Fasces, I disagree. Clearly in Asia, those who grew to be taller were either no more advantaged than those who were shorter, or indeed disadvantaged. All "races" are bred to be evolutionarily "superior" in the climate which they evolved in. Dark-skinned people are evolutionarily superior in hotter equatorial climates, while lighter-skinned people are evolutionarily superior in cooler temperate climates. By definition, every 'race' is superior in its original habitat. Hence, this superiority is superficial and thus, meaningless.

"Fasces, I disagree. Clearly in Asia, those who grew to be taller were either no more advantaged than those who were shorter, or indeed disadvantaged. All "races" are bred to be evolutionarily "superior" in the climate which they evolved in. Dark-skinned people are evolutionarily superior in hotter equatorial climates, while lighter-skinned people are evolutionarily superior in cooler temperate climates. By definition, every 'race' is superior in its original habitat. Hence, this superiority is superficial and thus, meaningless."
So the question is which climate breeds the most superior animals? Or better yet which climate breeds the most successful humans? All I am saying is the races are different, they may be less different the what people believed prior to the 60's but there still there.

@Faces349, Chrispminis is talking about what Richard Dawkins refers to as "the fundamental unit of selection":"... not the species, nor the group, nor even, strictly, the individual. It is the gene, the unit of heredity." (The Selfish Gene)

With regards to height and intelligence...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Height_and_intelligence

I should change my second last post... I *think that is what Chrispminis is talking about. Not all biologists agree with Richard Dawkins.

I haven't read Dawkins.
"With regards to height and intelligence...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Height_and_intelligence"
So maybe your correct.

However the same article suggests race also plays a factor in intelligence:
"There are observed differences in average test score achievement between racial groups, which vary depending on the populations studied and the type of tests used. In the United States, self-identified blacks and whites have been the subjects of the greatest number of studies. The black-white IQ difference is largest on those tests that best represent the general intelligence factor g.[31] Using data primarily from the United States and Europe, Jensen and Rushton have estimated the average IQ of blacks/Africans to be around 85; of whites/Europeans to be around 100, and of East Asians to be around 106.[32] Estimates from other researchers are more or less similar.[1][33] Gaps are also seen in other tests of cognitive ability or aptitude, including university admission exams, military aptitude tests and employment tests in corporate settings."

Fasces, let's discount, for the moment, any cultural causations of the variances you outline. Not because they aren't there, but because it's simpler and inclines more towards confirming your hypotheses. That said, what you are talking about are the averages of huge populations. All well and good when you are talking about huge populations, but hypothesizing about individuals based upon group classifications makes about as much sense as claiming you can predict the behavior of one molecule of a gas because you understand Boyle's law. In other words, racism may make a certain amount of sense when you are talking about large groups. But it's counterproductive to extrapolate based upon racial statistics to any particular individual; you're not going to get any sort of meaningful predicative ability.

And, you pretty much have to be at least familiar with Dawkins' arguments in order to make a significant claim about biology in the modern world. Whether you agree with him or not is a matter of opinion (hopefully, backed up by experimental data, or at least subject to the other tenets of the scientific method), but discussing biology without familiarity with Dawkins is akin to discussing physics in a merely Newtonian understanding, without attempting to grapple with Einstein or Planck.

"Fasces, let's discount, for the moment, any cultural causations of the variances you outline. Not because they aren't there, but because it's simpler and inclines more towards confirming your hypotheses. That said, what you are talking about are the averages of huge populations. All well and good when you are talking about huge populations, but hypothesizing about individuals based upon group classifications makes about as much sense as claiming you can predict the behavior of one molecule of a gas because you understand Boyle's law. In other words, racism may make a certain amount of sense when you are talking about large groups. But it's counterproductive to extrapolate based upon racial statistics to any particular individual; you're not going to get any sort of meaningful predicative ability."
I agree there is to much variation between people of the same race to classify them all under the same category. However you can't say a black and a white person is genetically identically apart from skin color. Thats what I am trying to get at, that we are all different. However that being said, you can look at averages, and if the average orient has 6 IQ points on the average white, its not an entirely unreasonable assumption to look at an orient and then a white and assume the orient is smarter. because statistical probability would say that he is.

"And, you pretty much have to be at least familiar with Dawkins' arguments in order to make a significant claim about biology in the modern world. Whether you agree with him or not is a matter of opinion (hopefully, backed up by experimental data, or at least subject to the other tenets of the scientific method), but discussing biology without familiarity with Dawkins is akin to discussing physics in a merely Newtonian understanding, without attempting to grapple with Einstein or Planck."
Who's Planck? (Jokes, he's the founder of Quantum Physics right)
I just thought Dawkins was some atheist preacher, nothing to do with biology.

That's Dawkins' later career.

