Sigh,
They started with a set of MRIs that measured the volume of grey matter in the brains of 112 men and 169 women ages 18 to 79. On these scans, they examined 116 separate regions and zeroed in on the 10 that showed the greatest difference between men and women. In each case, the 281 scans were divided into three categories – one-third considered “most male,” one-third considered “most female” and one-third in the middle.
Only six per cent of the brains consistently ranked among the “most male” or “most female” in all 10 categories, the researchers found. On the other hand, 35 per cent showed “substantial variability,” with male traits in some regions and female traits in others.
The study authors then repeated the analysis with different cutoffs for being “most male” and “most female”. Regardless of whether they used a threshold of 10 per cent, 20 per cent or 50 per cent, the brains with a combination of male and female features far outnumbered the brains that were exclusively male or exclusively female.
Next, the researchers followed the same steps with other sets of brain scans that measured the thickness of grey matter in the outer layer of the cerebrum, the connections between different parts of the brain, and other features. As before, they found that consistently male or consistently female brains were rare, and brains with features related to both genders were common.
Finally, the scientists applied the same method to data from two large psychology studies of US teens. Using results from 570 participants in the Maryland Adolescent Development in Context Study, they found that only 1.8 per cent of them scored consistently male or consistently female, compared with 59 per cent who showed “substantial variability.” Among 4,860 participants in the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health, the skew was even greater: 0.1 per cent versus 70 per cent.
Even in a data set of 263 university students who were asked about 10 “highly gender-stereotyped activities” like watching talk shows on TV or playing video games, the study authors still found that only 1.2 per cent of the students could be classified as exclusively male or exclusively female, compared with 55 per cent who had traits from both camps.
“This extensive overlap undermines any attempt to distinguish between a ‘male’ and a ‘female’ form for specific brain features,” Joel and her colleagues concluded. These findings have “important implications for social debates on long-standing issues such as the desirability of single-sex education and the meaning of sex/gender as a social category.”
So, this is exactly what the original theory predicts. That there’s a spectrum of brain types. Any one individual can have any of the types along the spectrum. All individuals are therefore to be treated entirely as individuals, just as any form of liberalism would insist.
However, the distribution of the types along the spectrum is not random when measured against sex (and yes, we’re talking dangly bits or not, not gender). We predict, and this research indicates, that certain characteristics are more likely to be connected with various genital arrangements. More likely: just as in the sense that men are generally taller than women but that John Bercow is a short arse doesn’t make him a woman (nor Sally Bercow a man because of her height).
So, what’s the headline to this?
There’s no such thing as a ‘male brain’ or ‘female brain,’ these scans show
Bollocks.
The importance of this is that if we then make the next leap, one that I’m not going to try to attempt to prove here but one that sounds reasonable enough, that different brain types lead to different aptitudes for certain things, then we will find that those more likely to have the certain brain type, male or female, are going to be more likely to have aptitudes for certain things. We might even see clustering. Say, males among the Aspies who are good at coding, females among those with the empathy to be good at nursing.
The theory (and here the evidence) does not say that “men are good at coding, women are not”. It says that ” a certain brain type which is more common in men is good at coding”. Sex is only a proxy, and not a terribly accurate one, for the possession of the brain type.
The importance of this is that we cannot therefore look at the population of coders, note that it is mostly male, and thus conclude that females are being discriminated against. Any more than we can look at basketball teams and concludes that dwarves are being discriminated against (and wouldn’t that be a fun sport to try and set up? Dwarf Basketball, coming to a screen near you!).
It’s still entirely possible that those with the coding brain are discriminated against because of their plumbing arrangements. That would be bad and if it were true we would want to do something about it (like, employ all those cheap and good coders, a la Dame Stephanie Shirley). But the sex imbalance isn’t evidence of it being true: simply because we do have this finding that brain types, along that spectrum, are not equally distributed according to plumbing arrangements.
We predict, and this research indicates, that certain characteristics are more likely to be connected with various genital arrangements.
And of course the evidence suggests the same is true with respect to other things besides genitals. Race for instance.
They do the same sleight of hand there too.
Although in fairness with sex, it looks like there is a pretty convincing biological difference.
Loosely-linked biological variability found to be variable. Film at ten.
The idea that one’s personality can be revealed in any meaningful sense by an MRI scan is farcical.
As you say, Tim, it’s a spectrum with men more likely but not exclusively to have a certain brain set-up and the same for women.
As SMFS alludes to, I don’t see why it would be outrageous to say certain racial groupings might also have brain differences, again across a spectrum.
Same for breeding. Two ‘smart’ people are probably more likely to have a smart child. Tall people tend to have tall children. Attractive people, attractive children. More likely to, not certain.
But as choice in partner becomes more a part of breeding, it seems inevitable that our species will evolve into two groups, one taller, more intelligent and attractive, the other short, ugly and stupid, bit like the Warlocks in HG Wells The Time Machine.
At least, as it shuffles along on its short distorted legs, we’ll be able to tell a Labour voter from a distance
Progressives used to be big on Phrenology too, didn’t they? It was the wow science of the time.
“There’s no such thing as a ‘male brain’ or ‘female brain,’ these scans show.”
Tim – maybe it’s true. Maybe the differences in aptitudes & inclinations are driven by hormonal or physical factors?
My first thought when reading this was: “Ah, so the trannies are just mental then.”
