How They Plan to Shut Us Up.

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[–]milkmender11 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

I am a geneticist. Race is not a scientific concept in genetics. There are some papers that tried to argue for a definition of race by using machine learning software packages, but these arguments relied on statistical analysis and hinge entirely upon feeding a computer the number of races you want to see. Race is politically and historically important, but it is not a scientific term in genetics. It has no definition in genetic science. There have been many proposed definitions that all suffer from the same problems, the biggest one being that there is no objective measurement of racial division in humans. The subspecies concept is the closest thing approaching a definition of race that one might use in genetics, but it doesn't apply to humans. Some of the more sophisticated 'Race Realist' thought involves trying to compare the fixation index for humans against the fixation index for known subspecies of some animal populations. The fixation index is a calculated variable in genetics that measures the extent to which genes are ubiquitous within a species ('at fixation,' as opposed to various alleles). That is a misguided effort for a variety of reasons which I won't bother to spell out because I have probably lost you already. It was a good attempt on their part though, or at least shows a slightly better understanding of genetics science than I usually see from the alt right. I'm usually dealing with people at a different level. Around about say... well, your level.

Funnily enough, here on saidit most of the race realists I debate quickly realize that they need to try and get away from the genetics discussion because they immediately are out of their league. So they maneuever the conversation to history, politics, society. Which is hilarious, they go the route of the postmodernists. It's a more fruitful realm of debate for them though, I don't have as much to say about all that.

[–]DragonerneJesus is white 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Race is not a scientific concept in genetics.

According to which authority? You? Who made you the supreme authority of science? Science knows no consensus nor authority. Sorry to take away your religion and your church.

There have been many proposed definitions that all suffer from the same problems, the biggest one being that there is no objective measurement of racial division in humans.

There is no such thing as "objective measurement" for anything.

Genetic clusters of races perfectly match the historical concepts in science known as human races. The fact that this is the reality we live in is something you have to deal with in order to debunk the concept.
I can pull up a 1933 scientific map of the human races and they will correspond to the genetic maps that are generated by unsupervised machine learning models.

Your "so-called" rebuttal is entirely semantic and without substance. It is a political position, not a scientific one.

[–]milkmender11 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

According to which authority? You? Who made you the supreme authority of science? Science knows no consensus nor authority. Sorry to take away your religion and your church.

Ok. Then define race scientifically within genetics. Not a fringe paper, a pet theory. Provide the established scientific definition of race as it is understood in genetics.

There is no such thing as "objective measurement" for anything.
What are you now, Heidegger? If we are doing science, we MUST presume objective measurements. At the very least we can take an anti-realist philosophy and accept that our presumptions may ultimately be wrong, but we still have to do it for science to work. Did you want to talk science or philosophy?? Well, it wouldn't be the first time that an alt righter tried to get me off the science and onto some other topic. Honestly, that's EVERY time. And it is indeed a smart move, because you weren't going to win on the science.

Genetic clusters of races perfectly match the historical concepts in science known as human races.

DING DING DING!! Lol. Honestly, I didn't write the prior paragraph before seeing this part of your post. No lie. I just know from many of these debates that yall always try to move the conversation away from science and to philosophy or HISTORY, as you do here. Since when does history change scientific facts? History is a humanity, not a science. Of COURSE clusters match historical partitions because HUMANS SET THE K VALUE. They intentionally male the clusters resemble historical categories. This happens in 100% of all machine learning cluster operations for race. You can pass the buck by asking the algorithim to calculate its own k... based on the parameters you provide. Which is just providing k with extra steps.

I'm not saying that there are 0 races. I'm saying that there are anywhere from 0 races to as many races as there are genetic profiles, and there are precisely 0 scientific techniques to make any of those numbers more empirically justified than any other. You are astute in that you seem to realize that you MUST leave science and look to history in order to find the k that you want. Geez this is a mirror image of the same conversation I have with every alt righter on this subject. You guys are always so smart but it works against you sometimes. There really is no substitute for cracking open a modern genetics textbook.

[–]DragonerneJesus is white 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Ok. Then define race scientifically within genetics. Not a fringe paper, a pet theory. Provide the established scientific definition of race as it is understood in genetics.

You have it backwards. No wonder you're confused. Race is the caucasian race, and within it we have the english race, the scottish race, and so on. It is based on divergent/common ancestry and you can zoom out or in as you please.
We then see if genetics correspond to and agree with our understanding of race, and wouldn't you know? It perfectly does. We aren't imposing a structure onto the genetics to make it fit our understanding of race. We aren't creating a definition based on our knowledge of genetics. In fact, the strength of the concept of race is that it came BEFORE genetics but even then, genetics confirm our concept. This is the strength. This is called scientific. No overfitting, no ad-hoc changes based on empiri, etc. Simply does the 'model fit the new data' and yes it does.

If we are doing science, we MUST presume objective measurements.

Not how science works. Any measurement is based on presumptions and earlier hypothesises. You might consider something "objective" but it is only within your paradigm.

I just know from many of these debates that yall always try to move the conversation away from science and to philosophy or HISTORY, as you do here.

No. I did not invoke history. I invoked the scientific understanding of race before our universities in the west were taken over by marxists after ww2.
"historical concepts in science known as human races"
If you have problems with reading comprehension, then try to re-read paragraphs to increase your comprehension.

If you haven't noticed, I don't subscribe to your "scientific" (political) priests or so-called authorities or "consensus". I adhere to actual science. If you want to debunk the concept of race, then don't change the definition or the concept, and then debunk that. This is a strawman and entirely semantic. Instead work with the definition and understanding that scientists used before your "priests" changed the definitions.

Of COURSE clusters match historical partitions because HUMANS SET THE K VALUE. They intentionally male the clusters resemble historical categories. This happens in 100% of all machine learning cluster operations for race.

This simply shows that you do not even understand what an unsupervised algorithm is or how machine learning works. Why do you think I said unsupervised instead of using the word supervised algorithm? It is specifically to avoid what you are postulating here, but you fail to understand the distinction- likely because this is not your field of expertise.
To make it easy for you to understand: we aren't intentionally making the clusters resemble historical categories. Literally the opposite. If you continue to fail to see the distinction here, then please let me know, and I may spend some time to elaborate on the basics of machine learning.
There is in fact ZERO reasons why the clusters should or ought to or would resemble the historical clusters IF race was not a thing. But because race is a real thing, then the clusters do resemble historical categories. Please take some time to consider these two sentences thoroughly.
Your confusion might also come from a lack of ability to understand conditional dependencies. Have you ever taken any courses in conditional probability?

There really is no substitute for cracking open a modern genetics textbook.

Appeal to authority. I don't adhere to your religion or your priests.

Your problem is that our human genetics perfectly match the historical categories, and your only arguments so far have been appeal to authority, consensus, semantics, and worst of all: complete lack of understanding of the basic algorithms used in the field of genetics. I'm looking forward to you coming with any scientific arguments.