Re: "Racial" medicine


David Canzi -- non-mailable wrote:
In article <nqen525e5mpkgk2blg13eqojeoo0ee4klm@xxxxxxx>,
r norman <NotMyRealEmail@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
The word "race", when applied to humans, almost invariably means
black/white/yellow or african/european/asian or whatever other term
you wish to apply. These groups are not in any way genetically
homogeneous and distinctly different from the others. The differences
within the groups is as large or larger than differences between the
groups. Clearly one can differentiate between a Tutsi and a Finn,
between an Ashkenazi Jew and a Hmong. But you get enormous
difficulties lining up all the peoples of the world and trying to sort
them into piles. You either end up with an enormous number of piles,
most of which have no clear cut demarcations, or give up and lump
everybody into the same pile.

Suppose you built a chair with a flat seat and back. Then suppose
you built another a quarter-inch wider, and another a quarter-inch
wider than that, and so on. Having started with something that
99 out of 100 observers would agree is a chair, you end up with
something that 99 out of 100 observers would agree is a bench.
Somewhere in the middle, between a chair and a bench, you'll
have something people can't agree on: some will say it's a chair
for Mero Wolfe; some will say it's a bench for anorexics; and
some will say it's Frankenfurniture -- neither chair nor bench.
There is no clear-cut demarcation, therefore the distinction
between chairs and benches is invalid and they must be considered
indistinguishably the same kind of furniture.

Call me when the chair humps the bench, and whatever offspring they
have start leaving stools all over the place.

Chris


--
David Canzi Division of explanatory labour: Science explains the
evidence; religion explains the lack of evidence.

.

Relevant Pages

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