hair color, facial sctructure, body features, etc and be able to tell their race. There is certainly a biological and genetic basis for race.

There can be no value in continuing this discussion. You are incorrect; you do not believe you are incorrect. You prefer to believe that I am incorrect. I have the whole of current genetic opinion on my side, I see no citations or anything else convincing on your side save for faulty analogies with wind. One would assume that if there were such a thing as race it would certainly be polygenic. It does not exist in any form, polygenic or monogenic. Bub-bye now.

Again agreed with @pdworkin . Race is a social construct and therefore cannot be measured genetically or scientifically (in terms of hard science). I believe the genetic markers being discussed are a result of ethnicity and not race. And even that is up for questioning depending on what angle you are coming from.

What about sickle-cell anemia?

Am I the only one who ignored the “race” part of this and went on to assume the poster really meant ethnicity? There certainly are physical genetic markers for ethnicity. In our particular families you either get the Caucasoid (so much fun to say when you’re a kid) teeth that chip, come in crooked and have shallow crap for roots or you get the non Caucasoid teeth which are curved/shovel shaped and usually straight, sturdy and super white. They also make fun of those of us with the “nut shaped” heads.

Why will you not refute anything I said? You sound like a stubborn child sticking to some thing you just saw on tv.

What about sickle cell anemia? It has nothing to do with race. It has to do with the distribution of malarial mosquitoes. Carrying the recessive gene for sickling helps confer immunity from malaria, thus insuring the continuance of a maladaptive recessive gene in the population of people who map against the malarial distribution. That has nothing to do with race.

Good link
Here are some interesting ideas

Of course according to this link we must take ethnicity out of the picture as well ;P

In terms of sickle cell anemia it is biology but you have to consider that said biology has nothing to do with a person’s cultural background/race/ethnicity. It is simply the fact that people who are part of one cultural group tend to marry others from the same cultural group. Both are prone to the disease because those prone to it keep marrying it and carrying it on through the generations. It isn’t with them because they are black or jewish or have curly hair or straight hair etc..

gotta go to potluck, i suggest reading that first link

I have no idea, i’m irish, french, german, polish, scottish, slovakian and english, but I have no health issues at all

@jackm
IDENTIFYING COEVOLUTIONARY PATTERNS IN HUMAN LEUKOCYTE ANTIGEN (HLA) MOLECULES.

Jiang X, Fares MA.

Evolution. 2009 Nov 20. [Epub ahead of print]PMID: 19930454 [PubMed – as supplied by publisher]

Genetic ancestry, social classification, and racial inequalities in blood pressure in Southeastern Puerto Rico.

Gravlee CC, Non AL, Mulligan CJ.

PLoS One. 2009 Sep 9;4(9):e6821.PMID: 19742303 [PubMed – in process]Related articlesFree article
2.

Disparities in colorectal cancer in African-Americans vs Whites: before and after diagnosis.

Dimou A, Syrigos KN, Saif MW.

World J Gastroenterol. 2009 Aug 14;15(30):3734–43. Review.PMID: 19673013 [PubMed – indexed for MEDLINE]Related articlesFree article
3.

Racial differences in paraoxonase-1 (PON1): a factor in the health of southerners?

Davis KA, Crow JA, Chambers HW, Meek EC, Chambers JE.

Environ Health Perspect. 2009 Aug;117(8):1226–31. Epub 2009 Mar 12.PMID: 19672401 [PubMed – indexed for MEDLINE]Related articlesFree article
4.

Racial differences in advanced colorectal cancer outcomes and pharmacogenetics: a subgroup analysis of a large randomized clinical trial.

Sanoff HK, Sargent DJ, Green EM, McLeod HL, Goldberg RM.

J Clin Oncol. 2009 Sep 1;27(25):4109–15. Epub 2009 Jul 27.PMID: 19636001 [PubMed – indexed for MEDLINE]Related articles
5.

Racial differences in the interaction between family history and risk factors associated with diabetes in the National Health and Nutritional Examination Survey, 1999–2004.

Suchindran S, Vana AM, Shaffer RA, Alcaraz JE, McCarthy JJ.

Genet Med. 2009 Jul;11(7):542–7.PMID: 19606541 [PubMed – indexed for MEDLINE]Related articles
6.

Racial and ethnic differences in willingness to participate in psychiatric genetic research.

Murphy EJ, Wickramaratne P, Weissman MM.

Psychiatr Genet. 2009 Aug;19(4):186–94.PMID: 19593860 [PubMed – indexed for MEDLINE]Related articles
7.

Medicine and public health in a multiethnic world.

Bhopal R.