“like, employ all those cheap and good coders, a la Dame Stephanie Shirley”
Even then, there are different sorts of good “coders”. Of the women I’ve known that were programmers, nearly all are more analyst/programmers. Very strong on gathering user requirements, taking a specification and asking lots of questions about it and then doing a solid, but unambitious job on delivering it.
Now, this actually suits corporate IT rather well, or at least did (the pace of change in tools and environments post-mainframe doesn’t suit women). What it doesn’t suit is the more hardcore coding stuff or startup stuff where someone already has the requirements in their head and just want to code it fast and lean, or do something wildly ambitious like building a server organisation to the scale of Amazon, Google or Facebook.
It’s also worth mentioning that women are really good at software training, which I suspect is that “empathy” thing. They can put themselves in the shoes of someone who doesn’t know a subject in a way that hardcore geeks can’t.
Simon Baron Cohen’s view, and he’s the originator of much of this, is that the brain structure is “determined” by hormones during pregnancy. Influenced might be better than determined. More specifically, a surge of testosterone at a certain stage would lead to a “male” brain, absence to a female. That the surges sometimes happen to an XX embryo and sometimes don’t to an XY explains the variance.
Yes, Tim.
We could call this “Straw Science”, in that it sets out to refute a straw man. And is thus completely useless and stupid. Proggies will love this though and put it on their list of quotables. Sigh.
See also, “race does not exist, until a black man is killed by a white man”, etc.
MC-
The question of transexuals isn’t actually about whether there is a “male brain” and “female brain” in terms of e.g. capabilities, aptitudes or behaviours, but the far more dubious question of whether the knowledge of what sex you are is hardwired before birth.
“it seems inevitable that our species will evolve into two groups, one taller, more intelligent and attractive, the other short, ugly and stupid, bit like the Warlocks in HG Wells The Time Machine.”
‘Will’ evolve? Have you never been to Newcastle?
right – different distributions, certain characteristics being more common in male or female brains. But that doesn’t mean that there’s such a thing as a male or female brain type, if the distributions are overlapping. Especially if there is more variation within gender than there is across gender.
The distributions of lots of things vary across groups, without us needing to say that this group is “type X”, that group “type Y”
another way of looking at it, suppose we can identify 10 brain types. We might say some of those types are more common in males or females. But that does not mean there is a male or female type brain.
You’re sorta missing Baron Cohen’s original definitions.
He observes brain types, calls them EQ and SQ (empathising and systemising). Notes that the distribution between the sexes is unequal. As shorthand people start calling them male and female brains.
Tim, beallucas, useful things, but what is it in what you quote that you actually disagree with?
Or is this just you feeding your madder commentators?
“those with the empathy to be good at nursing”
It’s a while since nurses were required to be empathetic, alas.
What struck me in the photos post French massacres was how tall lean and muscular their police wereincluding the women. UK police used to look like this thirty years ago but seem to have filled their ranks by not discriminating against short arsed waddlers of both sexes.
The headline more than anything.
“Only six per cent of the brains consistently ranked among the “most male” or “most female” in all 10 categories,”
That is FIFTY times as many as you would get if allocation was purely random. there is one chance in 59,049 of a brain coming in “most male” categories purely by chance (and another one chance in 59,049 of it being “most female” purely by chance).
Is a “psychobiologist” not expected to understand primary scholl arithmetic?
http://sciencecareers.sciencemag.org/career_magazine/previous_issues/articles/2011_12_16/caredit.a1100139
The differences aren’t enough to explain the observed differences in outcomes.
There’s no biological basis for race. There certainly is a cultural concept of race, which is where racism stems from.
If there were no biological basis for race, there could not be a cultural basis for race. It would be impossible to allocate any individual to a racial category, and yet everyone can do this easily. Because blacks and whites look different. Biologically.
Lewontin’s refutation of this simple truth might be called the type species of “Straw Science”.
Also on the general subject of outcomes, the mathematician Ian Stewart’s collection of essays “Game, Set And Math” is not only very entertaining, but the title essay is a very clear explanation of how tiny capability differences can lead to (using tennis as an example) how a slight advantage can cause one person to always win.
“There’s no biological basis for race.”
Yes, there is, it’s denied on precisely the same basis that Tim is attacking here, that (however you divide races genetically) you can always find individuals in one group who are genetically more diverse than some individuals who belong to two different groups. In exactly the same way you can argue that because there are some men and some women of the same height, there’s no height difference between sexes.
You’re overthinking this, Tim.
A couple of researchers get some wizzo kit, which happens to largely confirm the null hypothesis. But instead of filing it in the appropriate place they add some socio-babble and bingo! They get published.
” It would be impossible to allocate any individual to a racial category, and yet everyone can do this easily. Because blacks and whites look different. Biologically.”
Brothers and sisters look different too, what’s your point?
The difference is that with sex, you’ve got a binomial distribution – there’s two distinct peaks, so you can make a meaningful category distinction. With race it’s so finely divided that the only scientifically supportable number of individuals in a race is one, at which point the concept is pointless.
My point is that race is a rational categorisation. Whether it is a useful one is another matter.
There are chairs and sofas. Everyone can recognise the difference between a chair and a sofa, even though there is huge variation within the categories of “chair” and “sofa”.
Maybe it’s not particularly useful to distinguish chairs and sofas. Maybe we should just call them all “seats”. But as it stands, we have words for the two categories which are consistently distinguishable.
