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Topic: virus: Race and creation (Read 1160 times) |
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Walter Watts
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Just when I thought I was out-they pull me back in
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virus: Race and creation
« on: 2004-09-26 13:10:03 » |
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and rhino posted this gem in irc today as well. (I guess it's my day to pass along other people's irc gems to the main list
Walter ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- a chapter from Dawkins' "The ancestor's tale" titled "Race and creation"
<snip> Fourth, there is high interobserver agreement in our racial categorisations. A man such as Colin Powell, of mixed race and intermediate physical characteristics, is not described as white by some observers and black by others. A small minority will describe him as mixed. All others will without fail describe Powell as black - and the same goes for anybody who shows the slightest trace of African ancestry, even if their percentage of European ancestry is high.
There is a useful technique in science called "interobserver correlation." It is a measure that is often used to establish that there really is a reliable basis for a judgement, even if nobody can pin down what that basis is. The rationale, in the present case, is this. We may not know how people decide whether somebody is "black" or "white," but there must be some sort of reliable criterion lurking there because any two randomly chosen judges will, with a small exception, say they are either black or white, and not mixed.
The fact that the interobserver correlation remains high, even over a huge spectrum of inter-races, is testimony to something deep-seated in human psychology. (It is reminiscent of the anthropologists' finding about perception of hue. Physicists tell us that the rainbow is a simple continuum of wavelength. It is biology and/or psychology, not physics, that singles out particular landmark wavelengths along the physical spectrum for naming.
Blue has a name. Green has a name. Blue-green does not. The interesting finding of anthropologists' experiments is that there is substantial agreement over such namings across different cultures. We seem to have the same kind of agreement over judgements of race. It may prove to be even stronger and clearer than for the rainbow.) and then he goes on to find some merit in the use of racial terms
Now to the question of race. If I tell you Suzy is Chinese, how much is your prior uncertainty reduced? You now are pretty certain that her hair is straight and black (or was black), that her eyes have an epicanthic fold, and one or two other things about her.
If I tell you Colin is "black," this does not, as we have seen, tell you he is black. Nevertheless, it is not uninformative. The high interobserver correlation suggests that there is a constellation of characteristics that most people recognise, such that the statement "Colin is black" really does reduce prior uncertainty about Colin.
It works the other way around to some extent. If I tell you Carl is an Olympic sprinting champion, your prior uncertainty about his "race" is, as a matter of statistical fact, reduced. Indeed, you can have a fairly confident bet that he is "black." <snip>
In short, I think Edwards is right and Lewontin wrong. Nevertheless, I strongly support Lewontin's statement that racial classification can be actively destructive of social and human relations - especially when people use racial classification as a way of treating people differently, whether through negative or positive discrimination. To tie a racial label to somebody is informative in the sense that it tells you more than one thing about them. later 07:13:09 rhino rhino (rhino@[death to spam].ppp9-adsl-71.ath.forthnet.gr) has quit IRC [Quit: There's a crack in the floorboards near the rhinoceros' exit point]
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Walter Watts Tulsa Network Solutions, Inc.
No one gets to see the Wizard! Not nobody! Not no how!
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rhinoceros
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My point is ...
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Re:virus: Race and creation
« Reply #1 on: 2004-09-26 15:57:21 » |
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[Walter] and rhino posted this gem in irc today as well. (I guess it's my day to pass along other people's irc gems to the main list
Walter ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- a chapter from Dawkins' "The ancestor's tale" titled "Race and creation" <snip>
[rhinoceros] Thanks for the publicity, Walter
Now, because the selection of the snips from Dawkins which I posted in IRC was rather hasty and arbitrary, here is the whole chapter where he argues that there is a point in talking about races.
http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/ArticleView.asp?P_Article=12850
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hell-kite
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feed me!