J Public Health (Oxf). 2009 Sep;31(3):315–21. Epub 2009 Jul 7.PMID: 19584137 [PubMed – indexed for MEDLINE]Related articles
8.

Autoimmune type 1 diabetes genetic susceptibility encoded by human leukocyte antigen DRB1 and DQB1 genes in Tunisia.

Stayoussef M, Benmansour J, Al-Irhayim AQ, Said HB, Rayana CB, Mahjoub T, Almawi WY.

Clin Vaccine Immunol. 2009 Aug;16(8):1146–50. Epub 2009 Jun 24.PMID: 19553558 [PubMed – indexed for MEDLINE]Related articles
9.

Racial and ethnic disparities in the incidence of invasive cervical cancer in Florida.

Patel NR, Rollison DE, Barnholtz-Sloan J, Mackinnon J, Green L, Giuliano AR.

Cancer. 2009 Sep 1;115(17):3991–4000.PMID: 19544552 [PubMed – indexed for MEDLINE]Related articles
10.

Racial differences and cardiovascular response to psychological stress.

Fauvel JP, Ducher M.

Am J Hypertens. 2009 Jul;22(7):696. No abstract available. PMID: 19543304 [PubMed – indexed for MEDLINE]Related articles
11.

Racial disparity in pathophysiologic pathways of preterm birth based on genetic variants.

Menon R, Pearce B, Velez DR, Merialdi M, Williams SM, Fortunato SJ, Thorsen P.

Reprod Biol Endocrinol. 2009 Jun 15;7:62.PMID: 19527514 [PubMed – indexed for MEDLINE]Related articlesFree article
12.

Socioeconomic status and prostate cancer incidence and mortality rates among the diverse population of California.

Cheng I, Witte JS, McClure LA, Shema SJ, Cockburn MG, John EM, Clarke CA.

Cancer Causes Control. 2009 Jun 13. [Epub ahead of print]PMID: 19526319 [PubMed – as supplied by publisher]Related articlesFree article
13.

Warfarin pharmacogenomics.

Cavallari LH, Limdi NA.

Curr Opin Mol Ther. 2009 Jun;11(3):243–51. Review.PMID: 19479657 [PubMed – indexed for MEDLINE]Related articles
14.

Relationship between body mass index, alcohol use, and alcohol misuse in a young adult female twin sample.

Duncan AE, Grant JD, Bucholz KK, Madden PA, Heath AC.

J Stud Alcohol Drugs. 2009 May;70(3):458–66.PMID: 19371498 [PubMed – indexed for MEDLINE]Related articles
15.

Characteristics in phenotypic manifestations of genetically proved Marfan syndrome in a Japanese population.

Akutsu K, Morisaki H, Takeshita S, Ogino H, Higashi M, Okajima T, Yoshimuta T, Tsutsumi Y, Nonogi H, Morisaki T.

Am J Cardiol. 2009 Apr 15;103(8):1146–8. Epub 2009 Mar 4.PMID: 19361604 [PubMed – indexed for MEDLINE]Related articles
16.

Cytokine SNPs: Comparison of allele frequencies by race and implications for future studies.

Van Dyke AL, Cote ML, Wenzlaff AS, Land S, Schwartz AG.

Cytokine. 2009 May;46(2):236–44. Epub 2009 Apr 7.PMID: 19356949 [PubMed – indexed for MEDLINE]Related articles
17.

Performance of prediction models for BRCA mutation carriage in three racial/ethnic groups: findings from the Northern California Breast Cancer Family Registry.

Kurian AW, Gong GD, John EM, Miron A, Felberg A, Phipps AI, West DW, Whittemore AS.

Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev. 2009 Apr;18(4):1084–91. Epub 2009 Mar 31.PMID: 19336551 [PubMed – indexed for MEDLINE]Related articles
18.

Racial differences in response to interferon-based antiviral therapy for hepatitis C virus infection: a hardwiring issue?

Tai AW, Chung RT.

J Infect Dis. 2009 Apr 15;199(8):1101–3. No abstract available. PMID: 19284288 [PubMed – indexed for MEDLINE]Related articles
19.

Early changes in hepatitis C virus (HCV) levels in response to peginterferon and ribavirin treatment in patients with chronic HCV genotype 1 infection.

Hoofnagle JH, Wahed AS, Brown RS Jr, Howell CD, Belle SH; Virahep-C Study Group.

J Infect Dis. 2009 Apr 15;199(8):1112–20.PMID: 19284286 [PubMed – indexed for MEDLINE]Related articles
20.

EGFR and KRAS mutations in patients with adenocarcinoma of the lung.

Jang TW, Oak CH, Chang HK, Suo SJ, Jung MH.