Like races of humanity.
“There are trillions of colours, so words like red, blue and green are pointless. Scientists have shown that no real colour is truly red, blue or green”.
Etc.
@ bif
Read my earlier post – it *contradicts* the null hypothesis. The chance of getting 17 (“6%”) when you should only get .03%
(aaaargh – that’s two hundred, not fifty, times, I should calm, down before I type) is off the scale.
“There are trillions of colours, so words like red, blue and green are pointless. Scientists have shown that no real colour is truly red, blue or green”.
Is purple a red or a green or a blue?
“Everyone can recognise the difference between a chair and a sofa”
And everyone can recognise the difference between Ed Miliband and David Miliband, but would you say they’re difference races?
What’s the dividing line between a black man and a white man? At exactly what shade of brown does one become white?
There is no exact dividing line, as between colours, or chairs and sofas. Human thought does not work that way.
The first thing in contemplating the world the brain has to do is divide it into entities and identify them as certain kinds or categories. It is extremely good at this. All such recognition is fuzzy edged. The categories are not defined by boundaries, but what we may call stereotypes, that is, a central form of the concept in the mind. The closer to this stereotype an entity is, the more that recognitional reflex in the brain will fire.
If I look at a dog, the “dog” recognition is firing. If I look at a tree, it isn’t. If I look at a coyote, it’s firing more weakly. And so on. Thus, recognitions are specific to the individual, but also since we share a world, generally similar enough that we can communicate. What I recognise as an ideal dog is somewhat different to what you recognise as an ideal dog, but still we will mostly understand each other when talking about dogs.
Scientific analysis is very bad with these fuzzy edges, but humans excel at them. Science often struggles to define what a thing is, because it needs hard edges and precise definitions. This is why humans can navigate the world easily, while computers are extremely bad at doing so.
Could you program a computer to recognise a “blonde”. That would be very hard. Nonetheless, humans can easily recognise one.
So, we cannot use this scientific inadequacy to deny the existence of human-recognised entities. Scientific precise definitions are just not up to the task. That is not a refutation of the existence of these human-identified categories. It is a limitation in science.
Simply put, it is obvious and true that ethnic groups look different to one another. It’s very difficult to put numbers to. But it is there, and every human can see it. Race exists. Just like colours, chairs and sofas.
“Your comment is awaiting moderation”?!
See, in a biological sense, the only thing that a difference in skin colour means is that there’s a difference in the amount of melanin in the skin. There’s no support for a concept of “race” in biology. What Ian is talking about is a socially constructed concept of race, where you use differing skin colour to arbitrarily assign people to categories.
So thanks, Ian, for demonstrating that race is a social construct.
We need to redefine a few terms since the Golden Age.
Scientist = person who has obtained a grant
Studies = This is something I have made up
This article then rightly becomes “Someone with money has made this up”.
Matthew, for some bizaree reason my long answer has been caught in a moderation queue.
But just to add, “race” covers far more than skin colour- skeletal form, fat distribution, the shape of facial features, and so on. They are all quite distinctive.
You’re doing Straw Science, arguing that your own definition of race is not sound, rather than the one that everyone else uses, which is phenotypic not genetic, for a start. If I put you in a room full of 50 Chinamen and 50 Africans and asked you to separate them by race, you’d get it absolutely right first time. And not by doing genetic locus testing.
All categorisation occurs within the human mind. That doesn’t mean it is a “social construct” in the sense you are using it; that is to dismiss it as meaningless. That is just progressive sophistry.
Personally, I’m with Hannibal Lecter on psychology.
Ljh on police.
Lefty and righty ex-prime ministers and presidents alike, their bodyguards in retirement seem not to include any short sighted, small fat women.
I wonder why?
“If I put you in a room full of 50 Chinamen and 50 Africans and asked you to separate them by race”
That’s probably true, but what if I put you in a room full of 50 Kenyans and 50 Nigerians. I bet you could separate them too – but they’re all considered black.
Not only that, but the definition of race changes between cultures. Barack Obama is Black in the US, Coloured in South Africa and Brown in Brazil.
Daniela Mercury (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ea/Daniela_Mercury.jpg) is White in Brazil, Hispanic in the USA and something else entirely in Portugal.
What race is a Milanese? A Roman? A Sicilian? The answer to those questions has changed over time.
Another one:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4b/Kimi_R%C3%A4ikk%C3%B6nen_Moscow_2013_cropped.jpg
What race would he be in Minnesota, before 1908?
@John77
> Is a “psychobiologist” not expected to understand primary scholl arithmetic?
It’s not much to ask is it, there are only about fifteen different sizes of shoe insert after all.
@ Ian Reid
🙂
Thanks, good one; but I really should calm down before I type
“There’s no biological basis for race.” That lying DNA!
@Matthew L
You’re clearly a cladist. And exactly the same logic as you’re using about race leads cladists to decide that there’s no such thing as a fish (because some of the entities most people call ‘fish’ are more closely related to land vertebrates than they are to other ‘fish’). This is all perfectly fine and logically consistent, but you end up throwing away a lot of useful distinctions.
Consider baldness. Some men have no hair on their head whatsoever – they’re bald. In between this state and having a full head of hair there is someone corresponding to any gradation you can imagine. At some point they cross the threshold and become bald, but honest people will disagree about where the threshold lies – is Prince Charles bald, for instance? But this does not mean that the concept of baldness has no meaning, or (indeed) that it does not have a genetic component.
dearieme, can you show me how DNA maps to whatever one of the varying definitions of race you choose to accept?
