So typically (but not always) two individuals from a population will be more genetically similar, than an individual from another population.

Given the genetic divergence values, the probability is infinitesimal. Given this probability and the reported problems with the watson data, occam's razor counsels that we discount the data point for the time being. If at a future point your agreement to my position turns on the matter, I will find someone to re-analyze the data, which is readily available: ftp://ftp.ensembl.org/pub/current_variation/vcf/homo_sapiens/

I don't get though what you think this has to do with race. The small amount of genetic variation between populations is best captured by an "isolation by distance" model, i.e. spatial gradients of allele frequencies.

Naturally enough, I explicitly formulated the concept such to be consistent with divergence due to isolation by distance (e.g., page 41) -- which is to say a continuum due to primary intergradation. This is what distinguishes it from e.g., Shiao's "clinal class" one (see page 64).

Now you quote:

"Therefore, there is no reason to assume that major genetic discontinuities exist between different continents or races."
http://genome.cshlp.org/content/14/9/1679.full

You know that I know the history of this debate at least as well as you do, so I don't see why you would cite the above. Shiao (2014) addressed this in his defense of his clinal class concept. But of course, you are right, my stance is:

(a) one could "arbitrarily divide" a "genetic continuum" into races.

Of course, I anticipated objections to this position and discussed them lengthy. Which parts of my discussions didn't you find convincing? Do you want me to refer you to the specific sections or to elaborate on specific points?

Now, what did we decide about our typologists? The more evidence I find in defense of your homogeneous-race argument, the worse it looks. Consider the following statement by Manouvrier in "La détermination de la taille d'après les grands os des membres":

D. Enfin les variations ethniques des proportions du corps seront dans le même cas que les précédentes. Il y a des races macroskèles et des races microskèles, comme il y a des indivi dus de ces deux sortes, et les variations individuelles sont bien plus grandes que les variations ethniques les plus accusées. Or les coefficients moyens des os de grande longueur tendant à abaisser la taille et ceux des os de faible longueur tendant à l'élever, il s'ensuit qu'il sera tenu compte dans une certaine mesure de la macroskélie des races comme de celle des indi vidus dont les os seront absolument longs et de la microskélie des races comme de celle des individus ayant des os absolu ment courts. Il est vrai que, par exception, la microskélie peut exister avec des membres absolument longs ou au moins de longueur moyenne. Cela ne peut arriver, évidemment, que pour des races d'une stature très élevée. Tel est, vraisemblablement, le cas des Polynésiens.

Roughly: "D. Finally ethnic variations of body proportions will be in the same situation as the previous. There has macroskèles microskèles races and races, as there are individuals to both kinds, and the individual variations are much larger than most claimed ethnic variations. Now the average coefficients of greater length of bones tending to lower the size and those with low bone length tending to rise, it follows that it will be reflected to some extent the macroskelia breeds such as that of individuals whose bones will be long and absolutely microskélie breeds such as that of individuals with absolute bone ment courts.It is true that, exceptionally, the microskélie can exist absolutely with long limbs, or at least of medium length. This can only happen, of course, only for races of a very high stature. This, presumably, if the Polynesians."

Commenting on this statement, Karl Pearson, who is said to be a "typologists" noted:

If we admit for the moment, which I should not be prepared to do generally, that the individual variations in a local race are greater than the "ethnic variations" or divergences between means of local races, M. Manouvrier's conclusion by no means follows.

