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kengineer Donating Member (136 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-26-03 10:10 PM
Original message
Genetic Freedom Philosophical concept
Please note that in order to discuss this concept you need to "detach" yourself from this world, and actually think philosophically and conceptually... It's difficult and I always have trouble conveying this to people but it's a real concept so what do you think?


Should we allow the human race to continue to freely exist and branch into more than one human race, coexisting productively and peacefully upon this planet with their beautiful lands and cultures that we can all take wonderful and enriching vacations to, OR should we continue enforcing the current policy of one human race only? What is the benefit of the entire human race being just one human race? Peace is the primary goal. Can people be educated with a peaceful philosophy that allows more than one human race to coexist upon our planet, productively and peacefully with one another? So that becomes the argument: “Do you believe that human peace can be maintained along with population diversity using a more advanced educational philosophy, or do you believe that human peace can only be maintained by enforcing a one human race only policy, at gunpoint?” The phrase “at gunpoint” is accurate because laws are enforced at gunpoint

Many people’s heads are spinning at this point thinking “what is this guy talking about?” To understand the purpose of the previous paragraph, we must understand that simple proximity coupled with a “one race only” educational/media environment leads to the blending of races into one “blended” race, over a long time (centuries). Some people say this argument is incorrect and that is fine because the data keeps coming in every year and time will tell the truth so we need not argue about it any further. Looking back over the past millennia we can certainly see this proximity/education trend in effect and many examples are available this century.

But now there is one more problem. To understand the second paragraph (above), it must be understood that the definition of the word race, in its most fundamental form, is: different human populations which have experienced isolated reproduction from one another over centuries, millennia, or longer. All human population diversity upon the planet was created through isolated reproduction of the species upon different land zones.

At this point many people provide the rudimentary human genetic data obtained thus far regarding how 75% of the genetic difference in humans exists within a race rather than between races AND 25% of the genetic difference in humans exists between the races. This rudimentary data initially indicates that a single race is a genetically diverse population AND the 25% must affect the appearance of people quite a bit since visually we can most often tell one race from another (as long as they are not too closely related like Chinese and Japanese).

People have a difficult time seeing these arguments even though they are obvious. It requires an open mind and there’s the difficulty. It is likely the many associations we have regarding racism (etc..) within our minds that prevents us from seeing the simple logic posed here regarding human populations.

No one has verbally undone this argument, although many people have simply conceded that they support one human race only. The argument then ends with me insuring that they fully understand the ramifications of their position of one human race; they support ending population diversity upon planet Earth and they do not support a certain type of freedom for individuals.

Groups are a collection of individuals who are freely gathering into the group. Genetics have been voided as criteria for group freedom. So that particular freedom, not one individual has. Technically, people have this freedom, but whenever it is OPENLY exercised people receive harsh verbal attacks, and so it really isn’t freedom as we define freedom here in the United States – pursuit of happiness. Which brings us back to the original paragraph in this essay: “Do you believe that human peace can be maintained along with population diversity using a more advanced educational philosophy, or do you believe that human peace can only be maintained by enforcing a one human race only policy, at gunpoint?”


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Maple Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-26-03 10:19 PM
Response to Original message
1. The reality is
One world, one race. The human race.

And eventually we'll all be intermarried and the same outwardly as we are genetically. Bronze and beautiful, with the best features of everybody.

We've been moving in that direction from the beginning.

Later on...if and when we ever diversify ourselves deliberately for some reason...survival elsewhere for example...hopefully we'll be well enough educated and socialized by then that it doesn't start some form of racism up again.
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kengineer Donating Member (136 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-26-03 10:23 PM
Response to Reply #1
2. Thanks
Edited on Tue Aug-26-03 10:39 PM by kengineer
Thank you, that was a very advanced response compared to what I'm used to.

You can guess what I'm used to...

You are correct regarding the "racist mentality" which is the real problem behind pursuing "Genetic Freedom" right now.

But do allow me to point this out: You, and certainly myself are "advanced enough" socially to not become hate mongers...

So we'll just have to wait and see what happens. If enough people develop more advanced minds and intellects who knows, maybe we can have a beautifully diverse world of many lands and cultures (like Lord of the rings for example) without going through the complete homogenization phase first.

It's a crazy world!

For clarity and accuracy you said "we've been moving in that direction from the beginning." Technically from the beginning of the Human race we've actually experienced tens of millenia of "Genetic Freedom" of the natural variety which is what has produced the great population diversity upon the planet... it is only in the more recent history that we've begun moving towards the one human race direction.

Ken
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newyawker99 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Aug-27-03 07:08 AM
Response to Reply #2
5. Hi kengineer!!
Welcome to DU!! :toast:
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kengineer Donating Member (136 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Aug-27-03 06:30 PM
Response to Reply #1
7. For the record
Edited on Wed Aug-27-03 06:31 PM by kengineer
You wrote: The reality is One world, one race. The human race.


As stated in my original post, I must now point out to you that you do not support the continued existance of human population diversity upon planet Earth.

Later
:D
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Maple Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-31-03 01:54 PM
Response to Reply #7
95. We don't have any
genetic diversity, and never did...we are all one race.

We do have cultural diversity....beliefs imposed upon us by our society which usually have no basis in reality.

Should it continue...?

Only if we take the best things from each society....and deep six the worst.
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kengineer Donating Member (136 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-31-03 02:14 PM
Response to Reply #95
101. Strange to say the least...
Edited on Sun Aug-31-03 02:17 PM by kengineer
YOU: We dont' have any genetic diversity, and never did...we are all one race.

ME: On the semantics issue, I agree completely that we are all one human race. But we are much more than one human ethnicity. I can't help you if you think we don't have any genetic diversity. That's a strange position to take. I would be curious to know: is that the conclusion you gathered from the public educatinal system? and if so where? If the answer to that is yes, this is precisely the educational influence i was talking about in my essay!

Regardless I'm trying to cut the thread off and send people here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=234674&mesg_id=255271&page=

peace
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Maple Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-31-03 08:35 PM
Response to Reply #101
125. Ethnicity is a human construct
Edited on Sun Aug-31-03 08:54 PM by Maple
and totally artificial.

We have no major genetic diversity...eye color, hair, vulnerability to a disease from genetic damage...minor stuff...we are all one race. One species.

Where did I get it from?? Try science.

On edit: Quickest thing I could find, not perfect but it'll do:

""There is more and more hard genetic evidence that all of humanity has evolved as a single unit, with regional variations, but that's all they are, slight variations," said Templeton. "A race has to be a sharply defined, geographically circumscribed population that represents an isolated or nearly isolated lineage within the species. There's nothing at all like that in humanity. In terms of the living world, it's really hard to find a species so genetically homogeneous across its populations as humans."

Alan R. Templeton, Ph.D., professor of biology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis.

http://news-info.wustl.edu/tips/page/normal/184.html
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kengineer Donating Member (136 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-31-03 09:47 PM
Response to Reply #125
128. Just some highlights of the link you just gave me...
Edited on Sun Aug-31-03 09:51 PM by kengineer
To clear it up for you:

First, I recommend you send the Dr. an e-mail and ask if ethnicity is a social construct... he will answer no it is not. Race... yes is a social construct per the agreed upon definition of that word, however, historically people have simply used the word sloppily. It's a semantics thing.

The highlights from the Dr.:

"I'm not saying there aren't genetic differences among human populations," he cautioned. "There are differences, but they don't define historical lineages that have persisted for a long time, which is one criterion for race in a scientific sense."

ME: Note that when he says "long time" He would tell you that "long time" ranges from 2,000 to 20,000 years or more. I'd have to ask him myself to find out the latest thinking on that.

and then there is this:

Templeton said that the genetic variation between different geographical populations in humans — what some might incorrectly consider to be "race" — does make a difference when it comes to transplanting organs because organs have to be genetically compatible. The best predictor of overall genetic differences is how far apart geographically the ancestral populations are.


ME: Just as people in the past and present have misunderstood the word race, you currently misunderstand what these scientists are saying...

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Maple Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-31-03 10:05 PM
Response to Reply #128
129. You aren't clearing anything up
You're shovelling it.

Minor differences only...like between you and the guy down the street...so he's a blue eyed blonde and you're green eyed with red hair. Doesn't mean you can do an organ transplant, but he's as human as you.

Sorry, but there is only one race.

Ethnicity is an artificial construct, born out of distance and isolation. As are borders. Has been since the first person crawled out of the cave.

And if you're talking about your color...the 'white' race is a mixture of all kinds of people. Mongrels in fact. Angles, Jutes, Saxons, Danes, Celts, Norse, Indian, Italian, Greek, Slav.....

Which is why we're not 'white' at all or even pink...but beige...beige is light brown you know.

And funny...it's your color I suspect you've been talking about all along.

Because genetically we're virtually homogenous. Eye, hair and skin color are only minor variations.

And if you actually had a science background, you'd know that.

I know this disappoints you...but reality bites.

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kengineer Donating Member (136 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-31-03 11:33 PM
Response to Reply #129
131. Strange...
Edited on Sun Aug-31-03 11:39 PM by kengineer
You say I'm shoveling it... I simply told you what the Dr. said.

YOU: Minor differences only...like between you and the guy down the street...so he's a blue eyed blonde and you're green eyed with red hair. Doesn't mean you can do an organ transplant, but he's as human as you.

ME: He's as human as me... and you think your enlightening me or something???


YOU: Sorry, but there is only one race.

ME: Yes, I know... we've been through this... so why are you sorry?


YOU: Ethnicity is an artificial construct, born out of distance and isolation. As are borders. Has been since the first person crawled out of the cave.

ME: This is contrary to the good Dr. that you quoted. Genetic Differences in ethnicities exist... some ethicities are more different than others and some are more similar than others.


YOU: And if you're talking about your color...the 'white' race is a mixture of all kinds of people. Mongrels in fact. Angles, Jutes, Saxons, Danes, Celts, Norse, Indian, Italian, Greek, Slav.....

ME: There are all kinds of ethnic groups within the "white group." There has also been lots of ethnic recombination.


YOU: Which is why we're not 'white' at all or even pink...but beige...beige is light brown you know.

ME: There are many, many people who are quite white... it just depends on their specific ethnic group or current phenotypic showing.


YOU: And funny...it's your color I suspect you've been talking about all along.

ME: ?


YOU: Because genetically we're virtually homogenous. Eye, hair and skin color are only minor variations.

ME: There are more than just eye, hair, and skin color differences as evidenced by not being able to transplant in people who are not genetically compatible. It's a relative thing. Some ethnic groups are closer to each other and some more far away... you know this. Why all the fuss?


ME: And if you actually had a science background, you'd know that.

YOU: Not even the genetic scientists fully know all the differences yet Einstein... yet you know... ?


ME: I know this disappoints you...but reality bites.

YOU: reality is just fine, do you have a problem with it?


Here's the bottom line and this paragraph is accurate. Feel free to submit it to any scientist you'd like:

As an example, let's say there are three phenotypic alleles unique to an ethnic group which, when combined, give them a specific trait that no other ethnic group has. Most members of this ethnic group have all three double alleles at the same time and have the trait. If all members of this ethnic group mate with another ethnic group that has none of those alleles, what then is the probability of seeing all three of those phenotypes together at the same time within a child of the future? Close to zero... but not zero. The more ethno-specific phenotypes we add to this scenario, the more this probability approaches zero. In the real world with hundreds of ethno-specific phenotypes and mutations the probability of producing a human with the original phenotypes, under this scenario is, for all practical purposes, zero. Thusly, the aggregate phenotypes of that original ethnic group have gone extinct.
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Maple Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-31-03 11:47 PM
Response to Reply #131
133. Not strange at all
I know exactly what the Dr said...I posted it, remember?

Your faulty interpretation is your problem. It was in plain English.

I'm sorry I'm the one to break it to you, but I think you're on the wrong website. You sound like you'd prefer something with more K's in it.

If we were all exactly the same with interchangeable parts...we'd be clones. And a disease that would kill one person...could kill every person on earth. NOT a useful survival trait.

However, minor differences remain just that...minor.

You are trying to make those minor variations into a superior/inferior argument...and we've known for years that biologically there is only one race. There is no 'superior'...even from people who think beige is white.

Lay your hood over your arm...you'll see the difference between the two immediately.



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kengineer Donating Member (136 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Sep-01-03 12:13 AM
Response to Reply #133
138. Talking with you is like talking to a child
The amount of sense you make is near zero. So let's be friends and end the conversation at this time.

Beige is white, you say? You must be smoking something and I'm serious. You have seen fair skinned people right?

Yes, conversation is over.
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Sufi Marmot Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-26-03 11:55 PM
Response to Original message
3. I'm not sure I understand your point...
...but I'll wade in anyway...

Should we allow the human race to continue to freely exist and branch into more than one human race, coexisting productively and peacefully upon this planet with their beautiful lands and cultures that we can all take wonderful and enriching vacations to, OR should we continue enforcing the current policy of one human race only?
To me it sounds like you're confusing "race" with "species" or "ethnic group"...Species is pretty well defined biologically, the other two aren't particularly biologically relevant...


What is the benefit of the entire human race being just one human race? Peace is the primary goal. Can people be educated with a peaceful philosophy that allows more than one human race to coexist upon our planet, productively and peacefully with one another? So that becomes the argument: “Do you believe that human peace can be maintained along with population diversity using a more advanced educational philosophy, or do you believe that human peace can only be maintained by enforcing a one human race only policy, at gunpoint?” The phrase “at gunpoint” is accurate because laws are enforced at gunpoint
What's all this talk of maintaining a "one human race" policy at gunpoint? I mean, doesn't it all come down to a question of free will regarding with whom to copulate and bear children? Genetically, race is meaningless, it's just a handful of highly visible phenotypes (skin color, eye shape, etc.) - the spectrum of skin color, for instance, evolved in response to environmental conditions, namely the amount of sunlight received. And I'm not sure that there isn't more "intraracial" violence and strife in recent history (WWI, WWII - European Theater, the Holocaust, Stalin's Great Terror (mostly), Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Liberia, the entire Middle East...) than "interracial" (Vietnam, Korea, WWII - Pacific Theater, European colonization of the Americas). At worst it seems to be an even spit...Are you implying that if there were no ethnic/racial distinctions that there would be utopia on Earth? I guess I'm cynical enough to belive that human beings would just find other excuses to kill each other (religion, economics, resource competition, etc...) Where is this "one race" policy maintained at gunpoint? It occurs to me that in most racially heterogeneous countries, people can copulate and breed with whomever they want (are there any where they can't...?)


Many people’s heads are spinning at this point thinking “what is this guy talking about?” To understand the purpose of the previous paragraph, we must understand that simple proximity coupled with a “one race only” educational/media environment leads to the blending of races into one “blended” race, over a long time (centuries). Some people say this argument is incorrect and that is fine because the data keeps coming in every year and time will tell the truth so we need not argue about it any further. Looking back over the past millennia we can certainly see this proximity/education trend in effect and many examples are available this century.
But now there is one more problem. To understand the second paragraph (above), it must be understood that the definition of the word race, in its most fundamental form, is: different human populations which have experienced isolated reproduction from one another over centuries, millennia, or longer. All human population diversity upon the planet was created through isolated reproduction of the species upon different land zones.

Gotta quibble a bit here. "Race" is a social construct that classifies people based on a handful of visible phenotypes. Human diversity arises from random mutation, selection for (or at least maintenence of) those mutations, and the random distribution of those alleles into progeny, coupled with non-random factors such as non-random mating. And was there really "isolated reproduction of the species upon different land zones", or throughout most of history did migratory groups intermingle and interbreed with each other, creating a broad spectrum of physical characteristics, only a few of which are used to define "race" (What race is someone who's 6'3"?)

At this point many people provide the rudimentary human genetic data obtained thus far regarding how 75% of the genetic difference in humans exists within a race rather than between races AND 25% of the genetic difference in humans exists between the races. This rudimentary data initially indicates that a single race is a genetically diverse population AND the 25% must affect the appearance of people quite a bit since visually we can most often tell one race from another (as long as they are not too closely related like Chinese and Japanese).
Ah, I think here you're confusing "race" with "ethnicity", for lack of a better word. Don't anthropologists classify Chinese and Japanese as belonging to the same "race"? If you're really talking about "race" and not ethnicity, we classify people as one race or another based on whether they have certain physical characteristics. And it's important to remember that 100% of that genetic variation you're parcelling into inter and intraracial groups represents a 0.1% of the human genome (any two individuals have on the average differ in 3 million out their 3 billion bases) link

No one has verbally undone this argument, although many people have simply conceded that they support one human race only. The argument then ends with me insuring that they fully understand the ramifications of their position of one human race; they support ending population diversity upon planet Earth and they do not support a certain type of freedom for individuals. . I guess I don't fully understand your arguments: why does the natural drift towards a more "racially" homogenous (by appearance) populace have to be enforced at gunpoint, and why does this mean certain individuals are losing some freedoms, as long as people can breed with whomever they chose? Most people in the world actually have access to a lot more genetic diversity for breeding purposes than in any time during history. Does it really matter if certain racial characteristics become partially attenuated in a population by intermarriage, especially when most genetic diversity isn't phenotypically visible?

Groups are a collection of individuals who are freely gathering into the group. Genetics have been voided as criteria for group freedom. So that particular freedom, not one individual has. Technically, people have this freedom, but whenever it is OPENLY exercised people receive harsh verbal attacks, and so it really isn’t freedom as we define freedom here in the United States – pursuit of happiness. Which brings us back to the original paragraph in this essay: “Do you believe that human peace can be maintained along with population diversity using a more advanced educational philosophy, or do you believe that human peace can only be maintained by enforcing a one human race only policy, at gunpoint?” You lost me with this paragraph (iif not earlier...) I would start by questioning your definition of a "group" from a biological standpoint - can you clarify what you mean? Are you arguing that people don't really have the freedom in copulate and breed with whom they want? That society is pressuring us to intermarry/i nterbreed between ethnic/racial groups, which is impinging on our freedom? That we're less free because racial/ethnic distinctions will be blurred (or perhaps just altered) over time? I'm missing something here...

-SM


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kengineer Donating Member (136 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Aug-27-03 06:03 PM
Response to Reply #3
6. Hello
Hello

YOU: To me it sounds like you're confusing "race" with "species" or "ethnic group"...Species is pretty well defined biologically, the other two aren't particularly biologically relevant...
ME: How do we define biologically relevant? I don’t think it’s relevant to what I’m talking about.



YOU: What's all this talk of maintaining a "one human race" policy at gunpoint? I mean, doesn't it all come down to a question of free will regarding with whom to copulate and bear children? Genetically, race is meaningless, it's just a handful of highly visible phenotypes (skin color, eye shape, etc.) - the spectrum of skin color, for instance, evolved in response to environmental conditions, namely the amount of sunlight received. And I'm not sure that there isn't more "intraracial" violence and strife in recent history (WWI, WWII - European Theater, the Holocaust, Stalin's Great Terror (mostly), Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Liberia, the entire Middle East...) than "interracial" (Vietnam, Korea, WWII - Pacific Theater, European colonization of the Americas). At worst it seems to be an even spit...Are you implying that if there were no ethnic/racial distinctions that there would be utopia on Earth? I guess I'm cynical enough to belive that human beings would just find other excuses to kill each other (religion, economics, resource competition, etc...) Where is this "one race" policy maintained at gunpoint? It occurs to me that in most racially heterogeneous countries, people can copulate and breed with whomever they want (are there any where they can't...?)
ME: Interesting… I’m not suggesting that if everybody “looked the same” that we would have utopia… look at the middle east and endless other examples of people that essentially “look the same” killing each other typically for ideological reasons or land etc… Since you don’t yet get the “at gunpoint” tag you missed where I explained that in the initial post. It’s not literally “at gunpoint”… but laws are enforced at gunpoint etc… For example: if community of Japanese are not allowed to exist as a Japanese community within “districts” they will eventually genetically combine with whomever moves into their district if the media and educational environment encourages it. This takes centuries of course and doesn’t happen over night. Once this combining is complete… the resulting “race” will not look Japanese any more.


YOU: Gotta quibble a bit here. "Race" is a social construct that classifies people based on a handful of visible phenotypes. Human diversity arises from random mutation, selection for (or at least maintenence of) those mutations, and the random distribution of those alleles into progeny, coupled with non-random factors such as non-random mating. And was there really "isolated reproduction of the species upon different land zones", or throughout most of history did migratory groups intermingle and interbreed with each other, creating a broad spectrum of physical characteristics, only a few of which are used to define "race" (What race is someone who's 6'3"?)
ME: Both occurred. But if we say “relatively isolated” we are more accurate. For example populations that bred over the past, let’s say 40,000 years in the Philippines, likely did not mix (too often) with the Celts, but the Celts certainly did mix a lot with the Nordics. The 6'3" argument is silly...


YOU: Ah, I think here you're confusing "race" with "ethnicity", for lack of a better word. Don't anthropologists classify Chinese and Japanese as belonging to the same "race"? If you're really talking about "race" and not ethnicity, we classify people as one race or another based on whether they have certain physical characteristics. And it's important to remember that 100% of that genetic variation you're parcelling into inter and intraracial groups represents a 0.1% of the human genome (any two individuals have on the average differ in 3 million out their 3 billion bases)
ME: How does this differ from how I defined the term race. Race is simply a human population that breeds together over some period of time… it’s quite a fluid thing. That’s one of the dictionary definitions so that’s why I use it in this way. I understand the sensitivity regarding the word race but for those who are able to have the conversation (without feeling uncomfortable) the word race is perfectly scientifically defined. For example: One population exists and they all look relatively the same… they divide. They experience isolated reproduction for 2000 years. I then define each of these new populations as a race. Do you differ with that definition and if so, what scientific word do we have to describe such a thing?



YOU: I guess I don't fully understand your arguments: why does the natural drift towards a more "racially" homogenous (by appearance) populace have to be enforced at gunpoint, and why does this mean certain individuals are losing some freedoms, as long as people can breed with whomever they chose? Most people in the world actually have access to a lot more genetic diversity for breeding purposes than in any time during history. Does it really matter if certain racial characteristics become partially attenuated in a population by intermarriage, especially when most genetic diversity isn't phenotypically visible?
ME: I agree with you on this. But my original argument still stands. It’s not completely clear to you I can see. I’ll see how (or if) you respond to what I have said thus far and see where it goes from there.

YOU: You lost me with this paragraph (iif not earlier...) I would start by questioning your definition of a "group" from a biological standpoint - can you clarify what you mean? Are you arguing that people don't really have the freedom in copulate and breed with whom they want? That society is pressuring us to intermarry/i nterbreed between ethnic/racial groups, which is impinging on our freedom? That we're less free because racial/ethnic distinctions will be blurred (or perhaps just altered) over time? I'm missing something here...
ME: Two people from two different “life experience” backgrounds (you and me)… communication isn’t perfect but I try.

Ken
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Sufi Marmot Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Aug-27-03 07:59 PM
Response to Reply #6
8. You are confusing "race" with ethnicity/culture
How does this differ from how I defined the term race. Race is simply a human population that breeds together over some period of time… it’s quite a fluid thing. That’s one of the dictionary definitions so that’s why I use it in this way. I understand the sensitivity regarding the word race but for those who are able to have the conversation (without feeling uncomfortable) the word race is perfectly scientifically defined. For example: One population exists and they all look relatively the same… they divide. They experience isolated reproduction for 2000 years. I then define each of these new populations as a race. Do you differ with that definition and if so, what scientific word do we have to describe such a thing?

Anthropologists have a broader definition of race. There are less than half a dozen different commonly accepted "racial" categories, the three most common being Caucasian, Mongoloid, and Negroid. All three are, at best, loosely defined, and all comprise a broad spectrum of physical variation within each group. Per your example above, the Japanese and Chinese would both be classified as belonging to the "Mongoloid" race, mostly due to eye shape, and skin and hair color - WAY back in the day they came from a common acestral group. At some point in history there was a physical split with Chinese and Japanese forming ethnically distinct populations (with separate languages, customs, and traditions). No doubt there are genetic differences between the populations - there are likely alleles with a higher frequency in Japanese people than Chinese, and vice versa. Ask yourself this: Do you consider Armenians and Swedes to be the same race? If not, we're not talking about the same thing - anthropologists would consider both to be Caucasian, even though the most common physical characteristics (hair, skin, and eye color) for each ethnic group are very different, and their cultures are quite different.

You're right that race is fluid - racial distinctions break down rapidly when there is intermarriage and offspring between people with distinctive "racial" characteristics. I would argue ethnicity (which is what I think you really mean) is fluid as well. What does it mean to be "Turkish", given that over the last 2000 years dozens of different civilizatons, many quite ethnically distinct from each other, have occupied the land now recognized as Turkey, the descendents of all these ethnic groups contributing their alleles to the modern Turkish gene pool. Turkey is a dramatic example, but I would argue there are very few (if any) populations in the world that were isolated 2000 years ago that haven't cross-bred considerably with their neighbors. Obviously, until modern transportation there wasn't much intercontinental breeding (except where continents connect to each other), but there was plenty of cross-pollination between different ethnic groups on the same continent, given the amount of migration and warfare that comprises world history.

