Since there seems to be a lot of confusion about what exactly constitutes the nature of religious discrimination and scientific racism, I thought it advisable to start a thread on the matter which might not become too discursive.
I'll open the conversation with the fact that most neo-Darwinist 'scientists' seem to believe, if not assert, that such topics as race, racism, religion and discrimination based on such categories are beyond the purvue of scientific enquiry.
The first question I would pose to supporters of neo-Darwinist theories of human evolution is whether you agree with the above presumptions and propositions. If so, why, and if not, why not?
Religious Discrimination and Scientific Racism
Moderator: Moderators
Post #11
I dont know what its about in general, anything about pointing to that we are decendants from apes, and black men (negros) more closely resemble apes, which would make them inferior to., lets say, whites? I would actually be behind that in certain degree. Look at the Middle East and Africa. They are centuries behind us in advancment. (The western World)That is why we should always be on guard. I don't really know that we can assume that we have moved passed the racist history and assume that all scientists will be inherently above this type of research in the future.
But then look at Asia (Japan?), which are more advanced then us, but also a different race (not black, not white).. Worth discussing ?
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youngborean
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Post #12
The middle east developed most of the mathematics that our advancements are based on. This happened while most whites were still living like cavemen. I think societies rise and fall, and advancements seem to be proportional to how much time and manpower the can direct towards thinking rather than sustaining themselves.
Post #13
And if you look at it today its about 500 years back in time? They stopped evolving somewhere. The black men where also once the superior. Now look at it. That was my point, no racism, just how it is.The middle east developed most of the mathematics that our advancements are based on. This happened while most whites were still living like cavemen. I think societies rise and fall, and advancements seem to be proportional to how much time and manpower the can direct towards thinking rather than sustaining themselves.
But i doubt we would stop evolving (im aryan myself). Perhaps a World War would kill us of course, but then the Asian-Japanese would take over, they might compete today, but i doubt any of us would "out-evolve" us in the last 100 years (after that we would have killed mankind).
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youngborean
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Post #14
But they had the capacity to be the top evolutionary dog. Plus, I don't know that evolution is the right word to describe what you are saying. Because, from an evolutionary perspective, the African men who each have 10ish offspring would be more advanced then the whites who have 2. You are talking about a slow change in society, which I have never seen genetically linked. So you use of evolving in this context is completely racist, becuase it has nothing to do with the science of genes.
Post #15
From an evolutionary perspective? You dont know what is meant by Evolution do you? You think amount of children is?... erhm.. Awh God, im not explaining it to you, someone else can do it.Because, from an evolutionary perspective, the African men who each have 10ish offspring would be more advanced then the whites who have 2. You are talking about a slow change in society, which I have never seen genetically linked. So you use of evolving in this context is completely racist, becuase it has nothing to do with the science of genes.
Anyhow, i just wanted to show you the differenve between the races. Once topdog indeed, not anymore. That was all i was saying.
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youngborean
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Post #16
Evolution doesn't say anything about the morality of a society. It is solely concerned with the passing of genes. So the best evolved species is that which is transmitting it genes the most. There has yet to be a link to morality, and or the ability to invent and race/genes. But I'm sure people have tried. I know there are new models to include the ability to prepare for sustaining as a genetic factor. But numbers will usually provide the overwhelming factor of genes in a society. Unless you have evidence to support your view? If you don't then you are making very controversial statements without evidence, which is against rule 5.
Here's a more science-based summation of my arguement.
http://www.cc.ndsu.nodak.edu/instruct/m ... opgen4.htm
What I am saying is usually covered in any biology or genetics class.
Here's a more science-based summation of my arguement.
http://www.cc.ndsu.nodak.edu/instruct/m ... opgen4.htm
What I am saying is usually covered in any biology or genetics class.
Post #18
I avoided this thread for a while, thinking it might be more on "scientific racism," but fortunately, you've gone into a discussion of real racism. I'll add a few useful notes:
Eugenics
Indeed, the concept of eugenics was based on scientific understanding. We might refer to it most accurately as "selective breeding," much as we've done with dogs or horses. While it is true that the Nazis of Hitler's time bought into this idea (which is why anti-evolutionists like to link it to The Dangers of Teaching Evolution), the fact also remains that Hitler also used fervent Christian belief to rally his supporters. That is, there is no value in looking to the European portion of WWII for evidence that "proves" evolution or blind faith to be misguided. Anything can be, in the right circumstances.