And, as regard how you look at a hypothetical European contra a hypothetical East Asian, statistical probability doesn't apply at the individual level. The six point difference in average IQ is nothing compared to the 40 point IQ variation within the "races" commonly found at the 25/75 percentiles within the races. Given no signifyers other the presence of more melanin within the skin or an epicanthic fold in the eye, there's just no way to tell where on the stunningly wide bell curve any individual is with regards to any genetic trait. And again, all of this completely ignores the impact of culture, which seems to me to be far greater than the impact of genetic predisposition. For example, it wasn't all that long ago that black Americans risked death merely by being literate. Think this might create some selection bias as to the desireability of a literate mating partner, even where choice of mating partner is an issue? How many people grew up mentally equating the ability to read with a greater likelihood of being killed, and what sort of attitudes towards education do you think were passed on to their young as a result of this?

"And, as regard how you look at a hypothetical European contra a hypothetical East Asian, statistical probability doesn't apply at the individual level. The six point difference in average IQ is nothing compared to the 40 point IQ variation within the "races" commonly found at the 25/75 percentiles within the races. Given no signifyers other the presence of more melanin within the skin or an epicanthic fold in the eye, there's just no way to tell where on the stunningly wide bell curve any individual is with regards to any genetic trait."
even though the odds are small, 50.0001% (call it around there, but its probably higher) its still means the odds are higher.

"and again, all of this completely ignores the impact of culture, which seems to me to be far greater than the impact of genetic predisposition."
So your more in favor of nurture over nature?

"For example, it wasn't all that long ago that black Americans risked death merely by being literate. Think this might create some selection bias as to the desireability of a literate mating partner, even where choice of mating partner is an issue? How many people grew up mentally equating the ability to read with a greater likelihood of being killed, and what sort of attitudes towards education do you think were passed on to their young as a result of this?"
That doesn't just affect Culture, in this example, the more intelligent blacks would have been killed off, lowering the average IQ in the gene pool ever so slightly,

No, the more intelligent blacks would develop stronger anti-literacy taboos, given the survival disadvantage of literacy under those circumstances. And pass them on to their children.

What about the thirst for knowledge? That does actually make sense though...

Again, odds tell you things about groups of enough size to normalize out chance. But an individual is far too small a sample size for odds to be telling. As an analogy, every time I flip a coin, there's damn close to a 50% chance of two outcomes: heads or tails. That doesn't tell me anything about any particular flip of a coin, as to whether it will be heads or tails, merely that it's really, really unlikely that it will land on its edge. Even if I flip a coin 10,000 times, and through some freak of chance, wid up with 5,500 results of heads and 4,500 results of tails, I still cannot say with anything greater than 50% confidence that the next flip will be a tail.

Ortathaic....... say it loud and clear if you do not think sympatric speciation exists.

However this isn't a 50/50 chance. If it was, then even as a group there would be a negligible difference.

From the discussion it ssems to me that e have established that as individuals when the environmental pressures reallly build up our survival depends on that of our group (or race if you prefer). Indeed when we were but hunter gatherers on the African Savanah this too must have been the case. Thus NS theory at it is heart holds no basis for an all embracing concept of ''whole humanity empathy''. In Darwinian terms it is hogwash, when push comes to shove speciation will rule. Thus Social Darwinism is not some perversion of NS it actually lays it its heart.

NS theory?

"This is probably the one part of your post that I find bullshit. "

Haha, I'm not tall, but I still have to acknowledge the correlation. It does exist to a statistically significant level.

"I hate to break it to you, but evolution does work like that. Taken from Darwin:
It is not the strongest of the species that survive, but the one most responsive to change." Evolution is that change, and those who are evolutionarily better, are those who can live better in their current environment and respond accordingly to when it changes. Thats what it means to be evolutionarily superior. To be genetically superior is entirely different, however there is such thing as genetically superior due to evolution, for example, using height, the average orient is probably around 3 inches shorter then the average black. This is simply due to the gene pool that was in Asia compared to Africa 20,000 years ago. If height is an advantage, which generally in terms of speed and strength it is, then in this case the blacks are genetically superior to the Asians in terms of the evolution of the height gene. "

Hehe Fasces, you're wandering into my territory here now. Evolution is not that change, evolution is the response to that change. It is the dynamic environment that represents the change (though I suppose in an indirect manner evolution contributes to that change as other evolving species comprise part of that environment). Evolution doesn't make value judgements, height is in no way a universally acclaimed advantage. Adaptation is all about cost-benefit, and nothing comes free. If height confers no significant reproductive advantages compared to the cost of supporting the increased stature, then increased height will not continue to be selected. While height has increased over humanity's history, this is mostly relatively recently due to vast improvements in nutrition. Otherwise we do not see a robust continual increase in height that we might expect if height really were an indisputable advantage in our environment. We as humans might regard height as an advantage, but if it doesn't translate to reproductive success, evolution could care less what we think.

