Comment by CryptoPunk | Hacker News Reader

Comment by CryptoPunk | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

Sorry, link fixed. As the abstract points out, the idea of race as a social construct, as of 2007, was a minority viewpoint amongst those biologists and anthropologists that Morning interviewed. This is despite sociologists at the time frequently claiming that scientists as a whole saw race as a social construct:

"Contrary to sociologists' expectations, racial constructionism is revealed to be a minority viewpoint."

This supports the theory that the "the science says race is a social construct" started primarily with sociologists, who naturally see everything through the lens of social constructionism, and falsely attributed this belief to the harder sciences, to create an appeal to scientific authority for the viewpoint. Fast forward to today, where this view is now the official position of the scientific establishment as a whole, despite it being a minority position just 15 years ago.

Not seeing how you can't see how the paper supports my position, that this opinion is a result of social pressure to conform with an ideology, and not objective science. Claiming "scientists see race as a social construct" is exactly the kind of social pressure tactic that would be used to bring other scientists into the mold. No one wants to be seen as contradicting a conclusion of the scientific establishment, especially one that superficially, would appear to promote a more equitable world.

>>I still have no idea how you see the state fitting in here.

This victimhood ideology, that contains within it the idea that racial is a social construct used to perpetuate oppression, rationalizes a set of government policies and laws, e.g. civil rights law, that empowers special interests, and thus ties their economic interests to the perpetuation of these government interventions.

Thus this ideology is aggressively pushed by those whose interests are dependent on left-wing-ideology motivated state intervention. See the websites/social-media-pages of the labor unions for the New York Times and Washington Post for just a quick sample:

https://nytimesguild.org/

https://twitter.com/postguild

Sociology majors, incidentally, tend to work in government-funded institutions (e.g. as guidance counselors, social workers, etc), or in professions that largely arose as a result of government intervention (e.g. anti-discrimination lawyers, human resource representatives), etc.

> This supports the theory that the "the science says race is a social construct" started primarily with sociologists.

Who? Dr Morning is the only sociologist here. And you're using her to support your argument.

You've obviously thought about this a lot and have some pretty strong opinions but I don't see how that aligns with the original article or anything geneticists are talking about?

Ignoring for a second the idea that "race is a social construct", will you at least concede that race *was* a social construct? And that it predated our understanding of genetics and was used to, among other things, justify slavery, eugenics and other human misery? And that perhaps we shouldn't be cavalier about attributing scientific observations about genetics to something like a 'race' of people? Because that's the discussion that's happening in the scientific community. It seems very divorced from your assertions about victimhood ideology.

Genetics are still important. Groups of related ancestors are, too. Take a personal example - I did "23 and me" maybe 10 years ago. I'm half Swedish and half Mexican (mestizo, basque and native). I have genetic markers that predispose me to having high iron in my blood. This is pretty common among Swedish ancestory.

How does attributing that to "white" help anything here?

And what the hell am I? Am I latino? Am I white?

Does any of that fucking matter? Who cares what the hell Johann Friedrich Blumenbach thought about the subject. My ancestory - my mix of Swedish and Mexican ancestors - is really only useful for explaining what I look like. The concept of "race", historically, takes it further to attempt to explain who I am. Am I lazy? Am I superior? Am I worthy of passing on my genes? From there it's a historical slided to the worst parts of our history: that maybe the world would be better off without certain people. Or that some were meant to be superior.

>>Who? Dr Morning is the only sociologist here. And you're using her to support your argument.

According to the paper:

The title:

"“Everyone Knows It's a Social Construct”: Contemporary Science and the Nature of Race"

The first line of the abstract:

"Sociological literature frequently claims that scientists across the disciplinary spectrum have arrived at the common conclusion that race is socially constructed, not biologically anchored."

I assume Dr. Morning's characterization is accurate, and could be easily corroborated.

I don't see how it's constructive to continue responding to you when you are being obtuse in assessing what I'm providing.

Just to clarify: are you claiming that the following assessments of Dr. Morning's, are not credible, or are incorrect:

* the dominant viewpoint amongst sociologists, as of 2007, was that "scientists across the disciplinary spectrum have arrived at the common conclusion that race is socially constructed"

* as of 2007, most biologists and anthropologists did not, indeed, see race as socially constructed

?

>>Ignoring for a second the idea that "race is a social construct", will you at least concede that race was a social construct? And that it predated our understanding of genetics and was used to, among other things, justify slavery, eugenics and other human misery? And that perhaps we shouldn't be cavalier about attributing scientific observations about genetics to something like a 'race' of people? Because that's the discussion that's happening in the scientific community. It seems very divorced from your assertions about victimhood ideology.

All of this is nonsense. It wasn't a social construct, and its emergence as a recognized concept wasn't motivated by a desire to justify doing horrible things to people. This is just standard victimhood narrative, to give the political left in the academic/scientific establishment moral authority.

And using race categories doesn't imply ignoring its limitations, or preclude the use of other ways of categorizing people.

Dr Morning's assertion is that "race is a social construct" is a minority position, and one that sociologists overemphasize.