Pearson's comment suggests that he was overestimating the relative magnitude of between group differences -- though it is not clear as it's not clear if Pearson was discussing multivariate distance (his coefficient of likeness, which was a primitive form of Mahalanobis distance) or average differences. Whatever the case, the very occurrence of this discussion calls your claim of a general view of homogenous races into question. And once you admit that variability was recognized, you are forced to double down on your claim that biometric typologists felt that variability within populations arose from the admixture of distinct homogenous groups. Yet it is clear that they didn't believe in originally distinct homogenous races. Thus Pearson notes:

Of course, assuming the origin of man to be monogenetic, "Association" and "Divergence" are only relative terms of a continuous grade of relationship, indicating only the greater length of differentiated ancestry. [/b]But they are convenient terms. It is proper to look upon Anglo-Saxons and modern English as associated races, but on Chinese and English as divergent races, if we only mean by this that the forerunners of Chinese and English diverged much earlier from a common ancestry than English and Anglo-Saxons. ("On the Coefficient of Racial Likeness")

If they diverged from a common stock in continuous degree and now contain enough variability such that a " Coefficient of Racial Likeness" is needed when and how were they ever homogenous groups in the sense you mean?

Real genetic similarity cant be derived from overall loci in common, since loci can have no effect at all and different loci can have the same effect and also non additivity. What counts is expression of the gene and thus phenotype especially in complex traits and in this case people from different races are frequently more alike to one another than to members of their own race and also in many cases by very large margins.

Its technically misleading to use overall loci in common to determine genetic similarity.

In response to the forensics -

To preclude confusion, let's distinguish issues:

(1) whether or not the natural division concept of race is coherent
(2) whether or not such and such characters are reliable indexes of evolutionary relationship (and thus reliable indexes of racial membership)

Recall this discussion on reliability
http://openpsych.net/forum/showthread.php?tid=226&pid=3447#pid3447

Could you clarify which point you wish to discuss in relation to the forensic data?

As for reliable identification see if you can find a meta-analysis or something.

You say:

Here is another study showing the same thing:

I will look at it later.

You say:

In response to anthropologists (Hooton's students) who abandoned race for clines, Birdsell is covered in the following -

By 1975, however, his position had changed: "The use of the term race has been discontinued because it is scientifically undefinable and carries social implications that are harmful and disruptive."

Where does it say that he renounced the concept. This is what I get when I search his "Human Evolution: An Introduction to the New Physical Anthropology (1981)"
https://books.google.com/books?id=yzm0AAAAIAAJ&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=race

His statement on page 379 that "Race in the world of evolutionary biology is a valid taxonomic unit, the equivalent of species... and his discussion of "the great Negroid race or subspecies of humankind" on page 348 doesn't seem to perfectly support your claim. I will have to look more into the matter later.

Its technically misleading to use overall loci in common to determine genetic similarity.

It's not "misleading" at all when one goes out of ones way to point out the relation and potential disagreement between:

1. genealogical affinity
2. genomic similarity (identical by state + identical by descent)
3. genomic similarity identical by descent only
4. genomic similarity in coding alleles identical by descent
5. overall similarity in observable homologous characters
6. overall similarity in hereditary conditioned characters

Now, the non-equivalence is a problem for biological classifications in general; thus there is continual debate as to whether "birds" should be classed as "reptiles" or "aves". But on the individual level 1-6 tightly correlate.

Real genetic similarity cant be.. What counts is expression of the gene and thus phenotype especially in complex traits and in this case people from different races are frequently more alike to one another than to members of their own race and also in many cases by very large margins.

If you are going to comment here, do not employ slushy phrases like "real genetic similarity". What counts as "real" for you may not be the same as what counts so for e.g., a proponent of Salterian ethnic genetic interest (who would actually care about the total number of shared alleles).

That said, you seem to be just restarting Lewontin's fallacy. In this or that particular trait "people from different races are..." but not on a multivariate measure. Del Giudice, et al. (2012) had a nice paper on gender differences which illustrates the same point, "The distance between Mars and Venus: Measuring global sex differences":

[/url]


In a follow up, Del Giudice cogently rebuts Lewontin-like replies which argue that an average univariate approach gives a truer picture of reality than a multivariate one:

