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Comment by Emma_Goldman | Hacker News Reader

Natural selection acts to increase the fitness of a species relative to its environment. In the human case 'race' is a misnomer. It simply refers to certain features of humans' external appearance, namely melanin. But this does not track any distinct genetic community, which primarily changes as a function of the total sum of environmental pressures, and not just in proportion to UV radiation (i.e. as is true of melanin). It is difficult to take anyone seriously who uses race as a meaningful biological category.

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Race is a meaningful medical category since it appears that certain diseases that have a genetic background are more common on some races than others. So it's not a biological race in the sense that you have different genes but the different variations that appear are important( an example is that esophagus cancer is many times more common on Chinese people compared to Western people, a trend that is maintained on immigrants).

Yes but in those cases the role of race is not causal but correlative. It just happens that because more people classified as part of one race have evolved in an environment that has led to medically significant genetic differences from other humans, that those genetic differences correlate with 'race'. But race has nothing to do with it whatsoever. We only use race to speak about statistical medical populations because we lack more precise data about biological populations. This itself is an artefact of racism, i.e. the fact that we classify people according to their melanin, and make this into an important part of society, including census and medical data. Hopefully one of the upshots of the genomic revolution will be to create standardised genetic tests that do away with the need for such crude proxies.

I think you are missing the point. There is something in the Chinese genetic profile that increases the chances of a specific type of cancer. This is useful on it's own. Just because the different "races" converged again before geographical separation was maintained long enough to make them genetically incompatible doesn't mean that some differences haven't already propagated in these populations. The increased risk of cancer is exactly a result of being a member of the specific genetic race and thus carrying said gene, not the other way around. There is clearly a causative role, even if we don't know what it is step by step.

I see what you're saying. But I think it presumes that ordinary racial classifications overlap with homogeneous genetic communities. Specifically, that the human race was broken up and, through the early stages of allopatric speciation, became separate groups with their own homogenous genetic makeup. But this presumes that the only evolutionary force acting upon the human race was allopatric speciation, which I take to be wrong. Even if we assume that, for instance, the 'Chinese race' was sufficiently isolated to experience allopatric speciation - which seems doubtful anyway, given the migratory cross-flows of human groups throughout pre-history - then other evolutionary forces particular to localised regions and sub-communities would means that, medically speaking, those biological communities were more significant than being 'Chinese'. Or at least that's my impression.

This comment doesn't make sense to me. Like all words, "race" has different meanings, i.e. it can be defined in different ways.

Race can, and has, been defined in a way that is useful to scientists. "Biological races" are different populations of the same species that meet some threshold of genetic variability with respect to each other. When populations are isolated for a long time, this is inevitable.

'"Biological races" are different populations of the same species that meet some threshold of genetic variability with respect to each other. When populations are isolated for a long time, this is inevitable.'

As you must know, the ordinary understanding of race is based upon external appearance, primarily melanin: black, white, yellow, brown, Indian, and so on. If you redefine race as a genetic population, then you will end up with new population categories that have absolutely nothing to do with race as it is ordinarily understood, i.e. as I just pointed out on this thread, it is possible (though I don't know how likely) that certain tribes living at high altitude in Kenya and Ethiopia have adapted to increase the efficiency of their oxygen uptake. But that would be a localised adaptation to environment, not a general feature of 'black' people, or even of Kenyans and Ethiopians.

> As you must know, the ordinary understanding of race is based upon external appearance, primarily melanin: black, white, yellow, brown, Indian, and so on.

This is exactly my point. Race means different things in different contexts. Colloquially, the word is used as you used it here. But it has other definitions, like the one I posted. All words are like this.

> If you redefine race as a genetic population, then you will end up with new population categories that have absolutely nothing to do with race as it is ordinarily understood

I'm not redefining it. It has been defined this way by other people. There are real scientists who use the word race like this.

But I agree: different definitions of the word "race" will result in different race categories. When a scientist uses the term "race" they mean something different than someone using the word race colloquially.

'This is exactly my point. Race means different things in different contexts. Colloquially, the word is used as you used it here. But it has other definitions, like the one I posted. All words are like this.'

You are being obtuse. There are not 'different' definitions of race. There is an overwhelming homogeneity in the dominant definitions of race, i.e. according to melanin. Race, on these terms, has been a major structuring force in modern social relations. If you invent a new definition of race and use it to justify what, with the normal definition of race, is racism, then you are either seriously confused and/or politically malicious.

It's easily to verify that there are different definitions of the word race.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_(biology)

I don't think this conversation has much hope of continuing in a productive direction so I'm going to call it a day

I am not saying there are not different definitions of race. I am saying that there is an overwhelming homogeneity in the definition of race that has and does structure modern social relations, and that it is simply unhelpful to use race in a highly atypical way to study biological populations. See, for example:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/race-is-a-social-...

Ok, so if "race" only affects external appearance, explain why every single london marathon champion since 2002 is kenyan or ethiopian?

There's no consensus as to the answer to that question. But even if we accept the genetic accounts offered, the explanation would be that certain Ethiopian and Kenyan tribes living in mountainous areas have adapted to living at high altitudes by adapting to increase the efficiency of their oxygen uptake, which, in turn, makes them better long-distance runners. That has nothing to do with melanin, or even with being Kenyan or Ethiopian, but with a localised adaptation to environment. But again - we can only speculate, no one know's the answer.

So you say that tribes can physiologically adapt depending on their environment.

Do you then admit that tribes can adapt cognitively depending on their environment? Or does adaptation only occur below the neck?

In principle genetic populations can adapt to their environment physiologically and cognitively. That follows trivially from natural selection. It is an empirical question if and how that occurs in human groups. I heavily caveated my last reply be because the genetic explanation for Ethiopian and Kenyan running ability is one among many, and entirely unproven. You would have, to validate your thesis, to build up a theoretical case as to why environmental pressures have led to some particular cognitive adaptation, and then to empirically test it. You know as well as I that there is no credible existing such account.

What race are the kenyans and ethopians?

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