"even though the odds are small, 50.0001% (call it around there, but its probably higher) its still means the odds are higher. "

"because statistical probability would say that he is. "

I'm sorry, but I don't think you have a good grasp of statistical analysis. Say you're examining IQ differences. If you're given two curves with very wide distributions and only a small average difference between them, you cannot take two random individuals from each group and reliably say which one has the higher IQ without an extremely high probability of Type 1 Error. There's too much overlap, and your results have a very high chance of false significance. Your hypothesis cannot be statistically distinguished from the null. Maybe the differences are of some actuarial significance, but that's dealing with a much larger dataset and making very broad conclusions. You can't do the same with individuals. It's like in those crappy cop shows where they can zoom in on images and "enhance" it indefinitely, you can't do that in real life.

"That doesn't just affect Culture, in this example, the more intelligent blacks would have been killed off, lowering the average IQ in the gene pool ever so slightly"

There's no way intelligent African Americans were so systematically eradicated that it would to an appreciable decrease in their populations IQ in just a few generations. Culture is a far more plausible mechanism for the transmission of antiliteracy in this case. With regards to noted IQ differences between races, I think the jury is still out on that one. Every wave of immigrants from Italy, Eastern Europe, Ireland, etc. have all tested poorly on IQ tests initially, but within a few generations, have closed the gap with the rest of the native population. It wouldn't surprise me that African Americans have not yet closed the gap due to their unique social and historical background. That said, even if more comprehensive tests were conducted in a more equitable future and there was a persistent discrepancy in intelligence to be found, it would still not justify systematic discrimination.

NS theory?

Natural selection. The word theory to be taken in its convental scientific meaning

I do not use the term survival of the fittest because it is so easily'' misunderstood''. Darwin himself, however, did not invent this phrase it came from someone who would now be regarded as a 'racist' - Spencer. Interestingly, in view of later developments in social darwinism, he was also an economist,. So those argue we have misunderstood what Darwin really meant by using this phrase are being a little disingenuous (IMO)

"From the discussion it ssems to me that e have established that as individuals when the environmental pressures reallly build up our survival depends on that of our group (or race if you prefer). Indeed when we were but hunter gatherers on the African Savanah this too must have been the case. Thus NS theory at it is heart holds no basis for an all embracing concept of ''whole humanity empathy''. In Darwinian terms it is hogwash, when push comes to shove speciation will rule. Thus Social Darwinism is not some perversion of NS it actually lays it its heart. "

No, I'm sorry, that's total bullshit. Group selection has been practically mathematically disproved as a significant evolutionary force. For humanity to have been shaped to any appreciable amount by group selection would have required a level of Neolithic intertribal violence and genocide that is scarcely postulated in even the most violent conceptions of human prehistory. Then to say that races are pitted against each other in natural selection is completely absurd. There is simply no conceivable manner by which race could represent a unit of selection in evolution. Such would require bonds within races to be nearly as united as those of the cells in an individuals body and for races to completely eradicate other races nearly every generation. It's absolutely absurd.

And no, not even counting that Social Darwinism is based on a completely outdated model of evolution, but that natural selection is a natural phenomenon, like gravity. It makes no value judgements or moral prescriptions. Social Darwinism is distinctly separate from science in the fact that it goes beyond what "is" and treads into what "ought" to be. It is not science, it is misguided utopianism at best and I don't even want to plumb the depths of its worst.

"Hehe Fasces, you're wandering into my territory here now. Evolution is not that change, evolution is the response to that change. It is the dynamic environment that represents the change (though I suppose in an indirect manner evolution contributes to that change as other evolving species comprise part of that environment)."
By change, I meant change in the species as a result of the change in environment. Sorry if that wasn't clear.

"Evolution doesn't make value judgements, height is in no way a universally acclaimed advantage. Adaptation is all about cost-benefit, and nothing comes free. If height confers no significant reproductive advantages compared to the cost of supporting the increased stature, then increased height will not continue to be selected. While height has increased over humanity's history, this is mostly relatively recently due to vast improvements in nutrition. Otherwise we do not see a robust continual increase in height that we might expect if height really were an indisputable advantage in our environment. We as humans might regard height as an advantage, but if it doesn't translate to reproductive success, evolution could care less what we think."
Using height as an example. As height is considered an advantage, people are naturally more attracted to taller people (you can't deny that) as a result, taller people are more likely to reproduce then their shorter counter-parts, and therefore, due to hereditary genetics their children are more likely to be taller. In other words the tall gene is more likely to be passed on. Evolution does decide to keep the more desirable traits. (This is over-simplifying it, but you know I'm right).

