African Americans, Police, and several other things tied into this.

[marooned]

As a result most scientists that believed in traditional Darwinian logic are wrong. It is very easy to see how "races" begin. A group of people think they are similar, so they hang in the same social circles. As a result the races have common methylation patterns for their genes and similarities converge. The idea that there aren't races is a preposterous notion

yeah some similarities did converge, like different skin and hair per environmental factors (always on a gradient though) or adapting larger lungs if you are at higher elevations... but we already know that we look different. that's the whole problem, that we can't get over how we look different. unfortunately physical appearance tends to be rather important on the primate line. primates are very visual creatures.

i think you could *obviously* get different behavior traits through evolution for different groups of people... but humans haven't been that controlled or isolated in their groups. humans tend to wander and trade off with different groups. but i'll use the dog breeds argument... not only do dog breeds look very different but there are behavioral differences... for instance certain characteristics are associated with herding dogs vs. with retrievers. herding dogs need to keep track of an entire flock of grazing animals and follow complex commands involving various signals or words. is it possible that the average border collie can learn more words/signals, is more likely to herd small animals and children by instinct, and is more likely to always being vigilant of an entire group and making sure they're all together? sure, i think that's reasonable. because along breeding lines there are certain behavioral traits breeders were looking for (the dog needs to be good at performing a particular function), so they were probably more likely to breed the most exceptional seeming dogs (although of course training is a *huge* factor in if the dog was exceptional... ahem), hoping to keep getting the desired traits. of course there are numerous issues with this since it *is* so dependent on training and since it's hit or miss in breeding (it's way easier i bet to select for physical features than something abstract-ish like "behavioral tendencies" - with the latter you really are just guessing). some individual dogs of breeds not even supposed to have anything with herding could turn out to be better herding dogs than some individual dogs of a herding breed. and of course how do you even define "better" in a way that is scientifically valid? also, breed your herding dog with a mutt and boom, the offspring just looks like a bunch of dogs. how quickly you can unravel your "breed" sort of demonstrates how possibly insignificant the little changed you have made to 'dog' are.

i don't think anything in human evolution has been so controlled and fixed as dog breeding, save maybe some sick eugenics experiment forced on people. many scientists argue that you can't even find worthwhile differences in personality traits or cognitive abilities or whatever between dog breeds - and that's with actually *trying* to breed for very specific traits.

i could buy that humans have different races if the world consisted of 4 continents all separated from one another by ocean with 4 separate human populations on them, isolated from one another for at least 1 million years with very different environmental conditions on each. if you bring the 4 groups back together after 1 million years, you might find they are still the same species but that there are considerable differences... maybe you could measure some of them. because you know how long they were isolated from one another; and because it is "controlled," you can probably be somewhat safe in assuming that a lot of the observed differences are actually significant. however, you would *still* have to account for culture and conditions and not confuse that with actual biological differences. and you might actually even still not be able to find distinct differences in personality or cognitive abilities of statistical significance--like consider horses and donkeys, two separate species that imo are largely the same lol (despite who know how many years of evolution apart they really don't seem to have diverged much from one another). or consider a species that lives on multiple continents like the grey wolf... are there significant differences (they've been separated in different environmental conditions) to write home about? (you might automatically think there aren't because they all look the same )

anyway, the point is though that human evolution has not been nice and clear cut like this. there has been a lot of overlap between groups of people, we're at most 200,000 years old as a species... we don't have the proper controlled isolation or time or controlled vector (i.e. relentlessly breading in or out *specific* traits each generation) for there to be anything significant. that is to say you cannot find a way to break down humanity into meaningful categories based on any set of characteristics (subtracting out cultural factors) that tie to their genetic heritage. so you can't actually have a "race."

i think the other plausible seeming thing is that you can get morphological differences out of evolution pretty quickly and easily. it makes sense. i mean if a species can't get a needed morphological adaptation for its environment fast enough, it'll go extinct. the things on the surface of us (the literal physical surface) are kind of our first line of defense from the environment. the muscles and interior physical shapes like that of a blood cell may be our second line of defense. these things really seem much simpler than "behavior."