Interesting… I’m not suggesting that if everybody “looked the same” that we would have utopia… look at the middle east and endless other examples of people that essentially “look the same” killing each other typically for ideological reasons or land etc… Since you don’t yet get the “at gunpoint” tag you missed where I explained that in the initial post. It’s not literally “at gunpoint”… but laws are enforced at gunpoint etc… For example: if community of Japanese are not allowed to exist as a Japanese community within “districts” they will eventually genetically combine with whomever moves into their district if the media and educational environment encourages it. This takes centuries of course and doesn’t happen over night. Once this combining is complete… the resulting “race” will not look Japanese any more.

Well, ethnicity changes with the flow of history...Do you personally know any Medes? Nubians? Gauls? Aztecs? If you're arguing that the Japanese (or any country) should be allowed to set their own immigration policy, then I don't have much argument with that. Some countries are more welcoming of immigration than others. People living in Japan can still speak Japanese and maintain Japanese cultural traditions (I would note here that both languages and cultural traditions are also fluid...)

And I still don't see how laws, other than immigration laws, come into play here. There is no law in any country that I know of that obligates intermarriage between distinct ethnic groups - these things just happen naturally - free will and all that...Some people prefer to marry/breed within their own racial/ethnic category, others don't. To each their own - the media/educational influence you allude to is only that, at least in North America, it has become culturally acceptable (in most places) to marry/breed with someone of another racial/ethnic group, whereas not so long ago it wasn't. Personally I think this is progress...Call me a deluded romantic, but personally I think that looove takes a higher priority than silly notions of racial or ethnic purity... :-) It occurs to me that any draconian attempt to maintain "ethnic purity" would be much more onerous that the resulting blurring/mixing/diluting/recombining of a culture where a significant number of its members made an independent decision to marry/breed with someone from another race/ethnicity/culture.

And isn't most of the immigration between different countries, particularly between countries where the populations are of different "racial" status, mostly due to economic/political reasons, or the after affects of colonialism? How many Japanese are immigrating to Angola this year?

To me this discussion raises the broader issue of what it really means to be a particular nationality or ethnicity in this age of cross-cultural mixing? Am I Japanese if I hold a Japanese passport, live in Japan, and speak fluent Japanese, even if I'm "racially" Caucasian? What's more important in defining a person: race/physical characteristics or language and common culture?

Cordially, SM

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kengineer Donating Member (136 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Aug-27-03 08:52 PM
Response to Reply #8
9. Hello
Hello

Nice post, give me some time on this one... perhaps more than one day!

I can now see that my original post may have some "bugs in the algorithm." Or perhaps just some assumptions that are too broad for reasonable comprehension.

Will work on the debug and repost...

Note: As I, MYSELF, am defining the word race it is accurate as used... I need a word to describe a population, any population that breeds over the period of centuries or millennia generally within their group with, certainly, some admixture here and there. Perhaps I could say ethnic group but when I look up the definition of "ethnic" one definition gives me the following:

3. of specified origin or culture: relating to a person or to a large group of people who share a national, racial, linguistic, or religious heritage, whether or not they reside in their countries of origin.

I'm trying to include Genetics in the word used to describe a breeding group of humans and by this definition it appears that genetics are only mildly touched on...

But now look at some definitions of Race:

4. biology strain of organism: a breed, strain, or subspecies of an organism

1. group of humans: any one of the groups into which the world’s population can be divided on the basis of physical characteristics such as skin or hair color

Both of these seem to fit my meaning more than ethnic group (but it is a gray area).

The link you gave regarding race seems to be changing the definition of the word a bit (actually it perfectly supports my argument regarding educational influences encouraging One Race Only etc…). I realize that words change over time and perhaps this is a case where the word race is going to be changed. Frankly, it still seems I am using it in a reasonable way. Just because the Genetic mutations aren't HIGHLY noticeable, doesn't mean they don't exist for population one and population two who were originally both Japanese but, then bred separately for 3000 years (by my example). We would likely be able to “tell the difference” between members of those two populations by simple visual inspection. Sure, we’d likely make some mistakes in some individual cases, but for a good 80% to 90% of the individuals we’d likely be correct as to which population they belonged to which means that they are a race of humans, by definition number 1 above.

Would you term these two new populations ethnic groups? I have no problem using the phrase ethnic group... I might just do that depending on how you respond!

I just like the word race better… it’s simple… ethnic group is TWO WORDS… can’t we come up with a simple word to describe my scenario that isn’t TWO WORDS…




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Sufi Marmot Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Aug-27-03 11:41 PM
Response to Reply #9
13. Biological definitions...
Note: As I, MYSELF, am defining the word race it is accurate as used... I need a word to describe a population, any population that breeds over the period of centuries or millennia generally within their group with, certainly, some admixture here and there. Perhaps I could say ethnic group but when I look up the definition of "ethnic" one definition gives me the following:
3. of specified origin or culture: relating to a person or to a large group of people who share a national, racial, linguistic, or religious heritage, whether or not they reside in their countries of origin.

I just like the word race better… it’s simple… ethnic group is TWO WORDS… can’t we come up with a simple word to describe my scenario that isn’t TWO WORDS…

Given the vagaries of history and population movements, there may not exist a useful word for exactly what you're describing, at least a word that accurately describes every population. In the future we will all just be described by our specific alleles, not only those for the physical characteristics which comprise racial assignment, but all others. I would also point out here that those physical characteristics which comprise our concept of race developed in response to our physical environment - you might be able to construct a fuzzy definition based on a group of people living in one environment for a long enough time as to aquire the best "racial" physical characteristics best adapted for it: People who lived closer to the Equator needed more protection from the sun and evolved darker skin, people who lived further north evolved lighter skin so they'd get enough Vitamin D...And so forth...Once these populations became mobile enough to come into contact with each other, and once we became technologically developed enough to deal with our environment quicker than evolution could (sunscreen, Vitamin-D fortified milk, etc...) then such evolutionary adaptations don't occur...


I'm trying to include Genetics in the word used to describe a breeding group of humans and by this definition it appears that genetics are only mildly touched on...

But now look at some definitions of Race:

4. biology strain of organism: a breed, strain, or subspecies of an organism

1. group of humans: any one of the groups into which the world’s population can be divided on the basis of physical characteristics such as skin or hair color

Both of these seem to fit my meaning more than ethnic group (but it is a gray area).


I don't know what source you got it from, but Definition 4 is for me an inadequate definition for "race" as a desrcription of human beings. I'm not sure what would be considered a "purebred" human population, even in terms of physical characteristics. Definition 1 is the more common one, but also generally vague. In your initial post you seemed to be talking more about differnt ethnic groups...



The link you gave regarding race seems to be changing the definition of the word a bit (actually it perfectly supports my argument regarding educational influences encouraging One Race Only etc…). I realize that words change over time and perhaps this is a case where the word race is going to be changed. Frankly, it still seems I am using it in a reasonable way. Just because the Genetic mutations aren't HIGHLY noticeable, doesn't mean they don't exist for population one and population two who were originally both Japanese but, then bred separately for 3000 years (by my example). We would likely be able to “tell the difference” between members of those two populations by simple visual inspection. Sure, we’d likely make some mistakes in some individual cases, but for a good 80% to 90% of the individuals we’d likely be correct as to which population they belonged to which means that they are a race of humans, by definition number 1 above.

Be careful not assume that the separate populations have absolute differences in their hidden alleles - more often than not it's just percentage skewed towards one or the other: To make something up off the top of my head: In Asian populations there are three different alleles of gene ABC - ABC-1, ABC-2, and ABC-3. Before the Chinese/Japanese split the total overall allele frequency was 40% ABC-1, 40% ABC-2, and 20% ABC-3, bearing in mind that we are diploid organisms with two seperate copies of the ABC gene, so all 6 combinations (11, 22, 33, 12, 23, 13) were found in the population. Now, after the split, when the seperate populations haven't cross-bred, the allele frequencies are:

Chinese: ABC-1 60%, ABC-2 30%, ABC-3 10%
Japanese: ABC-1 20%, ABC-2 70%, ABC-3 10%

due to genetic drift and other factors. So it comes down to a question of allele frequencies for any given gene - a question of statistics. And also bear in mind that there are likely multiple genes which contribute to the phenotypes that define physical appearance.


Would you term these two new populations ethnic groups? I have no problem using the phrase ethnic group... I might just do that depending on how you respond! Well it makes more sense to me if you are talking about populations that have become more recently distinct from each other, that have seperate languages and cultures (like Chinese vs. Japanese...), but are still fairly homogeneous genetically. A lot of it has to do with the history of any given group - "American" isn't really an ethnic group...I've used Turkey as an example of a neoethnicity cobbled together from the floatsam and jetsam of the previous occupants of Asia Minor...Azerbaijan is another screwy example - they're linguistically Turkic, but Shia Islam not Sunni, and originally of Persian descent, if I remember correctly...Plus recent Russian cultural influences...Oh yeah, almost forgot, Caucasian by race...Is there such a thing as "Azeri" ethnicity?

I think the only conclusion I can draw right now is that the older and less "intermingled" a population is, the easier it is to recognize the specific characteristics (both physical and cultural) that comprise its uniqueness...

Cordially, -SM
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kengineer Donating Member (136 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Aug-28-03 08:35 PM
Response to Reply #13
15. New Genetic Freedom Algorithm - here it is
Edited on Thu Aug-28-03 09:32 PM by kengineer
Genetic Freedom for groups of people:

For the purposes of this document the words race and ethnic group are somewhat interchangeable. Some prefer the phrase "ethnic group". We are talking about populations of humans who have, for the most part, bred within their group over many centuries, millennia, or longer. In doing so their allele pairs, coupled with population specific mutations, have a high probability of producing particular characteristics within the new babies of the population. Put a simpler way, the combined genetic morphology of a mother and a father have a high probability of producing a baby that generally looks like a combination of the two parents. For example: If a group of "100% Japanese heritage" people divided into two groups and experienced isolated reproduction from one another for a period of 3000 years, the resulting two communities would be two different races or ethnic groups by how this document is using those terms. If we were to evaluate individuals from these two hypothetical populations we would likely see trends in appearance which would allow us to accurately know which group each individual came from. This document fluidly uses the word race or ethnic group to refer to these groups of breeding populations, regardless if those populations have accepted some limited admixture from other races along the way. POPULATION DIVERSITY is defined as a great many of these various races or ethnic groups existing upon the planet.

Next, let's talk a little about population trends. Over the past approximately 100,000 years, the human species has branched off into a variety of different genetic morphologies which are sometimes termed races and other times termed ethnic groups. This population diversity was created primarily do to relatively isolated reproduction within different populations upon different lands of planet Earth, coupled with recombination and admixtures with adjacent populations over the millennia etc... The probability of a Japanese male mating with a Japanese female is much higher if that Japanese male is in a community that is 98% Japanese, than if that community is only 5% Japanese. This suggests that if these Japanese cannot have their own district based community (let's say 10 square miles), statistics will eventually lead to their particular genetic morphology ceasing to exist, in favor of a uniform racial blend which will result over the course of centuries. Expanding this argument out suggests that the current laws of non-discrimination in housing, while on the face of it seem to be promoting diversity, peace and happiness upon the planet, may actually, in the end, cause population diversity to diminish. Of course, during the transition period, population diversity mildly increases as different human morphologies are created by all the ethnic groups mixing with one another. Then after reaching the top of the population diversity graph, a sharp decline occurs favor of a single uniform looking race. Eventually the population diversity meter will approach the flat line at one for any given country or "land area" that has laws and media which encourage such a trend..

There is, of course, an additional factor which can either increase or decrease the probability of members of the same ethnic group or race from selecting one another as mates. Media and educational influences have a huge impact. If the media and educational environment frowns on the concept of "maintaining your genetic lines" and most people are so educated, then the probability is increased for them to select partners outside their existing ethnic groups. With that background the following argument follows:

Should we allow the human race to continue to freely branch into more than one human race (or ethnic group, whichever word you prefer), coexisting productively and peacefully upon this planet with their beautiful lands and cultures that we can all take wonderful and enriching vacations to, OR should we continue enforcing the current policy of one uniform human race only? The one uniform human race only policy is enforced by not allowing communities of a specific race or ethnic group to cohabitate together, in reasonably sized districts, which then decreases the probability of members of that ethnic group (or race) mating with each other. Over time this will blend the genetics of the various ethnic groups or races into a more uniform looking single race.

What is the benefit of the entire human race being just one uniform human race? Peace may be a primary goal. The prevention of racial hatred is often mentioned. Can people be educated with a peaceful philosophy that allows more than one human race (or ethnic group) to coexist upon our planet, productively and peacefully with one another, while at the same time allowing those ethnic groups to happily and legally have district based communities? So that becomes the argument: “Do you believe that human peace can be maintained along with population diversity using a more advanced educational philosophy, or do you believe that human peace can only be maintained by enforcing a one-human-race-only policy, at gunpoint?” The phrase “at gunpoint” is accurate because laws are enforced at gunpoint and we currently prevent any given race (or ethnic group) from having their own local communities or districts because we typically call that racism and discrimination.

Many people provide the rudimentary human genetic data obtained thus far regarding how 75% of the genetic difference in humans exists within a race rather than between races AND 25% of the genetic difference in humans exists between the races. This rudimentary data initially indicates that a single race is a genetically diverse population AND the 25% must affect the appearance of people quite a bit since visually we can most often tell one race from another (as long as they are not too closely related like Chinese and Japanese).

Groups are a collection of individuals who are freely gathering into the group. Genetics have been voided as criteria for group freedom in a district based community. So that particular freedom, not one individual has. While people can buy large lots of private property and accomplish this type of community today, they cannot do so openly and happily, which is contrary to the pursuit of happiness fundamental to our country. Which brings us back to the original paragraph in this essay: “Do you believe that human peace can be maintained along with population diversity using a more advanced educational philosophy, or do you believe that human peace can only be maintained by enforcing a one uniform human race only policy, at gunpoint?” After hearing this argument, many people simply concede that they support one uniform human race only, and that's that. I then mention that they support ending population diversity upon our planet, just so it's clear.

Due to today's social/political environment many people don't like talking about these topics. The many associations we have regarding racism (etc..) within our minds likely prevents us from discussing it. When we think of an ethnic group or race having the right to prevent people of other ethnic groups or races from moving into their "neighborhood," perhaps we need not feel animosity towards them. Perhaps, in a more enlightened world, this is just something that everybody mutually understands and it is simply part of human life and population diversity. Without this freedom, no matter where we travel on this planet in the future, the people will all look the same. Some people may want that world, what about the ones who don't?
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Sufi Marmot Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Aug-28-03 09:52 PM
Response to Reply #15
22. Sigh...
Edited on Thu Aug-28-03 09:54 PM by Sufi Marmot
You're basically restating 90% of your original post and not really addressing any of my points except the race/ethnicity bit, which you still don't/won't understand. So I'm not going to waste any more time on this, suffice to say, if you're fretful about your silly notions of racial purity, don't breed with anyone outside of your own "race" (out of curiousity, what "race" are you, anyway?) The rest of the world can take care of itself and make its own decisions, and by the time we're all "racially" homogeneous, you'll be long dead anyway...

-SM

On edit...I accidentally posted to this and not the latest version, but I'm not convinced there's much difference in them anyway...
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kengineer Donating Member (136 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Aug-28-03 10:09 PM
Response to Reply #22
24. Well, Ok
Edited on Thu Aug-28-03 10:11 PM by kengineer
I addressed the points you brought up that were relevant to the concept of Genetic Freedom for groups.

1. I mentioned statistics and probabilities
2. I clarified the use of race and/or ethnic groups

Also I rewrote it to be more clear.

Probability was the main thing you brought up. I see no reason to add a whole lot of scientific jargon to this particular essay. Its point is quite clear without it and the jargon would certainly cloud the main point of human population diversity being freely maintained vs. human population diversity being terminated. I could easily incorporate it if it were specifically required by some group of people.

Also, we're just now beginning to experience some of this:

Due to today's social/political environment many people don't like talking about these topics. The many associations we have regarding racism (etc..) within our minds likely prevents us from discussing it.

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kengineer Donating Member (136 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-31-03 12:49 PM
Response to Reply #8
82. Confusion reagarding the word race and ethnicity
Given all the confusion regarding the word race and ethnicity, I have decided to start using the word ethnic group or ethnicity to describe the different human groups that have genotypic and phenotypic variation caused by mutation, cultural, and environmental selection processes.

The word race is a more pleasant word to use so I hope we can get back to using it some day. It is freely used in Movies like "Lord of the Rings" today to describe these types of groups. Who's to say that the elves and humans didn't have a common ancestor somewhere back in history? They were able to breed with each other...
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Sufi Marmot Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Aug-27-03 01:23 AM
Response to Original message
4. Late night kick...
...because my curiosity is piqued...
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uhhuh Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Aug-27-03 09:20 PM
Response to Original message
10. I don't think it's possible
Any time ethnically "pure" groups of people interact, there has always been interbreeding. If you are suggesting that people be forced to prevent their societies from allowing their citizens to marry and produce offspring with other ethnic groups, then I don't see how that would be enforced except at the "barrel of a gun."

I guess to answer your question, I would have to say that it would not be possible to separate people peacefully. I don't think taboos could be established against race mixing without legislating it or promoting a distaste at best, or hatred at worst, of other races and/or cultures. I don't think it's possible.
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kengineer Donating Member (136 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Aug-27-03 10:04 PM
Response to Reply #10
11. polarity reversal
You reversed the polarity of my post. Good job.

I'm still working on my response to another poster here, and when I do I'll repost a new and improved algorithm on Genetic Freedom to make it more clear.

The essence of it is this: If a group of individuals wish to gather together, let's say in a district based community, should they be allowed to as long as they aren't doing it for the old hateful racist type reasons...

It's about an ethnic group having the right to celebrate their culture and raise their children within it, legally, within a district based community (for example). Their children may not "mate" within their group, sure, but if they like how they were raised they may... Currently we do, in fact, enforce, at gunpoint, the prevention of any ethnic group from doing this. As I said in my original post, I presume we do this towards the goal of promoting peace among the "races" or "ethnic groups."

I can assure you there are many, many ethnic groups in this United States that would absolutely love to have district based communities for themselves. I don't think this would promote hatred at all. I think it would have just the opposite effect. But certainly the education would need to be structured accordingly.

Later
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Sufi Marmot Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Aug-27-03 10:53 PM
Response to Reply #11
12. I'm still confused...
It's about an ethnic group having the right to celebrate their culture and raise their children within it, legally, within a district based community (for example). Their children may not "mate" within their group, sure, but if they like how they were raised they may... Currently we do, in fact, enforce, at gunpoint, the prevention of any ethnic group from doing this. As I said in my original post, I presume we do this towards the goal of promoting peace among the "races" or "ethnic groups."

Members of any given ethnic group have the right to celebrate their culture and raise their children as they see fit within the reasonable limits of the laws of their country. North America is a racially/ethnically heterogeneous continent. You now seem to be advocating ethnically separate communities - well, the way property rights are set up in North America, anyone of any ethnic group can buy private property anywhere as long as they can afford it (at least in theory - we all know in practice this wasn't always the case..). If a bunch of White Supremacists want to go buy some private property in Idaho and establish a private "whites only" commune there - they're free to do so, as repugnant as that concept is to most of us, as long as they don't bother anyone else. Your argument appears to be drifting from the original genetic/biological concept of race/ethnicity into one of physicial location/association...

I can assure you there are many, many ethnic groups in this United States that would absolutely love to have district based communities for themselves. I don't think this would promote hatred at all. I think it would have just the opposite effect. But certainly the education would need to be structured accordingly.

What do you mean by "district based" ethnic communities? How big a district are we talking here? What is your definition of "community"?
How exclusionary are these communities? There are already all sorts of structures in place in America that provide a degree of ethnic/cultural specificity. Ethnic neighborhoods, religious organizations, ethnic social clubs, etc. Don't most new immigrants to ethnically heterogeneous countries often cluster together anyway?

I'm still not clear on what freedom of association you fear we're lacking here in North America...

-SM
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HFishbine Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Aug-28-03 09:34 PM
Response to Reply #11
18. They Can
"If a group of individuals wish to gather together, let's say in a district based community, should they be allowed to as long as they aren't doing it for the old hateful racist type reasons..."

Just the shiney new hateful racists reasons, right?

Your arguments were thinly disguised to begin with. You are not talking about breeding. If your goal was the encouragement of breeding among people with very similar physical traights, you could promote that idea without creating your "districkts." What you are really after is trying to find a new excuse ("genetic freedom") of justifying prejudices so extreme that you would prefer to live only among people who look like you.

My bet, you could get pretty close to your utopia in any trailer park in White County, Georgia.
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kengineer Donating Member (136 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Aug-28-03 09:46 PM
Response to Reply #18
20. Try again...
Due to today's social/political environment many people don't like talking about these topics. The many associations we have regarding racism (etc..) within our minds likely prevents us from discussing it.

This is what you are currently experiencing, it seems. Please read the new Genetic Freedom algorithm posted above, and see if that rubs you differently...

Thanks
Ken
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Bertrand Donating Member (764 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Aug-27-03 11:44 PM
Response to Original message
14. Im sorry
i couldnt cut through the condescension.
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HFishbine Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Aug-28-03 09:12 PM
Response to Original message
16. Where to begin?
Edited on Thu Aug-28-03 09:51 PM by HFishbine
"should we continue enforcing the current policy of one human race only?"

Umm, do you have a copy of that policy? I'd like to read it. It would be especially enlightening if you could reveal any of the "laws" you say enforce these policies "at gun point."

"What is the benefit of the entire human race being just one human race?"

Well golly, I, er... what? The benifit? How about that's just what it is by definition. The entire human race is just one human race because there is only one human race. We cannot have another human race, because anything other would be something different than the human race. If you manage to replicate the human race, then you still have the single human race -- just more members.


"visually we can most often tell one race from another (as long as they are not too closely related like Chinese and Japanese)."

Or like your sister and your wife?
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kengineer Donating Member (136 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Aug-28-03 09:27 PM
Response to Reply #16
17. I have rewritten the algorithm... here it is
Edited on Thu Aug-28-03 09:37 PM by kengineer
I apologize for the first algorithm on Genetic Freedom that I wrote at the top, it is a bit confusing. I have now rewritten it so that all the words are more clearly defined and understood. It is located in this thread but I'll post it again here now:


Genetic Freedom for groups of people:

For the purposes of this document the words race and ethnic group are somewhat interchangeable. Some prefer the phrase "ethnic group". We are talking about populations of humans who have, for the most part, bred within their group over many centuries, millennia, or longer. In doing so their allele pairs, coupled with population specific mutations, have a high probability of producing particular characteristics within the new babies of the population. Put a simpler way, the combined genetic morphology of a mother and a father have a high probability of producing a baby that generally looks like a combination of the two parents. For example: If a group of "100% Japanese heritage" people divided into two groups and experienced isolated reproduction from one another for a period of 3000 years, the resulting two communities would be two different races or ethnic groups by how this document is using those terms. If we were to evaluate individuals from these two hypothetical populations we would likely see trends in appearance which would allow us to accurately know which group each individual came from. This document fluidly uses the word race or ethnic group to refer to these groups of breeding populations, regardless if those populations have accepted some limited admixture from other races along the way. POPULATION DIVERSITY is defined as a great many of these various races or ethnic groups existing upon the planet.

Next, let's talk a little about population trends. Over the past approximately 100,000 years, the human species has branched off into a variety of different genetic morphologies which are sometimes termed races and other times termed ethnic groups. This population diversity was created primarily do to relatively isolated reproduction within different populations upon different lands of planet Earth, coupled with recombination and admixtures with adjacent populations over the millennia etc... The probability of a Japanese male mating with a Japanese female is much higher if that Japanese male is in a community that is 98% Japanese, than if that community is only 5% Japanese. This suggests that if these Japanese cannot have their own district based community (let's say 10 square miles), statistics will eventually lead to their particular genetic morphology ceasing to exist, in favor of a uniform racial blend which will result over the course of centuries. Expanding this argument out suggests that the current laws of non-discrimination in housing, while on the face of it seem to be promoting diversity, peace and happiness upon the planet, may actually, in the end, cause population diversity to diminish. Of course, during the transition period, population diversity mildly increases as different human morphologies are created by all the ethnic groups mixing with one another. Then after reaching the top of the population diversity graph, a sharp decline occurs favor of a single uniform looking race. Eventually the population diversity meter will approach the flat line at one for any given country or "land area" that has laws and media which encourage such a trend..

