Snappy refutation of race denial

Posted by Jim Varney's Ghost on July 20, 2010, 12:06 PM | #

Mr Deogolwulf’s excellent blog has covered this:

http://curmudgeonjoy.blogspot.com/2007/12/anthropozoology.html

Posted by Smart Guy on July 20, 2010, 12:22 PM | #

The snappy WN doesn’t know what he is talking about, as the human Y chromosome is about 100 million bases shorter than the human X chromosome, so men and women are not 99.9999...% the same (the human genome is about 3 billion base pairs long).

Posted by Gorboduc on July 20, 2010, 01:22 PM | #

Smart Guy:

Alex DOES know what he’s talking about.

What he asked was, can anyone improve on his riposte to the usual dreary stupid fourth-former-just-out-of-her-citizenship-and-social-relationships-brainwashing-session typical statement “Race is merely a social construct, we all have the same DNA”
He’s talking about putting the point across to laymen, not biologists: And I DON’T think this gambit can be bettered, so I say thankyou to him, and I hope I can use it TODAY!!

And of course, a lot of ignorant gulls took loony Kate Millett’s “Sexual Politics” seriously, didn’t they, with the parallel guff about gender being a “social construct”.

I knew a pair of “Modern Parents” who brought up their little daughter in tune with this manic tome: they practically got to hitting her when at the age of four she declared for skirts over jeans, a doll’s pram over a tractor, and hair-ribbons.

“Modern Parenting” is a social construct, if eber there was one.

So is Smart Guy!

Posted by asdf on July 20, 2010, 01:22 PM | #

The typical retort is that humans likewise share ‘50% with bananas’ (or perhaps 100% in some cases, with the interlocutor dumb enough to bring this meaningless statistic up), or up to 60% with some fruit.

Alternatively, see for instance this earlier MR entry by JWH, “Of mice and men”

Posted by sirrealpolitik on July 20, 2010, 08:56 PM | #

an even more layman-suited version:

considering things as differentiated as folding chairs and picture frames can both be made of wood--or 100 percent of the same material—a 1% genetic difference seems more than sufficient to drive a wedge the size of the rock of gibraltar between the races.

or something to that effect.

Posted by sirrealpolitik on July 20, 2010, 09:01 PM | #

or even:

people and badgers both have skin and hair and eyes and teeth and love their young and fart and salivate and swim and eat and cry and pounce and bend at the elbow and get hit by lorries.

but would you let a badger inseminate you?

Posted by Thorn on July 20, 2010, 11:08 PM | #

It’s usually a waste of time to argue with liberals about the genetic differences between races. But if the conversation goes there, try to keep it simple. Remember liberal logic is guided by emotion. That said, a somewhat effective way to engage is simply state: Yes we may be all brothers under the skin but we all learned in genetics 101 white genes are recessive. Given that fact the white genepool is destined to be absorbed, sooner or later, into the non-white genepool if whites don’t start placing more value on their own race. Furthermore, not to place value on one’s own race or ethnicity’s survival is by definition unhealthy and perverted.

Of course the lib will probably scoff and say that is sooooooooooo passe’.

Posted by Alex Zeka on July 21, 2010, 07:23 AM | #

All suggestions are good. However, I still think my example works best for showing that even a single differing gene can have substantial biological consequences. This is meant to show that Black-White differences in whatever are not necessarily due to racism/culture/etc.

Also, I’m talking not so much of somebody completely ignorant of genes, and more of someone who might take this as proof that race isn’t significant:

Most variation in the human genome is neutral, meaning that it arose not by natural selection but by processes like harmless mutations and the random shuffling of the genome between generations. The amount of this genetic diversity is highest in African populations.

because that means that differences between populations are dwarfed by differences within.

http://isteve.blogspot.com/2010/07/adventures-in-very-recent-evolution.html

for the source of the quote.

Posted by Dasein on July 21, 2010, 01:03 PM | #

Alex,

The problem with your example is that very few alleles are highly differentiated between populations.  So even if 1 SNP (or whatever other type of variation) can result in a huge phenotypic change, there are few known cases of such variants (though the numbers may increase as more complete genomes are sequenced).  IMO, this sort of argument actually could be used to support the ‘race is only skin-deep’ position.