The argument is thus revealed as a non sequitur: clearly, it makes perfect sense to speak of large sex differences in facial morphology—“lumping together” differences in multiple traits such as face width and eye size—with no need to assume that individual differences in facial traits can be reduced to a single dimension (see Figure 1). Far from being uninterpretable, the resulting axis of individual variation can be easily defined as facial masculinity-femininity (e.g., Hennessy et al., 2005) or some equivalent term. As is apparent from Figure 2, facial masculinity-femininity is a very recognizable configural trait that summarizes a multitude of individual morphological differences, even if it does not correspond to any specific anatomical structure. In exactly the same way, multivariate sex differences in personality can be interpreted as defining an axis of individual variation in personality masculinity-femininity (see Lippa, 2001). Whatever the exact terms chosen to denote these constructs, there is nothing mysterious about their interpretation. Of course, the global differences measured by D are not intended to replace univariate effects but rather supplement them, as stressed in Del Giudice (2009).

This is the opposite of traditional races, which proposed there was abrupt change or sharp discontinuity between human populations.

As held by whom? Buffon, Blumenbach, Esper, Prichard, Darwin, Quatrefages ...? Specifically, list the many early (hence "traditional") proponents of race (as divisions of a species) who maintained that these divisions were -- moreover were definitionally so -- marked by "abrupt change" or "sharp discontinuity". I do not want to hear Naomi Zack's bullshit; I want specific "traditional" references. I had, in my paper, noted:

"More generally, one wonders when biological races, in the intraspecific sense, were in general considered to be sharply discontinuous. Did Dobzhansky and Boyd conceptualize them as such? Did Mayr conceptualize his microgeographical races so? Did Blumenbach, Buffon, or Thomas Huxley with his Melanochroi that “pass by innumerable graduations into the Australoid type of the Dkhab, while in Europe they shade off by endless varieties of intermixture into the Xanthochroi (1870)”? Nope. What about the many early 20th century anthropologists who equated ethnic groups with races? Not generally. What about races understood as the “mere” or “accidental” varieties of the 18th and 19th century (see: Stamos (2012))?"

To this list I can now add dozens of names. We seem to not have made it beyond the point in bold:

Cette image a cela d'utile qu'elle fait sentir plus aisément les relations existantes entre ces trois catégories d'êtres trop souvent confondues dans le langage, — l'espèce, la race, la variété.

I will address the other point once we settle this one -- since your strategy seems to be to always raise "new" objections, even when they have already been discussed.

http://openpsych.net/forum/showthread.php?tid=226&pid=3245#pid3245
http://openpsych.net/forum/showthread.php?tid=226&pid=3281#pid3281

for example Larnach and Macintosh (1974) found 17.7% of aboriginal crania from the Cairns Rain Forest and 9.6% from Queensland to be non-dolichocephalic (mesocephalic).

Krom,

Three points:

1. By the same line of reasoning, one could show that species don't exist. Our own species varies considerably in dental and cranial traits, and this variation overlaps not only with what we see in Neandertals but also with what we see in some nonhuman primates. The same with blood groups. The same with a lot of other traits.

2. I don't want to question your intellectual honesty, but please take a minute to read what you write before you publish. You quote several authors to show that the race concept implies "clear-cut" and "sharp discontinuities" between human races. In fact, the actual quotes refer to "clear-cut" differences in trait frequencies and "sharper discontinuities" (which is admittedly an oxymoron). In both cases, the authors defined human races as fuzzy sets. If human races were indeed sharply defined entities, they would not be races. They would be species. Indeed, even species are not as sharply defined as we like to think.

3. Quoting Montagu to defend your position on race is like quoting Margaret Thatcher to defend strike breaking. As a general rule, it's disreputable to defend one's opinion by simply quoting another person's opinion. This is the fallacy of "appeal to authority." It's even more disreputable if the other person is neither a neutral observer nor an eminence grise. Ashley Montagu was neither.

If you read Huxley (1870) properly you will see he says there are traits that have no variation inside races, e.g. "Australians are invariably dolichocephalic", Negroid hair is "always short and crisp or woolly", and Bushmen "are all dolichocephalic", etc.