There is, of course, an additional factor which can either increase or decrease the probability of members of the same ethnic group or race from selecting one another as mates. Media and educational influences have a huge impact. If the media and educational environment frowns on the concept of "maintaining your genetic lines" and most people are so educated, then the probability is increased for them to select partners outside their existing ethnic groups. With that background the following argument follows:

Should we allow the human race to continue to freely branch into more than one uniform human race (or ethnic group, whichever word you prefer), coexisting productively and peacefully upon this planet with their beautiful lands and cultures that we can all take wonderful and enriching vacations to, OR should we continue enforcing the current policy of one uniform human race only? The one uniform human race only policy is enforced by not allowing communities of a specific race or ethnic group to cohabitate together, in reasonably sized districts, which then decreases the probability of members of that ethnic group (or race) mating with each other. Over time this will blend the genetics of the various ethnic groups or races into a more uniform looking single race.

What is the benefit of the entire human race being just one uniform human race? Peace may be a primary goal. The prevention of racial hatred is often mentioned. Can people be educated with a peaceful philosophy that allows more than one human race (or ethnic group) to coexist upon our planet, productively and peacefully with one another, while at the same time allowing those ethnic groups to happily and legally have district based communities? So that becomes the argument: “Do you believe that human peace can be maintained along with population diversity using a more advanced educational philosophy, or do you believe that human peace can only be maintained by enforcing a one-human-race-only policy, at gunpoint?” The phrase “at gunpoint” is accurate because laws are enforced at gunpoint and we currently prevent any given race (or ethnic group) from having their own local communities or districts because we typically call that racism and discrimination.

Many people provide the rudimentary human genetic data obtained thus far regarding how 75% of the genetic difference in humans exists within a race rather than between races AND 25% of the genetic difference in humans exists between the races. This rudimentary data initially indicates that a single race is a genetically diverse population AND the 25% must affect the appearance of people quite a bit since visually we can most often tell one race from another (as long as they are not too closely related like Chinese and Japanese).

Groups are a collection of individuals who are freely gathering into the group. Genetics have been voided as criteria for group freedom in a district based community. So that particular freedom, not one individual has. While people can buy large lots of private property and accomplish this type of community today, they cannot do so openly and happily, which is contrary to the pursuit of happiness fundamental to our country. Which brings us back to the original paragraph in this essay: “Do you believe that human peace can be maintained along with population diversity using a more advanced educational philosophy, or do you believe that human peace can only be maintained by enforcing a one uniform human race only policy, at gunpoint?” After hearing this argument, many people simply concede that they support one uniform human race only, and that's that. I then mention that they support ending population diversity upon our planet, just so it's clear.

Due to today's social/political environment many people don't like talking about these topics. The many associations we have regarding racism (etc..) within our minds likely prevents us from discussing it. When we think of an ethnic group or race having the right to prevent people of other ethnic groups or races from moving into their "neighborhood," perhaps we need not feel animosity towards them. Perhaps, in a more enlightened world, this is just something that everybody mutually understands and it is simply part of human life and population diversity. Without this freedom, no matter where we travel on this planet in the future, the people will all look the same. Some people may want that world, what about the ones who don't?
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HFishbine Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Aug-28-03 09:48 PM
Response to Reply #17
21. Failed World View
"do you believe that human peace can only be maintained by enforcing a one uniform human race only policy, at gunpoint?”

Sigh. What you fail to understand is that there is no "policy." The embarrassment that you would feel trying to establish your white's only breeding colony is not because the world around you is being directed at the point of a gun. It is because the world you live in has rejected the ideas you would like to revive.
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kengineer Donating Member (136 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Aug-28-03 09:55 PM
Response to Reply #21
23. This is the policy, pasted here from above
Next, let's talk a little about population trends. Over the past approximately 100,000 years, the human species has branched off into a variety of different genetic morphologies which are sometimes termed races and other times termed ethnic groups. This population diversity was created primarily do to relatively isolated reproduction within different populations upon different lands of planet Earth, coupled with recombination and admixtures with adjacent populations over the millennia etc... The probability of a Japanese male mating with a Japanese female is much higher if that Japanese male is in a community that is 98% Japanese, than if that community is only 5% Japanese. This suggests that if these Japanese cannot have their own district based community (let's say 10 square miles), statistics will eventually lead to their particular genetic morphology ceasing to exist, in favor of a uniform racial blend which will result over the course of centuries. Expanding this argument out suggests that the current laws of non-discrimination in housing, while on the face of it seem to be promoting diversity, peace and happiness upon the planet, may actually, in the end, cause population diversity to diminish.

The last sentence here is the policy, or law, being referred to that you requested I explain. Additionally here is the second part of the policy:

There is, of course, an additional factor which can either increase or decrease the probability of members of the same ethnic group or race from selecting one another as mates. Media and educational influences have a huge impact. If the media and educational environment frowns on the concept of "maintaining your genetic lines" and most people are so educated, then the probability is increased for them to select partners outside their existing ethnic groups.
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Sufi Marmot Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Aug-28-03 10:14 PM
Response to Reply #23
25. Against my better judgement...
There is, of course, an additional factor which can either increase or decrease the probability of members of the same ethnic group or race from selecting one another as mates. Media and educational influences have a huge impact. If the media and educational environment frowns on the concept of "maintaining your genetic lines" and most people are so educated, then the probability is increased for them to select partners outside their existing ethnic groups

1) Most people tend to breed within their own "race", even given the opportunity to do otherwise.

2) Severely inbred populations become chock full of deleterious mutations, ask any dog breeder to explain this to you...Mixed breeds are generally healthier as deleterious recessive alleles are masked by healthy ones. "Crossbreeding", of which you are so fretful, is actually healthy for populations. Don't bother talking about "genetic lines" until you have some fundamental understanding of genetics...

3)In civilized societies, communities don't get to decide which individuals get to breed with whom, that decision is left up to mutually attracted individuals. If enough people from any given race/ethnic group decide to "cross-breed", well, I guess they have different values than you do. It's kind of a free will/libertarian thing...

-SM
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kengineer Donating Member (136 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Aug-28-03 10:30 PM
Response to Reply #25
28. You did not address my points (and you assume too much)
YOU: 2) Severely inbred populations become chock full of deleterious mutations, ask any dog breeder to explain this to you...Mixed breeds are generally healthier as deleterious recessive alleles are masked by healthy ones. "Crossbreeding", of which you are so fretful, is actually healthy for populations. Don't bother talking about "genetic lines" until you have some fundamental understanding of genetics...

ME: You assume too much regarding me. But I'll ignore it. This argument can go either way. There can be good alleles within a population that produce nice results, and alleles which produce unhealthy results. Different ethnic groups (races) can certainly be wary of this and accept admixture as desired.

YOU: 3)In civilized societies, communities don't get to decide which individuals get to breed with whom, that decision is left up to mutually attracted individuals. If enough people from any given race/ethnic group decide to "cross-breed", well, I guess they have different values than you do. It's kind of a free will/libertarian thing...

ME: Correct on your first sentence. Second sentence again assuming too much (talking about these topics it's not surprising however, so again I'll just ignore it). You did not address my points at all which are:

Next, let's talk a little about population trends. Over the past approximately 100,000 years, the human species has branched off into a variety of different genetic morphologies which are sometimes termed races and other times termed ethnic groups. This population diversity was created primarily do to relatively isolated reproduction within different populations upon different lands of planet Earth, coupled with recombination and admixtures with adjacent populations over the millennia etc... The probability of a Japanese male mating with a Japanese female is much higher if that Japanese male is in a community that is 98% Japanese, than if that community is only 5% Japanese. This suggests that if these Japanese cannot have their own district based community (let's say 10 square miles), statistics will eventually lead to their particular genetic morphology ceasing to exist, in favor of a uniform racial blend which will result over the course of centuries. Expanding this argument out suggests that the current laws of non-discrimination in housing, while on the face of it seem to be promoting diversity, peace and happiness upon the planet, may actually, in the end, cause population diversity to diminish. Of course, during the transition period, population diversity mildly increases as different human morphologies are created by all the ethnic groups mixing with one another. Then after reaching the top of the population diversity graph, a sharp decline occurs favor of a single uniform looking race. Eventually the population diversity meter will approach the flat line at one for any given country or "land area" that has laws and media which encourage such a trend..

There is, of course, an additional factor which can either increase or decrease the probability of members of the same ethnic group or race from selecting one another as mates. Media and educational influences have a huge impact. If the media and educational environment frowns on the concept of "maintaining your genetic lines" and most people are so educated, then the probability is increased for them to select partners outside their existing ethnic groups. With that background the following argument follows:
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CHIMO Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Aug-28-03 10:42 PM
Response to Reply #28
30. Philosophy Not
Support your statements. You can't claim to have a philosophical discussion making statements like you are making. Talk philosophy or talk beliefs or whatever is in your craw!
But be straightforward about it. The first thing in understanding philosopy and of course metaphysics is truth to yourself. What is your belief? You seem to be developing an idea from a predetermined belief. Instead of developing an approach from an analysis of basic ideas.
You seem to be reaching out. Just continue with the exercise.
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kengineer Donating Member (136 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Aug-28-03 10:47 PM
Response to Reply #30
32. Very interesting
Edited on Thu Aug-28-03 10:52 PM by kengineer
Very interesting post chap...

I found the following definition of philosophy:

1. philosophy: examination of basic concepts: the branch of knowledge or academic study devoted to the systematic examination of basic concepts such as truth, existence, reality, causality, and freedom.

I'm pretty sure I'm discussing a basic concept of EXISTENCE for Genetic life (specifically human genetic life). The essence of that discussion is freedom for BOTH individuals AND groups of individuals.

Seems pretty simple on the face of it but... you know... then it gets real, real complicated given the history of planet Earth and the wars of this century etc...
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Sufi Marmot Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Aug-28-03 11:35 PM
Response to Reply #28
34. Apparently I'm a masochist...
ME: You assume too much regarding me. But I'll ignore it. This argument can go either way. There can be good alleles within a population that produce nice results, and alleles which produce unhealthy results. Different ethnic groups (races) can certainly be wary of this and accept admixture as desired.
Here's a hint about how the real world works: Different ethnic groups/races as an aggregate don't get to accept or reject diddly about admixture, those decisions are made by INDIVIDUALS, one at a time, in brazen acts of free will. The rest of your algorhythm is a moot point. Ethnicity is fluid, always has been, always will be. Plus, you have no idea how future population movements will play out in the context of historical events - there might be NEW ethnic groups forming based on unforseen interbreeding of different groups... Wouldn't that be cool? If I thought that you really cared about maintaining cultural diversity, I'd digress about cultural syncretism, but I suspect you wouldn't be interested...

I know, it's disconcerting, people expressing personal choice, sefishly putting other priorities above purity of "genetic lines". Quite frankly, your undue concern for the personal decisions of the rest of the world strikes me as being rather paternalistic. It isn't your concern whether the different "races" live together or in distinct communities - if they do live together and happen to "cross-breed", that's their business. You won't be breeding with any other races, so why worry about anyone else...In short, you'd be happier if you quit worrying about things you can't control and which are none of your business to begin with. The human race will take care of itself - trust me, we have plenty of allelic diversity, we'll get by just fine. And like I said, you'll be long dead anyway before we all get too brown...

-SM

P.S. Unless you plan on responding WITHOUT a lengthy reposting of your original thesis (or significant portions thereof), don't waste your time.


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kengineer Donating Member (136 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Aug-29-03 03:19 PM
Response to Reply #34
35. The Answer
YOU: Here's a hint about how the real world works: Different ethnic groups/races as an aggregate don't get to accept or reject diddly about admixture, those decisions are made by INDIVIDUALS, one at a time, in brazen acts of free will.

ME: And your telling me this... why? It has nothing to do with the essay I wrote. Let me give you a clue... Individuals in any of these hypothetical communities I'm talking about get genetic tests done (like people who do so today for diabetes), some are told that a bad allele exists. They then make an individual choice as to what reproductive decisions they will make. Total honesty and truth allows the individual to make an educated decision. While bad alleles can develop in any isolated population, good ones can also develop. Not all people will have the bad and not all people will have the good, etc... So healthy genetics can proceed within this population as long as all individuals are fully educated as to potential problems their genetics might face in the next generation if they mate with someone within their ethnic group. It's likely we will have the means to repair such genetic disorders in the future, but we're not there yet so it's still a matter of education to have the healthiest reproductive trends possible.


YOU: The rest of your algorhythm is a moot point.

ME: When you mis-understand to the level you have, I'd tend to agree with your perception.


YOU: Ethnicity is fluid, always has been, always will be.

ME: No argument here...


YOU: Plus, you have no idea how future population movements will play out in the context of historical events - there might be NEW ethnic groups forming based on unforseen interbreeding of different groups... Wouldn't that be cool?

ME: Right, same thing I've said... we do have potential for some intelligent influence over this per the essay I wrote, that's the only addition I'd make to your comment here. You still haven't addressed the human race approaching one UNIFORM human race (or ethnic group) under our current laws and media/educational influence. By the logic you have provided, thus far, as the human race approached one uniform race, the entire human race would then be one big "inbred" community with allel problems and no other "races" to go for recombination... Which word didn't you understand? :)


YOU: If I thought that you really cared about maintaining cultural diversity, I'd digress about cultural syncretism, but I suspect you wouldn't be interested...

ME: Please digress about syncretism... when (if) you do, please provide your thoughts on genetics as applies to the discussion. Culture certainly affects human genetic flow.


YOU: I know, it's disconcerting, people expressing personal choice, sefishly putting other priorities above purity of "genetic lines".

ME: And why do you think that? You are definately suffering from racist memes of the past influencing your current thinking just as I said previously. It's a common problem given the current state of our world.


YOU: Quite frankly, your undue concern for the personal decisions of the rest of the world strikes me as being rather paternalistic.

ME: What undue concern... show me that in my essay... I will make a truthful comment now that I do care about the genetics of the next generation of kids (as much as I'm able). You seem to as well as you mentioned genetic (allele) disorders and ways to prevent them...


YOU: It isn't your concern whether the different "races" live together or in distinct communities - if they do live together and happen to "cross-breed", that's their business.

ME: I know, it's up the the ethnic groups (races) themsevles to determine this as an aggregate of the individual choices made... My essay is somewhat clear on this.


YOU: You won't be breeding with any other races, so why worry about anyone else...

ME: You've definately lost track of the discussion...


YOU: In short, you'd be happier if you quit worrying about things you can't control and which are none of your business to begin with. The human race will take care of itself - trust me, we have plenty of allelic diversity, we'll get by just fine.

ME: I'd be happier if people were more intelligent and less biased when discussion human populations... You've still lost track of the discussion.


YOU: And like I said, you'll be long dead anyway before we all get too brown...

ME: Again, you've lost track of the discussion, a typical phenomenon which I've partially figured out how to prevent, but not completely.

YOU: P.S. Unless you plan on responding WITHOUT a lengthy reposting of your original thesis (or significant portions thereof), don't waste your time.

ME: We are discussing the essay I wrote... occassionally it will be referenced.
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HFishbine Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Aug-28-03 10:15 PM
Response to Reply #23
26. Bzzzzzzzzzzzzz!
Edited on Thu Aug-28-03 10:19 PM by HFishbine
"Expanding this argument out suggests that the current laws of non-discrimination in housing, while on the face of it seem to be promoting diversity,"

Anti-discrimination laws do not exist to promote diversity. They exist because this country was founded on the principle that all people are created equal.

You know your goals to be racial segregation, so you mistakenly assume that anti-discrimination laws must be for an opposite purpose. Not so. The people who understand and value equality among all people are not operating in your paridigm. It's not about more diversity or less diversity, it's about reaching for the highest of human good. (You know, like Jesus asked us to do?)

The simple fact is it is your policy of segregation that would need to be enforced at the point of a gun. If your "narrow breeding" program is such a good idea, why do you feel it can only happen (be enforeced, perhaps) through phsyical segregation? To make it nearly physically impossible for people to interact with other races?

Despite the "policies" you think exist, the fact is that most people have offspring with people of like races. You see, you're breeding preference is happening already. But that's not good enough for you, so it leaves one to wonder why you want something different. Is it because your ultimate desire is to see to it that people only ever mate with their own race, or is it to establish a segregated community to sheild you from the world?



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kengineer Donating Member (136 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Aug-28-03 10:36 PM
Response to Reply #26
29. Interesting
YOU: Anti-discrimination laws do not exist to promote diversity. They exist because this country was founded on the principle that all people are created equal.

ME: Note I ignore all the other stuff you post as it is caued by:

Due to today's social/political environment many people don't like talking about these topics. The many meme associations we have regarding racism (etc..) within our minds likely prevents many from discussing it.

ME: I've definately heard people say that Anti-discrimination laws promote diversity... but I'm certainly willing to concede that that isn't the official reason the laws were created. So now we are here... We can sit back and think... The arguments I posed regarding population diversity still stand unopposed. You have not addressed them at all. Look, do you support one uniform human race only? That is what many people say and that is fine.
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HFishbine Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Aug-29-03 03:44 PM
Response to Reply #29
36. Ha!
"ME: Note I ignore all the other stuff you post as it is caued by:

Due to today's social/political environment many people don't like talking about these topics. The many meme associations we have regarding racism (etc..) within our minds likely prevents many from discussing it."
--------------------------

My, my. You really do want to be the master of the unvirse, don't you?

Here's the reality, one more time, that racists fell "uncomfortable" talking about.

Despite your lenghty diatribes; despite your pseudo intellectual style, your motives are transparent. You can attempt to disguise the discussion as one of "genetic freedom," but it's all too plain that what you are seeking is some "scientific" rationale for creating a segregated community and forcing everyone in it to breed only with approved mates. The world has rejected that approach already -- get it?

We have genetic freedom. What you are proposing is genetic isolationism -- something that is also available to you.
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kengineer Donating Member (136 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Aug-29-03 04:05 PM
Response to Reply #36
37. Ignore...
"Crying Wolf" posts of this kind will be ignored...
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kengineer Donating Member (136 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Aug-28-03 09:34 PM
Response to Original message
19. NEW GENETIC FREEDOM ALGORITHM HAS BEEN DONE
I put that is caps because people are still getting confused at the original post and I can't edit it any more...

Probably should terminate this thread and start over in a week but...

The new algorithm is posted above on the post by that title.
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MrBadExample Donating Member (241 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Aug-29-03 04:57 PM
Response to Reply #19
41. A question.
Why do you keep using "algorithm" to refer to your essay/thesis/whatever?

I'm not quite understanding how it qualifies as "A step-by-step problem-solving procedure, especially an established, recursive computational procedure for solving a problem in a finite number of steps" or "a precise rule (or set of rules) specifying how to solve some problem" (Thanks to the good people at Houghton Mifflin, WordNet, and dictionary.com.)

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kengineer Donating Member (136 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Aug-30-03 11:55 AM
Response to Reply #41
54. maybe
I like to say the phrase "verbal algorithm." It's not precisely correct but the words I've written in the essay do try to solve a problem.

I probably should use a word other than algorithm... I admit.
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CHIMO Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Aug-28-03 10:29 PM
Response to Original message
27. Philosophical Concepts
Should be based on philosophy and the basis coming from Metaphysics. Your post starts out confused. Seems that you are developing it as it goes. "I think therefore I am". "Being." Have you thought out these concepts yet?
Survival of the fittest. How about that. GM foods, where does that fit in?
Start at the beginning.
Follow all the avenues and then one can support their points.

Good searching.
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kengineer Donating Member (136 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Aug-28-03 10:43 PM
Response to Reply #27
31. Exactly...
What's the best way to learn and advance a concept? Post something and discuss it.

It is a philosophical concept I do believe. In it's most fundamental form it is simply: Do we humans believe the human race can peacefully "branch off" (like a tree) or should it be maintained as one uniform race only (like a single branch)?.

How I or you or anyone defines "branch off," certainly may be different and is certainly part of the whole philosophical aspect.

Seems reasonable to me but I'm certainly listening...
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CHIMO Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Aug-28-03 11:01 PM
Response to Reply #31
33. Branching Off
Don't know what it means. But that is not important. Don't want to be up all night in a deep discussion. My point is that one has to examines one's views to constantly be on the watch if they are beliefs or logical evaluations, if that is possible. Anyway, a way I would approach a complex thought such as this is to go back and learn how others have approached items like this.
Example Aristotle, The Metaphysics Book IV, VII: David Hume, Of Personal Identity...
I don't have these references memorized, I am taking them from a text "Classical and Contemporary Methysics" (Don't know how contemporary it is today as it has been many years)
Discussions can be much more fruitfull when one has thought things out first. Good reading and thinking.
Remember if you don't use it you loose it.
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tom_paine Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Aug-29-03 04:09 PM
Response to Original message
38. Yes, the darkside does cloud everything, kengineer
Doesn't it?
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kengineer Donating Member (136 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Aug-29-03 04:21 PM
Response to Reply #38
39. It certainly does
But this gets into a different topic of good and evil, so really isn't fully relevant to this thread... The phrase comes from the latest Star Wars movie...

I suppose as relates to this thread, the one specific way that a "clouding" is taking place is how people access racist memes within their minds and this causes them to become emotionally uncomfortable talking about the very real concepts of freedom for Human Genetic life that I've written about.
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treepig Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Aug-29-03 04:54 PM
Response to Original message
40. unfortunately i never quite understand
weird pseudoscientific theories such as yours.

personally, i'm 99.4% identical to a chimp and that's good enough for me!
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kengineer Donating Member (136 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Aug-29-03 05:51 PM
Response to Reply #40
44. Describe the pseudo science...
By all means, describe the pseudoscience and give examples of it.
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treepig Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Aug-30-03 09:04 AM
Response to Reply #44
51. maybe not pseudoscience, just nonsense
Edited on Sat Aug-30-03 09:05 AM by treepig
for example, you ask

"Should we allow the human race to continue to freely exist and branch into more than one human race, coexisting productively and peacefully upon this planet with their beautiful lands and cultures that we can all take wonderful and enriching vacations to, OR should we continue enforcing the current policy of one human race only?"

the evolution of the human race is something that happens far beyond our capacity to "allow" it, or "enforce" policies regarding eventual outcomes. the above sentence has no more grounding in reality than asking

"Should we allow the sun to continue shining, or should we continue our enforcing it's gradual phase-out by the year 2150 to put an end to the rise in skin cancer?"

bizzare to say the least.

furthermore, this paragraph assigning genetic diversity between and within races has absolutely no grounding in science:

"At this point many people provide the rudimentary human genetic data obtained thus far regarding how 75% of the genetic difference in humans exists within a race rather than between races AND 25% of the genetic difference in humans exists between the races. This rudimentary data initially indicates that a single race is a genetically diverse population AND the 25% must affect the appearance of people quite a bit since visually we can most often tell one race from another (as long as they are not too closely related like Chinese and Japanese)."

so far, 1,800,000 different versions of human genes have been found just when considering SNP's (single nucleotide polymorphisms),

( see http://snp.cshl.org/ for more details )

and the search has just begun. i suspect when it's all said and done, there will be hundreds of millions of varieties of human genes - and how they break down according to factors such as race is anyone's guess. also, genes have long been described as the 'blueprint of life' which if you've done any construction you know that within a blueprint there are still ambiguities (or else i had damn incompentent people building my house!!) - so even with identical genes, the final product (the person in this case) can be different!






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kengineer Donating Member (136 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-31-03 09:09 AM
Response to Reply #51
77. Not nonsense, right on the money, as I point out again!
YOU: the evolution of the human race is something that happens far beyond our capacity to "allow" it, or "enforce" policies regarding eventual outcomes. the above sentence has no more grounding in reality than asking

ME: As I've pointed out to everybody who bothered reading this thread, we enforce blending of human genetics in a way that approaches a "single ethnic group." We do this via the laws of non-discrimination in housing coupled with a media environment that generally frowns on "maintaining the genetics of your given ethnic group." So again, I've shown unequivocally that you are blatantly wrong when you suggest that it is beyond our power... somebody is currently wielding that power and it is the United States Government as well as many, many other governments of the world. So if you cannot comprehend that then, for you, the conversation is done and that is fine. All I can say is try to open your mind a bit and realize that we ACTUALLY DO HAVE THIS SPECIFIC KIND OF CONTROL OVER HUMAN POPULATIONS. It’s not even that difficult to understand so I’m not quite sure why you have problems understanding it?


YOU: "Should we allow the sun to continue shining, or should we continue our enforcing it's gradual phase-out by the year 2150 to put an end to the rise in skin cancer?"

ME: We have no control over that.


YOU: furthermore, this paragraph assigning genetic diversity between and within races has absolutely no grounding in science: "At this point many people provide the rudimentary human genetic data obtained thus far regarding how 75% of the genetic difference in humans exists within a race rather than between races AND 25% of the genetic difference in humans exists between the races. This rudimentary data initially indicates that a single race is a genetically diverse population AND the 25% must affect the appearance of people quite a bit since visually we can most often tell one race from another (as long as they are not too closely related like Chinese and Japanese)."

ME: This was taken from the jargon that many scientists are putting out today... yes... I agree it’s rudimentary as I stated. Don’t ask me why they have already concluded 75% this and 25% that. Not my statistics. The comments I added were: "This rudimentary data initially indicates that a single race is a genetically diverse population AND the 25% must affect the appearance of people quite a bit since visually we can most often tell one race from another." Simple logical comments based on the statistics some scientists have jumped the gun providing.