Muslim vs Christian thought in the Middle Ages
For whatever reasons, after the fall of the Roman Empire, European society broke down into feudal chaos. Meanwhile, the Middle Eastern countries had developed an independent culture that did not break down, and that respected knowledge and learning. It was during the Crusades, and after the Moors were cast out of southern Europe that their libraries and knowlege became available to the rest of Europe. It was the Arabic translations of the ancient Greek works that revived the pursuit of knowledge in Europe. For some time, the Church declared it against the law to read those heathen books. Eventually, though, this view tapered off. Indeed, Columbus did not, as many stories like to have it, worry about sailing off the end of the earth. He argued with the King of Italy unsuccessfully, and with the King of Spain successfully, for funding for his voyage based on the Greek's calculations of the circumference of the Earth. He specifically chose the lowest estimates (which the court mathematicians did not), and therefore thought he could get to the Indies. He was off by about a factor of 2--so he found "the Indies" just where he expected them, but they were the "wrong ones."
Why did the Muslim civilization basically crash, and not advance to the type of intellectual force we might predict? I have no idea. Judging from the state of some of the Muslim nations now, I can imagine that it grew out of an expansion of religious fundamentalism. Shun the "modern science" and pay attention to the Important Things--i.e. only that which is stated in the Quran. I wonder whether future historians will ask the same thing of the US. "Why did their preeminence dissipate after the 2000 elections? Could it have been the rise of religious fundamentalism, from a background questioning of science to a mainstream political policy?" With the fundamentalists' movement to put creationism back into science classes, and to pretend the data for evolution are lousy, this seems to me to be quite likely. After all, the current administration has expanded this philosophy beyond evolution, and applies the "no science because I know better" policy to global warming, hurricane protection, pollution, energy policy, water quality, forest resources, wetlands, sex education, and even basic education.
The origins of Racism
Here's what I understand of the origins of racism. Cast your mind back 200,000 years or so, and picture our ancestors living in small tribes, foraging for food. They hunted--pretty well, actually, given the tools available to them--but they had to scavenge for edible plant material as well. So, here we are: two tribes at either end of a valley. Most years, the weather supports the growth of enough berries to support both tribes. This year, there aren't enough berries. One tribe has a lot of people who want to share--you know, nice guys. The other tribe has a lot of people who don't want to share, but want to fight the other guys. So, the fight. The sharers are killed.
Whose genes did we inherit?
So, if each tribe looks much like the others (we're all people after all--it's not like comparing our species to Neandertals, after all), how do you tell who's in your group? Along with the instinct to fight with the other guys (inherited from the berry patch fight replayed over and over when resources are scarce), is the instinct to set your group apart from the others. Maybe it started as body-painting with mud (which was still in practice in New Guinea in 1972), or hairstyles, or special hats. Now, when your tribe members encounter members of other tribes, you know who you're dealing with. They look different. Your instinct says "they're the bad guys."
That is, there is strong selection for instincts--inborn, genetically controlled behaviors--to think of "my group" as Correct, and to look at other groups with suspicion. Many tribes' name for themselves, in their own language of course, is simply "The People." Others are not quite people--a philosophy that makes it much more palatable to kill them in war.
Our current civilizations are too large for coherence in a single group identity. So, smaller group identities become prevalent. One is "which team you like," and the ritualized "battles" we know as sports. One is "school spirit." Another, which is very powerful, is religion. People tend to have very strong ties to their particular church, their particular denomination. Others are "just wrong."
How do we tell who's who? The "goths" have chosen to wear lots of black, with chains and other metal objects on their clothing and through their body parts. Gangs use hats, or baggy pants, or whatever--their "colors." Hand signals work. So do (or did) drawing fish in the sand. But a real easy way to assign people the category of "others" is if their skin color is different. In some cases, it's even possible to go on the basis of hair color and eye color.
We like to use skin color because it's so easy--and we can invent a name like "race" to refer to "others." It works in a broad way, but there are still too many members of each "race" to make convenient groups, so we still divide up into teams based on religion, state or town of residence, "hilbillies" vs "flatlanders," or ethnicity and culture--or all of the above.
