Race as a Social Construct

Andrew Sullivan and Ta-Nahisi are thumping away at that old meme of "race as a social construct." Well, all our concepts are, you know. One point that is absolutely clear is that there are no magic lines which one can use to divide humans neatly into three, five, or twenty-seven clear and distinct races. At the same time, most of us can look at another of us and guess something about where most of our ancestors came from.

Populations differ on average, and differed more before the modern era started moving people around in large numbers. It's perfectly obvious that there are systematic differences, some of them easy to recognize, between populations that have lived in Europe or the Congo for six hundred years. Some of those differences will persist in those with some ancestry from one place or another that that have lived in another place for a couple of hundred years.

The fact that race is a social construct, with no absolute biological undepinning does not say anything about the fact that, for example, Americans with more African ancestry might or might not have more musical talent, or running speed, or various other attributes. Of course the ugly cousin in the corner is the nasty issue of IQ. I'm pretty sure that we don't know enough right now to say whether the differences in IQ noticed between populations are of social, genetic, or other origin. Eventually we will know something about the biology of IQ.

In the meantime, attempts at social engineering, say via. immigration policies that discriminate by race, are as pointless as they are invidious.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Anti-Libertarian: re-post

The most pointed critique of social security and liberalism in general is the libertarian critique. The problem with libertarians, for a liberal, is that we have too much in common. We both believe in individual rights, tolerance of individual differences, and dislike government prescription of religion. The basic difference, it seems to me, is the different answers we give to Cain's (with thanks to the Captain - my original version had the corpse asking the question!) famous question: "Am I my brother's keeper?" That's not really my basic bitch against the libertarians though. My real complaint is the same as my complaint against most religion - its premise is a fraud. For those who can't stand to wait for the punchline, I believe that trying to implement libertarian principles leads to tyranny or social disintegration. Demonstrating that takes some historical (and pre-historical) context. For all but the last 15,000 or so of the 100,000 years the human spec
Read more

Uneasy Lies The Head

Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown ........... Shakespeare Henry IV, Part II. So it is with us and our slightly distant primate cousins , so it seems. A 9-year study of wild baboons in Kenya by Princeton University and the Institute of Primate Research may turn conventional assumptions of alphas males upside down. The study found that alpha males have high testosterone levels, which allows them to dominate other baboons, get access to more food, and attract better mates. This is expected. Surprisingly, though, the alpha males also have high levels of stress hormone glucocorticoid, which scientists measured from their feces samples. In fact, the stress of alpha baboons was on par with low-ranking baboons. The convention wisdom is that access to food and females provides life security and thus less stress for dominant males. Conversely, weak males who are constantly threatened by starvation and physical violence from stronger males are thought to be more stressed. The st
Read more

We Call it Soccer

The US played its best, and maybe only good game of World Cup, but lost thanks to brilliant goalkeeping by the Swedish keeper and the bizarre method soccer uses to settle ties when three US stars could not put the ball on frame from the 12 yard spot.  At the end it came down to a blocked shot that spun in by maybe a couple of centimeters. Well, that's football - too much like life.   Which brings me to a modest proposal.  Replace the thirty minute overtimes with as many 7-player 15 minute periods as needed to settle it.  Scoring should be much easier with fewer players.
Read more