Chris: Yes, but the point is that race isn’t a useful distinction.
Baldness is a good example actually, because we don’t consider “bald” and “full head of hair” to be races. Baldness is a useful concept. So is skin colour (for vitamin D supplementation, for instance). It doesn’t mean that dividing people up into categories has any scientific merit.
Andrew C,
“But as choice in partner becomes more a part of breeding, it seems inevitable that our species will evolve into two groups, one taller, more intelligent and attractive, the other short, ugly and stupid, bit like the Warlocks in HG Wells The Time Machine.”
The Morlocks were intelligent. It was the Eloi that were stupid.
I always felt like they got a rough deal in the book. They’re doing all the productive work while the Eloi lounge around. Should they get nothing for looking after the Eloi? We don’t think humans are evil for feeding pigs until they’re fat enough for bacon. Wells was a socialist and saw this as the evolution of humanity – that the lower classes would become like the Morlocks and the upper classes, the Eloi, so it’s rather a pity that he made them the antagonists, when the Eloi deserve what they get.
Oh, and if anyone decides to bring up boxing or long distance running, make sure you specify, including the name, which race has the sporting advantage.
Well, Matthew, if you are a cardiologist it helps to know the ancestry of your hypertensive patient if your considering whether to prescribe Beta-blockers or ACE Inhibitors: European ancestry for the first and African for the second.
Other examples can be offered if you wish.
ML
“Chris: Yes, but the point is that race isn’t a useful distinction.”
Speak for yourself.
In that I find it useful, the same as I do distinctions (in their various different forms) for sex, physique, language, intelligence, personality, background, and lots more – and I don’t mean it in any negative way, simply that I do ascribe value in being able to distinguish?
OK Recusant, those are good examples of genetic inheritance having practical consequences. Which race requires consideration for ACE inhibitors? Because the genetic mutation in question is found in West Africans (for example this actor), but it isn’t found in Bantu people (for example this footballer.
PF: I meant scientifically useful. You are of course free to find the socially constructed concept of race (which is what you describe) as useful as you like.
Yes, but the point is that race isn’t a useful distinction.
Unless one is angling for an affirmative action spot, I suppose.
@ Mathhew L
According Mr Fury, “Gipsy”.
Doubtless some Guardianista will publically upbraid him for using a non-PC word.
I continue to think we actually know fuck all about the brain. Even this Baron Cohen stuff. What kind of science is it to create two categories and start shoving people in them with no due regard as to whether the categories are anything more than a figment of some neuropsychologist’s imagination.
Psychobabble’s been babble since Freud if not before. Still is.
Sex, race, all intrinsic factors you might notice, are a semi-useful guide to what kind of person you might be dealing with. Sex obviously a very useful one, race a considerably less useful one. The liberal’s duty is to ignore his prejudices and deal with the individual as an individual. So while SMFS sees a black man and just knows he’s absolutely got to be a thick criminal gangbanger, others will get to know a gay senior copper with a PhD.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Troublesome-Inheritance-Genes-Human-History/dp/1594204462
By the way, I can recommend ‘A Troublesome Inheritance: Genes, Race and Human History’ by Nicholas Wade, Cambridge science graduate and former Science Editor at The New York Times.
Wade’s work has been thoroughly debunked.
http://nothinginbiology.org/2014/07/01/a-guide-to-the-science-and-pseudoscience-of-a-troublesome-inheritance-part-i-the-genetics-of-human-populations/
Matthew L,
What you are missing is this; if a scientific method cannot distinguish two things, it does not mean that the things are not distinct. It means that the scientific method is inadequate. Lewontin’s approach is bad science, not a proof that races do not exist.
The three grand races (Black, White and Chinamen) can be subdivided. At some point the distinctions become useless. But that does not mean that the concept is useless.
Cats. There are Abyssinians, Persians, Maine Coons, etc, and many indeterminate moggies. A failure to find appropriate distinctions in DNA is not proof that there are no identifiable breeds. It means your test is a failure, go away and find a better one.
Put yourself in the position of a scientist from another planet who arrives on Earth and observes humanity. Would he (or it) notice no indentifiable types in different parts of the world? Of course it (or she) would. But then it, he or she wouldn’t be trying to make its observations fit its ideology by refusing to believe his, her or it’s eyes.
Race is a useless concept to anyone who cares about individuals having individuality. Because the overlap between your populations (however you classify them) on any physiological measure you can think of is simply so vast as to make the differences in mean values between those populations of little to no interest.
Matthew L
Certainly, a lot of abuse has been poured on Wade’s book, but it has not been “thoroughly debunked”. Thanks for the link, but Chris Smith caricatures Wade’s position and then proceeds to debunk his own caricature.
Ian. What *you* are missing is that the alien scientist’s observations would probably not match *our* “race” categories at all. They might classify the types of humans based on degree of baldness, for instance.
I’m not saying that there aren’t different looking populations of people. What I am saying is that the concept of race is socially constructed – i.e. it’s made up by each different culture, and they’re often not in agreement.
“The three grand races (Black, White and Chinamen) ”
Oh come on, even hardcore racists recognise more than that. I notice you didn’t answer my question about the Finnish rally driver. In the USA before 1908, Finns were considered Mongols – part of your “Chinamen” grouping. Now they’re considered “White”. Which one is it? If a million people can switch racial categories at a whim, doesn’t that suggest that the concept is bullshit?