Korean J Intern Med. 2009 Mar;24(1):48–54.PMID: 19270482 [PubMed – indexed for MEDLINE]Related articlesFree article

@pdworkin
I see you figured out how to copy and paste, please refute what I said though.

Kindly read the above referenced articles, and then return to refute them. Either that or provide me with a list of scholarly citations in support of your point of view. (Hint: it doesn’t exist.)

[mod says] Differences in opinions should be handled civilly and without personal attacks.

Okay, I’m old and have not kept up. My “Care of the Adult Patient’ of 1971 says sickle cell anemia is chiefly found in Negroes. I have Googled and learned.

Here is my refutation, as stated above many times which you seemed to ignore.

I CAN look at the genes of a human being and tell you what race they belong to. This means race IS genetic. If two people of the same race have a baby, that child IS the same race as their parents. While you may wish to live in a world where race doesn’t exist you DON’T.

You are conflating ethnicity with race. Race has no meaning, however you are correct that a baby tends to have a phenotypic resemblance to its parents. That is what makes for ethnic distinctions.

I am interested when you say you can tell things by looking at genes. How do you look? What mechanisms do you use? What do the racial genes look like, and how do you identify them? Have you taken any pictures of these race genes that you have looked at? May I see the pictures? Have you published your findings for peer review? Please let us know.

@pdworkin
If you would have read what I said before, you would see what I meant. I can see hair color, facial structure, body features, etc. I could then use this information to tell you what race this person is.

It may make you feel better for some reason that there is no ‘race gene’ but that doesn’t mean race doesn’t exist.

It is in no way racist to say there are differences between people of different races. I am not clinging to some idea that one race is better than another. Just as there are differences between sexes and some people will deny them to satisfy a notion they have.

There are races, thats life.

You insist on redefining ethnicity as “race”. What your reasons for this are I don’t understand. If it somehow makes you feel better to take a useful term, and rename it with a supernumerary word that has now lost its previous meaning, who am I to stop you? The problem, you will find, is mutual intelligibility when you attempt to communicate with people who use the language normatively.

All I know is that I have two kids and a step-son that are mixed race. Two are very healthy, one has some health problems that she has overcome, and all of them had really messed up and crooked teeth.

Fortunately, all of us seem to have missed out on some of the nastier recessive traits, but then we are not just mixed race, we are mixed countries and mixed ethnic groups and even mixed religions.

I suspect we will all be better off if we continue to ban biological siblings from marrying.

@Darwin You may be of mixed ethnicity, but since there is no such thing in the empirical genetic data as “Race”, you are not of “mixed race”.

But I am officially classified as that by the US Census, so I stand by it, whatever it means. In any case, I have good hair, and our genetic profiles indicate at least some of us used to be Jewish.

While “race” itself may not be particularly valid, it is true that populations that continually bred among themselves will gradually build up greater concentrations of certain traits due to a form of Founder Effect. By marrying outside of one’s population you will minimize the occurrence of traits that result from two recessive alleles. Hence, sickle cell, while not restricted to people who have dark skin, nappy hair, etc. etc., is most common in offspring of two such people. If you prefer, you can refer to it as the result of geographic or cultural breeding patterns, but that’s a lot more letters to type.

Why not continue to characterize yourselves by the four Humours: Melancholy, Bile, Spleen and Phlegm? Makes as much sense.

The four Humours have their merits, too. My dad’s family is definitely heavy on Melancholy, my mother’s on Bile, but my husband seems to be heavy on Phlegm.

Works for me.

@pdworkin
Using big words doesn’t make you look smarter.

I choose to use the definition of race that it commonly accepted by everyone

“The term race or racial group usually refers to the categorization of humans into populations or groups on the basis of various sets of heritable characteristics.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_(classification_of_human_beings)

So if you decided to change this definition to match what you believe, then sure, whatever you say is right

@jackm

From the authoritative OED.

The primary definition:
A group of people, animals, or plants, connected by common descent or origin.

Seeing as we all descend from the same origin, mankind is one race. Any differentiation discovered therein is no longer dealing with race but something different (usually, as others noted, ethnicity).

You said @pdworkin is changing the definition to coincide what he believes, but the definition you use is dated.

Cf., e.g., a note on the term, again from the OED:
In recent years, the associations of race with the ideologies and theories that grew out of the work of 19th-cent. anthropologists and physiologists has led to the word often being avoided with reference to specific ethnic groups. Although it is still used in general contexts, it is now often replaced by terms such as people(s), community, etc.

To say that your usage is correct because it is the general usage, i.e. because most people use it the same way, is not justification, and I would refer you to the first answer of this Fluther question.