This is very different from saying "race being a social construct is an idea of social justice ideology, not of science". She is arguing that the perceived consensus or widespread acceptance of the idea is wrong. You're asserting that "social justice [ideologists]" or sociologists (you seem to be using them interchangeably) themselves came up with the very idea.

We're 15 years later. Is it still a minority position? I honestly don't know. Based on OP, it seems like no, but maybe we're in the same position. But it was clearly never "an idea of social justice ideology, not of science"

> It wasn't a social construct, and its emergence as a recognized concept wasn't motivated by a desire to justify doing horrible things to people

So if our understanding of race was never a social construct, do tell what is the science behind this:

> Finally, I am of opinion that after all these numerous instances I have brought together of negroes of capacity, it would not be difficult to mention entire well-known provinces of Europe, from out of which you would not easily expect to obtain off-hand such good authors, poets, philosophers, and correspondents of the Paris Academy; and on the other hand, there is no so-called savage nation known under the sun which has so much distinguished itself by such examples of perfectibility and original capacity for scientific culture, and thereby attached itself so closely to the most civilized nations of the earth, as the Negro."

I'm not asserting, either, that reasoning around races was used to justify things before the act, but rather that by attributing ideas like "genetics explains people" carries historical consequences. Like that some genes are superior to others. I don't know how you can deny this took place in our history.

>>Dr Morning's assertion is that "race is a social construct" is a minority position, and one that sociologists overemphasize.

You're being disingenuous, in not fully describing Morning's assertion. The assertion, fully described, is that "race is a social construct" is a minority position, and one that sociologists claim is a universally held among scientists at large.

This is deeply mistaken claim by the sociologists, and to me it's evident why the consensus emerged within the sociology field around this erronuous belief: it's a manipulation tactic, to give the "race is a social contract" claim an appeal to scientific credibility.

And it worked! Only 15 years later, and the main scientific institutions are now arguing for a broad exorcism of the concept of race.

>>But it was clearly never "an idea of social justice ideology, not of science"

Given the following facts, I think there is a preponderance of evidence that it is an idea of social justice ideology, not science:

* the well-documented extreme-left wing bias of the sociology field

* the economic interests those with sociology degrees have - due to the occupations that sociology degrees are amenable to - to propagate left-wing political ideology and the government programs that are associated with it

* the lack of rigor in sociology, which makes it less scientific, and more political/ideological, than other scientific disciplines. This lack of rigor is reflected in the pervasiveness of the erronuous belief about "race is a social construct" in sociology field, that Morning references

* the until recent general rejection of the "race is a social construct" idea in the harder sciences for which race is relevant: biology and anthropology

The best explanation for the coincidence of all of these facts, is that "race is a social construct" originated in the left-wing grievance ideology promoted by the political left, and that the sociologists, due to their alignment with this ideology, created a dogmatic commitment to this belief in the other scientific disciplines, by linking the rejection of this belief with vices like racism.

>>that reasoning around races was used to justify things before the act, but rather that by attributing ideas like "genetics explains people" carries historical consequences.

The answer is not to pretend race doesn't exist and/or has no usefulness as a category. The attempt to extirpate race from the sciences, in an attempt to minimize racism, is just delusional utopianism, that in its neuroticism, totally ignores the collateral damage to various scientific frameworks, of such a drastic and far-reaching conceptual re-engineering.

To deny that race is a social construct by word salads full of "left-wing victim-hood" etc is even more deluded than your "the news is a union conspiracy" posts.

Using a lot of words to describe a complex reality != word salad, your disingenuous characterization notwithstanding.

And that "race is a social construct" idea is part of a victimhood narrative is totally obvious. See how the idea is nested here for instance:

https://www.vox.com/2014/10/10/6943461/race-social-construct...

>>Americans bought into this idea, too. Why was it so appealing? "Americans of European descent invented race during the era of the American Revolution as a way of resolving the contradiction between a natural right to freedom and the fact of slavery," historian Barbara J. Fields explained in a presentation to the producers of PBS's series Race: The Power of An Illusion (which is worth checking out for more detailed information on all this).

The journalists at Vox are fully unionized by the way.

Any way, this kind of victimhood/injustice framing is extremely common, and was even posited by the other commenter in this very discussion!

>>will you at least concede that race was a social construct? And that it predated our understanding of genetics and was used to, among other things, justify slavery, eugenics and other human misery?

But now you want to gaslight people into believing that this victimhood narrative isn't the main context in which the concept appears?

>>more deluded than your "the news is a union conspiracy" posts.

Your pithy response to my argument that unionized news staff have an economic interest in promoting left wing political ideas - when I've elaborated at length as to why I believe this is the case - suggests you're approaching this issue very emotionally, and not in a good faith attempt to open-mindedly explore what I'm saying to see if it's true.

I dont really have much to say about your political rant other than to point out the irony of some reality denying ideologist misrepresenting what people think or say being a central theme in your argument.

I have provided my evidence and rationale. If you can't handle providing a meaningful response to it, and resort to this low-effort dismissal, it says more about your confidence in your own argument than it does about my argument.

Oh you've provided much more than that lol

And this kind of snark further reinforces my point.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com