Theophastus: Here’s another one.
https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2014/05/17/allen-orr-slams-nicholas-wades-new-book/
So once again complex thing defies simple explanation
Or as per John Miller
Someone makes stuff up for money
ML
That review hardly debunks Wade’s book, and includes the following denial that race is a social construct:
…the genomes of various human beings fall into several reasonably well-defined clusters when analyzed statistically, and these clusters generally correspond to continent of origin. In this statistical sense, races are real.
“…the genomes of various human beings fall into several reasonably well-defined clusters when analyzed statistically, and these clusters generally correspond to continent of origin. In this statistical sense, races are real.” It’s that lying DNA again! Won’t it ever shut up?
“Yes, but the point is that race isn’t a useful distinction.”
Could you tell that to the Government please?
dearieme: You haven’t answered the question.
Theophrastus: Wade’s book is pseudoscientific junk, and you’re being rather selective with your quoting.
Regarding “in this statistical sense, races are real” – the thing is, those “statistical races” don’t correlate with the understood meaning of “race”.
“Could you tell that to the Government please?”
The problem with that is that the Government is responding to the people in society who act as though race is real.
ML
Wade’s book consists of two parts. The first part is scientific; the second part speculation. Only someone who hyper-ventilates at the mere mention of race or racism would call it pseudo-scientific junk.
And those statistical races correlate significantly with continent of origin, which is what racial descriptions are shorthand for in ordinary speech — eg if someone is described as ‘black’, we generally mean that tbey are of African heritage.
“And those statistical races correlate significantly with continent of origin, which is what racial descriptions are shorthand for in ordinary speech — eg if someone is described as ‘black’, we generally mean that tbey are of African heritage.”
But there’s more genetic variation within Africa than there is between Europeans and Chinese, so if you want to follow those statistical races then you end up with a bunch of African tribes and “everyone else”. Which doesn’t correlate at all to socially constructed races.
Regarding the book, Tim’s blog keeps eating the link I’m trying to post, but if you search for “Genetics professors unite in criticism of Nicholas Wade’s book.” you’ll find it. If you’re willing to ignore that much evidence then that says something uncomplimentary about your prejudices.
What splendid sophistry. It will be a comfort as you are chosen for decapitation or the finger tightens on the trigger with you in the cross hairs.
ML
It is hardly surprising that there’s more genetic variation within Africa than there is between Europeans and Chinese, because there are Arabs and Berbers on the northern littoral and blacks in sub-saharan Africa. And, in any case, it depends on the type of variation. The fact is that genetic analysis will be generally accurate about whether someone is of sub-saharan, European or chinese heritage or not. Ergo, race is not a social construct.
I am well aware that 144 geneticists have criticised Wade’s book; but I have read the book carefully and Wade comes across as thoughtful and thorough. Where he speculates, he makes it very clear that he is speculating. 144 genetics professors or none, I’ll judge for myself and keep an open mind, particularly when experts are so prone to group-think (think of phlogiston, the ether, climate science, listeria, HIV/AIDs, CJD…). Add in the political neurosis about race, and rationality soon vanishes. The denunciations of Wade’s book verge on the hysterical.
Matthew L – “With race it’s so finely divided that the only scientifically supportable number of individuals in a race is one, at which point the concept is pointless.”
And yet given a single drop of blood, scientists can tell what the race of the owner is. The police do it all the time.
Matthew L – “But there’s more genetic variation within Africa than there is between Europeans and Chinese, so if you want to follow those statistical races then you end up with a bunch of African tribes and “everyone else”. Which doesn’t correlate at all to socially constructed races.”
That is irrelevant. It is the same sleight of hand. It does not matter if there is more genetic diversity in Africans or not. You would expect there is given Africa is where humans evolved. To dumb down the model, if Europeans all had DNA of type G, and Asians all had DNA of type Z, and Africans has A, B, C, and D, Africans would be more genetically diverse. But each group would be unique and uniquely identifiable. Separate groups.
“The fact is that genetic analysis will be generally accurate about whether someone is of sub-saharan, European or chinese heritage or not. Ergo, race is not a social construct.”
Sub-saharan is a race now, is it? Genetic analysis will also tell you if they’re from West Africa, East Africa, South Africa, the Congo or any of a dozen other areas. As you pointed out before, the race category of “black” generally means “of African heritage”, but that doesn’t map to the genetic analysis at all.
What if the genetic analysis says that the person has both sub-saharan and Chinese heritage? What race are they then?
Matthew L – “In the USA before 1908, Finns were considered Mongols – part of your “Chinamen” grouping. Now they’re considered “White”. Which one is it?”
I bet they were not. This is a problem when race and linguistics do not match. The Finns speak a language that is related to Mongolian, not to Indo-European languages. But I am perfectly willing to bet that a Finn in the US was accepted as White from the moment they stepped off the boat.
“If a million people can switch racial categories at a whim, doesn’t that suggest that the concept is bullshit?”
If. Such an interesting word.
Matthew L – “Sub-saharan is a race now, is it? Genetic analysis will also tell you if they’re from West Africa, East Africa, South Africa, the Congo or any of a dozen other areas. As you pointed out before, the race category of “black” generally means “of African heritage”, but that doesn’t map to the genetic analysis at all.”