For millenia this instinct of "protect the group, fight the inferior 'others'" did well for us. It's a liability now, when we have the potential to devastate the entire planet. But, it's an instinct, so we tend to think that way without even considering it. We automatically jump to the conclusion that someone who doesn't look like us, or who doesn't think like us, is wrong. Although it's an inborn behavior, it is nonethelss possible to alter it intentionally. We're intelligent, and can learn. All we have to do is recognize that racism has no basis in reality. It's just an automatic thought process left over from the stone age. Ethnic tension, religious tension, racism--all these things stem from the same principle.
We could actually try to do something about it, like try to respect others and learn what their point of view really is (rather than bombing them). Or, we could ignore it, and let the survivors figure it out after the wars. Along these lines, it might be good to read The Gate to Women's Country by Sherri Tepper. Think of it as a Genetics Mystery Novel.
Eugenics
Indeed, the concept of eugenics was based on scientific understanding. We might refer to it most accurately as "selective breeding," much as we've done with dogs or horses. While it is true that the Nazis of Hitler's time bought into this idea (which is why anti-evolutionists like to link it to The Dangers of Teaching Evolution), the fact also remains that Hitler also used fervent Christian belief to rally his supporters. That is, there is no value in looking to the European portion of WWII for evidence that "proves" evolution or blind faith to be misguided. Anything can be, in the right circumstances.
Muslim vs Christian thought in the Middle Ages
For whatever reasons, after the fall of the Roman Empire, European society broke down into feudal chaos. Meanwhile, the Middle Eastern countries had developed an independent culture that did not break down, and that respected knowledge and learning. It was during the Crusades, and after the Moors were cast out of southern Europe that their libraries and knowlege became available to the rest of Europe. It was the Arabic translations of the ancient Greek works that revived the pursuit of knowledge in Europe. For some time, the Church declared it against the law to read those heathen books. Eventually, though, this view tapered off. Indeed, Columbus did not, as many stories like to have it, worry about sailing off the end of the earth. He argued with the King of Italy unsuccessfully, and with the King of Spain successfully, for funding for his voyage based on the Greek's calculations of the circumference of the Earth. He specifically chose the lowest estimates (which the court mathematicians did not), and therefore thought he could get to the Indies. He was off by about a factor of 2--so he found "the Indies" just where he expected them, but they were the "wrong ones."
Why did the Muslim civilization basically crash, and not advance to the type of intellectual force we might predict? I have no idea. Judging from the state of some of the Muslim nations now, I can imagine that it grew out of an expansion of religious fundamentalism. Shun the "modern science" and pay attention to the Important Things--i.e. only that which is stated in the Quran. I wonder whether future historians will ask the same thing of the US. "Why did their preeminence dissipate after the 2000 elections? Could it have been the rise of religious fundamentalism, from a background questioning of science to a mainstream political policy?" With the fundamentalists' movement to put creationism back into science classes, and to pretend the data for evolution are lousy, this seems to me to be quite likely. After all, the current administration has expanded this philosophy beyond evolution, and applies the "no science because I know better" policy to global warming, hurricane protection, pollution, energy policy, water quality, forest resources, wetlands, sex education, and even basic education.
The origins of Racism
Here's what I understand of the origins of racism. Cast your mind back 200,000 years or so, and picture our ancestors living in small tribes, foraging for food. They hunted--pretty well, actually, given the tools available to them--but they had to scavenge for edible plant material as well. So, here we are: two tribes at either end of a valley. Most years, the weather supports the growth of enough berries to support both tribes. This year, there aren't enough berries. One tribe has a lot of people who want to share--you know, nice guys. The other tribe has a lot of people who don't want to share, but want to fight the other guys. So, the fight. The sharers are killed.
Whose genes did we inherit?
So, if each tribe looks much like the others (we're all people after all--it's not like comparing our species to Neandertals, after all), how do you tell who's in your group? Along with the instinct to fight with the other guys (inherited from the berry patch fight replayed over and over when resources are scarce), is the instinct to set your group apart from the others. Maybe it started as body-painting with mud (which was still in practice in New Guinea in 1972), or hairstyles, or special hats. Now, when your tribe members encounter members of other tribes, you know who you're dealing with. They look different. Your instinct says "they're the bad guys."