"I'm sorry, but I don't think you have a good grasp of statistical analysis. Say you're examining IQ differences. If you're given two curves with very wide distributions and only a small average difference between them, you cannot take two random individuals from each group and reliably say which one has the higher IQ without an extremely high probability of Type 1 Error. There's too much overlap, and your results have a very high chance of false significance. Your hypothesis cannot be statistically distinguished from the null. Maybe the differences are of some actuarial significance, but that's dealing with a much larger dataset and making very broad conclusions. You can't do the same with individuals. It's like in those crappy cop shows where they can zoom in on images and "enhance" it indefinitely, you can't do that in real life."
But your missing the point, no matter the range, on average there is still a 6 IQ point gap. Thats means on average you will choose an orient with 6 IQ points more then your white counter-part. Which means even despite the range, you'll still be right at least 50.0001% of the time.

"There's no way intelligent African Americans were so systematically eradicated that it would to an appreciable decrease in their populations IQ in just a few generations. Culture is a far more plausible mechanism for the transmission of antiliteracy in this case. With regards to noted IQ differences between races, I think the jury is still out on that one. Every wave of immigrants from Italy, Eastern Europe, Ireland, etc. have all tested poorly on IQ tests initially, but within a few generations, have closed the gap with the rest of the native population. It wouldn't surprise me that African Americans have not yet closed the gap due to their unique social and historical background. That said, even if more comprehensive tests were conducted in a more equitable future and there was a persistent discrepancy in intelligence to be found, it would still not justify systematic discrimination."
There is other tests. Studies have shown a relationship between brain size and IQ, on average, the larger the brain, the higher your IQ. This probably is one of the reasons taller people have higher IQ's. Countless studies (My Bio textbook mentions 4) over the past 100 years have looked at the average brain size in race. On 3 of these studies, the Asians had the biggest brains, followed by the whites then the blacks. The other had the Asian and whites swapped round. 2 of the tests were done according to height (Brain Size/Height), one was done according weight (Brains weight/weight of specimen) and one was just on the brains size (This one had the European brain ranked highest). The point is, even in unofficial IQ tests, as in one where the patient is diseased and its just measured based on his brains capacity the ranks where still the same.

Genetically speaking (this sounds racist) orients are smarter then whites, which are smarter then blacks. Almost every study done in history has come to that conclusion.

Great posts Chrispminis!

"NS theory?

Natural selection. The word theory to be taken in its convental scientific meaning"
Of course, wasn't thinking.

"I do not use the term survival of the fittest because it is so easily'' misunderstood''. Darwin himself, however, did not invent this phrase it came from someone who would now be regarded as a 'racist' - Spencer. Interestingly, in view of later developments in social darwinism, he was also an economist,. So those argue we have misunderstood what Darwin really meant by using this phrase are being a little disingenuous (IMO)"
It can be easily misunderstood, however I never said that Darwin said that. I used the legit Darwin quote.

"No, I'm sorry, that's total bullshit. Group selection has been practically mathematically disproved as a significant evolutionary force. For humanity to have been shaped to any appreciable amount by group selection would have required a level of Neolithic intertribal violence and genocide that is scarcely postulated in even the most violent conceptions of human prehistory. Then to say that races are pitted against each other in natural selection is completely absurd. There is simply no conceivable manner by which race could represent a unit of selection in evolution. Such would require bonds within races to be nearly as united as those of the cells in an individuals body and for races to completely eradicate other races nearly every generation. It's absolutely absurd."
I never said the pitted against each other in natural selection. However they all had natural selection and each evolved during the time we have been on this planet. Thats why I said the races are different not superior/inferior, because its all about environment. However there are certain traits that apply in any environment, and comparing those is what I meant by deciding which race is truly evolutionarily best.

''Great posts Chrispminis! ''

OK so it seem as though we still have some people here who wish to say that speciation does not apply to humans. It must be very comforting for them, but me thinks that they are having their cake and eating it too. Well it is Christmas why not?

"And no, not even counting that Social Darwinism is based on a completely outdated model of evolution, but that natural selection is a natural phenomenon, like gravity. It makes no value judgements or moral prescriptions. Social Darwinism is distinctly separate from science in the fact that it goes beyond what "is" and treads into what "ought" to be. It is not science, it is misguided utopianism at best and I don't even want to plumb the depths of its worst."
Wrong, nature makes value judgement in to different ways:
Animals that aren't fit to survive in the environment they live in, generally die out leaving only the better animals to evolve.
Were more attracted to strong/fast/smart people then we are to weak/slow/dumb people. This means the strong/fast/smart genes are more likely to be carried on.

I'm going to sleep now, (its 4:30 here and I'm up in 3.5 hours for Christmas) so decided to end with the counter to the title of the thread:
Take that anti-racism!

"OK so it seem as though we still have some people here who wish to say that speciation does not apply to humans."

Who said that? When? I said it could happen. Indeed I said if we ever migrated to other worlds that it would certainly happen.

I am not sure what your point is fullhamish? Are you arguing that east Asians should regarded as separate species to western Europeans?