[Hitta]

yeah some similarities did converge, like different skin and hair per environmental factors (always on a gradient though) or adapting larger lungs if you are at higher elevations... but we already know that we look different. that's the whole problem, that we can't get over how we look different. unfortunately physical appearance tends to be rather important on the primate line. primates are very visual creatures.

i think you could *obviously* get different behavior traits through evolution for different groups of people... but humans haven't been that controlled or isolated in their groups. humans tend to wander and trade off with different groups. but i'll use the dog breeds argument... not only do dog breeds look very different but there are behavioral differences... for instance certain characteristics are associated with herding dogs vs. with retrievers. herding dogs need to keep track of an entire flock of grazing animals and follow complex commands involving various signals or words. is it possible that the average border collie can learn more words/signals, is more likely to herd small animals and children by instinct, and is more likely to always being vigilant of an entire group and making sure they're all together? sure, i think that's reasonable. because along breeding lines there are certain behavioral traits breeders were looking for (the dog needs to be good at performing a particular function), so they were probably more likely to breed the most exceptional seeming dogs (although of course training is a *huge* factor in if the dog was exceptional... ahem), hoping to keep getting the desired traits. of course there are numerous issues with this since it *is* so dependent on training and since it's hit or miss in breeding (it's way easier i bet to select for physical features than something abstract-ish like "behavioral tendencies" - with the latter you really are just guessing). some individual dogs of breeds not even supposed to have anything with herding could turn out to be better herding dogs than some individual dogs of a herding breed. and of course how do you even define "better" in a way that is scientifically valid? also, breed your herding dog with a mutt and boom, the offspring just looks like a bunch of dogs. how quickly you can unravel your "breed" sort of demonstrates how possibly insignificant the little changed you have made to 'dog' are.

i don't think anything in human evolution has been so controlled and fixed as dog breeding, save maybe some sick eugenics experiment forced on people. many scientists argue that you can't even find worthwhile differences in personality traits or cognitive abilities or whatever between dog breeds - and that's with actually *trying* to breed for very specific traits.

i could buy that humans have different races if the world consisted of 4 continents all separated from one another by ocean with 4 separate human populations on them, isolated from one another for at least 1 million years with very different environmental conditions on each. if you bring the 4 groups back together after 1 million years, you might find they are still the same species but that there are considerable differences... maybe you could measure some of them. because you know how long they were isolated from one another; and because it is "controlled," you can probably be somewhat safe in assuming that a lot of the observed differences are actually significant. however, you would *still* have to account for culture and conditions and not confuse that with actual biological differences. and you might actually even still not be able to find distinct differences in personality or cognitive abilities of statistical significance--like consider horses and donkeys, two separate species that imo are largely the same lol (despite who know how many years of evolution apart they really don't seem to have diverged much from one another). or consider a species that lives on multiple continents like the grey wolf... are there significant differences (they've been separated in different environmental conditions) to write home about? (you might automatically think there aren't because they all look the same )

anyway, the point is though that human evolution has not been nice and clear cut like this. there has been a lot of overlap between groups of people, we're at most 200,000 years old as a species... we don't have the proper controlled isolation or time or controlled vector (i.e. relentlessly breading in or out *specific* traits each generation) for there to be anything significant. that is to say you cannot find a way to break down humanity into meaningful categories based on any set of characteristics (subtracting out cultural factors) that tie to their genetic heritage. so you can't actually have a "race."

i think the other plausible seeming thing is that you can get morphological differences out of evolution pretty quickly and easily. it makes sense. i mean if a species can't get a needed morphological adaptation for its environment fast enough, it'll go extinct. the things on the surface of us (the literal physical surface) are kind of our first line of defense from the environment. the muscles and interior physical shapes like that of a blood cell may be our second line of defense. these things really seem much simpler than "behavior."

I do think there are behavioral differences between white people and black people though that have been passed from generation to generation based on environmental influences. It makes perfect sense to me how and why this happened, similar looking people feel more comfortable around those they share physical traits with... and soon the behavioral traits start to overlap as well. Now what I don't understand is why is it a problem for white people and black people to be different? Being different does not mean being inferior. We spend so much time trying to make everything the same that I think we kind of isolate certain cultures from the rest of the world unintendedly in the name of equality.

[marooned]

I do think there are behavioral differences between white people and black people though that have been passed from generation to generation based on environmental influences.

which white people and which black people, where and when?

[Hitta]

which white people and which black people, where and when?