The key point that must be challenged is Lewontin’s finding (confirmed by recent genome-wide data sets) that only ~15% of genetic variability is inter-racial.  This can be done, but not with the argument you’ve used.  Edward’s 2003 paper (Lewontin’s Fallacy) provides a theoretical refutation (and Witherspoon et al. in 2007 do so empirically).  Most people don’t understand, though, or question what that 15% figure means.  Because it’s based on the average of variation across single genes, it does not account for the correlation between alleles (this is what Edwards demonstrates).  For complex traits (of which race is just another), the phenotypic differences are likely to due in large parts to the accumulation of small differences (that 15% across millions of SNPs) and the interactions between genes, both of which are not captured by Lewontin’s measure (GST).

Steve Sailer’s debunking has some problems (I assume you’re referring to this article).  For example, we just don’t understand what most of the genome is doing.  To call most of it ‘junk’ is foolish.  African populations do have the most genetic diversity, and I’m almost certain this holds for all parts of the genome (even if we want to accept that there’s such a thing as non-functional ‘junk’).  I can try to dig up some references for this.  I think this is just a conjecture of his.

What will work as a ‘snappy’ refutation will depend on the level of sophistication of your interlocutor.  There’s the dog breeds example, but there are comebacks (’mutts are healthier’) and the appropriateness of the comparison can be challenged (’evolutionary histories of the 2 are very different’).  When I get a chance later tonight, I’ll try giving some other ones that I think are useful. 

If I were a racial egalitarian, I wouldn’t argue that race doesn’t exist.  I would say, sure it exists, but it’s not that important.  Now the debate becomes more complicated and less absurd.  In a way, we’re lucky that we’re dealing with morons.

Posted by Thorn on July 21, 2010, 02:03 PM | #

Trying to reason with someone blinded by ideology about race is almost an exercise in futility,

The very fact that people of sub-Saharan ancestry are highly melaninized, have denser bones, and lower intelligence than, say, Scandinavians, or east-Asians, is clear common sense evidence that race and racial differences exist.

Lewinton’s assertion that more variation exists within races than between them was designed to deceive, but more importantly it has been, and is, quite easily debunked.

But in Libworld they simply discard all the empirical studies that clearly prove there are differences between races.  These shifty slippery libs avoid the evidence like the plague; instead they revert to the usual name calling because that‘s all they have. What really reveals Libworld’s hypocrisy is how they doggedly support and tenaciously advocate for affirmative action and other preferential treatment for certain races.

Posted by Dasein on July 21, 2010, 04:14 PM | #

This bit from Sailer’s article is so incredibly wrong that I almost can’t believe he wrote it:

By the way, this is the source of the widely held dogma/ urban legend for the quasi-educated that black Africans are the most genetically diverse people on Earth, or, in increasingly crazier variants, that two white Americans might less related to each other than to a black African, or that you and your brother are less similar to each other genetically than you are to an African. This is true for neutral ("junk") genes that aren’t selected not for functional genes. (I debunked this ten years ago in Seven Dumb Ideas about Race.)

Two unrelated members of the same race, let alone 2 siblings, will always be more related than any 2 members of different races, whether you check functional or ‘non-functional’ regions of the genome.  This was shown by Witherspoon et al. in their 2007 paper (discussed by JWH here).  How can Steve Sailer not know this??

Posted by Tanstaafl on July 21, 2010, 04:46 PM | #

We all share over 99% of the same DNA. Race is just a social construct buttressed by racist social mores.

Sophistry. Anti-racism is anti-White.

Posted by Tanstaafl on July 21, 2010, 05:13 PM | #

Anti-racism is anti-White. You couldn’t ask for a snappier response, or a better time to cite the evidence: the vitriol aimed at the BNP, latinos as a bloc enraged by Arizona’s laws, the NAACP calling the Tea Party “racist”, and more. Whatever race is, Whites are the only ones condemned for acting as if it has any significance, whether we identify ourselves by race or not.

Posted by Armor on July 21, 2010, 05:58 PM | #

“Anti-racism is anti-White.”

Anti-"antisemitism" too.
(However, the anti-antisemites mainly target people who do self-identify as Whites.)

Posted by Lurker on July 22, 2010, 01:19 AM | #

Thorn

instead they revert to the usual name calling because that‘s all they have.

True, anybody who gets into a debate on any of our hot button issues is too dim to realise that they can’t win - unfortunately that also tends to mean they are too dim to realise when they have lost an argument.

Over on Facebook right now Ive got embroiled in a ‘who is more inventive’ argument. As if there were any doubt in the last few hundred years. Even when I was still a liberal myself, I was never that poorly informed.

Posted by Thorn on July 23, 2010, 09:13 PM | #

“True, anybody who gets into a debate on any of our hot button issues is too dim to realise that they can’t win - unfortunately that also tends to mean they are too dim to realise when they have lost an argument.”

