Re: "Racial" medicine

On Sat, 6 May 2006 03:24:05 +0000 (UTC),
dmcanzi@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (David Canzi -- non-mailable) wrote:

In article <brqn5290m45ue5tv5gk2r717a527ag644a@xxxxxxx>,
r norman <NotMyRealEmail@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Sat, 6 May 2006 00:04:29 +0000 (UTC),
dmcanzi@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (David Canzi -- non-mailable) wrote:
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.

Are you trying to make a point here? If so, what would it be?

It is quite obvious that there are chairs and there are benches. It
is quite obvious that there are people who look "black" and people who
look "white". The point is that there is not a valid biological
category "black" or "white".

If a black couple had a white child, you would be surprised and
so, probably, would the husband. Similarly if a white couple had
a black child. So the difference in appearance between people
originating from different regions of the world is a biological
phenomenon. What makes it "invalid"? I'll skip here to the
point where you confirmed my suspicions:

Given a very long historical record, there is an enormous consequence
in saying that somebody is of this "race" as opposed to that one.
There is no scientific basis for human race and a very large number of
people that want to institute one (though certainly not everybody)
have very ulterior and very evil motivations. Those people must be
given no basis for their actions.

It has been my experience that people who object that other
people's opinions about some aspect of reality are politically
motivated, are often politically motivated themselves: they don't
object to scientific opinions being based on political motivations;
they just want them based on the "right" political motivations.

Once a question is asked about any phenomenon in the physical
world, no moral or political considerations are relevant to
finding the correct answer.

Creationists often argue that we will behave better if we believe
we are created beings, specially loved by God, than if we believe
we are an unintended product of evolution. Even if this is so,
the effect on our behaviour of believing we were created is
exactly the same whether we were created or evolved. And so
this alleged effect of belief on behaviour, even if it is real,
doesn't tell us anything about whether we were created or evolved.
The effect of belief on behaviour is irrelevant.

If believing that there is no such thing as race would make people
behave better, that might make me want other people to believe it,
but it wouldn't make me believe it myself.

Of course I am politically motivated, a fact that I have never tried
to conceal. I also separate the facts of science from the way that
those facts are interpreted or possibly abused by others. Do you
think that scientists have no responsibility for the way others use or
abuse their results? Have you not learned anything from the very
sorry spectacle of eugenics morphing into genocide? from the role that
physicists played in the development of nuclear weapons, especially
fusion bombs? from the attempt to turn theories of inheritance of
intelligence into educational policy? It is no longer acceptable for
science to plow blindly ahead with ideas and ignore the consequences.
That is exactly the reason why I introduced this thread -- to try to
educate people (or at least get people thinking) about two distinct
notions: first the fact about the inability to divide humanity into
what are traditionally called "races", second the fact that the abuse
of such racial notions has caused such an enormous evil in the world
in the past that we must be conscious of any attempt to recreate it
and actively work to counteract it. The first is science, the second
is our responsibility as decent human beings (and ethical scientists).

You, and most of the people replying on the reality of "race", see an
"obviously black" person on the street and another "obviously white"
person and say that race is clearly defined. What you do not see are
the millions of people that are neither black nor white nor yellow
but something else. That, plus the fact already pointed out, that
skin color is not a good marker for many other genetic characters, is
much of the reason why your notion of race is scientifically invalid.

Now I question you: what possibly political, possibly social reason
do you carry around inside your head to cause you to believe so
strongly in racial separations?



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