YOU:so far, 1,800,000 different versions of human genes have been found just when considering SNP's (single nucleotide polymorphisms), ( see http://snp.cshl.org/ for more details), and the search has just begun. i suspect when it's all said and done, there will be hundreds of millions of varieties of human genes - and how they break down according to factors such as race is anyone's guess.
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DemExpat Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Aug-29-03 05:00 PM
Response to Original message
42. When the diversity involves genetically modified human
'sub-species' I start really doubting the peace option, the happiness option.

Random thoughts of mine while reading this thread which I find interesting but tedious.....:-)

Problems of equality, governance, power and how it is always abused, etc. don't promise much of a premise for maintained peace IMO.

More advanced educational philosophy - would that automatically eradicate religious beliefs? Most fundamentalist religious beliefs do not make real peace an option either....

I guess I do not at all believe that all people can be educated with a peaceful philosophy....even though precisely that remains my most passionate ideal....:think:

From my viewpoint the mixing of races creates more diversity (within the individual body), not less......and a 'mixture' into one human-kind, which, IMO, we already are, is the only way.

DemEx
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kengineer Donating Member (136 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Aug-29-03 05:59 PM
Response to Reply #42
45. Interesting
YOU: 'sub-species' I start really doubting the peace option, the happiness option.

ME: Not sure what you meant here...

YOU: More advanced educational philosophy - would that automatically eradicate religious beliefs? Most fundamentalist religious beliefs do not make real peace an option either....

ME: If we eradicate religious beliefs from education then we are being a bit tyrannical towards groups of people within the population. I do agree that fundamentalism does make peace difficult when you have two groups with two different "fundamentals"


YOU: I guess I do not at all believe that all people can be educated with a peaceful philosophy....even though precisely that remains my most passionate ideal....:think:

ME: OK, interesting.


YOU: From my viewpoint the mixing of races creates more diversity (within the individual body), not less......and a 'mixture' into one human-kind, which, IMO, we already are, is the only way.

ME: Also interesting and on topic. You've responded to the Genetic Freedom Essay quite well.

Ken
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DemExpat Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Aug-30-03 01:07 PM
Response to Reply #45
59. About genetically modified 'sub-species' of man.....
I read an article about this possibility of wealthy parents opting for genetically modified offspring with certain hoped-for advantages.....this would possibly create 2 (and more) species of man. The 'old' one, like us, and the new genetically enhanced one.

I'm not sure if this branch of diversity is a positive, or creating a world I would like either! (Not that I will have any say in the development!)
:shrug:

DemEx
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kengineer Donating Member (136 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Aug-30-03 01:32 PM
Response to Reply #59
62. Not necessarily a new species
YOU: I read an article about this possibility of wealthy parents opting for genetically modified offspring with certain hoped-for advantages.....this would possibly create 2 (and more) species of man. The 'old' one, like us, and the new genetically enhanced one.

ME: First, On a previous response I made to you on this sub-thread I said "I'm not sure what you meant here" It's obvious what you meant and I guess it was late so nevermind... Regarding this thread: Mutations happen all the time so simple alteration of the human genome does not another species create (as yoda would say). Now I'm not so sure you could mate with Yoda... that might very well be impossible but then again, do you want to mate with Yoda? I don't want to presume anything regarding your background but you seem to be making simple mistakes in understanding the biological terminology. Two different species cannot mate with each other. I don't think that would be the case with these rich parent's children. The real question we should be asking now is do we currently have the appropriate technological knowledge to geneticaly engineer a child? Perhaps that should wait till we REALLY know what we are doing!


YOU: I'm not sure if this branch of diversity is a positive, or creating a world I would like either! (Not that I will have any say in the development!)
:shrug:

ME: you, me, we all have precisely "one human" say in the development. Sure, currently those with more money have more say, but we are also working to change that so let us all keep going.

Ken
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DemExpat Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Aug-30-03 01:38 PM
Response to Reply #62
63. I'm not well-schooled in biology.....
'Two different species cannot mate with each other. I don't think that would be the case with these rich parent's children.'
But this scenario is precisely one possibility that this writer was talking about....that after genetic manipulation, the "superior", modified version would not be able to pro-create with the "old' one that we are now.
I have a hunch that this could be possible......like accelerated mutation/evolution.....
Is it not true that ancient man might have lived with 2 different species of man....one of them dies out?
DemEx
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kengineer Donating Member (136 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Aug-30-03 01:52 PM
Response to Reply #63
66. yes
YOU: that after genetic manipulation, the "superior", modified version would not be able to pro-create with the "old' one that we are now.

ME: Well, that's different then. He's talking about what you mentioned. I don't think we yet have the technology for that... it would be too experimental right now and thusly, not caring for the child.


YOU: I have a hunch that this could be possible......like accelerated mutation/evolution.....

ME: How do you accelerate mutation evolution? Radiation coupled with requiring that all kids mate by the age of 12? LOL


YOU: Is it not true that ancient man might have lived with 2 different species of man....one of them dies out?

ME: I've heard both scenarios given by the anthropologists. Even two different species, if closely related enough can SOMETIMES mate with each other. I genuinly believe that some human beings might actually be able to mate with a chimpanzee.... 99.999% could not, but there would be just a handful that have some sort of Genetic code that could actually combine with some members of the chimp family. I know this sounds weird, but with genetics all kinds of crazy things are possible.
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treepig Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Aug-30-03 04:28 PM
Response to Reply #66
70. a few comments on species, chimpanzees, etc
Edited on Sat Aug-30-03 04:30 PM by treepig
by definition, members of one species cannot produce non-sterile offspring with another species.

second, as far as genetic engineering producing new species - that's unlikely - as a postulated somewhere in this thread there millions, probably hundreds of millions or billions different human genes out there, yet the people with these different genes are still humans. the human genone is extremely plastic and more subject to long term change from natural selection, rather than from either social or genetic engineering. i predict the rich people who aim to engineer their children to perfection will sadly disappointed.

having said there is tremendous genetic diversity in humans, the question arises, what type of genetic change would be required to convert a human to a new species. well, it could be a surprisingly small change, for example consider the mutation that led to the development of homo sapiens (ie. allowed us to split off from the common ancestor with chimps some 20 million (iirc) years ago).

consider there are two forms of sugar known as sialic acid:



if you look closely, you'll see that the 'NeuGc' form differs from the 'NeuAc' form by only one hydroxyl group (shown in red). in most animals there is an enzyme that adds this hydroxyl group to the NeuAc form to make the NeuGc form. humans do not have this enzyme, so they cannot make the NeuGc, they only have the NeuAc form.

recently, evidence suggests that human ancestors used to have this gene but lost it (it became mutated and no longer functional). furthermore, they lost the gene about the time humans split off from chimpanzees. considering that NeuAc is very important to brain development (and most animals do their best to suppress NeuGc in the brain - it's bad!), the hypothesis is that the inability of humans to produce NeuGc is the key mutation that allowed them to become humans. this type of thing cannot be predicted by genetic or social engineers - future examples will come by surprise no doubt, despite your best efforts to create an orderly and controlled genetic future for humankind.

http://www.asa3.org/archive/evolution/199809/0427.html

http://astrobio.net/news/print.php?sid=338
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kengineer Donating Member (136 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Aug-30-03 05:16 PM
Response to Reply #70
71. Nice post, but you still take every chance you can to rub it in
YOU: future examples will come by surprise no doubt, despite your best efforts to create an orderly and controlled genetic future for humankind.

ME: Why do you presume I don't know all this? My concept has nothing to do with this. When this type of mutation occurs producing a far more amazing human so be it... those new people deserve to have the type of genetic freedom I'm talking about as well. Now I haven't read up on this specific hypothesis regarding the mutation "they think" caused the advanced evolution of human beings, but that's beside the point.

Also, I still stand by my postulate that there are some humans that might be able to mate with some chimps... but finding them would be very, very difficult and I doubt were going to get a couple million volunteers any time soon...
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treepig Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Aug-30-03 07:59 PM
Response to Reply #71
72. i assume your hypothesis is entirely based on philosophy?
sure, when you free yourself from the constraints of science, anything is possible.

going back to the previously-discussed point about genetic engineering producing a superior sub-species - it sure would be nice to have even one concrete example of a genetic engineering change that would accomplish this objective.

consider the repair of defective genes that lead to disease. in this case, genetic engineering would not result in a new species, just a healthier individual of the same old species.

consider the case of conferring superior traits - let's say you want you child to grow larger, so he's genetically engineered to produce more growth hormone. one problem here could be that messing with hormones will probably cause other problems (steroid rage?) that would lead to less mating success (life term in prison for murdering someone in a fit of rage isn't conducive to leaving lots of progeny around for the new species). furthermore, if more growth hormone was good, nature would have figured out how to produce it long ago.

ok, let turn to intelligence. let's say the type of sialic acid-related mutation mentioned above was known to cause an increase in intelligence, so our ancestor who still had the bad form decided to genetically engineer their kids to only have the good form (if they possessed the necessary skills). however, what i didn't mention above is the good form also serves as a binding site for virus (influenza virus, btw, binds to sialic acid on the cell surface as a necessary step in the infection process). therefore, the genetically engineered smart kid is likely to end up dead from infectious disease (no new species there - clearly there was a huge element of luck involved that all the human ancestors didn't meet this fate - perhaps they had recently colonized a virus-free locale or something).

i could go on with many examples. but the point is that blithe talk about having any control over the genetic destiny of the human species is ridiculous from a scientific point of view. if you wish to go on having philosophical discussions about science fiction, that's perfectly fine as long as every realizes that's just what they are, and should not be taken at all seriously for making public policy and that type of thing.
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kengineer Donating Member (136 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Aug-30-03 09:26 PM
Response to Reply #72
74. Genetic Engineering? Wrong thread sir, this is Genetic Freedom
YOU: sure, when you free yourself from the constraints of science, anything is possible.

ME: I agree. If you're suggesting I do that you would be wrong.


YOU: going back to the previously-discussed point about genetic engineering producing a superior sub-species - it sure would be nice to have even one concrete example of a genetic engineering change that would accomplish this objective. consider the repair of defective genes that lead to disease. in this case, genetic engineering would not result in a new species, just a healthier individual of the same old species. -clip-

ME: All of what you just said is off topic to my post. I didn't bring up genetic engineering another person did and for some reason you've become cross linked thinking I've said something about it. Please stop spinning all of our minds on nothing and stick to the topic.


YOU: i could go on with many examples. but the point is that blithe talk about having any control over the genetic destiny of the human species is ridiculous from a scientific point of view.

ME: who claimed this ability? Not me. I claimed the ability to maintain a level of both population diversity and genetic diversity in precisely the way we've talked about regarding allele extinction. What happens beyond that is currently beyond our control... which part of that am I not clarifying for you? I do question your motives. I seems you may have the sole purpose of confusing the issue and deflecting from it.


YOU: if you wish to go on having philosophical discussions about science fiction, that's perfectly fine as long as every realizes that's just what they are, and should not be taken at all seriously for making public policy and that type of thing.

ME: you continue to dodge the two ways that we, the people, have control over influencing population diversity. I have stated these items before so I'll not be redundant. You did tell a wonderful tail of how humans cannot engineer themselves yes... how that applies to anything I've said I have no idea. Perhaps you've eaten too much sugar today or something?
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Philosophy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Aug-29-03 05:30 PM
Response to Original message
43. I think you're confused about how genetics works
There's not going to be any "blending" in the way you describe it because alleles can only be inhereted in limited quanta - e.g. you can't carry an allele for brown, blue, and green eyes all at the same time, any individual is limited to only two. So the only blending that can occur will be through the relative suppression of more recessive alleles, which will still exist just as much as they did before, just that they will be expressed less because there won't be as many smaller groups where they are more prevalent. There will be just as much genetic variation as before, just less phenotypic varation. Any real blending on a genetic level would require many thousands of years of further evolution, and some natural selective pressures which don't currently exist.

And your idea of human subpopulations isolating themselves and separating into new races is impossible in this age of worldwide communication and transportation. And there's no rational reason why any group would want to voluntarily isolate themselves to the extent that this would be possible. Like it or not, the homogenization of races and cultures is inevitable, it certainly does not need to be forced upon anyone.

If you really want to explore this philosophically, you need to go much, much deeper: Why does racism make you happy? Why does anything make you happy? What is happiness? What is freedom?
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Sufi Marmot Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Aug-29-03 06:05 PM
Response to Reply #43
46. Thank you...
...for spelling this out more clearly and eloquently than I was able to. I've given up...


-SM
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kengineer Donating Member (136 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Aug-29-03 06:33 PM
Response to Reply #46
48. Yet you both missed that Allele's can go extinct at a grandchild
Allele's can go extinct at the level of grandchild... What do you have to say to that?

So on the one hand you say you've given up and on the other hand you ignore that Alleles can go extinct... explain your reasoning?

Ken
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treepig Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Aug-30-03 11:13 AM
Response to Reply #48
52. and you missed that allele's can go extinct at a child!
What do you have to say to that?

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kengineer Donating Member (136 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Aug-30-03 11:26 AM
Response to Reply #52
53. Of course they can... in the usual way, mutation
Mutation can cause a double allele to go extinct in a child if there is a mutation which causes it, sure. Is there some other way I don't know about, please explain if there is.

Mutation isn't a choice, The grandchild's allele going extinct was a choice. Thus the original essay I wrote still stands unopposed as being the proper course for total freedom AND maintaining Genetic population diversity and maintaining better genetic diversity.

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treepig Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Aug-30-03 12:10 PM
Response to Reply #53
56. i wasn't refering to mutations
Edited on Sat Aug-30-03 12:24 PM by treepig
and you made no mention of 'double' alleles in the immediately preceding posts it appeared the discussion was about an allele (singular). if not, why did you write "allele's" and not the correct "alleles'" if refering to more than one?

when it comes right down to it, an allele is either passed on to a successive generation, or not. there's really no ambiguity involved. it either becomes extinct in one generation, or not. your example of blond hair in your original or revised essay is not dealing with an allele (blond hair is not an allele, it is a trait!)



as to your original essay, it has absolutely no grounding in current science - there is no way (with current knowledge) to devise any policies to "maintain genetic propulation diversity" - i guarantee that if you sit down (better be sitting because it will take some time) and plan out who ever single person alive today will mate with, who their progeny will mate with, and so on for how ever many generations you wish to consider - at every single generation the actual genetic, phenotypic (and racial, whatever that means) outcome will be quite different than you intend.

genetic population diversity will maintain itself, or not, depending on factors far beyond human control, either through policy making or direct genetic manipulation. on a tangent, are you by any chance a product of the kansas school system after they've adopted their loony creationism/intelligent design curriculum?

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kengineer Donating Member (136 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Aug-30-03 12:30 PM
Response to Reply #56
57. some miscommunications
Edited on Sat Aug-30-03 12:40 PM by kengineer
YOU: and you made no mention of 'double' alleles in the immediately preceding posts it appeared the discussion was about an allele (singular). if not, why did you write "allele's" and not the correct "alleles'" if refering to more than one?

ME: I was clarifying when I stated double. I presumed you understood that a double allele could cease to exist at the level of grandchild. I, of course, understood that a single allele could cease to exist at the level of child (without mutation).


YOU: when it comes right down to it, an allele is either passed on to a successive generation or not. there's really no ambiguity involved.

ME: Yes. There is no ambiguity.


YOU: it either becomes extinct in one generation, your example of blond hair in your original or revised essay is not dealing with an allele (blond hair is not an allele, it is a trait!)

ME: Ok, now we are starting to complicate the whole issue. Multiple alleles' certainly can be required to produce a particular trait. That's all fine and dandy. I was simplifying with my example. I think I'll go change it to "crystal blue eyes" right now...


YOU: as to your original essay, it has absolutely no grounding in current science - there is no way (with current knowledge) to devise any policies to "maintain genetic propulation diversity"

ME: If we have policies that discourage marriages within ethnic groups, then we are exposing thousands of alleles to becoming reduced in the genetic population via the allele extinction we just discussed. Let's do a worldwide count of alleles in all humans and see which ones are reducing the fastest!


YOU: - i guarantee that if you sit down (better be sitting because it will take some time) and plan out who ever single person alive today will mate with, who their progeny will mate with, and so on for how ever many generations you wish to consider - at every single generation the actual genetic, phenotypic (and racial, whatever that means) outcome will be quite different than you intend.

ME: well, needless to say I'm not "god", but going with your example we could, at the very least, maintain the ethnic population diversity which is equivalent to genetic population diversity that I am talking about. It is inaccurate, however, to presume that any sort of specific planning would be involved. Individuals would all make their own reproductive decisions. Two things would change: 1) District based communities would become legal for ethnic groups 2) our perception of groups of people who gathered in this way would be positive and fully respectful rather than negative.


YOU: genetic population diversity will maintain itself, or not, depending on factors far beyond human control either through policy making or direct genetic manipulation.

ME: as I keep pointing out we do have specifically two means of control and we have already implemented those.


YOU: on a tangent, are you by any chance a product of the kansas school system after they've adopted their loony creationism/intelligent design curriculum?

ME: paalease...
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kengineer Donating Member (136 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Aug-29-03 06:30 PM
Response to Reply #43
47. Another interesting post...
YOU: There's not going to be any "blending" in the way you describe it because alleles can only be inhereted in limited quanta - e.g. you can't carry an allele for brown, blue, and green eyes all at the same time, any individual is limited to only two.

ME: Noted...


YOU: So the only blending that can occur will be through the relative suppression of more recessive alleles

ME: And an allele can disappear entirely after a couple of generations if the selections occur accordingly... They can go completely extinct.


YOU: (the blue eyed Alleles...) which will still exist just as much as they did before, just that they will be expressed less because there won't be as many smaller groups where they are more prevalent.

ME: In some people they won't exist at all. For example: a person that has the crystal blue eyed allele mates with someone who has no blue eyed alleles. Then those children mate with someone who has no blue eyed Alleles. It's possible that the grandchildren of the original crystal blue eyed person could have no blue eyed Allele and thus the allele went extinct in that genetic line.


YOU: There will be just as much genetic variation as before, just less phenotypic varation.

ME: As I pointed out, you will lose genetic variation...


YOU: Any real blending on a genetic level would require many thousands of years of further evolution, and some natural selective pressures which don't currently exist.

ME: How do you define "blending." I define it simply as an identifiable asian mating with an identifiable black... the genetics are thus blended by how I'm talking about it... what type of blending are you talking about?


YOU: And your idea of human subpopulations isolating themselves and separating into new races is impossible in this age of worldwide communication and transportation.

ME: Impossible? Illegal is a more appropriate word... If it were not illegal or socially unacceptable, it would hardly be impossible.


YOU: And there's no rational reason why any group would want to voluntarily isolate themselves to the extent that this would be possible.

ME: To maintain human population diversity upon the planet Earth. That's the reason I provided and now you've supported it with your post (specifically the first item you posted regarding how a person can only carry two of the alleles which then clearly means the allele can be rendered extinct at the level of grandchild if the correct mating conditions prevail).


YOU: Like it or not, the homogenization of races and cultures is inevitable.

ME: If laws and media/educatinal influence continue to encourage it, yes it is inevitable. I agree with you 100%.


YOU: it certainly does not need to be forced upon anyone.

ME: Laws = forced (enforced)...



YOU: If you really want to explore this philosophically, you need to go much, much deeper.

ME: You've said a lot here... but then I've pointed out how much of what you said was somewhat inaccurate.


YOU: Why does racism make you happy?

ME: I think in the legal world that's called leading the witness or something like that (I'm not a lawyer so I think it may be called something else)... racism as defined in dictionaries and by the media has nothing to do with the essay I just wrote. How about you, does racism make you happy?


YOU: Why does anything make you happy?

ME: Well that's a good philosophical question. Things make me happy because of both genetics and the "programming" within those genetics. Then, on occassion, the conditions of happiness arise and I am happy...


YOU: What is happiness?

ME: Well, I kind of touched on that in the previous answer... I could get deeper into it but it's not specifically on topic to this thread.


YOU: What is freedom?

ME: As long as we are not hurting other people, then we should be able to do whatever it is that makes us happy... There's a heck of a lot more to it than that of course.
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Philosophy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-31-03 12:45 PM
Response to Reply #47
81. You're still wrong - take a genetics class
And an allele can disappear entirely after a couple of generations if the selections occur accordingly... They can go completely extinct.

Wrong. Alleles cannot go extinct just by being recessive unless they are detrimental so that they are selected out by evolution. This would make sense within your plan for eugenic purity only if every time a person was born within your ideal race group by chance expressing a recessive trait, then they must be expelled from that group. That is pretty drastic beyond even the ideas advocated by racial supremecy groups. Is this what you are advocating?

In some people they won't exist at all. For example: a person that has the crystal blue eyed allele mates with someone who has no blue eyed alleles. Then those children mate with someone who has no blue eyed Alleles. It's possible that the grandchildren of the original crystal blue eyed person could have no blue eyed Allele and thus the allele went extinct in that genetic line.

Wrong. Because there is no more reason for that to happen than for the grandchildren to still carry the blue eyed allele, even though it is recessive. It's totally random. There is no natural selective pressure that favors people without blue eyes. I think the basis for your whole misunderstanding here is that you're confusing heredity with evolution. Those are two entirely different things. Heredity can change the phenotype of populations by the dominance and recessivity of traits, but evolution changes the genetics of populations only through natural selection. Those are two entirely different things.

As I pointed out, you will lose genetic variation...

As I pointed out, you are wrong. You may loose some phenotypic variation, but not genenetic.

How do you define "blending." I define it simply as an identifiable asian mating with an identifiable black... the genetics are thus blended by how I'm talking about it... what type of blending are you talking about?

That's just mixing of hereditary traits. No traits are lost if this cross-breeding population is large enough - even recessive traits will continue to be expressed in individuals in later generations with some probability. If the population is small, some traits may be lost, but randomly - there is an equal chance that traits from each side will be lost since there is no natural selective pressure favoring any of the traits. This is equally true whether those traits are dominant or recessive.

To maintain human population diversity upon the planet Earth. That's the reason I provided and now you've supported it with your post (specifically the first item you posted regarding how a person can only carry two of the alleles which then clearly means the allele can be rendered extinct at the level of grandchild if the correct mating conditions prevail).

Wrong. You don't understand genetics. Interbreeding of subpopulations does not decrease the total genetic diversity of the resulting population, as I explained. This would only be detrimental to a species if there is some new natural selective pressure that occurs that suddenly favors individuals in one of the old subpopulations or the other, because there won't be as many of those individuals in the new population. There is no conceivable thing like this that can happen to the human species any more.

But interbreeding of previously isolated subpopulations of humans does have an immediate positive effect in that it probabilistically suppresses the expression of harmful recessive alleles for genetic diseases and disorders that may have previously been prevelent in one of those subpopulations but not the other. This is why hybrid populations tend to be stronger.

You've said a lot here... but then I've pointed out how much of what you said was somewhat inaccurate.

Do you have a 1000-page college genetics textbook sitting in front of you on your desk? I do. :think:
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kengineer Donating Member (136 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-31-03 12:56 PM
Response to Reply #81
84. I'm a bit sloppy, but my meaning is consistent throughout
I WROTE: And an allele can disappear entirely after a couple of generations if the selections occur accordingly... They can go completely extinct.

THEN YOU WROTE: Wrong. Alleles cannot go extinct just by being recessive unless they are detrimental so that they are selected out by evolution.


I should have clarified further here that an Allele can go extinct at the level of child or grandchild for any particular genetic line. If a double allele exists in a girl. Then she mates with someone who does not have the allele her children will have one allele. Then if her children mate with someone who has none of the alleles there is a 50% chance that she will have a kid with no allele so the allele went extinct in that specific genetic line. That was my point and I assume too much on the part of the reader.

I've confused too many people with this thread with my sloppy writing and I'd like to thusly end it. But I will finish responding to the rest of your stuff and anybody else. When you combine sloppy writting with a "a hot polical topic" it's not too healthy.

Ken
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Philosophy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-31-03 01:23 PM
Response to Reply #84
91. This doesn't help at all - it is still wrong
I understand completely what you are saying, but as I explained before it is still wrong. As you explained yourself, the child only has a 50% chance of not carrying the recessive blue-eyed allele, and you have already artificially skewed the odds to try to get rid of it by having only one homozygous blue-eyed ancestor and two homozygous non-blue-eyed ancestors and only one grandchild, as well as having such a small population in general. The larger you make the populations in your example, the less probable it becomes for that blue-eyed allele to go extinct. If you make the populations large enough, as they are actually in the real world, then it becomes almost impossible for it to go extinct.

You really need to study some genetics, and probability. You're just betraying your ignorance. But then again the racial supremacists you are really targeting your essay for tend not to be the smartest bunch anyway. So good luck. :eyes:
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kengineer Donating Member (136 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-31-03 01:35 PM
Response to Reply #91
92. Not wrong, just different than what you're talking about...
Edited on Sun Aug-31-03 01:35 PM by kengineer
YOU: I understand completely what you are saying, but as I explained before it is still wrong.