That is, there is strong selection for instincts--inborn, genetically controlled behaviors--to think of "my group" as Correct, and to look at other groups with suspicion. Many tribes' name for themselves, in their own language of course, is simply "The People." Others are not quite people--a philosophy that makes it much more palatable to kill them in war.
Our current civilizations are too large for coherence in a single group identity. So, smaller group identities become prevalent. One is "which team you like," and the ritualized "battles" we know as sports. One is "school spirit." Another, which is very powerful, is religion. People tend to have very strong ties to their particular church, their particular denomination. Others are "just wrong."
How do we tell who's who? The "goths" have chosen to wear lots of black, with chains and other metal objects on their clothing and through their body parts. Gangs use hats, or baggy pants, or whatever--their "colors." Hand signals work. So do (or did) drawing fish in the sand. But a real easy way to assign people the category of "others" is if their skin color is different. In some cases, it's even possible to go on the basis of hair color and eye color.
We like to use skin color because it's so easy--and we can invent a name like "race" to refer to "others." It works in a broad way, but there are still too many members of each "race" to make convenient groups, so we still divide up into teams based on religion, state or town of residence, "hilbillies" vs "flatlanders," or ethnicity and culture--or all of the above.
For millenia this instinct of "protect the group, fight the inferior 'others'" did well for us. It's a liability now, when we have the potential to devastate the entire planet. But, it's an instinct, so we tend to think that way without even considering it. We automatically jump to the conclusion that someone who doesn't look like us, or who doesn't think like us, is wrong. Although it's an inborn behavior, it is nonethelss possible to alter it intentionally. We're intelligent, and can learn. All we have to do is recognize that racism has no basis in reality. It's just an automatic thought process left over from the stone age. Ethnic tension, religious tension, racism--all these things stem from the same principle.
We could actually try to do something about it, like try to respect others and learn what their point of view really is (rather than bombing them). Or, we could ignore it, and let the survivors figure it out after the wars. Along these lines, it might be good to read The Gate to Women's Country by Sherri Tepper. Think of it as a Genetics Mystery Novel.
Panza llena, corazon contento
Re: Religious Discrimination and Scientific Racism
Post #19Thanks for the reply and answers, McColloch. I would like to develop a consensus about what we all think about such categories as race, species and religion and think it best to start off with the category of race.McCulloch wrote:Jcrawford is, in reality, posing three separate questions:
- Is the topic of race beyond the purview of scientific enquiry?
- Are the topics of racism and discrimination beyond the purview of scientific enquiry?
- Is the topic of religion beyond the purview of scientific enquiry?
That there are identifiable hereditary physiological differences between groups of individuals within a single species is evident. In our species, these differences involve skin pigmentation, hair, skull shape and other attributes. If this is what is meant by race, then the origins of racial differences is certainly a legitimate field of scientific study to be conducted by evolutionary biologists.
1. Do you personally think that the human race exists?
2. If so, do you think that the human race and racial variations within it are scientifically observable?
Obviously, you have answered to 2nd question in the affirmative, so I am assuming that you would answer the 1st question in the affirmative also.
If the other posters will answer these two questions then we might form debating teams based on these basic presuppositions.
Post #20
Thank you micatela. Since you, McCulloch and I all personally agree that the human race exists and that the human race and racial variations within it are both scientifically observable, I invite you and all other posters who wish to join our side of the debate to do so now. Our fundamental premise and principle will be that the human race exists and that racial variation within it is scientifically observable. Agreed?micatala wrote:In addition, the above quote makes the faulty assumption that there is such a thing as a 'neo-Darwinist race theorist' (there isn't that I have been shown) and that neo-Darwinism denies the existence of the human race (it doesn't).
The next consensus to be developed will be determined by what we think the human race consists of. This will necessarily entail a decision on our part whether any part of the present human race or past human race consists of different and separate 'species.'
I for one, would consider all human 'species' to be part of both the present and past human race, even though there may be morphological differences between what evolutionists call 'different species' of humans in the past.
But before we get to that, let's see where our fellow posters stand on the initial question of whether they personnally believe in one human race and whether it and racial variation within it is scientifically observable or not.