You are, of course, confusing issues, a strategy which you seem to frequently employ. Your claim above was that the "traditional" concept of race was one of deeply discontinuous divisions of a species. Since there have been multiple formulations of the race concept, the most obvious interpretation of this claim is: between the 18th and early 20th century races as such were typically thought of as deeply discontinuous divisions. Now to be clear, since you seem to not be the most philosophically inclined individual, the claim, for your argument to work, must be that the concept of race, not merely the understanding of specific races, was one of deeply discontinuous divisions. Michael Hardimon has well clarified this distinction between definitions or concepts of race and perceptions of specific classifications. To give a concrete example, Coon's major races were (prior to the proposed time of admixture) deeply discontinuous, since he adopted a multiregional model. However, since he allowed for numerous "local races" which were not deeply discontinuous, one can not say that his concept of race entailed deep discontinuity. Given the aforesaid, as counter evidence to your claim, I need only provide the following types of evidence: (1) claims made during the said time that races as such (that is, definitionally) did not entail deep discontinuity, (2) discussions of races which the authors acknowledge were NOT deeply discontinuous, or (3) discussions which imply (1) or (2). Now, the same can be said in regards to your claim that traditional race concepts were ones of purely homogeneous groups. Before proceeding, let us be clear regarding what we mean by "deep discontinuity". We do not mean merely discontinuous, let alone non-overlapping. Adjacent non-overlapping divisions and ones with minor discontinuous are, to be sure, distinct, where distinct means recognizably different but the intervals between divisions would not be large, where "large" is somewhat subjectively defined. Your claim is that divisions were thought necessarily to have large gaps between them, as species were thought to.

Now as I have noted, this assertions of your makes no sense. Even those who argued that races were originally created discontinuously, that is, represented separate creations, granted the admixture between them, the blending of races; they merely argued that hybridization did not constitute evidence against separate origins. Unlike you, they still recognized these admixed and blended groups as being races, just admixed ones. But I suppose that you will only be satisfied if I provide a plethora of references:

1. Buffon (1781): "The blood of the Tartars is mixed on one side with the Chinese, and, on the other, with the oriental Russians. But the characteristic features of the race are not entirely obliterated by this mixture; for, among the Muscovites, the Tartarian aspect is very frequent; and, though the former have sprung from the common European race, we still find many individuals with squat bodies, thick thighs, and short legs, like the Tartars."

(Buffon's mixed Tartars obviously are not deeply discontinuous with respect to Chinese; the same author situated his races of dogs in a genealogical network; these races again were not in any sense deeply discontinuous.)

2. Zimmerman (1783): "The opponents of the <climatic explanation of the origin of the Negro> are used to citing the thick lips, indented nose, and especially the wool or woolied hair of the Negro <in support of> their double lineal stem stock. I confess, however, that for me these three <features> are of no special importance. For thick lips can be found everywhere. The Eskimo and Kalmuck also have them, and we can easily adduce <examples of> thick-mouth families. Besides, there are Negroid nations that have neither thick nor indented lips... Second, the division of human-kind <into distinctly different groups> is still difficult in consequence of an important collateral cause, namely, the migration of peoples and the interbreeding that arises as a consequence of this."

[Zimmerman recognized that population flows made distinctly different divisions difficult.]

3. Blumenbach (1806): Neither must we take merely one pair of the races of man which stand strikingly in opposition to each other, and put these against the other, omitting all the intermediate races, which make up the connection between them. We must never forget that there is not a single one of the bodily differences in any one variety of man, which does not run into some of the others by such endless shades of all sorts, that the naturalist or physiologist has yet to be born, who can with any grounds of certainty attempt to lay down any fixed bounds between these shades, and consequently between their two extremes.

(This is a very clear statement on the matter.)

4. Lamarck (1809): "If all the races (so-called species) belonging to a kingdom of living bodies were thoroughly known, as well as their true affinities, so that the sorting out of these races and their allocation in various groups were in conformity with their natural affinities... On such an assumption, nothing doubtless would be more difficult than to assign the boundaries between these different divisions; arbitrary opinion would produce incessant variation, and there would be no agreement except where gaps in the series made clear demarcations... Fortunately for the practicability of the artifices which we have to introduce into our classifications, there are many races of animals and plants that are still unknown to us."