ME: It is not wrong as I've explained it. In that particular genetic line it will go extinct. I never said it would go extinct in the population as a whole. Frequencies of alleles can diminish within a population. Obviously.


YOU: make the populations large enough, as they are actually in the real world, then it becomes almost impossible for it to go extinct.

ME: I agree. I've never taken the contrary position to that. But this still does not address the original argument in my post which, is far to creatively worded for anybody to properly comprehend so don't worry about that right now...


YOU: You really need to study some genetics, and probability.

ME: Nope, understand both just fine. It's a terminology and creativity thing. I expect far too much creative, unbiased thought, on the part of the reader and clearly, that isn't the case most of the time with most readers. Also I cannot expect people to understand words the same way I understand them.
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Philosophy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-31-03 01:59 PM
Response to Reply #92
98. Now you're getting delusional
It is not wrong as I've explained it. In that particular genetic line it will go extinct. I never said it would go extinct in the population as a whole. Frequencies of alleles can diminish within a population. Obviously.

Frequencies of alleles can only diminish within a population due to evolutionary natural selective pressures or inbreeding (which is essentially what the people are doing in your little example). Definitely not through hybridization alone, as you claim.

I agree. I've never taken the contrary position to that. But this still does not address the original argument in my post which, is far to creatively worded for anybody to properly comprehend so don't worry about that right now...

Nope, understand both just fine. It's a terminology and creativity thing. I expect far too much creative, unbiased thought, on the part of the reader and clearly, that isn't the case most of the time with most readers. Also I cannot expect people to understand words the same way I understand them.


Oh, I see now - anyone that says you are wrong is obviously just not as "creative" as you, you don't need facts to defend your position because we wouldn't be smart enough to understand them anyway. Never mind that some of us have actually studied genetics in a university for years.

I was going to try to explain the mathematics of heredity to you, but I see now that you are probably too "creative" to even try understand them.
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kengineer Donating Member (136 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-31-03 03:09 PM
Response to Reply #98
107. extinguished not extinct
I've decided I'll use the word extinguished not extinct. Extinct specifically means doesn't exist upon the planet so it's not a good word to use. Beyond that I see your point about how confusing what I wrote it...

YOU: Frequencies of alleles can only diminish within a population due to evolutionary natural selective pressures or inbreeding (which is essentially what the people are doing in your little example). Definitely not through hybridization alone, as you claim.


ME: I understand that. We're on the same page. I was misleading with my describing how alleles can go extinct and so again... it's my fault I'm just a damn cluster F*ck writer.

But the phenotypic probability is really what I'm talking about. And the ethno-specific phenotypes will show up less when ethnic groups genetically combine. You agree with that right?

I'm for freedom for groups and individuals... not just individuals. I believe in recombination and letting groups have their communities to promote ethnocentric reproductive trends. Now that we have pushed aside the confusion on genetic terminology, can you understand how the government not allowing local district based communities to exist could reduce ethno-specific phenotypes?
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Philosophy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-31-03 01:48 PM
Response to Reply #91
94. In fact the dominant race is just as likely to go extinct
In fact, if the initial population of homozygous blue-eyed people is exactly the same size as the intitial population of homozygous non-blue-eyed people, then the probability that the blue-eyed allele will go extinct in later generations of the hybrid population is exactly the same as the probability that the non-blue-eyed allele will go extinct. Whether one allele or the other is recessive or not is irrelevant, unless there are some natural selective evolutionary pressures favoring one eye color over the other (which in humans there is not).

So if you are afraid that the traits of your race will go completely extinct by interbreeding with another race, in fact there is an equal chance that the traits of that other race will go extinct instead, regardless of which race's traits are dominant or recessive. But if the populations are large enough, the chance for either of these events to happen becomes vanishingly small.

Do you need me to explain the mathematics of this to you, or will you do a little research on your own now? :eyes:
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kengineer Donating Member (136 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-31-03 02:11 PM
Response to Reply #94
100. I can add to your argument here if you have an open mind
YOU: In fact, if the initial population of homozygous blue-eyed people is exactly the same size as the intitial population of homozygous non-blue-eyed people, then the probability that the blue-eyed allele will go extinct in later generations of the hybrid population is exactly the same as the probability that the non-blue-eyed allele will go extinct.

ME: IF the "blue eyed" population has the same birth rate as the "brown-eyed" population. That is a requirement for your example to be correct. This birth rate would also need to carry over for subsequent "mixed" generations as well. So it only has the same probability if the birth rate factors are the same, but for your example we'll say they are and so your example is correct! You get a brownie point! Next: what is the probability of seeing the blue eyes? Dohhhhh!! That's what my essay is about... phenotype!!


YOU: So if you are afraid that the traits of your race will go completely extinct

ME: Afriad? Aware is a better word and it's all human population phenotypic diversity not just mine.


YOU: there is an equal chance that the traits of that other race will go extinct instead, regardless of which race's traits are dominant or recessive.

ME: I agree sure, but again, off topic... point of the essay is allowing the ethnic groups to have district based communities if they so choose, and the government should not have laws preventing that but rather should be neutral... then their is the whole media/educational influence. Two issue's that nobody has yet addressed... interesting to say the least.


YOU: But if the populations are large enough, the chance for either of these events to happen becomes vanishingly small.

ME: I dont believe any specific allele will go completely extinct... but since we are likely talking about thousands of alleles I suppose in some extreme case it might be possible.



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Philosophy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-31-03 02:38 PM
Response to Reply #100
104. You can't have it both ways
IF the "blue eyed" population has the same birth rate as the "brown-eyed" population. That is a requirement for your example to be correct. This birth rate would also need to carry over for subsequent "mixed" generations as well. So it only has the same probability if the birth rate factors are the same, but for your example we'll say they are and so your example is correct! You get a brownie point! Next: what is the probability of seeing the blue eyes? Dohhhhh!! That's what my essay is about... phenotype!!

Does not-having blue eyes increase fertility or something? Would a brown-eyed child of blue-eyed parents have more children on average than a blue-eyed child of the same parents? That makes no sense whatsoever.

You can't have it both ways here - you are arguing against the populations interbreeding, but then you are citing differential birth rates that depend upon the populations remaining genetically isolated. What you are saying here would only make sense if the populations remained isolated and did not interbreed, and the genetically isolated non-blue-eyed population somehow displaced the genetically isolated blue-eyed population. This can't be an argument against interbreeding because it assumes interbreeding does not occur a priori, which is circular reasoning.

Perhaps you need to study some logic as well.
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kengineer Donating Member (136 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-31-03 03:44 PM
Response to Reply #104
110. phenotype probability approaches zero
YOU: Does not-having blue eyes increase fertility or something? Would a brown-eyed child of blue-eyed parents have more children on average than a blue-eyed child of the same parents? That makes no sense whatsoever.

ME: Birth rates are a cultural thing and you never stated that the two cultures were identical... so I was just clarifying, geesh. I agreed with your example, what's the problem? But again phenotypic probability will reduce as I stated. Additionally, I'm going to mix-it-up a bit more now... Let's say there are specifically three genes unique to the ethnic group which give them their "unique look." If all members of that ethnic group mix with another that has none of those alleles, what then is the probability of seeing all three of those phenotypes together at the same time? Close to zero... but not zero. The more ethno-specific phenotypes we add to this, the more this probability approaches zero.

YOU: but then you are citing differential birth rates that depend upon the populations remaining genetically isolated.

ME: not at all... hopefully I clarified that in the previous answer


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Philosophy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-31-03 04:13 PM
Response to Reply #110
112. You are beyond help
Edited on Sun Aug-31-03 04:13 PM by Philosophy
Birth rates are a cultural thing and you never stated that the two cultures were identical... so I was just clarifying, geesh. I agreed with your example, what's the problem? But again phenotypic probability will reduce as I stated. Additionally, I'm going to mix-it-up a bit more now... Let's say there are specifically three genes unique to the ethnic group which give them their "unique look." If all members of that ethnic group mix with another that has none of those alleles, what then is the probability of seeing all three of those phenotypes together at the same time? Close to zero... but not zero. The more ethno-specific phenotypes we add to this, the more this probability approaches zero.

This may be true - but you are carrying this to an illogical and unrealistic extreme. Is there any reason to believe that all the traits of one race are good and all of another are bad? Is there any real population in the world (or anyone even form one) that is so homogenous that this could ever be an issue?

You're so far beyond basic racial supremacy here that you would probably only be happy with a master race consisting of nothing but clones of yourself. :evilfrown:
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kengineer Donating Member (136 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-31-03 04:25 PM
Response to Reply #112
114. Thank you, we finally agree about the first think you typed...
Edited on Sun Aug-31-03 04:35 PM by kengineer
ME: Additionally, I'm going to mix-it-up a bit more now... Let's say there are specifically three genes unique to the ethnic group which give them their "unique look." If all members of that ethnic group mix with another that has none of those alleles, what then is the probability of seeing all three of those phenotypes together at the same time? Close to zero... but not zero. The more ethno-specific phenotypes we add to this, the more this probability approaches zero.

YOU: This may be true

Thank you sir, nice doing business with you...

All I'm really saying here is we should have serious discussion about ethnic groups having this local group freedom and it's driven not by the government, but by the ethnic groups themselves. With appropriate education I believe this could be peacefully implemented... but then that is the discussion.


Ken


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kengineer Donating Member (136 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Aug-30-03 12:11 AM
Response to Reply #43
49. Clarification
YOU: And your idea of human subpopulations isolating themselves and separating into new races is impossible in this age of worldwide communication and transportation.

ME: That's not what I've proposed. I've proposed this:

It should be noted that these "district based communities" are not isolated from the rest of the world. It is expected that they would be part of a much larger collective of communities, of a similar ethnic group or race, over the entire world. As people learn about their own genetics, genes, and alleles, they can make intelligent reproductive decisions of whatever kind they choose, be it within their general ethnic group (race) or outside of it.

And, it's not "impossible," it's currently illegal...
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kengineer Donating Member (136 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Aug-30-03 08:55 AM
Response to Reply #49
50. adendum
and in this way, both cultures and Genetics are completely free upon our planet. Freedom for both individuals and groups of individuals, and they may gather for reasons as fundamental as life itself, genetics.

This then comes full circle back to the original point: “Do you believe that human peace can be maintained along with population diversity using a more advanced educational philosophy, or do you believe that human peace can only be maintained by enforcing a one-human-race-only policy, at gunpoint?”
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uhhuh Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Aug-30-03 01:46 PM
Response to Reply #49
65. There would have to be legislation
Thereby making this "policy". There is no current law preventing groups of people educating members of their racail group about themselves. They are free to do so. What it seems you are proposing would make this mandatory and enforcable. This would require penalties and legal sanctions to prevent an opposing message getting out, perhaps one promoting cultural diversity throught the media, etc., that you have mentioned.

What it seems you are proposing would require that people not be permitted to live where they want or interact and mate freely with who they choose. This would require some degree of discriminatory legislation.

For this reason, I don't see this as promoting fairness and equality for all peoples, niether to those who wish to be separate, or those who wish to intermingle with other races.

Here's an example:

Let's say there is a group of people who want to excercise their rights to live separated from other people and buy up a area of land where they can all live in isolation. The same rights that allow them to do this also allow someone of another group to buy land and live in the same area. There would have to be legislation saying that only the first group could live there. THis would be limiting the freedom of the person in the second group to enjoy the same rights as the first.
What if an equal number of people in the second group want to do the same thing? Who's rights would be paramount? Unless they all have the right to live freely where they want, someone's rights are being violated.
To specifically legislate where certain people could live could pose huge problems.
What if the first group suffered a major disaster where they were living and were unable to sustain the community in that location? Would they just have to be left to die there, or would they be permitted to "temporarily" relocate into the territory of another group? If another group had resources that could help them, would they be justified in attacking and taking them in order to maintain their group? Would another group be obliged to to provide them material support, but not be permitted to freely associate with them?
What if the area where they have settled gets too crowded? Would they be justified in forcing others out of their areas? Who gets to decide who's group's rights are more valuable? I don't see how this would ever work...nor do I think it should even be tried.
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kengineer Donating Member (136 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Aug-30-03 02:11 PM
Response to Reply #65
67. partial agreement
YOU: There is no current law preventing groups of people educating members of their racail group about themselves. They are free to do so.

ME: True. There are social pressures against it.


YOU: What it seems you are proposing would make this mandatory and enforcable.

ME: hardly, it's completely voluntary on the parts of the individuals who communicate with one another, then decide they wish to form a community etc... I don't believe they should be able to force anybody to "move out of the nieghborhood" so to speak. That would need to be accomplished through natural attrition.


YOU: This would require penalties and legal sanctions to prevent an opposing message getting out, perhaps one promoting cultural diversity throught the media.

ME: No, not hardly. Ever hear the phrase "it's all good." Let's talk about everything. Both Cultural diversity and Cutlural freedom within a local district based community. It's all good brother!


YOU: What it seems you are proposing would require that people not be permitted to live where they want or interact and mate freely with who they choose.

Me: Within any given ethnic based community, that community has the right to decline house sales to people of their choosing, correct. Anybody can interact with anybody and mate freely with anybody... You missed that point completely but admittedly, my short essay doesn't clarify that too well and needs work.



YOU: This would require some degree of discriminatory legislation.

ME: Precisely one piece... the right to have the local community and those in the community collectively decide who moves in. As bad as that sounds, that is what I'm talking about here and it does flow logically regarding maintaining population diversity and all that.


YOU: For this reason, I don't see this as promoting fairness and equality for all peoples niether to those who wish to be separate, or those who wish to intermingle with other races.

ME: contrarily, I see this as promoting fairness and equality not just for individuals, for also for groups of individuals. The human world exists as individuals and groups of individuals. Life itself, is genetics, so freedom for groups of humans based on genetics seems to follow.


YOU: Here's an example: Let's say there is a group of people who want to excercise their rights to live separated from other people and buy up a area of land where they can all live in isolation.

ME: the example is already not correct per my essay, but I'll proceed to read it...


YOU: The same rights that allow them to do this also allow someone of another group to buy land and live in the same area. There would have to be legislation saying that only the first group could live there.

ME: We're spinning the mind on nothing now. If a community populated by a single ethnic group over an area of 10 square miles chooses to sell some of their land to another family or group, it is their choice, not the governments.


YOU: THis would be limiting the freedom of the person in the second group to enjoy the same rights as the first.

ME: Again, you misunderstood and I'll take blame for that because the essay is short and somewhat quickly prepared... I consider this thread to be a hashing out process at this point to figure out this population diversity issue I've illuminated.


YOU: What if an equal number of people in the second group want to do the same thing? Who's rights would be paramount? Unless they all have the right to live freely where they want, someone's rights are being violated. To specifically legislate where certain people could live could pose huge problems -clip-

ME: Since all this proceeds from a misunderstanding... I'll let it go for now. I do like how you think though. Without doubt all these little issue's I'll be thinking about in time.

Bottom line: you didn't address the question of the essay. Do you think world peace can be maintained along with population diversity? The way you talk about it, it sounds like conflicts would result quickly... but I think you are excessively complicating it and it's not that bad.
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uhhuh Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-31-03 02:29 PM
Response to Reply #67
102. I did address the Question
But you ignored the difficult parts of my answer.

ME(Basically): I stated that I was concerned that in the event of the needs of a homogenious communities needs not being met due to disaster or overpopulation, that there would have to be some sort of laws or rules made in order to sustain the community that may infringe on others. I wanted to know how you would propose we maintain the ethnic and cultural integrity of these communities without infringing on the rights of other groups, or giving them justification for war against other groups when their needs are not met.

Bottom Line:

You:you didn't address the question of the essay. Do you think world peace can be maintained along with population diversity? The way you talk about it, it sounds like conflicts would result quickly... but I think you are excessively complicating it and it's not that bad.

Me: I think I spoke directly to the question and answered no. I do think conficts WOULD result quickly.
If you don't, I 'd like to see why. I'd like you to address the points I made, and not accuse me of complicating a complex issue.

As I stated before, people already have the right to do this. You even stated that the people in these communities, individually, would not be sanctioned against selling land within their community to others, so that seems to go against your assertion that the community would be allowed to restrict this as a whole.

You may not think my points speak to what you are saying. I do. If you just want to pick and choose what you are going to answer to, I think that speaks more to your ability to communicate, rather than those of us who are trying to understand your point.

Why should any of us care what your opinion is if you are going to ask for ours and dismiss or ignore the things YOU don't feel are making it easier for you to put forth your thoughts.

If you think think your original idea isn't going to lead to other issues, and the need to discuss them, then you should just post a poll and ask for no replies. If you don't think there would be complications that must be addressed, then I don't know what to say.
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kengineer Donating Member (136 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-31-03 03:36 PM
Response to Reply #102
109. Ok... here's clarification
YOU: But you ignored the difficult parts of my answer.

ME: I mentioned that you "set up the problem wrong" so I didn't want to proceed down an incorrect logical pathway...


YOU: I stated that I was concerned that in the event of the needs of a homogenious communities needs not being met due to disaster or overpopulation, that there would have to be some sort of laws or rules made in order to sustain the community that may infringe on others.

ME: Ok, these are good general points. During disasters we all have to help each other by whatever means... PERIOD. There is no infringment clause that any local group can claim against that. Overpopulation is a whole nother story. Think of it this way: If there is a Community that controls their population and a community next to it that does not, why should the community that controls their numbers responsibly accept all the IRRESPONSIBLE overflow from the other, thusly creating overpopulation in that community as well. That's a problem within the community that is overpopulating and the solution has to be within that overpopulated community. The solution is not simply allowing their irresponsible reproductive trends to overflow into "all surrounding lands." That's irresponsible. You know that. Don't you?


YOU: I wanted to know how you would propose we maintain the ethnic and cultural integrity of these communities without infringing on the rights of other groups

ME: how would they infringe upon the rights of others... I'm not sure about this...


YOU: or giving them justification for war against other groups when their needs are not met.

ME: Well, I doubt were going to see a war in a district based community declared against the national government or even a neighboring community... BUT, this does get to the real core of my essay which is simply: “Do you believe that human peace can be achieved along with phenotypic population diversity using a more advanced educational philosophy, or do you believe that human peace can only be maintained by enforcing a one-human-race-only policy, at gunpoint?”


YOU: I do think conficts WOULD result quickly.

ME Fantastic... I'm not yet ready to address all your other points... we're done for now. This thread isn't the place for further discussion. Perhaps I'll start another one in the future when it's more well thought out.



YOU: As I stated before, people already have the right to do this (have district based communities).

ME: well, they can only do it now buying private property etc... I'm speaking in terms if it were legalized...


YOU: You even stated that the people in these communities, individually, would not be sanctioned against selling land within their community to others, so that seems to go against your assertion that the community would be allowed to restrict this as a whole.

ME; misunderstanding here. Individuals could not do this, the whole community decides by whatever organizational means.


YOU: You may not think my points speak to what you are saying. I do. If you just want to pick and choose what you are going to answer to, I think that speaks more to your ability to communicate, rather than those of us who are trying to understand your point.

ME: relax, I answered you.

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kengineer Donating Member (136 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Aug-30-03 12:02 PM
Response to Original message
55. NEWEST ESSAY -- GENETIC FREEDOM -- LATEST**NEW
Edited on Sat Aug-30-03 12:31 PM by kengineer
The philosophical concept of Genetic Freedom in its most fundamental form is discussing a basic concept of existence for human Genetic life. The essence of that discussion is freedom for both individuals and groups of individuals.

For the purposes of this document the words race and ethnic group are somewhat interchangeable. Some prefer the phrase "ethnic group". We are talking about populations of humans who have, for the most part, bred within their group over many centuries, millennia, or longer. In doing so their allele pairs, coupled with population specific mutations, have a high probability of producing particular characteristics within the new babies of the population. Put a simpler way, the combined genetic morphology of a mother and a father have a high probability of producing a baby that generally looks like a combination of the two parents. For example: If a group of "100% Japanese heritage" people divided into two groups and experienced isolated reproduction from one another for a period of 3000 years, the resulting two communities would be two different races or ethnic groups by how this document is using those terms. If we were to evaluate individuals from these two hypothetical populations, we would likely see trends in appearance which would allow us to accurately know which group each individual came from. This document fluidly uses the word race or ethnic group to refer to these groups of breeding populations, regardless if those populations have accepted some limited admixture from other races along the way. POPULATION DIVERSITY is defined as a great many of these various races or ethnic groups existing upon the planet. The phrase "one human race" or "one uniform human race" is used in this document to indicate a human population condition of significantly less population diversity.

Next, let's talk a little about population trends. Over the past approximately 100,000 years, the human species has branched off into a variety of different genetic morphologies which are sometimes termed races and other times termed ethnic groups. This population diversity was created primarily do to relatively isolated reproduction within different populations upon different lands of planet Earth, coupled with recombination and admixtures with adjacent populations over the millennia etc... The probability of a Japanese male mating with a Japanese female is much higher if that Japanese male is in a community that is 98% Japanese, than if that community is only 5% Japanese. This suggests that if these Japanese cannot have their own district based community (let's say 10 square miles), statistics will eventually lead to their particular genetic morphology ceasing to exist, in favor of a somewhat uniform racial blend which will result over the course of centuries as the different ethnic groups within the community combine their genetics. Expanding this argument out suggests that the current laws of non-discrimination in housing which were founded for noble reasons and, on the face of it, seem to be promoting diversity, peace and happiness upon the planet, may actually, in the end, cause population diversity to diminish. Of course, during the transition period, population diversity mildly increases as different human morphologies are created by all the ethnic groups mixing with one another. Then after reaching the top of the population diversity graph, a sharp decline occurs favor of a single uniform looking race. Eventually the population diversity meter will approach the flat line at one for any given country or "land area" that has laws and media which encourage such a trend. It should be noted that these "district based communities" are not isolated from the rest of the world. It is expected that they would be part of a much larger collective of communities, of a similar ethnic group or race, over the entire world. As people learn about their own genetics, genes, and alleles, they can make intelligent reproductive decisions of whatever kind they choose, be it within their general ethnic group or outside of it.

There is, of course, an additional factor which can either increase or decrease the probability of members of the same ethnic group or race selecting one another as mates. Media and educational influences have a huge impact. If the media and educational environment frowns on the concept of "maintaining and enhancing the genetic lines of your specific ethnic group or race" and most people are so educated, then the probability is increased for them to select partners outside their existing ethnic groups.

Within any human population (race or ethnic group), deleterious mutations as well as exceptionally good mutations can result. Both types of mutation occur over time. From an educational standpoint, all individuals should be aware if they have a recessive allele that could lead to a deleterious condition in a child. With this knowledge we can all make more appropriate reproductive decisions. For example: A person gets a genetic test and discovers they have the gene for diabetes. For this example any deleteriously mutated gene could be substituted in the place of diabetes. This person does not have diabetes, but if they mate with a person who also has this gene, there is a good probability of having a child who will have diabetes. With this knowledge this person can then make an intelligent reproductive decision. Alleles can become extinct at the level of grandchild. For example: A girl with a double pair of "light blue eye" alleles mates with a guy who has no "light blue eye" genes. Their kids will have one allele of "light blue eyes" and one allele with "other eye color." If that child then mates with a person who has no "light blue eye" genes, their is a 50% chance that their children will not have any "light blue eye" genes, at all. This is how quickly alleles can become extinct within any specific human genetic line. The good news is that deleterious genes can be rendered extinct the same way. Another way to eliminate deleterious genes is to not have children if you have the bad gene. Unfortunately, we do not yet have the technology to repair these genes... but we're working on it.
With that background behind us, the following argument proceeds:

Should we allow the human race to continue to freely branch into more than one uniform human race (or ethnic group, whichever word you prefer), coexisting productively and peacefully upon this planet with their beautiful lands and cultures that we can all take wonderful and enriching vacations to, OR should we continue enforcing the current policy of one uniform human race only? The one uniform human race only policy is enforced by not allowing communities of a specific race or ethnic group to cohabitate together, in reasonably sized districts, which then decreases the probability of members of that ethnic group (or race) mating with each other. Over time this will blend the genetics of the various ethnic groups or races into a more uniform looking single ethnic group.

What is the benefit of the entire human race being just one uniform human race? Peace may be a primary goal. The prevention of racial hatred is often mentioned. Can people be educated with a peaceful philosophy that allows more than one human race (or ethnic group) to coexist upon our planet, productively and peacefully with one another, while at the same time allowing those ethnic groups to happily and legally have district based communities? So that becomes the argument: “Do you believe that human peace can be maintained along with population diversity using a more advanced educational philosophy, or do you believe that human peace can only be maintained by enforcing a one-human-race-only policy, at gunpoint?” The phrase “at gunpoint” is accurate because laws are enforced at gunpoint and we currently prevent any given race (or ethnic group) from having their own local communities or districts because we typically call that racism and discrimination.

Many people provide the rudimentary human genetic data obtained thus far regarding how 75% of the genetic difference in humans exists within a race rather than between races AND 25% of the genetic difference in humans exists between the races. This rudimentary data initially indicates that a single race is a genetically diverse population AND the 25% must affect the appearance of people quite a bit since visually we can most often tell one race from another (as long as they are not too closely related like Chinese and Japanese).