The word “race” got poisoned by the fallacious ideas that came to be associated with it regarding character and hierarchy, so we now prefer a term, “ethnicity”, which doesn’t carry the same historical baggage. But those 19th century anthropologists could have just as well used the word “ethnicity” in their theories, and we’d now be shunning that word (in favor, perhaps, of “race”).

We speak freely of “race” in other species to distinguish between minor physical variations that fall short of speciation: “First, there are two races of the Yellow-rumped Warbler, the Myrtle race and the Audubon’s race. The primary distinction between the two races in the field is that the Myrtle race has a white throat, while the Audubon’s race has a yellow throat. But good luck telling this difference on dull-plumaged birds, especially since there are intergrades between the two races that further complicate identification.” (source)

It is possible to look at a person’s DNA and determine from which of several regional gene pools their genetic makeup derives. It can be determined what percentage of a person’s genome is of African origin, what percentage is East Asian origin, etc. How that correlates to actual physical appearance is not so clear.

Still, there was a case recently of a search for a serial killer (can’t remember where). Law enforcement was looking for a white guy, based on the statistical data that shows the majority of serial killers being white males. A DNA sample was submitted for analysis to a lab that analyzes samples for this kind of “genetic heritage” information. The result showed that the killers DNA was of mostly African origin, so the search began to look for black suspects. A black man was eventually charged and convicted.

A very good and nuanced discussion of this subject is to be found in this Radiolab sound file. It’s an hour long, but well worth the time.

@everyone thanks for the contributions, some well constructed comments, the semantic arguments concerning race and ethnicity seem to outweigh the biological one’s, interesting nonetheless.

I simply suggest that some people do more reading on the topic:

http://nortonbooks.typepad.com/everydaysociology/2009/03/the-social-construction-of-race-ethnicity-sex-and-gender.html

http://anthropology.net/2008/10/01/race-as-a-social-construct/

In terms of using DNA to determine “race” you know how it is used right? All they do is say the majority of people from this “race” have this marker. So if you have said marker you are likely to be of that race. I would think the intrinsic flaws in this type of reasoning are quite apparent.

@RedPowerLady I’m not familiar with the exact technique, but the results of the DNA test I heard about are broken down by proportionality, so that it might show 12% of this origin, 25% of this origin, etc. So it must be more subtle than the mere presence or absence of a given marker.

@Harp I’m not arguing about how it is broken down. I’m saying that the entire idea of it is flawed. All it says is that we examined some people from this group. Hopefully they are you know actually from that group and representative of it. Their genes look like this. Your genes look similar so you are from that group. Do you see how many flaws are there? I could list a few…
– They would have to first have a VERY large sample of people from each specific ethnic group to have an accurate sampling.
– Since ethnicity and race are social constructions who is deciding what group is what?
– What about the groups they miss? Since we have more similarities between races than within them if you miss one group you could be miscategorizing people completely because said group is missing…
– It only examines people as they exist today. So if we get a bunch of people together and tell them to breed with each other then essentially they form their own genetic pattern and “race”. So perhaps it’s not even real “hopi” people but people who have got together, bred together, and are not claiming to be “hopi” (similar to something I already stated).

Look I am not altogether scientifically articulate so I apologize for the lay way of explaining my viewpoint. However the flaws are entirely evident to me.

Here is another interesting article on the topic. If you scroll about halfway down it gets really interesting.
Article
I particularly like this quote: “We really ought to ask why, even after the Bell Curve debate (which was debunked, i added this in as it was too long for me to include the previous paragraph), racial determinism anchored in biology has come back as a respectable idea. One possible reason is that there are huge institutional and financial interests in such explanations. ”

@RedPowerLady But it doesn’t base its classifications on, say, standard physical characteristics of group “X”; it bases them on broad geographic regions of origin. It couldn’t say “Hopi” or “Seminole”, but it could say Native American. That’s not a race, it’s an origin, as is African or East Asian. Again, the correlation of such origin to actual physical traits is tenuous, but not non-existent.

As for where the types against which the samples are measured come from, I would think that it would be fairly easy to locate people whose ancestry is known to be from a particular region, and even to sample DNA from people who died long before populations were so mobile.

I recognize that race is a social construct. In the case of the birds I mentioned earlier, somebody at some point noticed a slight difference in different populations of the Yellow-rumped Warbler and decided that the difference was worth noting by a specific designation. All he was pointing out was that this population tends to have white throats, and that population tends to have yellow throats. Period. The decision to divide them into races was rather arbitrary, but it wasn’t without some objective basis.

@Harp Actually they do say “hopi” or “seminole”. They also determine what tribe or tribal area you are from in Africa. I’m from the cultural community and it is a hot debate where we are from.
http://www.dnacenter.com/native-american/
and
http://hubpages.com/hub/DNA-Genealogy-Test-Comparison

I disagree with the easiness of sampling but hey we don’t have to agree on everything ;)

If race is socially constructed then how can it be determined through genetics? It seems like a catch 22 to me.