Well yes it is. DNA analysis of Tim W would point out within a few hundred miles the village his ancestors came from. That doesn’t mean White European is a non-existent category. Black does map perfectly well on to DNA. It is just a very large and complex group.
“What if the genetic analysis says that the person has both sub-saharan and Chinese heritage? What race are they then?”
So you argue that neither donkeys or horses exist because they can produce off spring?
“And yet given a single drop of blood, scientists can tell what the race of the owner is. ”
Er, no. They can tell you where your ancestors likely came from, but that does not correlate to racial categories. How can it? They change from place to place and time to time. What race is Kimi Raikkonen (apart from rally)? Mongol or white?
“if Europeans all had DNA of type G, and Asians all had DNA of type Z, and Africans has A, B, C, and D, Africans would be more genetically diverse. But each group would be unique and uniquely identifiable. Separate groups.”
Correct, but that doesn’t map to the racial categories you use, does it?
” But I am perfectly willing to bet that a Finn in the US was accepted as White from the moment they stepped off the boat.”
Wrong. It took a court case to force the government to accept them as citizens (which is where the 1908 thing came from).
“If. Such an interesting word.”
You can find a million people today who are considered white in one part of the world and black in another.
“DNA analysis of Tim W would point out within a few hundred miles the village his ancestors came from. ”
Which ancestors? I’m sure he’s got more than one village in there.
“So you argue that neither donkeys or horses exist because they can produce off spring?”
What an inane interpretation of what I’m saying.
Bloke in Germany – “So while SMFS sees a black man and just knows he’s absolutely got to be a thick criminal gangbanger, others will get to know a gay senior copper with a PhD.”
I was reading a murder case in which a woman was advertising her flat and a quasi-homeless Black male asked to see it. Of course she agreed and was promptly raped and murdered. The case notes said that she probably did not want people to think she was racist.
Jessie Jackson famously said that he felt relieved when he heard someone behind him late at night and they turned out to be White, not Black. No doubt you would agree that he is racist?
The last time I heard Finnish was not a Mongolian language but a Uralic one. It is AFAIK closely related to Estonian and the languages of a small number of small “races” in the north of Russia/Siberia.
No-one ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the American public (I’m sure someone can supply the correct wording).
Matthew L – “Er, no. They can tell you where your ancestors likely came from, but that does not correlate to racial categories. How can it? They change from place to place and time to time. What race is Kimi Raikkonen (apart from rally)? Mongol or white?”
Yes it does. At least did it before people started moving all over the globe. Kimi is, of course, White. The fact that he speaks an Altaic language is irrelevant.
“Correct, but that doesn’t map to the racial categories you use, does it?”
Yes it does. You cannot find someone of African origin who has DNA that would fool a test for a second. Their DNA will mark them as being from Africa. As has been used in the US to determine if someone is a Native American or not.
Matthew L – “Wrong. It took a court case to force the government to accept them as citizens (which is where the 1908 thing came from).”
So you have a law that takes a linguistic approach to racial classification and you argue that this implies something about genetics or about how ordinary people were seen. That is an interesting approach but it would need some proof. Is there any proof that Mr Svan was forced to sit at the back of the bus?
“You can find a million people today who are considered white in one part of the world and black in another.”
I am sure that since people started moving all over the world, classification has become a lot harder. So what?
Matthew L – “What an inane interpretation of what I’m saying.”
Your argument is inane. That is not my fault. The fact that Africans were taken to the Americas and so Naomi Campbell is some small part Chinese does not mean that those populations were not originally distinct.
Funny you should mention back of the bus, today is the anniversary of Rosa Parks being arrested over a bus seat.
Given that was 60years ago I’d say yes race does matter, even if it shouldn’t
http://www.psmag.com/nature-and-technology/why-your-race-isnt-genetic-82475
That is an interesting argument about the sharpness of the boundaries between races – about which a sensible argument could be had – hiding behind an asinine restatement of Lewontin’s Fallacy.
Race is not just a social construct. It reflects a biological reality and all the Left PC in the world is not going to change that. As people used to be honest enough to admit.
Bloke in Germany – “Race is a useless concept to anyone who cares about individuals having individuality. Because the overlap between your populations (however you classify them) on any physiological measure you can think of is simply so vast as to make the differences in mean values between those populations of little to no interest.”
How many Ph.D.s in astrophysics have gone to Africans again? There is actually not a great overlap between racial groups in a whole lot of areas. Educational outcomes are the obvious ones.
And of course we know that your claim is not true. Because there is no where in the world where White people can live safely among Black people. Parts of London come close perhaps. But wherever White people live near Black people, they are forced out. That may be irrational. Or it may not. Either way, we all know the reality. We may not be able to express the truth, we may be committed to the lie, but we vote with our feet for the truth.
@ Matthew L
There is a branch of Statistics devoted to “discriminant functions”. Please note that this is Statistics, not arithmetic. Discriminant functions are used to help the student identify to which of several populations an individual belongs relying on only a few of the many parameters that could be utilised.
You seem to be demanding a 100%-accurate discriminant function using only one or two parameters – that just isn’t going to work unless you have some totally isolated group that has never interbred with another group in more than a thousand years. Those of “mixed race” cannot be expected to fit into a neat box – there used to be the occasional newspaper story about the – embarassing to the South African government – cases of two “black” parents having a “white” child.