Groups are a collection of individuals who are freely gathering into the group. Genetics have been voided as criteria for group freedom in a district based community. So that particular freedom, not one individual has. While people can buy large lots of private property and accomplish this type of community today, they cannot do so openly and happily, which is contrary to the pursuit of happiness fundamental to our country. Which brings us back to the original paragraph in this essay: “Do you believe that human peace can be maintained along with population diversity using a more advanced educational philosophy, or do you believe that human peace can only be maintained by enforcing a one uniform human race only policy, at gunpoint?” After hearing this argument, many people simply concede that they support one uniform human race only, and that's that. I then mention that they support ending population diversity upon our planet, just so it's clear.

Due to today's social/political environment many people don't like talking about these topics. The many meme associations we have regarding racism (etc..) within our minds likely prevents many from discussing it. Eventually, as enlightenment prevails, people will talk about it more. When we think of an ethnic group or race having the right to prevent people of other ethnic groups or races from moving into their "neighborhood," perhaps we need not feel animosity towards them. Perhaps, in a more enlightened world, this is just something that everybody mutually understands and it is simply part of human life and population diversity. Without this freedom, no matter where we travel on this planet in the future, the people will all look the same. Some people may want that world, what about the ones who don't?
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DemExpat Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Aug-30-03 01:01 PM
Response to Reply #55
58. Go talk to the Amish.....
I would interview the Amish community for their views. I did see a documentary (I think on Oprah!) about teenagers growing up there. The parents actually, to my surprise, give them all of the freedom they want to go outside and experiment with the world at large. Some come back to the Amish community and lifestyle, others chose the wider world and society.
But most kids are curious and excited about the whole world, so keeping communities separate (behind high walls?) doesn't seem very attractive to me.
I personally see chances for peace ONLY if the races mingle and mix by free will. And along with this, hopefully religious fundamentalism will also get watered down significantly.
In the end, a more homogenous human race will be perhaps more boring than exotic differences, but will IMO expand possibilities for peace.
The mixing process is unstoppable, and any attempt to would not be a positive IMO.

DemEx

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kengineer Donating Member (136 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Aug-30-03 01:22 PM
Response to Reply #58
60. Good Post
YOU: I would interview the Amish community for their views. I did see a documentary (I think on Oprah!) about teenagers growing up there. The parents actually, to my surprise, give them all of the freedom they want to go outside and experiment with the world at large. Some come back to the Amish community and lifestyle, others chose the wider world and society.

ME: That is interesting. The Amish communities, of course, have been created using the Private Property methods of what I am calling Genetic Freedom. I believe most of their Allele pairs come from Germany or other Northern European countries. The way you describe the children freely doing what they want is in compmlete agreement with my essay (My essay certainly needs more work!).


YOU: But most kids are curious and excited about the whole world, so keeping communities separate (behind high walls?) doesn't seem very attractive to me.

ME: I certainly don't see any walls in anything I've talked about. Nor would I support the concept of walls. Perhaps you are speaking figuratively. Still, I would not support figurative walls either (we would need to define this better of course). We simply teach everybody about Genetics and let the children's chips (or genetics) fall where they may. (and note that we still are only just beginning to fully understand the functions of all the different genes and their complicated interactions with each other etc... lot's more to learn for sure!)


YOU: I personally see chances for peace ONLY if the races mingle and mix by free will. And along with this, hopefully religious fundamentalism will also get watered down significantly.

ME: That is a precise response to my essay and is where the discussion actually resides. Many people have difficulty seeing the reason for the discussion and get caught up in allele pairs and all that. I certainly support 100% free will as, I'd say the Amish Country does. This needs to be discussed more and perhaps once my essay gets ironed out here, the REAL discussion regarding how peace can be maintained in this world can be had. For this particular thread I think that discussion will have to wait. Regarding religion... I've always said that human beings are defined by both their Genetics and the "programming" within those Genetics. This invites another topic... District based freedom for Religions. I may agree with you that such freedom might not be a good idea. But again that discussion can wait.


YOU: In the end, a more homogenous human race will be perhaps more boring than exotic differences, but will IMO expand possibilities for peace.

ME: We'll see. Lot's of talking on this yet to do. I'd say we'll be discussing this for years, decades to come! :) I'm sorry for being stupid, but what does IMO mean?


YOU: The mixing process is unstoppable, and any attempt to would not be a positive IMO.

ME: "The mixing process is unstoppable." I got visions of Hitler there for a moment... OK, back to this world.... again, once I find out what IMO means I may fully understand you more here.

Ken
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DemExpat Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Aug-30-03 01:30 PM
Response to Reply #60
61. In my opinion........IMO
:-)

Funny how you think of Hitler when the mixing process is mentioned.....thought the opposite was what he wanted!


"We simply teach everybody about Genetics and let the children's chips (or genetics) fall where they may. (and note that we still are only just beginning to fully understand the functions of all the different genes and their complicated interactions with each other etc... lot's more to learn for sure!)"

Letting the chips fall where they may is precisely what the world seems to be doing now with all of the intermingling!
Don't follow you here.....

DemEx
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kengineer Donating Member (136 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Aug-30-03 01:43 PM
Response to Reply #61
64. yes
Edited on Sat Aug-30-03 01:43 PM by kengineer
YOU: Funny how you think of Hitler when the mixing process is mentioned.....thought the opposite was what he wanted!

ME: I (we) hear about Hitler a lot as we scroll through the television channels. "He's everywhere" so to speak. When you said "mixing process is unstoppable, and any attempt..." that grouping of words just rang of something a tyrant would say and who's everybody's 'favorite' tyrant... HITLER.


YOU: Letting the chips fall where they may is precisely what the world seems to be doing now with all of the intermingling!
Don't follow you here...

ME: Two specific issues: 1. We do not allow district based (or any sized) communities to exist based on Genetics (ethnicity). This means that any given ethnic group has a reduced probability of marrying within their group... 2. We have an educational/media environment that frowns on any ethnic groups who talk about things like this.

We, the people, have control over those two factors in society. So we, therefore, have control over the "genetic flow" of the population and have chosen to promote the "intermingling" direction, and suppress the "local community for ethnic groups" direction. This then brings us back to the whole purpose of the essay which is a discussion of "how can peace be maintained?"

Does that fully clarify?
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Astarho Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Aug-30-03 02:36 PM
Response to Reply #58
68. About the Amish
Many Amish do allow their kids to explore the world of us "English". Many after "sowing their wild oats do" return to the Amish communiy and settle down. But many of the Amish do only breed within their small communities leading to what Sufi Marmot described above:

Severely inbred populations become chock full of deleterious mutations
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kengineer Donating Member (136 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Aug-30-03 04:15 PM
Response to Reply #68
69. True and there is more to the story than just that
Edited on Sat Aug-30-03 04:17 PM by kengineer
YOU: Many Amish do allow their kids to explore the world of us "English". Many after "sowing their wild oats do" return to the Amish communiy and settle down. But many of the Amish do only breed within their small communities leading to what Sufi Marmot described above:

ME: But as we all well know, Amish won't be learning about their alleles any time soon due to their desired cultural direction. So they, it seems, will never turn the tide of such mutations. Any small breeding population can mostly eliminate deleterious mutations if they are vigilant with their reproductive choices.

Truth be known:

The entire human race could create itself, again, if myself and my sister were suddenly the only two people left on the planet... sure the races (ethnic groups) that would develop in all the different lands would look different than they do today, but I think you get my point.
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treepig Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Aug-30-03 08:42 PM
Response to Reply #69
73. what if your sister was a chimp?
in this thread you've advocated having sex with chimps and now with your sister.

what about a combination and kill two birds with one stone?


well, hope you've enjoyed playing us all for fools (i see some gave up on having an intelligent conversation with you long ago, others (myself, ugh) seem to be rather slow learners)
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kengineer Donating Member (136 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Aug-30-03 09:32 PM
Response to Reply #73
75. I advocated nothing
YOU: in this thread you've advocated

ME: advocated? not hardly. Look up the word if you are confused.


YOU: well, hope you've enjoyed playing us all for fools (i see some gave up on having an intelligent conversation with you long ago, others (myself, ugh) seem to be rather slow learners)

ME: I'm still waiting for your response on the two methods we have of influencing population trends. I'll understand if you choose not to respond because the logic will cause you to loose the argument. (assuming you maintain your current muddled position on the whole thing)
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treepig Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-31-03 08:46 AM
Response to Reply #75
76. my point has been, and i've given specific examples
(that were apparently lost on you,) that if you understood evolutionary biology, you'd realize that your methods are completely futile. they will accomplish nothing.

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kengineer Donating Member (136 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-31-03 09:52 AM
Response to Reply #76
78. Again you did not discuss at all my two points, you avoid them
Edited on Sun Aug-31-03 10:03 AM by kengineer
YOU: that if you understood evolutionary biology, you'd realize that your methods are completely futile. they will accomplish nothing.

ME: But you went off on a strange tangent of Genetic Engineering which has nothing to do with this thread. You’ve apparently missed the topic of this thread. Also I responded perfectly to any other arguments you posed. Again, it seems your purpose here is simply to mislead rather than to have a discussion, but I’ll try again:


YOU WROTE:
weird pseudoscientific theories such as yours.

personally, i'm 99.4% identical to a chimp and that's good enough for me!
as to your original essay, it has absolutely no grounding in current science - there is no way (with current knowledge) to devise any policies to "maintain genetic propulation diversity" genetic population diversity will maintain itself, or not, depending on factors far beyond human control, either through policy making or direct genetic manipulation. on a tangent, are you by any chance a product of the kansas school system after they've adopted their loony creationism/intelligent design curriculum?


NOW I’M ASKING YOU: How do you define population diversity? Because I have easily shown how the government can either encourage or discourage maintaining it. This isn’t even difficult to understand. It’s very, very simple from a logical point of view. Perhaps this is the confusion... I said the government can either ENCOURAGE it or DISCOURAGE it... that doesn't mean the government has ABSOLUTE CONTROL over it. My point has been that the government AND media/education can influence it and then probabilities MAY lead to the eventual outcomes I've mentioned. But this begs the question WHY is the government encouraging a particular population trend? They should be neutral as should be the Education or Media, then the local groups make these decisions for themselves.

I define population diversity as: A great many of these various races or ethnic groups existing upon the planet. (Note that the word races is being loosely used here, it’s semantics so please get over it. If you prefer “ethnic group” fine, discard the word race)

For curiosities sake do you have the understanding that different ethnic groups have both different phenotypic genetics, and higher probabilities to have group specific alleles? Because that is a pre-requisite to comprehending the Genetic Freedom concept.

So within any given area of land, let’s say the size of California, we have the ability to structure laws which either encourage (are neutral towards) the continuation of population diversity, or ones which encourage a new “single ethnic group aggregate” as all the existing races and ethnic groups genetically combine. I have then pointed out that this will lead to the lowered (extremely in some cases) frequency of many, many ethnic-specific alleles – and that, my friend, is where genetic diversity and population diversity has then diminished.

My Main point has been that the government and education/media encourages the homogenizing population trend, not that it will happen quickly. I don’t know how long it will take. Look to Brazil to see perfect examples of what I am stating. If you’ve never been there then you’ll have to try and find some references.
The current laws of non-discrimination have been in place for nearly 40 years and this has been coupled with a very, very multi-cultural media environment that lift up on a high pedestal the concept of mixing ethnicities while at the same time we often hear about “inbreeding” to discourage marriage within ethnic groups. I’ve only just scratched the surface with the media and educational influences which encourage this trend, but I just provided two simple examples. Population statistics are quite clear on the ethnic mixing that has been taking place over the past 40 years. So the trend of creating “One ethnic group aggregate” is underway and being encouraged by the laws and media. The question is not whether this is happening; the question is at what rate is it happening.

Then this brings us back to the original point of my essay which is simply: Can world peace be maintained while at the same time having governmental politicies which are neutral to the concept of Genetic Freedom for groups?

Yes, I realize the wording of my concept is developing as I go and for that I am sorry... I'm now saying that the government would need to be neutral. But that is accurate and is what I really meant originally.
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treepig Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-31-03 10:44 AM
Response to Reply #78
79. again, my point is, why should the government
encourage or discourage something it has absolutely no power to influence.

let's say the goverment "encourages" population and genetic diversity by genetically segregating all the populations in southern california - swedes could only mate with swede, laotians could only mate with laotians, japanese could only mate with japanase, maori could only mate with maori, swahili could only mate with swahili, and so on.

let's way that there are 100 such "districts" - i am willing to predict with high certainty that, after let's say 1000 generations ( a blink of the eye, evolutionarily speaking), the inhabitants of all of these districts will be appear to be identical. the will be, for all intents and purposes on race, culture, or whatever other sociological designation you wish to give them. natural selection will have trumped your government "encouragement" of diversity. however, this apparently homogenous population will nevertheless still maintain significant genetic diversity.

you ask For curiosities sake do you have the understanding that different ethnic groups have both different phenotypic genetics,

no, i do not have this understanding. i have the understanding the phenotype and genotype are distinct concepts and the term "phenotypic genetics" is completely meaningless. in the example i cited about we see that different genotypes can result in the same phenotype. the converse is also true. consider three well known cell types found within your body - a nerve cell, a blood cell, and a skin cell. they all have identical genotypes, yet their phenotype varies dramatically. you can throw words together all you wish, but that doesn't mean you're making any sense.

on a different topic, you and your sister could not repopulate the world, i don't have time to go into detail, but perhaps the following passage provides a hint:

"Genetic drift. If a plant has a population of 10,000, and half are killed, chances are that the remaining 5,000 will carry a good genetic representation of the original population. But half of only 10 plants survive, chance dictates some of the remainders will carry weirdo genes."

http://whyfiles.org/112trop_plant/2.html


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kengineer Donating Member (136 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-31-03 11:48 AM
Response to Reply #79
80. Ah, now you provide good examples... but no explanations??
YOU: let's say the goverment "encourages" population and genetic diversity by genetically segregating all the populations in southern california - swedes could only mate with swede, laotians could only mate with laotians, japanese could only mate with japanase, maori could only mate with maori, swahili could only mate with swahili, and so on.

ME: This is a good example, but note that I never suggested governmental segregation... just for the record. I suggested voluntary groups gathering together and the government staying neutral (meaning the government lets them have a local community and lets them discriminate as to who can live there for the reasons of maintaining population diversity I have discussed).

YOU: let's say that there are 100 such "districts" - i am willing to predict with high certainty that, after let's say 1000 generations ( a blink of the eye, evolutionarily speaking), the inhabitants of all of these districts will be appear to be identical.

ME: interesting thought… I’m still reading but I do have a comment now… over the past 100,000 years (4000 generations) or so upon this planet the human race has branched into many different looking populations… I’ve read ahead and noticed that you didn’t provide any reasoning as to why the populations would look the same… I, myself, have ways it could happen based on the simple environmental survival factors, but then that is a moot point since we have technology now…

YOU: they will be, for all intents and purposes one race, culture, or whatever other sociological designation you wish to give them. natural selection will have trumped your government "encouragement" of diversity.

ME: still waiting for the reason why they will become one uniform looking race… I read ahead and noticed that you never provided the answer that “everybody” (crickets) was waiting for. All that build up and I was really looking forward to it!


YOU: however, this apparently homogenous population will nevertheless still maintain significant genetic diversity.

ME: Again, how did they get there in the first place? But going with the hypothetical example sure they will be significantly diverse just as each and every ethnic group or race today is (all by themselves)


YOU: you ask, “For curiosities sake, Do you have the understanding that different ethnic groups have both different phenotypic genetics..” no, i do not have this understanding. i have the understanding the phenotype and genotype are distinct concepts and the term "phenotypic genetics" is completely meaningless. -- you can throw words together all you wish, but that doesn't mean you're making any sense.

ME: I’m semantically creative… I’ve always been that way and I’ll try to adjust… I mean “phenotypic genetics” precisely as I meant it and precisely to mean phenotypic trends within the ethnicity. The probability that phenotype in any of today’s significantly different looking ethnic groups, will be such that we can tell one group from another is very, very high, Just as you would agree to.


YOU: In the example i cited about we see that different genotypes can result in the same phenotype. the converse is also true.

ME: again, the example? What example? That example provided no reason for how it gets there… contrarily, my examples and discussions provide specific reasons…


YOU: consider three well known cell types found within your body - a nerve cell, a blood cell, and a skin cell. they all have identical genotypes, yet their phenotype varies dramatically.

ME: I’d disagree that these cells all have identical genotypes. There are very likely some differences. I’ve never read about that topic but it would be interesting and so certainly you may be right about these cells but how well has it really been studied given that genetics is only just beginning to be properly studied? Regardless, the different human groups do not all have the same genotypes… they do have nearly identical genotypes (loosely speaking 99.9% identical give or take) and we’ve already discussed the population specific mutations which occur etc… For example, The mutation that produces red hair and freckly skin does not exist within most of the world’s populations. That allele or genotypic code is not present in most humans and the only way their children could get red hair and freckly skin is either by mating with a redhead-etc… or the mutation could randomly occur again – which is possible.


YOU: on a different topic, you and your sister could not repopulate the world, i don't have time to go into detail, but perhaps the following passage provides a hint:

"Genetic drift. If a plant has a population of 10,000, and half are killed, chances are that the remaining 5,000 will carry a good genetic representation of the original population. But half of only 10 plants survive, chance dictates some of the remainders will carry weirdo genes."

ME: You’ve removed mutation from the equation. You and your sister or cousin could repopulate the world. I’m confident of it. Genetic recombination would immediately produce lots of phenotypic variation in the 20 kids we would have (if we could!). Then they would all mate and eventually mutations would occur and some of the genetic lines would have “weirdo problems,” and go extinct and some lines would diverge (branch) and survive. That’s life.
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treepig Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-31-03 01:01 PM
Response to Reply #80
86. please learn some biology!!
you're still waiting for the reason why they will become one uniform looking race… I read ahead and noticed that you never provided the answer that “everybody” (crickets) was waiting for. All that build up and I was really looking forward to it!

was it not clear that these people would all be in the same environment (southern california), and therefore subject to the same selective forces? if not, that's the answer. races are different now because they were segregated in different environments (swahili's in africa, swedes in northern europe - hence different levels of skin pigmentation was needed - alot in africa to avoid constant sunburn, very little in northern europe to facilitate adequate vitamin d production, and so on).

and what you think doesn't really matter, every cell in your body (if you don't have cancer or parasites) has the same genome - it is genetically identical! this is a fairly basis concept, not really open to discussion at this point.
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kengineer Donating Member (136 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-31-03 01:09 PM
Response to Reply #86
88. I think we finally understand each other... partially
Edited on Sun Aug-31-03 01:41 PM by kengineer
YOU: was it not clear that these people would all be in the same environment (southern california), and therefore subject to the same selective forces? if not, that's the answer. races are different now because they were segregated in different environments (swahili's in africa, swedes in northern europe - hence different levels of skin pigmentation was needed - alot in africa to avoid constant sunburn, very little in northern europe to facilitate adequate vitamin d production, and so on).

ME: Right, but you will have to conceed that technology makes us no longer beholden to environmental factors, right? So your example would likely not go as planned because natural selection is no longer beholden to natural environmental selection factors. If they were living "in the jungle" of california I would, in fact, somewhat agree with you... you left out that more than just one population morphology might be successful there. As per your original example these populations would remain separate from one another rather than cross breeding.


YOU: every cell in your body (if you don't have cancer or parasites) has the same genome - it is genetically identical! this is a fairly basis concept, not really open to discussion at this point.

ME: accept that I thought you were talking about those cells within different humans not the same human being... so again we misunderstand each other; a continuous phenomenon. Admittedly, largely my fault and I've spoken about that here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=234674&mesg_id=255218&page=
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treepig Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-31-03 02:52 PM
Response to Reply #88
106. it doesn't matter one bit that southern california
Edited on Sun Aug-31-03 02:56 PM by treepig
is an artificial environment, and not a primitive jungle.

natural selection will just adapt everyone to the artificial environment, which, being the same for each of the 'racial' groups living there means that ultimately the same phenotypic/morphologic outcome will be reached by everyone (of course, there's the off chance an entirely new species could split off due to an unforeseen event such as the sialic acid example i cited early, but that's unlikely in 1000 generations unless the population was large enough).

a living example of this phenomena actually exists. consider that cancer is a genetic disease (and don't bother saying you don't think it is as a way to discount this argument because it is). however, it is a genetic disease determined by environment. a clear example is populations of japanese who have lived in the artificial environment of california for only one or two generations (without interbreeding with native californians - clearly this analysis can only be extended for a short time because your social engineering structures are not currently in place to ensure continued breeding within their population). getting to the point, the japanese immigrants now have the patterns of cancer experienced by caucasians who have lived in california for a long time, not the patterns of cancers experienced by matched population cohorts who remained in japan.

essentially, the human genome (or the genome of any organism) is a blank slate shaped by the enviroment, not the government or social engineers
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kengineer Donating Member (136 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-31-03 04:12 PM
Response to Reply #106
111. you missed one of my good points that I think you'll agree with
YOU: It doesn't matter one bit that southern california is an artificial environment, and not a primitive jungle. natural selection will just adapt everyone to the artificial environment, which, being the same for each of the 'racial' groups living there means that ultimately the same phenotypic/morphologic outcome will be reached by everyone

ME: That is a good point as long as all environments are the same... true... now my additional point is that their are ethno-specific alleles that may, or may not carry through to the thousandths generation. Also we have no scientific basis to understand how evolution will occur under such a technological environment scenario. Neither of us can honestly predict what would happen we can only provide opinions. My opinion is that some groups might look quite similar, and some might look quite different. I am unable to speculate further.


YOU: (of course, there's the off chance an entirely new species could split off due to an unforeseen event such as the sialic acid example i cited early, but that's unlikely in 1000 generations unless the population was large enough).

ME: of course.


YOU: a living example of this phenomena actually exists. consider that cancer is a genetic disease (and don't bother saying you don't think it is as a way to discount this argument because it is).

ME: It's a genetic disease but anybody can develop it if they experience the correct "mutation conditions" in life.


YOU: however, it is a genetic disease determined by environment. a clear example is populations of japanese who have lived in the artificial environment of california for only one or two generations (without interbreeding with native californians - clearly this analysis can only be extended for a short time because your social engineering structures are not currently in place to ensure continued breeding within their population). getting to the point, the japanese immigrants now have the patterns of cancer experienced by caucasians who have lived in california for a long time, not the patterns of cancers experienced by matched population cohorts who remained in japan.

ME: what kind of cancer? I would guess skin cancer caused by California's sunlight. Japanese are, I think, the lightest pigmented of the Asians.


YOU: essentially, the human genome (or the genome of any organism) is a blank slate shaped by the enviroment, not the government or social engineers.

ME: the government is a powerful, environmental force... NO? Wars... do you think wars shape a genome? Governments over this past couple of millennia have certainly affected the flow of the human genome, in some way. How about Communism? How about Nazis? Both ideologies exterminated people... that does affect the human genome within those ethnic groups right?
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treepig Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-31-03 04:42 PM
Response to Reply #111
115. since i have nothing to do today . . .
you say Also we have no scientific basis to understand how evolution will occur under such a technological environment scenario. Neither of us can honestly predict what would happen we can only provide opinions.

we have an excellent scientific basis to understand how evolution will occur under a technological environment scenario - it will continue as it has been going on for some 1.5 billion years already - life will adapt to its environment! i posted over in another thread how a gene that used to encode a trysinogen (an enzyme that chews up a protein called trypsin) evolved to become an antifreeze protein in an antarctic fish - a dramatic change in response to environment. this example, while not particularly relevant to the warm climate of southern california nicely illustrates how nature is not bound byyour attempts to manipulate the genetic composition of human populations.

and about the cancer rates, here's an old paper (i'm sure you can find more recent information if you're interested):

The population of California and the San Francisco Bay Area has a number of ethnic components that differ in the frequency with which certain cancers occur. Mortality rates of California Janpanese and incidence data from the cancer reporting system of the Bay Area are analyzed for the cancer sites considered related to nutrition. The American Japanese of California are particularly amenable to epidemiological study because of the cancer data available from Japan for comparison with that of the California Japanese. The cancer rates occurring among the successive generations of the Japanese in California are compared to the rates in Japan and the white rates for the Bay Area. Gastric cancer rates undergo a stepwise reduction from the high rates in Japan to the intermediate rates of immigrant Japanese and the lower rates for the American born. Colon cancer rates are increased about equally in both generations of Japanese and are approaching the white rates. Cancers of the breast, uterine corpus, and ovary in women and the prostate for men are rapidly approaching the rates for the white population. Etiologies are continually being identified or indicated for a number of these cancers by epidemiological studies, and more specific identification of carcinogenic mechanisms should be possible by other disciplines.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?holding=npg&cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=1192400&dopt=Abstract
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kengineer Donating Member (136 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-31-03 05:11 PM
Response to Reply #115
116. Some interesting stuff... and some ken bashing as usual...
YOU: we have an excellent scientific basis to understand how evolution will occur under a technological environment scenario - it will continue as it has been going on for some 1.5 billion years already - life will adapt to its environment!