(As an evolutionist, Lamarck did not draw a strict distinction between races and species. He seemed to appreciate the general distinction, though, as he noted: "However, this means alone suffices to gradually create the varieties which have afterwards arisen from races, and which, with time, constitute that which we call species.")

5. Prichard (1855): "The different races of men are not distinguished from
each other by strongly marked, uniform, and permanent distinctions, as are the several species belonging to any given tribe of animals. All the diversities which exist are variable, and pass into each other by insensible gradations; and there is, moreover, scarcely an instance in which an actual transition cannot be proved to have taken place."

(As a dogmatic monogenist Prichard emphasized the inconstancy of races.)

6. Quatrefages (1861): "Even if he would be so, when even these differences are also insignificant [such that one] wants to say: who cares? From the moment they became constant and they transmit by way of inheritance, they constitute no less real races.... Then for distinguishing species of races, we compare as many samples as possible. Whenever between two forms, even very different, one can establish a graduated series of individuals passing from one to the other by insensible shades, whenever you see above characters intercrossed in terms of this series, we can ensure that both forms belong to a same species. Indeed, between two species even extremely close, there has never exchange or mix of specific characters [between] them."

[The translation is not perfect (the original being in latin), but the general idea is that races, unlike species, interbreed and, as such, graduate into one another by insensible shades.]

7. Darwin (1871): But the most weighty of all the arguments against treating the races of man as distinct species, is that they graduate into each other, independently in many cases, as far as we can judge, of their having intercrossed...

(Here Darwin uses "race" is the inclusive sense which includes both constant varieties and species; as an evolutionist he did not draw a strict distinction.)

8. Huxley (1870): Melanochroi that “pass by innumerable graduations into the Australoid type of the Dkhab, while in Europe they shade off by endless varieties of intermixture into the Xanthochroi (1870)”.

(I stand by my citation; if Melanochroi pass into Australoid, they can not be "deeply discontinuous"; as for Huxley (1870) statement that: "The hair is usually raven-black, fine silky in texture; and it is never wooly, but usually wavy and tolerably long...The Australians are invariably dolichocephalism, the cranial index rarely exceeding 75 or 76, and often not amounting to more than 71 or 72", your are reading too far into "invariably"; dolichocephalism is defined as a cranial index not exceeding 75; "rarely exceeding" implies "some exceeding", thus "invariably" means "almost always". Now, what's notable is Huxley's continual qualification "usually", "often", "sometimes", "generally", "varies", "commonly". He clearly recognized individual variation, which disconfirms your claim that primary races/types were seen an uniform. Whether or not he overestimated the similarity between individuals of certain race in specific characters is irrelevant, since he obviously is not defining race membership in terms of character similarity; thus his dolichocephalic Xanthrocoid remain members of a separate race. Recall again that the concern is with race concepts, not race classifications.)

Now, I could go on. And were I to I would find no evidence in defense of your proposition. If you have it, though, please provide it. That is, I would like specific references which indicate that races were defined or conceptualized as deeply discontinuous divisions. Note that locating these is a more difficult task that what I engaged in above. For while it is sufficient for me to show that a particular author's races were not seen as deeply discontinuous to establish that that author's concept did not necessitate such discontinuity, the reverse does not hold. Showing that some of a particular author's classifications were deeply discontinuous, does not establish that his or her concept entailed this. This should be an obvious logical point, but one you seem not to well grasp, given your tendency to confuse concepts with classifications.

But you said:

The sources (like Huxley) you quote don't support what you are saying

I quoted Huxley in regards to your claim that race was traditionally understood to refer to sharply discontinuous divisions (a claim, which I again emphasize is not equivalent to that that certain races were seen as sharply discontinuous. For surely one can maintain that Ostrich races are sharply discontinuous, without maintaining that all races need to be so. Huxley's essay also happened to support my contention that races as types were not seen as lacking individual variation. In regards to your point, it doesn't go very far. So he expressed the view that e.g., Austroads never have wooly hair -- even if we take such statements literally, that only tells us that he made an empirical mis-estimation.