“If race is socially constructed then how can it be determined through genetics?”

Because society has in the past encouraged or required mating between people from the same race/origin/tribe/ethnic group, so specific versions of genes become more frequent in various groups. Once inter-group mating becomes the norm rather than the exception, it won’t work any longer. It is a form of something called the Founder Effect.

@RedPowerLady Region of origin is determined by the genetic testing, and that has a loose correlation to physical attributes. But race is a social construct in that it makes groupings arbitrarily based on those physical attributes.

Suppose I had a sampling of 1000 random people and noted three physical characteristics for each one (already, which characteristics I choose to note is somewhat arbitrary, but let’s go on). I find three different eye colors, four different hair colors, and two broad categories of height. I could just not make any classifications based on this data. They’re all humans, and I love ‘em all.

But if I examine the data and note that eye color A almost always goes with height B, that might make me curious. If I found three characteristics that usually seem to go together, I’d definitely be curious. I might ask people who had these conspicuous combinations where their parents were from, and if they all indicated the same region, then I’d think I had identified a somewhat reliable pattern. What do I call this pattern, if I decide to call it anything? My decision to name it is a social construct. It only takes into consideration a few random traits that don’t have any particular significance; I just decided to make them significant for the purposes of my classification. Those people could be wildly different in all other respects. But still, if I hear of someone who’s from that region, I might be able to guess what they look like before I ever see them.

@Darwin agreed but that is just reinforcing a social construct and not a scientific one and if the social construct is flawed then so is the latter science

@Harp I don’t disagree (I think) with that but a guess would still not be a scientific determination. And the user above persists that they can tell what a person looks like by examining their genes. Not only that but what their race is specifically.

The social construct creates the scientific one – specific alleles within a group become concentrated by restrictions on mating, and this can be seen by science and fairly reliably give an idea of what the owner of the genes will look like,

Just because society insists on certain rules doesn’t invalidate the effects of those rules on genetic frequencies in various groups. Science doesn’t care about these nebulous rules, just the effects. The effects of restricted mating is the frequency of specific alleles in specific groups. That is the science.

Now if society wants to add any baggage onto the scientific ratios, that’s another thing entirely.

@Darwin I see what you are saying and agree. What I am saying is that does not then create “race” because “race” is a social construct to begin with. It is circular thinking. Race creates science and that science then creates race.

Also agree with last statement btw but i think that is obvious :)

Science doesn’t create race. It only measures frequency of alleles in specifically defined populations. People take those defined populations and call them races.

Why can we talk about races of birds based on their plumage but not about people based on their eyes, skin and hair? Only because when assigning race to Homo sapiens, people also assign value. And value has nothing to do with science.

@Darwin Because you can’t assign race to humans. That is the point of this discussion , I think. Even based on what you have said so far this concept of race we are currently discussing (with social construct creating science which then determines allelles etc..) is ever changing because one could then break up said race or create a new race or self-identify as part of a different race. I’m taking away the value assigning here and just talking logistically.

If we can assign race to white throated birds versus yellow throated birds of the same species, we can indeed assign race to different looking humans, but only so long as we realize that there is no value other than descriptive to it.

Because most people still marry within their groups, it will be a very long time before the different allele frequencies go away.

@Darwin I simply disagree because the birds have much less choice in which groups they belong to. Humans have infinite choice (for the most part).

As far as allele frequencies I’ve heard that some hereditary traits can go away in as little as three generations. That is not a lot of time at all.

Humans do not have infinite choice. Family, ethnic group, geographic location and societal mores all limit choice.

@Darwin The amount of choice available is still insurmountably large compared to the choice a certain species of bird has. In fact birds very rarely mate outside their species (in which their choices are very small). Whereas humans mate outside their culture, geography, ethnic group, societal mores etc… all the time. That is what changes the shape of the social construction. Of course humans don’t mate outside their species either but the choice within species is invariably large compared to that of a bird.

Don’t confuse race with species. In birds race is simply a designation of a population with a distinguishing character such as plumage coloration. In humans it should be the same, but non-scientists have applied too much importance to minor differences.

That is the real reason the term “race” is to be avoided these days. Not because it isn’t a valid form of classification, but because of all the unscientific baggage the word has come to carry.

And just as humans can mate outside their local group doesn’t mean birds don’t, or that humans customarily do it. Even now with the means of rapid dispersal due to improvements in transportation there are still a lot of limits on who gets to mate with whom among people.