FYI
i) “Kenyan” is not a race – it is a nationality, as is “Ethiopian”. There are significant racial differences between the different tribes in Kenya: Kikuyu, the largest, are Bantu whereas the Luo, the second-largest are Nilotic.
ii) The advantage some Kenyans and Ethiopians appear to have in marathon running is widely believed to be due to the altitude at which they live – as a result they have developed superior systems for absorbing oxygen. This does not apply to “black” people in general. I have yet to notice any significant presence of Kenyans and Ethiopians in ultra-distance running (I used to know a few ultra runners but the only one I occasionally see these days is 72 and has downgraded to cross-country plus the occasional marathon and 5k on the track).
iii) There are (excluding American inventions) ten weights in boxing. The domination of “black” American and Canadian boxers only occurred in the top three weights out of ten.
John77: Exactly. All good evidence that race is a social construct, not a biological one.
Matthew. The thing you need to grasp is that because you have a choice of mappings, that does not deny that the variation of the thing to which you are applying the mappings is not real.
We have already given you many examples in this thread. There are different mappings that can be applied to species- indeed the choice of how to define a species is blurry as well. You can map them by DNA. You can map them by visual appearance. You can map creatures by “things I can eat”, “things I cannot eat”, “things that want to eat me”, etc.
This is your “socially constructed”- in fact it is not “social construction” but the fact that individuals apply different maps to reality depending on utility.
This does not deny the biological basis of species or deny that different species exist.
You can have different mappings of colours. RGB. HSV. Warm, cool, earthtones, pastels. This does not deny that colours themselves exist.
Angels on the head of a pin stuff here. Ian B is right when he says that a biological species is a social construct. It is a construct by biologists to help them understand the development of life. Biologists and anthropologists have been arguing the toss on this one for years, both inside and between each camp. At the other end of the spectrum of life, microbiologists have been distinguishing species based on one allele alone. Matthew L is equally right that on the best available evidence, based on DNA, and a bunch of other stuff, is that there is only one current sub-species of Homo sapiens, and it is impossible to put together a coherent biological classification for sub-species based on race. (Last time I checked, biologists only go to sub-species level in classifications, although they will describe differences between discrete populations based on genotype and phenotype.)
However, biologist’s social constructs live in a world of other competing social constructs, particularly those of the people who self-identify with a particular ethnic or racial grouping. Which is most of us. Black people know exactly who they are targeting when they accuse white people of racism. The slave traders didn’t bother checking genotypes when they carted off Africans.
The ‘blank-slate’ social construct is just as useless. Of course different human populations have adapted, across multiple characteristics, including innate behaviours and cognitive functions. To ignore that just because it suits your model of social justice, is just as useless as ignoring the advances in biology that tell us we are essentially one diverse, but continuous species.
The most irritating about the whole study, is that it’s based on completely outdated moddelling on how the brain functions, and the relative value of an areas’ size in determining function (within the margins of normal function, we’re not talking pathology here.)
The thing is, that the internal microstructure within a functional area is vastly more important than the overall size. Call it the number, distribution and interconnection of the functional “cores” , if you will. And there’s plenty of research that shows there’s a clear and distinctive difference in the brains of males and females in some pretty distinctive areas in structure, even if there’s no apparant difference in size.
Quite a lot of this has been done by departments of the University of Amsterdam that specialise in surgical gender transformations **, and as such has access to a rather specific set of “specimens” who quite often are quite willing to help out in fundamental research as part of their transformation.
The “problem” is that the results of this are *highly* impopular amongst almost every establisment onvolved in the whole Gender Issue thing, given that they strongly indicate that there *is* a physical foundation to things as gender association and sexual preference: There are “male” and “female” elements in some very basic parts of our brains, that are basic control elements associated with a lot of “classic”*** gender-specific behaviour, that *can* be mixed up giving rise to “opposite gender” behaviour, attitudes, and preferences in physical genders.
Of course, the idea that sexual preference or sexual identification ( turns out they’re different things controlled by different mechanisms..) is at heart mechanistic is Anathema to the current mindhive and LGBTXYZ crowd, so they tend to get a bit of flak for it, even though the science is good and correct, and damned. interesting.
** People may remember them better for organising a sexy romp in a CT scanner. For Science, of course. They were studying the anatomy and physics of penetration in relation to certain types of sexual dysfunction.
But still… Getting that proposal through the Approval Mill must have been a hoot-and-a-half… 😉
*** One isn’t allowed to use the word “normal” , apparently, even though exression of the standard pattern runs as high as 98% in the population in general.
When will people learn “normal” =! “superior” ?
I didn’t say that anything is a social construct. I did not say that either race or species are social constructs.
Girls associated with pink and boys with blue is a social construct. Girls have breasts and boys do not is not a social construct, it is one mapping of sex characteristics.
Blacks have woolly hair and whites have straight hair is not a social construct either.
Grikath-
None of that supports the contention that babies are born knowing what sex they are, or “ought to be”. Behaviours and knowledge are different things. All the evidence is that babies are born with behaviours, but completely without knowledge.
I’m prepared to bet big money that a majority of the finalists in the 100 metres at the next Olympics will be ethnically west African.
And the long distance events will be dominated by east Africans.
So clearly there is some sort of racial advantage, because most of the sprinters will be from non-African countries where Whites are “privileged”.
Suggest similar mental differences and you are an antiquated racist of the first water! Because race is a” social construct”. Never mind their skin colour, which is clearly not genetic.