ME: I didn't disagree with this. More specifically I meant we don't know in WHAT WAY humans will adapt to a technological environment and we don't know if it will affect the appearance of these hypothetical groups as much as the natural world affected appearances... this may mean that they could look differently. Intellectually they may tend to approach unity...


YOU: i posted over in another thread how a gene that used to encode a trysinogen (an enzyme that chews up a protein called trypsin) evolved to become an antifreeze protein in an antarctic fish - a dramatic change in response to environment. this example, while not particularly relevant to the warm climate of southern california

ME: I presume the enzyme simply mutated into the antifreeze form or is it more of a proper combination of alleles scenario? Additionally, I was fantasizing about making a movie of that the first chimpanzi to "become human" so to speak. While I'm sure there is more to the picture than just that one mutation, perhaps it is the "main one." Imagine that the monkey (human) is born then he starts to dominate every thing and have sex with hundreds of other chimps as he builds his little kingdom... God that would be a cool movie! (don't start thinking I'm into watching chimps have sex...)


YOU: nicely illustrates how nature is not bound byyour attempts to manipulate the genetic composition of human populations.

ME: Ken bashing alert... "My attempts to manipulate genetic composition." No sir, I've accurately pointed out how governments can influence population diversity. This isn't anything I am doing or manipulating. Philosophically speaking, genetic life exists as individuals and groups of individuals. If an ethnic group tries to have a local community and the government says NO, the government has just influenced that population trend.



The Cancer stuff is, of course, very interesting.
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Philosophy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-31-03 12:51 PM
Response to Reply #55
83. Your essay suffers from a fundamental lack of understanding of genetics
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kengineer Donating Member (136 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-31-03 01:00 PM
Response to Reply #83
85. It's not that I don't understand genetics, it's that I wrote sloppy
I'm extremely creative with language... I like playing with words and that's not such a good plan on this topic I can see...

I apologize for that...

and here is that post:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=234674&mesg_id=255218&page=



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alarimer Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-31-03 01:07 PM
Response to Original message
87. one species
There is only one species of humans on the planet. That hasn't always been the case. Others, like NEantherthals, became extinct for unknown reasons. Speciation (the evolution of one species into another) only occurs in genetic isolation. Humans could not "become" another species unless populations were sufficiently isolated for a sufficiently long period of time (on the order of thousands of years). The only way this could be accomplished is if some people moved to another planet or something. We are all too well-connected these days. Race and ethnicitiy, as others have said, are biologically speaking meaninigless. A species is defined as being reproductively isolated from others, i.e.that they can't interbreed or at least have viable offspring. All human races can (and do) interbreed.
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kengineer Donating Member (136 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-31-03 01:10 PM
Response to Reply #87
89. I'm trying to cut people off now and apologize for confusion...
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kengineer Donating Member (136 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-31-03 01:17 PM
Response to Reply #87
90. The definition of biologically meaningless, by Ken
YOU: There is only one species of humans on the planet. That hasn't always been the case. Others, like NEantherthals, became extinct for unknown reasons. Speciation (the evolution of one species into another) only occurs in genetic isolation. Humans could not "become" another species unless populations were sufficiently isolated for a sufficiently long period of time (on the order of thousands of years).

ME: thousands of years? no I think that is wrong. We have plenty of human populations today that are removed by tens of thousands of years and they can still mate with one another...


YOU: The only way this could be accomplished is if some people moved to another planet or something.

ME: No it could be accomplished right here, probably using the very methods I mentioned regarding the government allowing genetic freedom for groups by having neutral laws on such issues. But this is off topic to my original post as I wasn't talking about speciation.


YOU: Race and ethnicitiy, as others have said, are biologically speaking meaninigless.

ME: Well again, I asked somebody else what does "biologically meaningless" mean? We all know the sunlight and vitamin D relationship and that is not biologically meaningless... unless you are defining biologically meaningless in some way I do not understand. So do clarify. If we are defining biologically meaningless by how a genetic organism interacts solely with the environment then, yes, indeed, genetic differences between humans are biologically meaningless and additionally, differences between chimps and humans are biologicaly meaningless with the exception of the reproductive potential.
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Sufi Marmot Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-31-03 01:54 PM
Response to Reply #90
96. Not that this will make any difference....
...but what the hell...

Read what the leaders of one of the groups who sequenced the human genome have to say about the biological relevance of race. Race is only skin deep, DNA scientists belive.

-SM
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kengineer Donating Member (136 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-31-03 02:32 PM
Response to Reply #96
103. This is what I'm talking about...
Edited on Sun Aug-31-03 02:36 PM by kengineer
This is the media/educational environment I'm talking about.

They wrote: “There’s no scientific evidence to support substantial differences between groups,” Lander said, “and the tremendous burden of proof goes to anyone who wants to assert those differences.”

Burden? This whole document is filled with "One human ethnicity only" propaganda. This document does not want different ethnic groups to exist. It seems that way to me anyways. So again this brings me back to my original argument of can we achieve peace and maintain population diversity upon this planet? Don't suggest that this document proves population diversity "does not exist." The document is "their beliefs" just as people believe in the bible. All of these scientists, including the ones in this document, freely admit that phenotypic difference between the appearance of different ethnitcities is absolutely correct. But beyond they they mention how complicated everything is so they don't know... they just "believe."

I've always wondered why, in recent times, people fear the human race branching off into different ethnicities, freely, and peacefully.

Clearly this document is an example of trying to achieve peace by educating everybody that "they are the same genetically." Which is partially true.

how do they define substantial?

Who's to decide for every ethnic group on the planet what substantial means, and thusly what determines if they may continue to exist with their current genetic morphology by encouraging such population trends. I certainly am not going to decide that for any group. Are you? If you support the current laws you do decide that.

Another simple example... Clone me and my sister 6 billion times and we inhabit the whole earth. Our genotypes would be nearly identical as would be our phenotypes. In this world, where there is just "one human ethnic group," obviously, Should laws be set up to allow a greater population diversity to exist or should laws be set up, as they are today, to encourage continued homogenization of ethnic groups?

I would choose the course of ethnic group freedom and 10,000 years later there would be many different ethnic groups populating the earth.

Ken
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Sufi Marmot Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-31-03 05:19 PM
Response to Reply #103
117. Am I a masochist? Oh yes I am...
Sigh.

Burden? This whole document is filled with "One human ethnicity only" propaganda. This document does not want different ethnic groups to exist. . No, and no. :eyes:

Who's to decide for every ethnic group on the planet what substantial means, and thusly what determines if they may continue to exist with their current genetic morphology by encouraging such population trends. I certainly am not going to decide that for any group. Are you? If you support the current laws you do decide that

Yet, that's exactly what you're trying to do - you just try to hide it amongst the sophism. Futile attempts to impart to you fundamental concepts of genetics, math, logic, or even reading comprehension notwithstanding, your argument boils down to this:

I'm scared of/disturbed by racial/ethnic mixing, I don't trust individuals to make their own choices about with whom to associate and procreate, so I would like to discourage them from freely associating with people of other races in order to minimize the chances of interracial/ethnic breeding. To accomplish this goal I support the establishment of ethnically/racially retricted communities. I don't recognize the unit of procreative choice as being the individual, but rather a "racial/ethnic" community of nebulous definition, although my own understanding of the relative differences between "race", "ethnicity", and "culture" is poor. Because modern society has decided that individual choice and freedfom of association is more important than outdated and biologically meaningless notions of "racial purity", I have to promote my agenda with specious arguments about "maintaining ethnic diversity", claiming that people who support free association and individual procreative choice are actually racist themselves. I can't accept the notion that the phenotypic fate of any "race" or "ethnic group" is the sum total of every individual decision made by members of the group, most of whom value many other things over "racial" or "ethnic" purity.

That pretty much sums it up, does it not?

-SM

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kengineer Donating Member (136 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-31-03 05:48 PM
Response to Reply #117
118. Very funny... you're a real comedian
Edited on Sun Aug-31-03 05:53 PM by kengineer
I WROTE: Who's to decide for every ethnic group on the planet what substantial means, and thusly what determines if they may continue to exist with their current genetic morphology by encouraging such population trends. I certainly am not going to decide that for any group. Are you? If you support the current laws you do decide that

YOU: Yet, that's exactly what you're trying to do

ME: I'm trying to allow these ethnic groups decide for themselves, rather than the government deciding for them. Which part of that don't you understand? I say the government should be neutral.


YOU (PRETENDING TO BE ME): I'm scared of/disturbed by racial/ethnic mixing.

ME: negative, but you, it seems are scared of allowing ethnic groups legally have local communities in which they would encourage their reproductive trends. You fear that right?

YOU (PRETENDING TO BE ME): I don't trust individuals to make their own choices about with whom to associate and procreate, so I would like to discourage them from freely associating with people of other races in order to minimize the chances of interracial/ethnic breeding.

ME: Again, I've pointed out that you are the one that fears here. But you actually brought up a good point without knowing it. Would allowing ethnic groups to have local communities discourage them from freely associating with other ethnic groups? Currently the government and media encourage it. How can the government and media be neutral? That is the question.

YOU (PRETENDING TO BE ME): To accomplish this goal I support the establishment of ethnically/racially restricted communities.

ME: by the ethnic group themselves... NOT by the government... and restricted in housing, not in friends and visitors.


YOU (PRETENDING TO BE ME): I don't recognize the unit of procreative choice as being the individual

ME: You've lost track of reality now. Individuals all make their own reproductive decisions. I have explained how the government and media/education currently increase the probability of interethnic breeding. I wish the government and media to be neutral.


YOU (PRETENDING TO BE ME): -clip some nonsense- I have to promote my agenda with specious arguments about "maintaining ethnic diversity"

ME: the lead in is wrong, of course, but it's "maintaining population diversity." I guess the way you said it might be correct as well

YOU (PRETENDING TO BE ME): claiming that people who support free association and individual procreative choice are actually racist themselves.

ME: I've never said anybody was a racist nor do I now... Just you being silly I guess.


YOU (PRETENDING TO BE ME): I can't accept the notion that the phenotypic fate of any "race" or "ethnic group" is the sum total of every individual decision made by members of the group, most of whom value many other things over "racial" or "ethnic" purity.

ME: Contrarily, I wish to educate you that this phenotypic fate is very much influenced by our government and media/education which affects the decision that every individual makes. Which part of that don't you understand?

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Sufi Marmot Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-31-03 06:30 PM
Response to Reply #118
119. "So if you think that's funny, I'm not really laughing, honey...."
See, here's how society works: Whereas people like you would RESTRICT other people's associative and procreative freedom, the government passes laws that MAXIMIZES the associate and procreative freedom of every individual. Implicit in the laws passed by the government is everyone's right (including yours) to procreate either within or outside of their own "race" or "ethnic group". Any other attempts to establish racially or ethnically segregated communities by definition restrict rather than enhance other peoples' choices. If ethnic/racial mixing frightens you, that's fine - don't fuck any brown people - neither the government nor the media are forcing you or anyone else to do so. It's pretty simple...


ME: I'm trying to allow these ethnic groups decide for themselves, rather than the government deciding for them. Which part of that don't you understand? I say the government should be neutral. For the umpteenth time, in caps this time so maybe it will sink in: ETHNIC/RACIAL GROUPS AS AN AGGREGATE DON'T GET TO MANDATE WHO A PERSON ASSOCIATES OR PROCREATES WITH, ANY MORE THAN THE GOVERNMENT DOES. What part of this don't YOU understand? You get to worry about your genes, not anyone else's from your ethnic group or otherwise. Since our society values individual choice and freedom, we restrict racist crackpots from preventing other people from freely associating and procreating, while upholding the right of even racist crackpots to procreate with whomever they please.

ME: Again, I've pointed out that you are the one that fears here. But you actually brought up a good point without knowing it. Would allowing ethnic groups to have local communities discourage them from freely associating with other ethnic groups? Currently the government and media encourage it. How can the government and media be neutral? That is the question.
Per your implied definition of separate ethnic/racial commnities, I would venture the answer is "yes". Otherwise you wouldn't be advocating any change from the status quo. The role of the government in this case is to uphold the rights of the individual and to prevent any one group from denying rights (association, procreation, property ownership) to any others.

negative, but you, it seems are scared of allowing ethnic groups legally have local communities in which they would encourage their reproductive trends. You fear that right?
Hey, nothing's stopping you from standing on a soapbox in the middle of the street and haranguing passersby about the dangers of race mixing - have at it. And I suppose racist parents can and do inflict any sort of nonsense they want onto their children. What did you have in mind - a "White People's Reproductive Purity League" with weekly meetings? A series of educational films and lectures extolling the virtues of mating within one's race? A booth at the state fair? Knock yourself out...

What do you mean by "local communities"? Here you're blurring the issue of procreation with either peoples' movement through public space, or the right to purchase private property without restriction - care to explain exactly how you relate one to the other?
I mean, at least be intellectually honest and spell out exactly what sort of segregation you're envisioning...

-SM





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kengineer Donating Member (136 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-31-03 06:44 PM
Response to Reply #119
120. more of the same
Edited on Sun Aug-31-03 07:23 PM by kengineer
YOU: See, here's how society works: Whereas people like you would RESTRICT other people's associative and procreative freedom

ME: there would be no restriction... you are wrong.


YOU: the government passes laws that MAXIMIZES the associate and procreative freedom of every individual. Implicit in the laws passed by the government is everyone's right (including yours) to procreate either within or outside of their own "race" or "ethnic group". Any other attempts to establish racially or ethnically segregated communities by definition restrict rather than enhance other peoples' choices. If ethnic/racial mixing frightens you, that's fine - don't fuck any brown people - neither the government nor the media are forcing you or anyone else to do so. It's pretty simple...

ME: All of life upon planet Earth is genetics. Human genetic life exists. Genetic life exists in the form of individuals and groups of individuals. Gathering (existing) in groups on the basis of genetics naturally flows from that. You continue to exclude groups from your argument and stop the argument at individuals. In such a scenario, the powerful groups of the world, that certainly exist, namely the government, can easily control all the individuals. So group freedom is very important. A government that prevents group freedom on the basis of genetics is interfering with a fundamental freedom upon planet Earth.


YOU: ETHNIC/RACIAL GROUPS AS AN AGGREGATE DON'T GET TO MANDATE WHO A PERSON ASSOCIATES OR PROCREATES WITH, ANY MORE THAN THE GOVERNMENT DOES.

ME: and I not once suggested that these ethnic groups had that right. The government is a group. Why shouldn't smaller groups exist within the government?

YOU: Since our society values individual choice and freedom

ME: What if 100 individuals wish to gather together into a community to raise their families? The government doesn't legally allow such gatherings and thusly restricts that freedom.


YOU: Per your implied definition of separate ethnic/racial commnities, I would venture the answer is "yes". Otherwise you wouldn't be advocating any change from the status quo. The role of the government in this case is to uphold the rights of the individual and to prevent any one group from denying rights (association, procreation, property ownership) to any others.

ME: perhaps the role of the government should be to uphold the rights of individuals and groups of individuals...

YOU: -clip-

ME: nonsense


YOU: I mean, at least be intellectually honest and spell out exactly what sort of segregation you're envisioning...

ME: The "district based communities" (let's say 10 square miles) discussed in this essay are not isolated from the rest of the world and nor are they set up by the government. We shall define it as a completely voluntary thing that the ethnic groups, themselves, decide upon by discussing it with the government and then, eventually, agreeing to the area of land. All decisions regarding the land after that are determined by the ethnic group and not the government - with the exception of usual governmental functions like road building, conservation etc... The ethnic group can, at any time, terminate their group and return the land to a state of "open range" so to speak.. It is expected that these communities would be part of a much larger collective of communities, of a similar ethnic group or race, over the entire world. As people learn about their own genetics, genes, and alleles, they can make intelligent reproductive decisions of whatever kind they choose, be it within their general ethnic group or outside of it. There would still be intermingling between the races and ethnic groups with Genetic Freedom for groups implemented. In addition, genetic population diversity, genetic diversity, and cultural diversity would all be maintained.
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Sufi Marmot Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-31-03 07:44 PM
Response to Reply #120
122. We all see what the bottom line is here...
ME: All of life upon planet Earth is genetics. Human genetic life exists. Genetic life exists in the form of individuals and groups of individuals. Gathering (existing) in groups on the basis of genetics naturally flows from that. You continue to exclude groups from your argument and stop the argument at individuals. In such a scenario, the powerful groups of the world, that certainly exist, namely the government, can easily control all the individuals. So group freedom is very important. A government that prevents group freedom on the basis of genetics is interfering with a fundamental freedom upon planet Earth. Incoherent and somewhat paranoid blather...

ME: What if 100 individuals wish to gather together into a community to raise their families? The government doesn't legally allow such gatherings. Is this really true? Apparently you've never heard of communes....Isn't this a private property issue? As long as there are no public facilities or public ways, you can keep whomever you want off your private property. Am I right?

ME: The "district based communities" (let's say 10 square miles) discussed in this essay are not isolated from the rest of the world and nor are they set up by the government. We shall define it as a completely voluntary thing that the ethnic groups, themselves, decide upon by discussing it with the government and then, eventually, agreeing to the area of land. All decisions regarding the land after that are determined by the ethnic group and not the government - with the exception of usual governmental functions like road building, conservation etc... The ethnic group can, at any time, terminate their group and return the land to a state of "open range" so to speak.. It is expected that these communities would be part of a much larger collective of communities, of a similar ethnic group or race, over the entire world.

You still haven't listed any good reasons to justify such communities based on genetic diversity - namely because none exist, as has been explained to you ad nauseam. So let's cut the bullshit here, since all members of all groups already have the maximum amount of "Genetic Freedom", that is, they can procreate with whom they want, segregating into ethnically distinct communities with enforced exclusion of others is only going to restrict that freedom - in summary, doing so in no way increases any individuals freedom.

I mean, if you want to hole up someplace on private property without having to encounter brown people, what's stopping you? Don't plenty of people already do this in remote corners of the country? If you want to segregate yourself, on PRIVATE property, have at it. But you don't get to dictate the skin color of the person who buys the property lot adjacent to you. Just don't try to delude yourself or the rest of us that there are valid genetic reasons for doing it. And why should the government (read: the taxpayers) assist you in setting these up? If it's important enough to you to avoid brown people then do it on your own dime.

As people learn about their own genetics, genes, and alleles, they can make intelligent reproductive decisions of whatever kind they choose, be it within their general ethnic group or outside of it. There would still be intermingling between the races and ethnic groups with Genetic Freedom for groups implemented. So what's the sense of having such segregated communities in the first place? Any rational person would argue that social exposure to OTHER groups is the only way to make completely informed reproductive decisions, if I really belived that was your underlying concern. Are you willing to keep them segregated at gunpoint? Just how segregated - no visitors of other races whatsoever, or just no permanent residents? What if the other races were sterile and couldn't interbreed with yours?


One last time: The concept of "Genetic Freedom for Groups" as you've defined it is meaningless, since groups don't procreate with one another, individuals do. So you're really just arguing for the right of ethnically/racially similar groups to associate exclusively with each other, for other reasons (fear, ignorance, racism...) Which they can already do on private property, if I'm not mistaken...



Is this what really, really bothers you?

-SM




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treepig Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-31-03 08:03 PM
Response to Reply #122
124. this thread reminds me of ann richards' description of her debates
Edited on Sun Aug-31-03 08:06 PM by treepig
with mr. bush when they were running for governor of texas.

she said it was the most frustrating experience to formulate cogent arguments, only to be greeted by the same non-responsive semi-coherent talking points from mr. bush at every turn. sadly enough, the person using sound logic and a fact-based approach just doesn't win this type of argument, debate, or discussion.

reviewing this thread also reminds me of the scene in the movie "billy madison" when the character played by adam sandler delivers an oral essay comparing the industrial revolution to a lost puppy (or something like that), and the principle responds:

Mr. Madison, what you just said is one of the most insanely, idiotic things that I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent reponse were you even close to anything that can be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points and may God have mercy on your soul.

i will leave it to the reader to apply this quote to the present thread.

on edit, just to be clear (which it probably was) the above quote was not aimed at you, sufi, even though i see to have replied to your post.
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kengineer Donating Member (136 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-31-03 09:19 PM
Response to Reply #122
126. Time to go real Slow
Edited on Sun Aug-31-03 09:20 PM by kengineer
ME: All of life upon planet Earth is genetics.

Agree or disagree?


ME: Human genetic life exists.

Agree or disagree?


ME: Genetic life exists in the form of individuals and groups of individuals.

Agree or disagree?


ME: Gathering (existing) in groups on the basis of genetics naturally flows from that.

Agree or disagree?


ME: The United States is a group?

Agree or disagree?


ME: The group called the United States, has more power than an individual?

Agree or disagree?



ME: What if 100 individuals wish to gather together into a community to raise their families? The government doesn't legally allow such gatherings. YOU: Is this really true? Apparently you've never heard of communes....Isn't this a private property issue? As long as there are no public facilities or public ways, you can keep whomever you want off your private property. Am I right?

ME: I don't contest that currently people can have private property and do what you say... but can they get water and electricity in such a community run to individual houses? I've never looked into this private property thing, but I'll bet there are problems with it. For example, let's pretend that someone buys 400 acres as private property then builds a bunch of houses on it and says its for Japanese people... can't do it... that's illegal. So I'm really not sure how your private property idea works in the real world.


YOU: You still haven't listed any good reasons to justify such communities based on genetic diversity - namely because none exist

ME: Oh, yes you must not have been paying much attention to some other's I've been talking to on here... feast your eyes on this:

Here is a most important point: As an example, let's say there are three phenotypic alleles unique to an ethnic group which, when combined, give them a specific trait that no other ethnic group has. Most members of this ethnic group have all three double alleles at the same time and have the trait. If all members of this ethnic group mix with another that has none of those alleles, what then is the probability of seeing all three of those phenotypes together at the same time within a child of the future? Close to zero... but not zero. The more ethno-specific phenotypes we add to this scenario, the more this probability approaches zero. In the real world with hundreds or thousands of ethno-specific phenotypes the probability of producing a human with the original phenotypes under this scenario is, for all practical purposes, zero, and thusly, the aggregate phenotypes of that original ethnic group have gone extinct.

Agree or disagree?


YOU: since all members of all groups already have the maximum amount of "Genetic Freedom", that is, they can procreate with whom they want

ME: In order for them to have maximum freedom, there must be balance. Currently they do not have the freedom to gather together and raise their children in a community with their own ethnic group... unless they just happen to aggregate together in a community... which absolutely does happen a lot today I realize.


YOU: they have individual freedom, yes

ME: yes they have individual freedom, with the exception of the one individual freedom I pointed out.


YOU: segregating into ethnically distinct communities with enforced exclusion of others is only going to restrict that freedom

ME: enforced exclusion of others in housing... beyond that if any individuals in the community have friends or whatever else, they are not excluded AND the community may accept anyone they want into their community. This is where individual freedom overrides the group freedom. If they choose to mary outside their ethnic group and their fiance's family comes over the rest of the community has no right to say that the individual in this community cannot do that. See, total individual freedom. It's up to them.


YOU: in summary, doing so in no way increases any individuals freedom.

ME: It increases precisely that one freedom I already mentioned. They still have all other freedoms you've mentioned, even in these ethnocentric communities.


YOU: Just don't try to delude yourself or the rest of us that there are valid genetic reasons for doing it.

ME: I pointed out the valid genetic reason... waiting for your response to it.


YOU: And why should the government (read: the taxpayers) assist you in setting these up?

ME: They wouldn't. I don't think I said they would. Obviously if any ethnic group decided they wanted a community they would have to work out the proper zoning with the local county or city government.


YOU: Any rational person would argue that social exposure to OTHER groups is the only way to make completely informed reproductive decisions

ME: What makes you think you won't be exposed to other ethnic groups in this "world" I have proposed? As if you didn't know, you can travel half way around the world and meet somebody in two days that you suddenly decide you love and want to marry... It does happen, I can assure you.


YOU: or just no permanent residents? What if the other races were sterile and couldn't interbreed with yours?

ME: No permanent residents. If they were sterile it's possible some communities would let them in... I don't know. Interesting tangent.


YOU: One last time: The concept of "Genetic Freedom for Groups" as you've defined it is meaningless

ME: I'm still working on it and it has improved greatly since the beginning of this thread.
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Sufi Marmot Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-31-03 11:31 PM
Response to Reply #126
130. I'd prefer coherence to slowness...
ME: All of life upon planet Earth is genetics.
Nonsensical statement


ME: Human genetic life exists.
Nonsensical statement


ME: Genetic life exists in the form of individuals and groups of individuals.
Nonsensical statement

ME: Gathering (existing) in groups on the basis of genetics naturally flows from that.
Nonsensical statement. Alternatively, a statement with little supporting evidnce, given that it's only relatively recently that different ethnic groups have had the opportunity to freely associate.
Given the increasingly cosmopolitan nature of the world's major cities and the amount of immigration tolerated by economically developed countries, the exact opposite could be convincingly argued.