@Darwin Your first paragraph does make quite a bit of sense to me. And I appreciate that clarification.

I still disagree that the scientific classification of race makes logical sense. Even without the other baggage added onto it. I’ve explained my reasons and think that we are just at a difference of opinion now. Perhaps if we were to work with examples i could come to more of an understanding of where you are coming from. But i’m not sure you want to carry the conversation out that long, lol.

I am a biologist, so that is where I am coming from actually. Specifically I am a taxonomist, so I am interested in species, subspecies, races, forms, morphs, varieties and so on, and feel it is only right to classify Homo sapiens as we classify other organisms, but without the societal baggage.

@Darwin Well that makes sense . You are coming from a science background, a taxonomist even, lol. I come from quite the opposite background.

I think in terms of classifying humans it would become very sticky. Like would you say “Black” is a race even though it could be a black islander (say Jamaican) or a black African who both have hugely different backgrounds. How would that work? Okay you don’t have to answer , lol. But that is part of my process of thought.

You can actually categorize people, animals and other things in different ways depending on why you are categorizing them. A black Jamaican and a black African may have very different cultural backgrounds, but they do have some shared ancestry and their skin color is most likely both related to alleles derived in African populations, since black Jamaicans originally came from Africa to great degree. However, there are people from India with skin equally as dark but lacking other characteristics that might group the Jamaican and the African together, such as hair texture.

So if you are classifying people on the basis of shared alleles for skin color, the Jamaican and the African would be in the same group. But if you are classifying people by the amount of time they can remain in the sun without burning, then the Jamaican, the African, the person from India, and the aboriginal people of Australia would all be classed in one group, while people from Europe, China and Japan and many Native American tribes might be in another.

Criteria for classification depends to a great degree on why you are classifying the organisms.

@Darwin So how would that work when it comes to race? Since there are so many variables or possibilities?

It depends on why you want to classify people.

Certainly race as it currently stands can serve as a useful descriptive shorthand to external characteristics. Someone described as “black” would be assumed to have dark skin, and kinky hair. You would add “mostly African ancestors” if you wished to separate the group from certain Polynesian peoples who also have those characteristics. OTOH, someone described as “white” would be assumed to have light skin and fine hair, but you might have to add mostly European ancestors if only to separate out other light-skinned peoples.

However, “race” can also refer to cultural or language differences. Locally, someone described as “Hispanic” is often indistinguishable physically from someone described as Native American, but culturally and often linguistically they differ. In this case, then, you might be using more of a cultural classification than anything else.

In other words, race becomes a more fluid term, definable more by context and intent. Thus, rather than four races, there might be 24 races. Or there might be different sets of races for different purposes. For example, an individual currently already has a number of affiliations that define who they are. What they look like is one – this tends to be significant to biologists. Where their ancestors came from is another. In what culture they were raised and find “normal” would be a third.

Our problem with the term race is that in the past we have read too much into simple external differences, by adding in assumptions about intelligence, sexual abilities, and many other characteristics that owe more to culture than physiognomy. Perhaps we should start using the word “variety” as if we were plants, and thus peel away the historic assumptions.

@Darwin I think fluidity is a great way to describe the classification. But then one couldn’t really look at a set of genes and say someone is say Mexican vs. Native American (especially considering most Mexicans are Native American). So how would that issue be resolved? That is bringing it back around to the question at hand I think.

I agree with your last paragraph and see where you are coming from. I still get a bit caught up a bit. So if you look at someone with kinky hair and classify them as Black (assuming you are talking about mostly African ancestry) then you could be wrong and they could be Polynesian thus making the classification system at it lay value a bit useless. Not only that but even if they were “black” it wouldn’t tell you if they were from Africa or Jamaica. So I guess what would be the benefit of said classification? It seems like such a classification system as you describe it, with no baggage, would then only be useful within the scientific community and not within the lay community.

Perhaps I am repeating same questions? If so I apologize for being “stuck” so to speak.

BTW not being argumentative or debating anymore, just interested in your perspective

If you say someone is black solely because they have kinky hair, then you could not assume African ancestry. You would have to make certain that everyone understands any unvoiced assumptions that you are making. You would need to define the classification you are using if it differs from the generally accepted definition. And there are indeed some generally accepted definitions, as long as you realize that they stop there and cannot be extended to unwritten assumptions about character or culture.

In addition, I see an assumption you yourself are making, as an example of how difficult this can be. I gave an example of Hispanic versus Native American based on appearance. You equated Hispanic with Mexican, but you didn’t realize that by Hispanic I was referring to all Hispanics by the dictionary definition, ie. anyone who is a native to a country whose dominant culture derives from that of Spain. There are many Native Americans within Hispanic culture who are not Mexican, such as the Maya, the Quechua, the Yanomamo, and many other groups. In addition, many of the people from Spain who married Native Americans long ago also had black hair, dark eyes, and darker complexions.