Ha ha! Good point, Lurker! In addition Libworld is so invested in their inverted, perverted, Liberal Racism (read anti-white) they refuse to admit they’re wrong even if deep down inside they know they’re wrong. To admit they are wrong would mean they would have to face the fact they’ve bought into an intellectual con-job . It would be an admission the premise they adhere to was predicated on a lie. Moreover, they’d have to face the fact their fake moral superior position they cling to is in reality moral bankruptcy.

That said, recent events indicate things are going in our direction. Whites in America are showing signs they’re waking up and forming a white racial consciouses...finally!

PAT BUCHANAN: One understands the bitterness of tea-party folks who carry signs that read: “What difference does it make what this placard says? You’ll call it racist anyway.”

As the National Journal’s Ron Brownstein has been reporting, white America is increasingly alienated and distrustful of all our major economic and political power centers – the banks, big corporations, the government.

And, for the first time in our lifetimes outside the South, white racial consciousness has visibly begun to rise.

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=38209

Posted by Thorn on July 24, 2010, 03:56 PM | #

Hello, I’m a Racist, Pleased to Meet You

By Selwyn Duke

There is such a thing as a conditioned response. Here’s an example: Leftists call conservatives “racists.” Conservatives cower and stutter some defense. Leftists call conservatives “racists” some more. Conservatives cower some more. Question: How do you think you break this pattern?

We’ve seen this again with the recent vitriol spewed by NAACP head Ben Jealous (a fitting last name). Speaking at the NAACP convention in Kansas City, Jealous accused the Tea Party of, take a guess...cue the “Jeopardy!” music..."racism." Just as predictably, many conservatives are running around trying to convince everyone that, by gum, they really are swell guys. No, really. I’m not a racist. I don’t beat my wife. I don’t kick my dog. I eat my organic vegetables and drive a Prius. 

Look, why don’t we just save everyone the trouble? Every time a conservative renders an opinion, we can just play a recording with a little weaselly voice screeching, “You’re a wacist! You’re a wacist!” (Barney Frank-style) followed by a music video featuring The Cowering Conservative—I mean 1950s-style, duck-and-cover footage, with the tune and all.

And such conservatives abound. Oh, don’t get me wrong, conservative brethren, I love ya, man. But frankly, too many of you are saps. You really don’t get it. People who advocated welfare reform in the 1990s were accused of being “racist.” If you’re for border control, you’re “racist.” If you criticize Obama, you’re “racist.” If you oppose quotas, you’re “racist.” If you say that, be it nature or nurture, there are differences among groups, you’re “racist.” If you want English to be the national language, you’re “racist.” The word has become meaningless, used only to stifle and stigmatize opposition. And if calling you a heretic worked in that regard, the left would do that. And if calling you a Fig Newton worked, they would do that. 

Nevertheless, the ploy prevents sap conservatives from speaking—and even conceiving of—certain truths. They won’t say that so-called racial profiling is just part of proper profiling, they pay lip service to the relativistic idea that all cultures are morally equal, they refuse to call bigoted blacks such as Obama and Eric Holder out on their bigotry, they tolerate double standards with respect to hate crime-law application and racial jokes, and they let whites persecuted for making innocent comments twist in the wind. They won’t speak unfashionable truths for fear of becoming unfashionable people. Well, all I can say is that if the Truth can be “racist,” then hello, I’m a “racist.” Pleased to meet you. 

And this gets at a deeper point. On the “O’Reilly Factor” recently, Bill O’Reilly was discussing the Jealous situation with Professor Marc Lamont Hill. The good professor, in so many words, put forth the leftist definition stating that only whites can be “racist” because being so requires one to have “institutional power.” OK, whatever. I accept the definition. Really, I do.

I just reject the word.

What I mean is, I’ve long warned against using the Lexicon of the Left. “Racism” is a term as stupid as “ageism,” only we’re inured to it. We forget that “ism” refers to a doctrine, system, or theory. So is the leftist definition really so ridiculous? What’s more ridiculous is that we actually use their chosen term. This is why I prefer using what simply refers to attitude—“bigotry”—as in Barack Obama is a bigot, Eric Holder is a bigot, and Ben Jealous is a bigot. As for “racism,” it was originated by the left. So leave it to them. They can define it. They can whine it. And if they ask me, I’ll tell them where they can stick it.

Read more >>

http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/07/hello_im_a_racist_pleased_to_m.html

Posted by PM on July 28, 2010, 07:51 PM | #

You cannot reason out of someone what was not reasoned into them in the first place.