ME: The United States is a group?
Nonsensical statement until you clarify what it's a group of...


ME: The group called the United States, has more power than an individual? Nonsensical statement until you clarify exactly what entities the United States is a group of, and how the law deals with those entities.

Here is a most important point: As an example, let's say there are three phenotypic alleles unique to an ethnic group which, when combined, give them a specific trait that no other ethnic group has. Most members of this ethnic group have all three double alleles at the same time and have the trait. If all members of this ethnic group mix with another that has none of those alleles, what then is the probability of seeing all three of those phenotypes together at the same time within a child of the future? Close to zero... but not zero. The more ethno-specific phenotypes we add to this scenario, the more this probability approaches zero. In the real world with hundreds or thousands of ethno-specific phenotypes the probability of producing a human with the original phenotypes under this scenario is, for all practical purposes, zero, and thusly, the aggregate phenotypes of that original ethnic group have gone extinct. Anyone who has ever taken a basic genetics course can explain to you why this paragraph is nonsensical. Hint: for starters you can refine or clarify your definitions...


ME: In order for them to have maximum freedom, there must be balance. Currently they do not have the freedom to gather together and raise their children in a community with their own ethnic group... unless they just happen to aggregate together in a community... which absolutely does happen a lot today I realize. The fact that you contradict yourself notwithstanding, your implicit argument is just pure bullshit. In practice, in North America anyone has the opportunity to associate with plenty of people of their own ethnic group, if they really want to meet and procreate with their same ethnic group, regardless of who else might live in the same neighborhood. You've also changed the terms here from procreation and protecting genetic diversity to raising their children in a community with their own ethnic group. Well, my argument still applies: there is ample opportunity for people to socialize their children with members of the same ethnic group that does not necessitate absolute exclusion of other ethnic entities from the same neighborhood. So let's hear your rationalization as to why children should be raised in an ethnically segregated environment...



ME: I don't contest that currently people can have private property and do what you say... but can they get water and electricity in such a community run to individual houses? I've never looked into this private property thing, but I'll bet there are problems with it. For example, let's pretend that someone buys 400 acres as private property then builds a bunch of houses on it and says its for Japanese people... can't do it... that's illegal. So I'm really not sure how your private property idea works in the real world. I'm not even totally convinced that this is correct - what's to stop a bunch of Japanese people from pooling their money, buying a piece of land, then building their houses on it. They just can't put houses up for sale on the open market and then refuse to sell to any non-Japanese. Maybe some DUer knowledgable about Housing Law can address this...

ME: No permanent residents. If they were sterile it's possible some communities would let them in... I don't know. Interesting tangent. SOME communities, eh? Well at least we've established that this doesn't necessarily have anything to do with procreation and genetic diversity...

ME: enforced exclusion of others in housing... beyond that if any individuals in the community have friends or whatever else, they are not excluded AND the community may accept anyone they want into their community. This is where individual freedom overrides the group freedom. If they choose to mary outside their ethnic group and their fiance's family comes over the rest of the community has no right to say that the individual in this community cannot do that. See, total individual freedom. It's up to them. How magnanamous of you, granting visitation rights. As long as the mixed-race couple doesn't try to set up a household in that community, right? So it all comes down to housing - we don't mind if the brown friends of our neighbors come by to visit, as long as they leave before sundown. What about sleepovers (seperate beds of course, no procreation...)? Could the brown friends of certain community residents pitch a tent on their lawn for a week? Would that be OK or would the community need to vote on it? How long are they allowed to stay before the neighbors got antsy? Could they house sit while the white residents were away on vacation for two weeks? Sublet a basement apartment for 3 months while their own ethnically seperate domiciles were being built? What's your cutoff between visiting and residing?


ME: What makes you think you won't be exposed to other ethnic groups in this "world" I have proposed? As if you didn't know, you can travel half way around the world and meet somebody in two days that you suddenly decide you love and want to marry... It does happen, I can assure you. Your argument was that people should be ethnically segregated so they could have the opportunity to make the best decision about with whom to procreate, which is of course, nonsensical, given the wide variety of visible phenotypic variation that exists in the world. What I'm sure you would have said, if you were being intellectually honest with us, is that ethnically segregated people are less likely to meet and fall in love with someone from outside their ethnic group, which is your anti-miscegenist goal.

-SM


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kengineer Donating Member (136 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-31-03 11:37 PM
Response to Reply #130
132. We're done... nice doing business with ya
If you cannot even comprehend the following sentences we are done. I didn't read the rest of your post but I'll probably browse through it later.


ME: All of life upon planet Earth is genetics.
Nonsensical statement


ME: Human genetic life exists.
Nonsensical statement


ME: Genetic life exists in the form of individuals and groups of individuals.
Nonsensical statement

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Sufi Marmot Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Sep-01-03 12:01 AM
Response to Reply #132
135. It's telling...
You reduce complex definitions to simplitic, often incorrect aphorisms in order to support your otherwise untenable arguments, then when any number of well-informed people call you on it, you simply repeat your original assertions and/or obfuscate further.

Game...Set...Match


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kengineer Donating Member (136 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Sep-01-03 12:09 AM
Response to Reply #135
137. ignorance
At some point in your future you'll understand that you didn't comprehend this paragraph:

As an example, let's say there are three phenotypic alleles unique to an ethnic group which, when combined, give them a specific trait that no other ethnic group has. Most members of this ethnic group have all three double alleles at the same time and have the trait. If all members of this ethnic group mate with another ethnic group that has none of those alleles, what then is the probability of seeing all three of those phenotypes together at the same time within a child of the future? Close to zero... but not zero. The more ethno-specific phenotypes we add to this scenario, the more this probability approaches zero. In the real world with hundreds of ethno-specific phenotypes and mutations the probability of producing a human with the original phenotypes, under this scenario is, for all practical purposes, zero. Thusly, the aggregate phenotypes of that original ethnic group have gone extinct.
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Sufi Marmot Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Sep-01-03 03:23 AM
Response to Reply #137
141. Take a genetics course, then get back to us...
Here's your first lesson:

As an example, let's say there are three phenotypic alleles unique to an ethnic group which, when combined, give them a specific trait that no other ethnic group has. If all members of this ethnic group mate with another ethnic group that has none of those alleles, what then is the probability of seeing all three of those phenotypes together at the same time within a child of the future? Close to zero... but not zero. Thusly, the aggregate phenotypes of that original ethnic group have gone extinct.Others have commented on the improbability of this scenario occurring in real life (can you provide any examples where it has?), given such variables as allele frequencies, population size, and other factors.


But I'll play along for now: Let's set up your theoretical cross: AA BB CC x aa bb cc where capital letters are completely dominant to lower case letters and all homozygosity of the recessive allele for all three genes for phenotypic expression of the trait (aa bb cc). Your genetics assignment:

1) What percent of the first generation of offspring will have the recessive phenotype?

2) What percent of the first generation of offspring are potentially capable of paassing on the recessive phenotype, or alternatively, what percent of the first generation of offspring absolutely CANNOT pass on the recessive phenotype?

3) What percent of the second generation of offspring will have the recessive phenotype, assuming the usual genetic caveats of a sufficiently large mating population/number of offspring and completely random mating?


The more ethno-specific phenotypes we add to this scenario, the more this probability approaches zero. In the real world with hundreds of ethno-specific phenotypes and mutations the probability of producing a human with the original phenotypes, under this scenario is, for all practical purposes, zero.

Like what phenotypes? Give me an example of such a unique trait...you're claiming there are hundreds...

Other than eye shape, skin color, eye color, and maybe hair texture, I'm having a difficult time coming up with all these "ethno-specific" (again, confounding "ethnicity" with the anthopologists' definition of "race"...) traits you're fretting about...Remind me, which ethnic group are blue eyes specific for? Brown skin? By the way, which of those are required for your special racially, er, ethnically segregated communities? What physical characteristics does it take to prove "Irish" or "Swedish" heritage, anyway? (or distinguish Mongol from Kyrgyz, for that matter...) Are any Caucasians welcome, or are we talking blue eyes only? Or is this just a skin color/eye shape thing - I'm assuming eye color is too variable among Caucasians, even those of a well defined ethnicity. And could a Chinese person get away with living in one of those Japanese-only communities if he never opened his mouth? What about people from (I belive) Aruba, who have darker skin, but blue eyes and blond hair? Or if it's a strictly "racial" thing (skin color and eye shape) are they going to need some sort of card with a spectrum of skin colors, like they have in paint stores, with only people falling within a certain range allowed to live in the community? So many questions...

Nothing in this post, of course, should be taken as acknowledgement that your genetic fretfulness is anything but a flimsy and intellectually dishonest attempt to justify and promote forced racial segregation.

-SM


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kengineer Donating Member (136 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-31-03 06:49 PM
Response to Reply #119
121. Understand who you are talking to, and why you are talking
Edited on Sun Aug-31-03 07:31 PM by kengineer
Who do you think you are talking to?

I'll tell you:

You are talking to every single individual, from every ethnic group in the United States (and the world for the most part) who wishes to gather with other individuals of their ethnic group and raise their children in a community.

Just so you know who you are talking to.

Additionally, you are currently caught up in an anti-racist rant and it's caused by this:

Due to today's social/political environment many people don't like talking about these topics. The many meme associations we have regarding racism (etc..) within our minds likely prevents many from discussing it calmly.


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Sufi Marmot Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-31-03 07:55 PM
Response to Reply #121
123. I'm sure if I note that there doesn't seem to be an overwhelming trend...
towards completely ethnically segregated communities in the US, you'll just blame some straw man like government or media propaganda.

You are talking to every single individual, from every ethnic group in the United States (and the world for the most part) who wishes to gather with other individuals of their ethnic group and raise their children in a community. If you've ever been in a big city, you might have noticed that there are plenty of communities of predominantly one ethnicity which form naturally when people of the same ethnic group choose to associate in the same neighborhood, numerous freely made individual decisions regarding where to buy or rent property. Oddly enough, nobody's ever felt the need to mandate these communities by law, nor do these communities act as an aggregate to prevent members of other groups from living within them. Odder still, our oppressive government does nothing to oppose them. They just happen spontaneously, exist for a while, grow or shrink depending (again), on numerous individual decisions.


Due to today's social/political environment many people don't like talking about these topics. The many meme associations we have regarding racism (etc..) within our minds likely prevents many from discussing it calmly. Yeah, I caught this point the first time you posted it. The number of pixels the rest of us have wasted on this thread suggest otherwise. Don't flatter yourself...
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kengineer Donating Member (136 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-31-03 09:33 PM
Response to Reply #123
127. Correct, there is no overwhelming trend at this time
YOU: I'm sure if I note that there doesn't seem to be an overwhelming trend towards completely ethnically segregated communities in the US

ME: I never suggested there would be legal ethnocentric communities throughout the whole United States... I suggested to give people the freedom, then let the local communities arise as they freely will. Who knows how many will come up, but as I've also talked about, we have to educate the children of those communities properly, else, racial hatred will be fomented... which gets back to the whole peace issue of my essay...


YOU: you'll just blame some straw man like government or media propaganda.

ME: yeah, it was the straw man... I don't think people are fully aware of all the facts right now...



YOU: Oddly enough, nobody's ever felt the need to mandate these communities by law,

ME: as long as you understand that it's not the government doing the mandating... it's the local community... then your thinking is partially correct. You know as well as I do there are plenty of white ethnies that would jump on this opportunity. There would be plenty of asian ethnies doing the same, that's a guarantee. Arab ethnies, yes, for sure. I'm sure others would as well. So this is why the discussion is really about education to maintain the peace as per my original essay. I've already established the reasons why this would be good. So now it's a matter of discussing if it can be done peacefully.


YOU: The number of pixels the rest of us have wasted on this thread suggest otherwise. Don't flatter yourself...

ME: I was referring to "calmly." You seemed to go off on a bit of a rant there a while back...


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Sufi Marmot Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-31-03 11:55 PM
Response to Reply #127
134. Nor is there likely to be one...
ME: I never suggested there would be legal ethnocentric communities throughout the whole United States... I suggested to give people the freedom, then let the local communities arise as they freely will. Who knows how many will come up, but as I've also talked about, we have to educate the children of those communities properly, else, racial hatred will be fomented... which gets back to the whole peace issue of my essay... Again, your concept of the unit of "community assembly" in a truly free society is sadly awry, but nevermind...So exactly how will segregating races/ethnic groups encourage peace? Rational people would argue that exposing youngsters to many different types of people would promote peace, understanding and tolerance. Has your alternative theory been successfully tested anywhere?

ME: as long as you understand that it's not the government doing the mandating... it's the local community... then your thinking is partially correct. You know as well as I do there are plenty of white ethnies that would jump on this opportunity. There would be plenty of asian ethnies doing the same, that's a guarantee. Arab ethnies, yes, for sure. I'm sure others would as well. So this is why the discussion is really about education to maintain the peace as per my original essay. I've already established the reasons why this would be good. So now it's a matter of discussing if it can be done peacefully.
Feel free to provide some supporting evidence for this theory, aside for the limited number of racists, mostly Caucasian, who share your views. By the way, I would argue that most communities assemble and develop based on economic rather than ethnic/racial factors today - as people of all ethnic groups become more prosperous, they flee economically depressed areas for safer, middle class neighborhoods with better schools.

By the way, here's another question: in your ideal, ethnically segregated community, are you going to forbid the customs, mannerisms, and cultural traditions of other groups? What if one of your white families opened a Chinese or Ethiopean restaurant? Are the trappings of hip-hop culture verboten? Could some of the families convert to Islam and start their own mosque? Could residents open a Zen meditation center? What about Kwanzaa? Hawaiian-print shirts? Telemundo? I'm just curious how much cultural floatsam and jetsam your ideal community would allow...
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kengineer Donating Member (136 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Sep-01-03 12:06 AM
Response to Reply #134
136. This was worthy of a response
YOU: So exactly how will segregating races/ethnic groups encourage peace? Rational people would argue that exposing youngsters to many different types of people would promote peace, understanding and tolerance. Has your alternative theory been successfully tested anywhere?

ME: Finally, this is where the argument resides and thanks for finally having it. Unfortunately, as I've told many others here, I'm not going to have this argument on this thread because the thread has become so corrupted. That will have to wait for another time. sorry.



YOU: -clip- You still don't comprehend that aggregate phenotypes can go extinct... so until you do their is no point in continuing.
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frustrated_lefty Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-31-03 01:46 PM
Response to Original message
93. This thread has a lot of potential for
ego-stroking, so I've pretty much avoided it.

There is, I think, one fundamental flaw in your reasoning. You ask: “Do you believe that human peace can be maintained along with population diversity using a more advanced educational philosophy, or do you believe that human peace can only be maintained by enforcing a one human race only policy, at gunpoint?” I would ask you, in turn, to provide a single example of human peace? To my knowledge, it hasn't existed. Your question seems to pre-suppose its existence. Am I missing something here?
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kengineer Donating Member (136 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-31-03 01:58 PM
Response to Reply #93
97. ego stroking... nobody has stroked my ego here... opposite
I wouldn't mind a little ego stroking because that feels good as opposed to how it feels talking with people on this thread. Perhaps you meant ego stroking on the parts of the people who are "against" me... that I could understand.


You brought up a good point... see what happens when a person simply thinks creatively in an unbiased way... voila!

YOU There is, I think, one fundamental flaw in your reasoning. You ask: “Do you believe that human peace can be maintained along with population diversity using a more advanced educational philosophy, or do you believe that human peace can only be maintained by enforcing a one human race only policy, at gunpoint?” I would ask you, in turn, to provide a single example of human peace? To my knowledge, it hasn't existed. Your question seems to pre-suppose its existence. Am I missing something here?

ME: Indeed. Human peace has existed in localized communities without a doubt, to varying degree on the "human peace" meter. I'm sure that the "human peace" graph over the past 50,000 years would be an up and down graph but I have no idea specifically what it would look like. But to clear it all up I'll say this: We are striving for human peace... so I need only change the word maintained to achieved and the problem is solved... Note, that I've completely rewritten the whole Genetic Freedom essay but won't be posting it here... because of this:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=234674&mesg_id=255218&page=

Thanks :)

Ken
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Philosophy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-31-03 02:07 PM
Response to Reply #97
99. Inbreeding
What you discovered in your eureka moment that you keep boastfully posting the link to is nothing more than the very well known fact that inbreeding can reduce the genetic variability within a population. I (and anyone else here who actually understands genetics) find it totally ridiculous that you are trying to use this as some sort of evidence showing the dangers of interbreeding, which is in fact exactly the opposite of inbreeding.
:hurts:
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kengineer Donating Member (136 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-31-03 02:46 PM
Response to Reply #99
105. Outbreeding
I had no eureka moment. I was posting that for what I wrote at the bottom to show how my excessively sloppy and creative writing style led to confusion... Obviously you are still confused by what you just wrote but I'll respond to it anyways


YOU: What you discovered in your eureka moment

ME: I had no eureka moment.


YOU: the very well known fact that inbreeding can reduce the genetic variability within a population.

ME: yes it can


YOU: find it totally ridiculous that you are trying to use this as some sort of evidence showing the dangers of interbreeding

ME: no, as an example of how phenotypic probability for a trait can be reduced and extinguished in some lines.
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Philosophy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-31-03 03:28 PM
Response to Reply #105
108. Still inbreeding
Edited on Sun Aug-31-03 03:30 PM by Philosophy
no, as an example of how phenotypic probability for a trait can be reduced and extinguished in some lines.

But your example is inbreeding - it only shows how a trait can sometimes be extinguished in an artificially small population. Granted, if the population is entirely homzygous for the blue-eyed trait, then the probability of this allele going extinct was zero, but if the population was so small that interbreeding with another population can raise the probability of that allele going extince any significant amount, then it was realistically already so small that it was doomed due to inbreeding in any case. The larger the initial blue-eyed population, the less probable it is that such a population could have naturally come together that way in the first place, and the less probable it would be for the blue-eyed trait to go extinct as the result of interbreeding with another population.

So since you seem to be using this example as the centerpiece of evidence supporting your hypothesis that interbreeding is detrimental to variation within the species, and it is not at all based upon reality, then your entire argument is falsified.

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kengineer Donating Member (136 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-31-03 04:20 PM
Response to Reply #108
113. I clarified this elseware... point conceded I was misleading...
When I said: "alleles can be reduced and extinguished in some lines." I was misleading. I'm not suggesting that the allele itself goes extinct or reduces in the whole of the population. It was misleading for me to write this in this way... Does that make you happy? :)


YOU: So since you seem to be using this example as the centerpiece of evidence supporting your hypothesis that interbreeding is detrimental to variation within the species, and it is not at all based upon reality, then your entire argument is falsified.

ME: No, that was a side argument that you guys took me off on. But good try. The argument is simply that phenotype probability will be reduced... I do apologize for any confusion I caused there in previous posts. I'm sure you will agree that that phenotypic probability can easily be reduced. Additionally, here is an excellent example: If we are talking about 3 ethno-specific alleles which together produce the specific ethnicity specific trait then, if that ethnic group COMPLETELY mixes with another that does not have any of these alleles, the probability of a human being born who has all three of these alleles matched up properly approaches zero...
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InkAddict Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Sep-01-03 12:18 AM
Response to Original message
139. More fuel for the Fire
Edited on Mon Sep-01-03 12:23 AM by InkAddict
Sorry, only the cached link left:

http://216.239.53.104/search?q=cache:uTal6TPmt2EJ:www.tcd.ie/Geology/Courses/ewf/lecture34.html+&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

In light of very recent events...SEEMS I'VE HEARD THIS SPUN ANOTHER WAY!

most of the page, still very intersting. Then...

David Raup, a palaeontologist from the University of Chicago, believes that a first strike, an initial hit, may reduce the geographic range of a group, after which a run of bad luck may finish the job.

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Philosophy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Sep-01-03 12:32 AM
Response to Original message
140. What exactly is this "freedom" you refer to?
Now that I have demonstrated how your arguments are not based upon realistic genetics, lets get to the other part, the "freedom".

It appears to me you are advocating a false freedom - the "freedom" to oppress other people. Specifically you want you racial supremacy group to have the "freedom" to impose their racist views on other people whom they consider to be of their same race, but who don't willingly share their extreme views. This idea is typical of racial supremacy groups - e.g. it is not enough for a group of white supremacists to just not interbreed with other races themselves, they want to force all white people everywhere to do the same.

This is typical of other right-wing oppressive "freedoms", such as the "freedom" to forcibly convert people to your religion, or the "freedom" to force people to pledge allegiance to the flag, or the "freedom" to trick people into paying more than is fair for a product.
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Solomon Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Sep-01-03 08:07 AM
Response to Original message
142. "Genetic freedom philosophical concept"?
Another attempt to rationalize the fear of white genetic annihilation on the planet which I have discussed in the following thread:

http://democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=255237&mesg_id=255237

There is nothing wrong with fearing the consequences of integration in terms of color; its only natural. If we could find a way to discuss this phenomena openly we can deal with this issue. But a lot of folks want to pretend that they have no such fears, only making things worse. I don't think there's anything wrong with some people wanting to make sure that white skin does not disappear from the planet. I can understand that. But it matters what actions one takes in response to this fear. For example, killing and suppressing non-whites in order to insure the survival of white skin is not appropriate.

Anyway all of this certainly points out what I have been saying every since the Bush cabal came up with the phrase "Weapons of Mass Destruction". This is very raw so close your ears if you can;t handle it: In the white pysche, the true "Weapons of Mass Destruction" is the sperm of the black male. Guns, bullets and bombs represent the counter "weapons". That's why every conceivable attempt is made to suppress the black male, but you simply can't kill off enough non-whites to equal the scales, although the system tries to do its very best.
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kayell Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Sep-01-03 09:20 AM
Response to Original message
143. No matter how you dress it up in fancy language
your "Genetic Freedom Philosophical concept" is still simple old racism. No, I'm not going to play by your rules.

Your "Genetic Freedom Philosophical concept" logically followed would lead to a return to the good old days of miscegenation laws.

Human populations have always wandered and interbred. We all originated somewhere in Africa. As different populations moved out and spread across Asia, Europe etc, they aquired different physical characteristics (mostly as adaptations to physical environment, ie: lighter skin allows better vitamin D absorption at higher latitudes). They developed different cultures. Then a group of wandering humans would bump into another group and interbreed, change, borrow pieces of culture from one another and change some more.

Sometime in the past most of my ancestors - Gaels, traveled from the area to become spain, settled in Ireland and interbred with the humans who had settled there earlier - by your "philosophy" a different race. How shocking, how misceginistic!

Then they had the nerve to move to America, and oh! what a positive orgy of interbreeding there was. Irish married germans, married scots, married french and english and cherokees, and who knows! (a very high percentage of southern US whites have african blood) They swapped genetic material around (a very healthy thing to do by the way, and the reason that sexual reproduction has been such an evolutionary success story) They swapped bits of culture.

My grandaughter is 1/4 african american. Who knows how many of your "races" actually exist in her? Several of my Kansas cousins have Korean ancestors who may have had a variety of ancestors from China, Japan or ...? Who knows how many of your "races" exist in them?

Our family has not lost it's culture by "miscegenation" as you so carefully avoided calling your ideas, but has gained and changed and diversified in amazing and interesting ways. And that quite frankly is the history of the entire human race.
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Tinoire Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Sep-02-03 12:19 AM
Response to Reply #143
146. Nice Post Kayell
:hi:

Nice refuttal of that racist bunk.

And may I just say, that's a might handsome man in your signature line ;)

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kengineer Donating Member (136 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Sep-01-03 09:55 AM
Response to Original message
144. TO AVOID CONFUSION THREAD HAS MOVED TO...
HERE

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=258606

A new revised essay has been published there to try and cut off a lot of confusion that occurred with this thread.

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Isome Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Sep-01-03 10:29 PM
Response to Original message
145. Do you know an online entity named:
jenifj? It appears the two of you subscribe to the same school of thought.

Here's a sample of her beliefs:
  • An individual that makes a claim of racism, is projecting their racist belief on to another because of their inferiority, with the objective of controlling another's choice and free association.

    The people that claim that society is racist, and needs to be changed by political means are trying to saying that society has a monolithic mentality. ...they want to use laws to control another's choice and free association.

    To believe in race as a human identifier, one is a racist. I wish people would quit being racists!


  • No one likes to be rejected, me included; but the reality is, the person being rejected, is the one that creates the hateful feeling. The hate and intolerance comes from the rejected one that wants to control someone else's choice by placing restrictions on free expression. One who promote PC, only believes in freedom of speech, when it is their freedom and their speech. They think intolerance only occurs, when someone is intolerant of them. They think bigotry only occurs, when others reject their obstinately devotion to their own opinions. They think being prejudices only occurs, when someone else's preferences doesn't include them. They think racism only occurs, because they are not apart of the group. They think rights has to do with wants, if they want it, it's their right.


  • .::jenifj in all her glory::.


    Her beliefs are quite like yours.
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