Thus, my father is Hispanic, but he isn’t one who could be confused with a Native American by typical appearance. In addition, there are many Native Americans within Hispanic culture who are not Mexican, such as many of the Maya, the Inca, and many other groups, and many of the people from Spain who married Native Americans long ago also have black hair, dark eyes, and darker complexions, so many non-Native American Hispanics look very much like Native American Hispanics.

What we need to do is decide what race is exactly. Is it a measure of ancestry and thus allele proportions regardless of physical appearance? Is it a measure of culture regardless of ancestry and appearance? Is it a physical descriptor regardless of ancestry or alleles or culture? Our problem is that we have rather fluidly linked all of these definitions together, thus making it impossible to accurately identify what a human race is. In animals it is based on one or two closely related characteristics, such as feather color, type of call, tail length, and so on. But in people?

Personally, I think it should be limited to specific definitions and applied impartially. However, that brings up another difficulty. Animals don’t care what race they belong to, but people do.

@Darwin Thank you for the clarification. I do understand the difference between Mexican and Hispanic but you are right in that I used it incorrectly. I just tend to speak about things I know about and I know more about Mexican heritage in general than that of Hispanic heritage (as it is more inclusive). That is why I used the term Mexican instead of Hispanic in that case.

I think your last two paragraphs define my conundrum. Since we haven’t gotten rid of the baggage and do not agree on what we are classifying as race I do not see the possibility currently to define someone as part of a specific race by reading their genes. Perhaps it can give you a clue. But I do see more clearly where you are coming from and how that possibility may exist in the future, in the way you are suggesting, however that would take quite a bit of work. And even then we would be reshaping our understanding of race as a classification (which is likely for the better because of said baggage). And then as you state at the very end, even with all that work, who knows how it would be accepted because people very much care how they are categorized. So all in all it comes back to the idea that as it stands now race is still very much open to so many possibilities that I don’t see how it can accurately be used in the field of hard science.

Children with complementary immune systems from their parents might be healthier. I don’t think there a strong correlation between skin color and the immune system.

There is no White, just as there is no Black. There is no definition for either that can withstand even the most cursory scrutiny. That is not to say we live in a post-racial world. The evil that goes by the name racism is, sadly, still thoroughly pervasive . Yet, race itself does not exist.
To be clear: Racism exists. Race does not. Race began as a construct, as has been stated here in other posts, to initially classify species based on SUPERFICIAL external traits, that could be related to geograhic dispersion. It dates back to a time BEFORE genetics and DNA. This construct of race was woefully and dispicably mis-approrated by RACISTS for the purpose of dehumanizing groups of people soley on the basis of external superficial traits – the racists did not know about genomes or such at the time, they just knew they hated such and such a group a people for such and such reasons.
As pdworking has so extensively and correctly stated in many ways here, the construct of race is fallacious and does not apply to human beings, yet the term continues to be used almost defacto, and as such CONTINUES to propogate the very
aims of the original racists! They who used the term not elevate or celebrate, but to hate.
Again, RACISM exists, widely, extensively, and is everywhere, the sinful act of denying people their humanity on the basis of a percieved set of external traits, or the recent psuedo scientific term “phenomes”, whatever, you cannot classify human beings in this manner. You cannot create a criteria of traits (genetic, geographic, skin tone, whatever) and say those that those that have these “traits” constitue a race and those these “traits” constitue that race, when you cannot first define what constitues race! because, (drumroll) race does not exist. It is illogical.
Bluntness and patience, equally, is what it will take to stop this continued ignorance of letting the language fail us.
People may define themselves however they like. The term, Black, as a way of identifying oneself with a historical struggle of a group of people for their righful humanity and justice is powerful, sustaining, and beautiful. As a means of classifying in scienfific or biological terms it does not apply to human beings, as does not White, Brown or Yellow. Want to sound ignorant of established basic science and biology ? Try and do so. Try and define what makes one White or Black or Brown or Yellow.
It is no small point, how widely and without understanding the defacto use of the term does us all a great dis-service.
So, what might we use instead of terms, like White or Black or Yellow or Brown?
I believe the answer, right now, is not as important as understanding the question.

@rawbylaw – My answer to your last post is: yes and no.