Well thats the bizarre thing... groups can be assigned based on proximity. A group of the same color in one area will be different than those in another area. I do think there is probably a shared behavioral linkage between all within a race though, as I think there is a commonality between how they are treated and interact in response to the world environment. It may be very subtle but I do think it exists. I mean, look at China, Japan, and Korea. They have similar linguistic relativity, have similar foods, similar all kinds of things. You can say that they all came from the same area, therefore they have similar culture....... but that'd just be playing into my argument. Culture causes changes in epigenetics, which just perpetuates culture. Even if deviations occur, there probably still are very residual similarities.

[marooned]

Well thats the bizarre thing... groups can be assigned based on proximity. A group of the same color in one area will be different than those in another area. I do think there is probably a shared behavioral linkage between all within a race though, as I think there is a commonality between how they are treated and interact in response to the world environment. It may be very subtle but I do think it exists. I mean, look at China, Japan, and Korea. They have similar linguistic relativity, have similar foods, similar all kinds of things. You can say that they all came from the same area, therefore they have similar culture....... but that'd just be playing into my argument. Culture causes changes in epigenetics, which just perpetuates culture. Even if deviations occur, there probably still are very residual similarities.

ugh. well considering the entire continent of africa (it's huge) and just how many "groups" we would be talking about in that continent alone coupled with minimal time (200,000 years is so little time for a species), i seriously do not see how we'd be able to find any meaningful and measurable very subtle behaviors... and if they are so subtle to begin with, why does it even matter. aren't there like less subtle, more easily measurable things we could focus on? if it's so subtle it's like a breath of smoke, hard to notice and quick to fade, who cares about it.

[Hitta]

ugh. well considering the entire continent of africa (it's huge) and just how many "groups" we would be talking about in that continent alone coupled with minimal time (200,000 years is so little time for a species), i seriously do not see how we'd be able to find any meaningful and measurable very subtle behaviors... and if they are so subtle to begin with, why does it even matter. aren't there like less subtle, more easily measurable things we could focus on? if it's so subtle it's like a breath of smoke, hard to notice and quick to fade, who cares about it.

You're missing my point. People see themselves as being different. I live in the most fucked up area of the world... the deep south. Down here white people and black people literally live on different sides of towns. People legit see themselves as being apart of a cultural group, and being apart of those cultural groups causes convergence. Throughout the entirety of animal history, those that think they are similar to each other tend to coagulate closely with those that are relate-able. It makes perfect sense that people that look similar, would converge together behaviorally..,. and genetically. People in the United States probably have uniform behavioral traits in comparison to the behavioral traits of those in the United Kingdom, but probably have similarities as well. Subtle does not mean unnoticeable. Differences cause changes in the genetic code. Methyl groups assemble and deassemble based on your environmental experiences. If people have similar experiences, then they will develop similar patterns.

[marooned]

You're missing my point. People see themselves as being different. I live in the most fucked up area of the world... the deep south. Down here white people and black people literally live on different sides of towns. People legit see themselves as being apart of a cultural group, and being apart of those cultural groups causes convergence. Throughout the entirety of animal history, those that think they are similar to each other tend to coagulate closely with those that are relate-able. It makes perfect sense that people that look similar, would converge together behaviorally..,. and genetically. People in the United States probably have uniform behavioral traits in comparison to the behavioral traits of those in the United Kingdom, but probably have similarities as well. Subtle does not mean unnoticeable. Differences cause changes in the genetic code. Methyl groups assemble and deassemble based on your environmental experiences. If people have similar experiences, then they will develop similar patterns.

well, you're missing my point. i mean people in the deep south: ooh 20 generations or something. that's hardly any. is it going to make for some significant personality trait or cognitive feature shared by no other humans anywhere? can the deep southerners be their own race now? i mean it's ridiculous. it's also ridiculous to call all "white people" or all "black people" distinct races.

i'm not arguing that we are not adapting to our environment subtly, but that we are and we still don't actually have any races. i'm not saying it's impossible to find a distinct pocket of people that have a higher tendency to be adapted to a single thing--like a virus... but that is not a race. it's really hard to see how like if some of my ancestors lived in the alps for 25,000 years before climbing down to live in the valleys and spread apart in separate groups for the next 10,000 years until finally a small pocket of the original group settled in a northern forest... how that gives me a particular racially identifiable set of personality or cognitive traits that anyone should actually care about because of their amazing significance. like i can't genetically shake the laziness of those damn mountain dwellers and their 25,000 years of sitting on their asses => it's a racial distinction.

(this is also funny because kids often have unique behavioral and cognitive traits anyway, unique from their parents. sometimes you just get the alien child who seems utterly unidentifiable in the family.)