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RE: virus: Race and creation
« Reply #2 on: 2004-09-27 03:32:14 » |
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well, maybe it's just the german inside me that writes these lines, but "race" has, of course, a negative connotation. i don't want to argue that its semantics are useless, but the form is politically difficult at least. of course, virions should probably not be bothered by that - the communicative value is paramount.
but apart from that, it is a biologically (in general) as well as anthropologically (in particular) obsolete expression - nowadays anthropologists would talk about "populations" rather, while as far as i know (would have to look for the sources, though), biologists still argue about the validity of the concept.
<snip>To tie a racial label to somebody is informative in the sense that it tells you more than one thing about them.</snip>
true, but it tells you not a LOT more. in terms of one's appearance it is most informative - regarding psychological variables such as personality, it MIGHT be informative as far as personality is related to culture as far as culture is related to, err, race. it's a heuristic which leads to no more than probabilities - a prejudice. prejudice is, of course, necessary in this high-information-world, but should we not - wherever possible - seek to become judicious?
somewhat moralistic - not to the point - even prejudiced?,
björn
-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht----- Von: owner-virus@lucifer.com [mailto:owner-virus@lucifer.com]Im Auftrag von Walter Watts Gesendet: Sonntag, 26. September 2004 19:10 An: undisclosed-recipients: Betreff: virus: Race and creation
and rhino posted this gem in irc today as well. (I guess it's my day to pass along other people's irc gems to the main list
Walter ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------ a chapter from Dawkins' "The ancestor's tale" titled "Race and creation"
<snip> Fourth, there is high interobserver agreement in our racial categorisations. A man such as Colin Powell, of mixed race and intermediate physical characteristics, is not described as white by some observers and black by others. A small minority will describe him as mixed. All others will without fail describe Powell as black - and the same goes for anybody who shows the slightest trace of African ancestry, even if their percentage of European ancestry is high.
There is a useful technique in science called "interobserver correlation." It is a measure that is often used to establish that there really is a reliable basis for a judgement, even if nobody can pin down what that basis is. The rationale, in the present case, is this. We may not know how people decide whether somebody is "black" or "white," but there must be some sort of reliable criterion lurking there because any two randomly chosen judges will, with a small exception, say they are either black or white, and not mixed.
The fact that the interobserver correlation remains high, even over a huge spectrum of inter-races, is testimony to something deep-seated in human psychology. (It is reminiscent of the anthropologists' finding about perception of hue. Physicists tell us that the rainbow is a simple continuum of wavelength. It is biology and/or psychology, not physics, that singles out particular landmark wavelengths along the physical spectrum for naming.
Blue has a name. Green has a name. Blue-green does not. The interesting finding of anthropologists' experiments is that there is substantial agreement over such namings across different cultures. We seem to have the same kind of agreement over judgements of race. It may prove to be even stronger and clearer than for the rainbow.) and then he goes on to find some merit in the use of racial terms
Now to the question of race. If I tell you Suzy is Chinese, how much is your prior uncertainty reduced? You now are pretty certain that her hair is straight and black (or was black), that her eyes have an epicanthic fold, and one or two other things about her.
If I tell you Colin is "black," this does not, as we have seen, tell you he is black. Nevertheless, it is not uninformative. The high interobserver correlation suggests that there is a constellation of characteristics that most people recognise, such that the statement "Colin is black" really does reduce prior uncertainty about Colin.
It works the other way around to some extent. If I tell you Carl is an Olympic sprinting champion, your prior uncertainty about his "race" is, as a matter of statistical fact, reduced. Indeed, you can have a fairly confident bet that he is "black." <snip>
In short, I think Edwards is right and Lewontin wrong. Nevertheless, I strongly support Lewontin's statement that racial classification can be actively destructive of social and human relations - especially when people use racial classification as a way of treating people differently, whether through negative or positive discrimination. To tie a racial label to somebody is informative in the sense that it tells you more than one thing about them. later 07:13:09 rhino rhino (rhino@[death to spam].ppp9-adsl-71.ath.forthnet.gr) has quit IRC [Quit: There's a crack in the floorboards near the rhinoceros' exit point]
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Othello. Thou dost conspire against thy friend, Iago, If thou but think'st him wrong'd, and mak'st his ear A stranger to thy thoughts.
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