You continue:

I can't be bothered to go through all of them, but here's Boyd (1958):

"I have previously suggested a definition of a human race which I
propose to use here: "a population which differs significantly from other human populations in regard to the frequency of one or
more of the genes it possesses....There are clear-cut differences in blood group gene frequencies which distinguish a number of human populations one from the other, and we may accordingly call these populations races."

The excerpts below summarize Boyd's book:

Boyd (195). Genes and the Races of man:

In classifying plants, botanists found that if a "natural" classification is desired, that is, one which gives information as to degree of relationship of the various species, it is best not to use vegetative characters...This principle may also apply in some cases to attempt to recognize races within a species... A contemporary physical anthropologist, Dr. William Howells, implies in his recent book, Mankind So Far, that apart from making a judicious guess, he can not always identify race by measurements of any single skull, and the rest of the skeleton gives almost no indication at all...As Dobzhansky and Epling point out, " a system of morphological averages may well serve as an exploratory device" (in taxonomy) but these workers go on to warn us that a basic understanding of the principles of racial variation can come only from knowledge of the distribution of the relative frequencies of variable genes and chromosome structures in a populations. The difficulties in the above instance are party due to the underlying assumption that any individual of one race should be distinguishable from any individual of any other race. This is not generally true, and we shall see that a more modern concept of race does not assume it... It is the thesis of this book that racial categories, if they are to have a valid conceptual basis, must be made on the basis of man's genetic constitution...How is race to be defined? What are the differences, if any, which will cause us to arrange human beings into several distinct categories?... So far as common descent goes, this can be inferred, but seldom proved. Even when geographical differentiation is observed in the species, this does not definitively prove common descent for the population in the area in question... Therefore, there is no necessary justification in assuming that a group of people we consider sufficiently alike to constitute a race do actually derive from common origin, unless we can prove it by historical or paleontological evidence... Less exacting definitions of a "pure race" have been offered; Scheidt simply requires that the several contributing elements have become so completely blended that correlations fails to reveal their original combination... [t]his definition is unobjectionable, although probably not very useful in practice.... All anthropologists understand, but some laymen apparently do not, that no one physical characteristic is going to be enough to enable us to distinguish the various races of man, one from another....Classifications based on the type of hair, whether straight, wavy, or kinky, etc. are perhaps satisfactory as any classification based on a single characteristic can be. But as soon as the whole population of the world is included in this scheme strange contradictions and inconsistencies begin to appear... Races, on the other hand, are more or less genetically open systems. Their populations are channels through which genes can and do flow from race to race.... The two [species] clusters are entirely separate because there are no intermediates, and we can say with perfect safety that any possible cat is different from any possible lion, and that cats as a group are different from lions as a group...[races are not like this]... Since the genes may vary independently one from the other, an individual may carry some genes which occur more frequently in the representatives of one population or race and other genes which are more characteristic of another. Such an individual could be said to belong to two or more races (depending on our definition of race) at the same time, since he is in fact compounded of elements of both... Taken in conjunction with the fact that individual members of the same race, e.g., the white race, or the black race, as a rule differ from each other by many more genes than this, the forgoing estimate makes it seem quite probable that the intrinsic differences between the various races are not large or important in the genetical sense. The genetic differences between different individuals of the same race can often, even with out present limited knowledge of human genetics, be demonstrated to be as large as ten or twenty genes. Considering the enormous number of heredity differences still unanalyzed, it is likely that two humans beings can differ in respect to a thousand or more genes, without seeming to use to be different enough to put into different racial categories...Within this species there are various groups which differ from each other to a greater or lesser degree and some of these we may if we choose, define as races... A race is not an individual and it is not a single genotype, but it is a groups of individuals, more or less from the same geographic area, usually with a number of identical genes, but in which many different types may occur... In the ideal case, one would take account of all the variable genes and chromosome structures in order to describe a given