Dwarf basketball is already a thing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sExg4ta2gbY
@ Matthew L
Your claim that requiring more than one parameter in a discriminant function to reliably distinguish between races is “good evidence” that race is a social construct is strong evcidence that you attribute a different meaning to the word “good”. If that were true, then gender would also be classed as a social construct, since you cannot separate girls from boys on the basis of height or weight or baldness or beards.
When you describe the racially differentiated inhabitants of Kenya as Kenyans and then pretend that we consider them a race you are descending to Guardianista levels. The Kenyan nationality is indeed a social construct and I should not venture to suggest otherwise. However there are clear physical differences between different races – I should not need more than my eyes to distinguish an Inuit from a Han Chinese from a Filipino from a Hutu from a Tutsi from a Highland Scot: to say that these physical differences are a “Social Construct” is risible.
Matthew L:
Rather than coming up with more subtle fallacies in your reasoning to establish your pre-determined conclusion that race does not exist and is a social construct, may I gently suggest that you address your own neurotic phobia about the existence of race and so racial differences?
The greater incidence of the MAO-A gene (which predisposes its possessors to greater aggression) in blacks is no reason to despise blacks or discriminate against them. But it does suggest that we should think very carefully before creating multi-racial societies (or high-density ethnic communities within multi-racial societies) and that black communities might wish to introduce their own programmes to reduce the expression of violence and aggression. (No, ‘community leaders’ and race hustlers, I don’t want to pay: your responsibility.)
Again, if IQ tests show that some races generally have lower scores, it simply does not follow that we can oppress them or treat them as wholly inferior. They are human. So if blacks are less adept with numbers than whites who are less adept with numbers than yellows, then we simply cannot infer that blacks are inferior to whites and that whites are inferior yellows. By the laws of logic, it does not follow — or not without many further premises.
So get over it.
Rob W – “Matthew L is equally right that on the best available evidence, based on DNA, and a bunch of other stuff, is that there is only one current sub-species of Homo sapiens, and it is impossible to put together a coherent biological classification for sub-species based on race.”
I do not agree that is a statement of scientific fact. It is an opinion. Nothing more. The fact is DNA differences between the races are large enough that if we were another species, they might well be declared sub-species.
Grikath – “When will people learn “normal” =! “superior” ?”
It depends what your normal is. The traditional Chinese normal might have involved breaking their daughters’ feet in order to bind them. Not superior. The Western norm these days is White, Protestant suburbia. Which is, flatly and without the possibility of argument, the best form of human existence that has ever actually existed and possibly the best that ever can. While the transsexual normal is bizarre beyond belief. Therefore in this context, normal is superior.
Theophrastus – “Again, if IQ tests show that some races generally have lower scores, it simply does not follow that we can oppress them or treat them as wholly inferior.”
For some definition of wholly.
It’s discouraging that a post about the (not very large) correlation between brain type and sex has been hijacked by people wanting to bang on about race. But it has.
So is race a social construct? It depends what you mean by race. In humans, as in any other species, when population groups are isolated geographically or culturally for hundreds of years, differences will tend to arise, especially if there are different environmental or cultural evolutionary pressures. If you want to call such population groups ‘races’ there’s some biological validity in it.
For example, and rather obviously, people whose ancestors have lived for thousands of years in sub-Saharan Africa tend to have much darker skin than people whose ancestors have lived for thousands of years in north-west Europe. In that context one might speak of African and European racial characteristics.
One might go further. It’s highly plausible that people whose ancestors for hundreds of years have lived up mountains are better adapted to living at high altitude, and somewhat plausible that that could give them an advantage in long-distance running. Which may be why long-distance running is dominated by Tibetans. Except that it’s not, which suggests that these things may not be so simple. It’s somewhat plausible that a group which discourages marrying out and which highly prizes intellectual attainment may tend to be better adapted for intellectual attainment than the surrounding population. Which may be why Ashkenazi Jews seem to be so smart. Except that a study by Goddard in 1917 reported that 83% of a selection of Jews on Ellis Island who had arrived steerage class were feeble minded, which suggests that these things may not be so simple.
However, in practice when people talk about race they’re usually not talking about isolated groups, they’re talking about intermingled populations. And in this context, race is largely a social construct. IQ comparisons of different “races” usually tell one nothing at all about the genetics of IQ, because if the two groups are isolated from each other the differences in environment make it impossible to identify a hereditary element, whereas when the two groups share similar environments, for example in the USA, the racial categories are indeed largely a social construct.
But let’s suppose that we do manage to identify some correlations between certain human traits and ancestral geographical origin. What are the practical consequences? Approximately none. Perhaps if you’re running an athletics programme for a US university, you might choose to send recruiters to the East African highlands. But you wouldn’t discriminate against a promising runner because they weren’t East African: that would be a misunderstanding of what we mean by correlation. The only lesson would be that we should be cautious about ascribing inequality of outcome to unfair discrimination. And we don’t need to distinguish between hereditary and environmental effects to work that out.
(Theophrastus wrote some rubbish above about the “MAO-A” gene. He’s wrong; everyone has the gene. He must be referring to alleles which result in lower levels of the MAOA enzyme (MAOA-L alleles), and are somewhat correlated with various measures of anti-social behaviour. These seem to be more common in African men than in European men. They’re also more common in Chinese men, which suggests that there’s not a lot of explanatory power there.)