How can people keep repeating that 'there's no race, we are all 99.9% the same' mantra?

Question

In case your wondering, not even the people who came up with that number stick by it now.

http://www.world-science.net/othernews/070904_human-variation.htm

Also, we don't even have an exact number of how many genes there are in a human, so I can't see how they stick a number to it.

Quite a few science types are now backing race as a biological reality, not a social construct, as it turns out we are not quite as closely related as they thought we were. There's only 2% difference between a Bonobo and a Human (by whatever odd method they used) and human variation is more like 0.7% (not 0.1%). So 0.7% would give quite a bit of variation, I'd say.

Bear in mind the famous quote..

"We share half our genes with the banana"

Source- Evolutionary biologist Robert May, President of Britain's Royal Society 2001

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=health&res=9C01E0DC1038F933A05754C0A9649C8B63

http://www.gnxp.com/MT2/archives/001313.html

http://raceandgenomics.ssrc.org/Hammonds/

http://www.dnawitness.net/cs.htm

Answer 1

"JAMES WATSON, the DNA pioneer who claimed Africans are less intelligent than whites, has been found to have 16 times more genes of black origin than the average white European.

An analysis of his genome shows that 16% of his genes are likely to have come from a black ancestor of African descent. By contrast, most people of European descent would have no more than 1%."

Answer 2

I am not a banana! I am not a vegetable either. Therefore, I think these people are nuts.

Answer 3

You have to forgive Patois, as she is ideologically blinded.

Of course there is variation among populations and Lewontin was also ideologically blinded.

Populational variance is nothing new in evolutionary biology.

Now, the question is what, if any, difference it makes outside of physiological difference.

Answer 4

"IQ" is a sorely misunderstood topic, though, that can't be used as a judge of actual intelligence between two different races etc.  It's like dancing....who's a better dancer, a ballroom dancer or a ballet dancer?  Also, like those dancers, a person skilled in one style or type of intelligence can't be a reliable judge of intelligence based on other criteria.  A ballet dancer is *not* going to be the best judge of iceskating or football or dominoes etc.  

IQ is always assumed to be an average of 100 in any specific race/environment that you test in.  In other words, an Afrikan bushman who can't read is still assumed to be an average of 100 IQ based on the societal intelligence that he possesses.  An IQ test specifically designed to test that bushman on his specific intelligence will always show that.  You can't create an IQ test based on western knowledge and apply it to that fellow....it simply doesn't work.  

I'm not going to address "race" since I agree with you....and more and more scientists these days are as well.

Answer 5

Tilly, you need to take a course in DNA studies, and quit reading the nonsense in propaganda filled websites opened by idiots.

Just because you don't choose to believe it, doesn't mean its not true.

Answer 6

IT doesn't get over it. The person who sided with this theory was Jim Crow.

And we all know about him.

Any person regardless of how they look like with the same history are more likely genetically  related together.

All your simply saying is that. ^

Races is the human word not for group but for species. There are different species of animal. They can't mate together and have children. Humans can. Thus not making different species.

P.S.

Anyone can find the same amount ( or more ) of up-to-date links against your arguments. It's the internet.

Answer 7

IQ measures the way a person answers a question.  If you aren't educated to answer these type of questions, you will score low on the test despite being intelligent.  Please do some extensive research instead of reading one thing and going off on a tangent!!!!

Answer 8

The neanderthal genome, to date, maps as 99.6% the same as sapien. Does that mean it is wrong to consider them a separate race... much less a species?  Chuckle, I suspect the neandertal would do quiet well as a weight lifter or athelete in today's society.  I hope this does not disturb the OOA crowd too much.

On IQ tests:  An old Australian aboriginal was said to be able to track by smell, as he could track lost hikers from trails they left up to a month ago.  He explained that he tracked by sight alone & spent months with investigators trying to teach them his methods of tracking both humans & animals.  The old man eventually concluded Europeans were just too stupid to learn. So far we've not determined a method of measuring skills we cannot understand.   One need only spend some time with bushmen to see why IQ tests are so limited in measuring intelligence.

Neandertal stuff:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/natur...

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2...

Aboriginal Trackers:

http://www.epinions.com/content_24138630...

http://www.vibe.com.au/vibe/corporate/ce...