Yes, because all 6.8 billion people on Earth right now are almost identical genetically unlike other species such as pan troglodytes. Every human being has a genetic code of about 3.2 billion letters (its alphabet has 4 letters). Almost all of the letters are the same, whether people live in the US, in Nepal, in Kenya or belong to tribes of Tasmanian Aborigines in Australia. Racism is completely stupid and intolerable. One of the neurobiological reasons seems that the neocortex of racists has problems dealing with their reptilian brain parts. We can’t suppress our emotions, but we are able to combine them with our rational mind which results in feelings. A white person who has never seen a black person and vice versa might experience fear the very first time.

No, because there are some minor genetic differences and this has to do with human evolution over the past 100,000 years. Skin color is a minor factor among many. Lots of sunshine means the skin needs a lot of natural protection. Lack of sunshine means the skin needs to catch a lot of sunshine for vitamin D production. Now sometimes there’s a correlation between different factors. An example is osteoporosis and I quote:

Certain people are more likely to develop osteoporosis than others. Factors that increase the likelihood of developing osteoporosis and broken bones are called “risk factors.” While you have no control over some of these risk factors, there are others you can change. Many of the choices you make each day can affect your bones. By making healthier choices you can help to reduce your risk of osteoporosis as well as the painful fractures it can cause.

Osteoporosis is more common in women than men. Eighty percent, or four out of five, of the 10 million Americans who have it are women. There are several reasons for this. Women have lighter, thinner bones to begin with. They also lose loose bone rapidly after menopause.

While osteoporosis affects all races and ethnicities, people in the U.S. who are Caucasian or of Asian or Latino descent are more likely to develop osteoporosis than those of African heritage.

http://www.nof.org/prevention/risk.htm

You have not addressed what would be the determining factors that constitute one race from another, which, and how many of the “minor genetic differences” must one have to be considered of a certain “race” and WHO would determind such. Maybe you didn’t try to address such an arbitrary excercise because you wish not to look foolish?
Yo, check it out, what would it mean if a person was born in China to parents of Mexican origin who were diplomats working there at the time, and the person had skin the tone of mahogany and the person exhibited racist behaviour towards his lighter skin siblings, because the siblings all had osteoporosis, but the person didn’t, what would all that mean, in so-called racial terms? Only that you have too much time on your hands to spend thinking about such nonsense.

“While osteoporosis affects all races and ethnicities, people in the U.S. who are Caucasian or of Asian or Latino descent are more likely to develop osteoporosis than those of African heritage.”

”“Hispanic” is often indistinguishable physically from someone described as Native American”

FAIL. their are latinos of african descent. and plenty of them that dont have NA ancestry(mostly european descent like argentina or chile or european and african like cuba) there goes your whole theory on drawing hazy genetic correlations based on ethnicity.

Im personally of corsican, african(dont know which tribes D:) italian, spanish, and taino descent. In MY society im considered “Trigueno” it means wheat colored and does not imply being black or white or NA. But im quite sure people would find it laughable if i tried to find genetic correlations among “wheaty” people in the world just as i find it laughable when some fools try to pass of their own social constructs that i do not abide by as “science”. and by the way, Autosomal DNA testing(DNA testing based on DNA markers of “african” or “european” origin) has WIDE margins of error. thats why geneticists fail and piss on themselves whenever they try to obtain genetic data to try to establish the average “mixture” of the so called races among puerto ricans.

Ethnicity itself is a social construct and no genetic basis.For example. Yoruba is an ethnic group for example. The yoruba are present in africa as well as the many places in the americas(due to the slave trade). in cuba and puerto rico it isnt uncommon to see a person of european decent to dress in all white, practice santeria, and join the ranks of the Yoruba, and self idenitfy as such. as well as other african-based groups such as the abakua. I would love to see a geneticist look at such a person’s DNA insist that that person is NOT yoruba because of his genes.

there is no such thing as “yoruba genes” since such an ethnic group is not defined or formed on such a basis. this applies to many other ethnic groups as well.

“Are mixed race children healthier.”

-now to answer the topic. I dont think the answer really matters. I personally dont know but given the lifestyle of humans i say we tend to vary dramatically in how what we eat, our excersise, etc. that there would be more harm or help in keeping oneself healthy based on lifestyle than hoping you got some good genes because of your ancestry. because even IF mixed “race” children are healthier in general it doesnt mean that all mixed “race” children are healthier. There would be no way of knowing that someone like myself has any genetic advantage in terms of health unless someone mapped my genes but most people do not do that. Therefore it would be ridiculous to assume anything genetically about my health without such knowledge despite my ancestry. It would be far more practical to simply look at your own personal ancestry(parents, grandparents, etc.) and note any health issues that they had. And this has nothing to do with “race”. (note i dont accept the notion of race but im assuming you mean people with higher amounts of genetic diversity due to ancestry from various different populations around the world)

70,000 ago we were all Africans. There’s a lot of conclusive evidence using mtDNA and the Y-chromosome.