How They Plan to Shut Us Up.

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

Incorrect. Those algorithims are very much supervised. Let's take STRUCTURE as an example (but they all work this way). A human MUST tell the algorithim what k to produce. You can try to pass the buck to instead give the algorithim a way to calculate k, but it will still being doing so with the criteria a human gave it. The problem isn't that there is some undiscovered objective k value. The problem is that the way ML packages are set up to begin with makes the assumption of k mandatory.

We can genetically distinguish Scots within their own village and classify them into different races. Swedish folk in one town are more genetically similar to another than they are to Swedish folk generally. It's all a matter of how closely you choose to zoom the telescope in. You NEVER find a hard boundary on this topic until you zoom out enough to find an actual subspecies, which unfortunately for you is not a well defined concept in genetics.

A European is not on average 100,000 years of evolution seperated from anyone. You couldn't even calculate a variable like that. It is a meaningless number. You would have to estimate when a population diverged, then try to extrapolate how much influence genetic drift, convergent evolution, and local extirpations produced genetic alignment even amidst two distinct breeding populations. Then you would have to translate that speculative metric of diversity (itself a difficult calculation--do we count repeats in the code? Inversions? Transpositions?) from 'genetic difference' into 'years,' as if the rate of human evolution were a static variable that tracked well onto time. Which it certainly does not, given that the past 100,000 years of evolution were immensely consequential only at highly staggered intervals. Sometimes evolution moves in leaps, sometimes in baby steps, sometimes not at all. But all of this is going way over your head I'm sure. Standard alt right

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

Incorrect. Those algorithims are very much supervised.

You don't know what the terms even mean. Please read up on what a supervised algorithm is.

A human MUST tell the algorithim what k to produce.

That's not supervised.

We can genetically distinguish Scots within their own village and classify them into different races. Swedish folk in one town are more genetically similar to another than they are to Swedish folk generally. It's all a matter of how closely you choose to zoom the telescope in. You NEVER find a hard boundary on this topic until you zoom out enough to find an actual subspecies, which unfortunately for you is not a well defined concept in genetics.

Welcome to the alt-right. You perfectly described our beliefs about race.

A European is not on average 100,000 years of evolution seperated from anyone.

I have this number from the experts in the field, David Reich and Svante Päabo, from one of their lectures.

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

I know exactly what supervised learning is. YOU are the one taking a specific computer science term ('supervised') and pretending that it connects back to the dictionary definition. It doesn't. Those algorithims ARE supervised in that humans provide the k value. They correspond to the dictionary definition of supervision, which is the one you were trying to shoehorn in under the guise of the specialized term. That's what I was calling you out on. The k value is determined by humans in 100% of cases. Find me one where it wasn't. I have citations ready to take down that argument from the last time an alt righter lost this exact same debate to me--and he was a grad student in computational statistics. Smart guy! Still wrong.

Welcome to the alt-right. You perfectly described our beliefs about race.

You actually want to talk about subspecies?? Eh... let's not. You can take that move back. I would take your queen with that so I'll pretend you didn't even say this. I mean, unless you DO want to talk about subspecies. Your call.

I have this number from the experts in the field, David Reich and Svante Päabo, from one of their lectures.

Yes, scientists make bullshit claims that they are rightly called out for. Some people, such as yourself, are hoodwinked. I gave examples of specific scientific processes that would need to be settled to even begin to assess this metric of difference in years, do you have an appropriately technical rebuttal? How would you account for genetic drift in this calculation of years of difference? Are you factoring in inversions, transpositions, and repeats of genes? You know, the genetic similarity between humans and chimps can vary wildly, 10% or more, based on how you choose to quantify what a single gene is. There are position effects, VNTRs, etc etc. Genetics is a lot more complicated than you realize.

Look, you are clearly smart. You remind me of some of my brighter students. I wish lefties put in even a fraction of the thought that you have put into genetics. But the truth is that this field is WAY more complex than you realize. Of course genes modulate behavior and that behavior can be predicted based on ancestry. But that doesn't mean that race is a scientific concept in genetics, it isn't. It's a social science concept. I'm not here to tell you that you can't predict a person's temperament by looking at them. You probably can. But your annoyance with the fact that society refuses to say that out loud does NOT mean that you get to play fast and loose with genetics as a science.

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

I know exactly what supervised learning is.

You clearly do not. Please learn what supervised vs. unsupervised is.

I will repeat this since you did not refute it and you simply agreed with our position on race:

We can genetically distinguish Scots within their own village and classify them into different races. Swedish folk in one town are more genetically similar to another than they are to Swedish folk generally. It's all a matter of how closely you choose to zoom the telescope in. You NEVER find a hard boundary on this topic until you zoom out enough to find an actual subspecies, which unfortunately for you is not a well defined concept in genetics.

Welcome to the alt-right. You perfectly described our beliefs about race.

As for this:

Yes, scientists make bullshit claims that they are rightly called out for.

I agree, that I have not myself done the calculations, and that I will have to defer to the authority of Svante Paabo for the claim of 100k years of divergent evolution between Europeans and Subsaharan africans (on average)- that is not to say zero gene flow has happend. Considering he's politically on the opposite side of the spectrum of me, he is likely UNDERESTIMATING, if anything. But to confirm I would have to do the calculations myself, which I'm not going to do- at least not this year.

Of course genes modulate behavior and that behavior can be predicted based on ancestry. But that doesn't mean that race is a scientific concept in genetics, it isn't. It's a social science concept.

The social science concept "race" is very different from the biological concept "race". One is based on ancestry and genetics (biological race) and the other is based on how people PERCEIVE you.
South Indians look black, so they would be black in social science BUT they are not black according to the biological concept of race. And they weren't grouped with negros either, historically.
I think you come to this debate with preconceived notions and are highly influenced by our modern culture.

Look, you are clearly smart. You remind me of some of my brighter students.

Thank you