Answer 9

You need to read the book, "The Seven Daughters of Eve."  It's an excellent book on where the DNA comes from; which part of the world it comes from and speculation on how it spread to encompass the world.

I've said it before, I'll say it again... one can literally make "research" say anything ones bias causes them to want it to say.   Research is only as good as the researcher's integrity.  It's a very wise person who don't make judgments based on "research."

We are indeed all one, whether black, white, or somewhere in between.  Just as there are many different breeds of animals, we too have differences, but we all belong to the human race.  That makes us all the same.

Answer 10

Everything gets "politicized" in our modern culture, and in my estimate that's what the "99.9% Same Mantra" clearly indicates, obviously a move towards the political agenda to homogenize the global Races into a "global citizen" with blurred ethnic distinctions.

But I’m still hung up on the origins of ethnos; science has not adequately explained this in my analysis.  Environmental influences fall short to thoroughly and satisfactorily justify the radical physiological racial distinctions.  The Mongoloid Race has long torsos, short legs, almond eyes with inverted eyelids, and one hair color (black to dark brown range)… The Negroid Race has black skin, disproportionately larger jaws to their smaller craniums, and one hair color (black to dark brown range)… The Caucasian Race has white skin, disproportionately larger craniums to their smaller jaws, and multiple hair colors (black, brown, red and blonde)…  

We are give the ridiculous rationale that black skin of the Negroids “evolved” due to the African environment being higher in elevation and thus closer to the sun.  If that’s not pseudo-science, then I don’t know what is.  If you took a tribe of Africans and put them on Antarctica for a million years will there skin turn white?  I don’t think so.  Clearly these physiological distinctions in the Races are due to an “external source”, and involved “genetic engineering”.

I’m not saying its extraterrestrial beings, or God… it is very possible that these variations exist due to the genetic engineering conducted by a former “global technoculture” that was completely wiped off the face of the Earth by an extinction level cosmocataclysm, which Plato alluded to, and we have no clue of their former existence, though ancient fragments of that advanced culture are everywhere but have been misinterpreted by Science due to its “linear thinking”.

Answer 11

It is sad that political correctness attempts to blind us to the obvious.  Every race is different, though I tend to agree there is some blurring around the borders as obviously there are mixtures of different races.  It is equally obvious that a Bantu, or Masai is significantly different than a white European and both are significantly different from a Chinese.  Because they evolved (perhaps it is more delicate to say developed) in different habitats, it stands to reason that those with certain features characterized by each race may be better at certain tasks.  That is not to say that any race if superior to others and certainly there is a lot of overlap anyway.  Although some would be offended, why I couldn't tell you, but it may very well be that the Masai are faster runners and higher jumpers on average, the Whites are better swimmers, and Eskimoes are better surviving in the cold.  It is because of their racial differences that make them supremely adapted to their native habitats.  To not recognize that is pretty silly IMO.

Answer 12

I don't think anyone believes there is not "race".  However, racial purity in this day and age is a joke - it very seldom exists anymore and my feeling is that we will eliminate a lot of the world's problems when no one can even come close to calling themselves a distinct and separate "race".

I say we all marry someone a different color and religion than our own and eventually, we'll all look alike and have to use body art to look different and tell each other apart....

Answer 13

They are victims of PC propaganda.  The PC crowd is afraid to face the truth.  I wonder how long they think they can keep the lid on it?

Answer 14

Racism is a mental and social disease.

Edit:  Dividing humanity along any arbitrary lines, like "race", is a moronic maneuver that people like Hitler and other such bigots use . . . first, divide people along some arbitrary BS line, like Jew / Christian, Black / White, North of the border people / South of the border people, male / female, then compare the two sides in order to "prove" some slime-ball version of "superiority".  Once the bigot gets to that point, it's just a hop and a skip and a gas chamber away from "proving" that the "inferior" side does not have souls or, merely being "inferior", are not fully human in some way.  And, BINGO!  Once we so righteously ascertain the differences and superiority of ourselves and the sub-human status of the other side, we can, and historically do quite often, justify slaughtering, exploiting, enslaving and discriminating against those people.  Bigotry, of any kind, is a mental and social disease, like syphilis.  Would you like for me to say that again?