Philosophy
I am reading a fascinating manuscript tracing the science and politics behind the concept of race. The typological approach to biology that gave us the notion of race was shown to be deeply flawed by genetics research that clearly demonstrated that if you pick any given heritable trait such as skin color, the genetic variability within the group is at least as great if not greater than genetic variability across groups so defined. The result in science (evolutionary biology and anthropology) was to move from a typological approach that created groups based on essential properties to a statistical approach in which you can talk about distributions of traits across populations, but you cannot reasonably speak of races as entities unto themselves. Anthropologist Theodosius Dobzhansky (aside from having one of the coolest names in the entire history of science) proposed that the term "race" be removed from scientific discourse and be replaced with ethic group or ethnicity. The notion of race, he argued, was contaminated with the sort of biological essentialism that would only feed racism and seem to provide it with a scientific foundation it does not have. Ethnicity implies belonging to a group that is defined in terms of culture and not genes and thus allows anthropologists to do what they do without the false biological connotations. Is there the distinction between race and ethnicity that Dobzhansky contends? Is there reason to keep the term race around? Does it have the effect of necessarily bringing racist categories to the conversation intentionally or unintentionally?
- How Different Is It?
It was 150 years ago today that Fort Sumter was attacked starting the Civil War. The war over slavery was indicative of a problematic view of race that we have had in this nation since it began. We hold up the first African-American President as evidence...
- International Adoption And Racial Attitudes
Another race question. International adoption is a wonderful thing allowing children to find adoptive parents who love them, who deeply want children, and who live in sufficient affluence to give children who might not have such opportunities in the lands...
- Shapes Of Racism
In Kentucky's Democratic primary election yesterday, according to the exit polls conducted by CNN, 21% of the voters reported that race was important to them in making their decision and of those 81% voted for Hillary Clinton. More than one out of...
- Help, Help, I'm Being Oppressed
An interesting post to pull out of Buridan's Ass on the definition of oppression. Buridan argues that being an oppressed group requires (a) being a group and (b) being oppressed and neither of these notions is well-defined, indeed, both are self-defined...
- "i'm Just Not Attracted To _(insert Race)_ Women.": Racial Preferences And Dating.
Black Socrates read Jenée Desmond- Harris's excellent article (found here) a year ago and I've just now come up with an answer to the normative question she raises therein: Is there anything wrong with acting on one's racial preferences...
Philosophy
Race and Ethnicity
I am reading a fascinating manuscript tracing the science and politics behind the concept of race. The typological approach to biology that gave us the notion of race was shown to be deeply flawed by genetics research that clearly demonstrated that if you pick any given heritable trait such as skin color, the genetic variability within the group is at least as great if not greater than genetic variability across groups so defined. The result in science (evolutionary biology and anthropology) was to move from a typological approach that created groups based on essential properties to a statistical approach in which you can talk about distributions of traits across populations, but you cannot reasonably speak of races as entities unto themselves. Anthropologist Theodosius Dobzhansky (aside from having one of the coolest names in the entire history of science) proposed that the term "race" be removed from scientific discourse and be replaced with ethic group or ethnicity. The notion of race, he argued, was contaminated with the sort of biological essentialism that would only feed racism and seem to provide it with a scientific foundation it does not have. Ethnicity implies belonging to a group that is defined in terms of culture and not genes and thus allows anthropologists to do what they do without the false biological connotations. Is there the distinction between race and ethnicity that Dobzhansky contends? Is there reason to keep the term race around? Does it have the effect of necessarily bringing racist categories to the conversation intentionally or unintentionally?
- How Different Is It?
It was 150 years ago today that Fort Sumter was attacked starting the Civil War. The war over slavery was indicative of a problematic view of race that we have had in this nation since it began. We hold up the first African-American President as evidence...
- International Adoption And Racial Attitudes
Another race question. International adoption is a wonderful thing allowing children to find adoptive parents who love them, who deeply want children, and who live in sufficient affluence to give children who might not have such opportunities in the lands...
- Shapes Of Racism
In Kentucky's Democratic primary election yesterday, according to the exit polls conducted by CNN, 21% of the voters reported that race was important to them in making their decision and of those 81% voted for Hillary Clinton. More than one out of...
- Help, Help, I'm Being Oppressed
An interesting post to pull out of Buridan's Ass on the definition of oppression. Buridan argues that being an oppressed group requires (a) being a group and (b) being oppressed and neither of these notions is well-defined, indeed, both are self-defined...
- "i'm Just Not Attracted To _(insert Race)_ Women.": Racial Preferences And Dating.
Black Socrates read Jenée Desmond- Harris's excellent article (found here) a year ago and I've just now come up with an answer to the normative question she raises therein: Is there anything wrong with acting on one's racial preferences...