race... Because of the incompleteness of our knowledge, we have to base our classification on certain genetic differences which we do know about... We still have to decide how much difference there must be in the distribution of the known variable genes and chromosome structures between two populations before we decide to call them two different races... Statistically significant differences may occur between populations of Drosophila in localities only a dozen miles apart. Therefore we could if we liked say that these populations are racially distinct. If the concept of race is to be taxonomically useful, however, we should not use the term quite s freely, for otherwise we shall have too many races within each species, and the term will lose much of its value for classification... To make the race concept useful, we must look for some additional feature to use in defining it....when this is true we have a geographical gradient (cline), analogous, to the slopes shown by the contour lines on topographical maps, or the temperature gradient crossing the isotherm on weather maps... Populations at two ends of such a gradient may be profoundly different in genetic constitution, but they may be connected by all grades of genetic variation between the two. In such a case, whether or not the systematist decides to break up the population into two or more sections and designate them as races is quite arbitrary. This decision will be based on considerations of expediency and nothing else. In favor of defining two or more races there will be the advantage of having unique simple reference names which apply to the various populations... Dobzhansky and Epling note that the gene frequency gradient between some populations may be relatively steep, and that in some cases these gradients are steep enough (contour lines close together) to justify taking some point of the steep portion as a boundary and thus breaking up the species into one or more discrete arrays of populations which will have few intermediates. In such a situation we have little hesitation in defining races. Each major population array becomes a race, and these arrays can be delimited, counted, and named. The mean differences between these population arrays may not necessarily be any greater than those between the end members of a continuous population chain which we may prefer to call one (variable) race, but if nature, by providing us with complete or nearly complete discontinuities between arrays, has to a large extent eliminated the arbitrary human element otherwise involved in drawing dividing lines between populations, we feel justified in referring to these array (isolates) as races... In nature the geographic gradients in gene frequencies are seldom quite uniform on the one hand and are seldom entirely discontinuous on the other, so we have usually to deal with a somewhat intermediate situation. Therefore, it is not all uncommon to find within a single species that two certain races may be easily separated from each other, while two other races show only a slight discontinuity where there populations meet or overlap. Whatever the course adopted in devising names for the populations, the realities of the situation are not altered in the least. It still remains a fact that the species Drosophila pseudobscura is geographically differentiated, and that populations of different territories differ in regard to the relative frequencies of chromosome types (and genes). And this is exactly what the geneticist means by racial differentiation... [W]e must not expect that the various data collected will all be mutually "consistent". In fact, we must be prepared to find the populations in Greenland and in Australia agree quite well in regards to blood groups frequencies (A, B, O at least), while they markedly disagree in regards to the M and N blood types, in regards to skin color, hair form, and other characteristics.... It is to be feared that many anthropologist, and many laymen nevertheless have continued to hope that human races are so different basically that differences will show up, almost irrespective of what sort of observations we make on populations. This attitude interposes an unfortunate obstacle to progress towards a really objective concept of human races.... As data on the physical characteristics of the human race have accumulated, however, and it has become clear how they are mostly independent of each other, this point of view has become more and more patently absurd, and it has gradually become clear that whatever races we choose to distinguish will be almost entirely arbitrary, and their distribution will depend on the particular characteristics on which we choose to base them...We may define a human race as a population which differs significantly from other human populations in regards to the frequency of one or more of the genes it possesses. It is an arbitrary matter which, and how many, gene loci we choose to consider as a significant "constellation"; but it seems better on the one hand, not to designate a multiplicity of races which differ only in regards to a single pair or a single set of allelic genes; and on the other, not to insist that the races we define must differ from each other with respect to all their genes....Since every human individual has to belong to one or another of the four blood groups, the only racial difference we find, or can expect to find, will be differences in frequencies of the four groups among various populations... The American Indian, for instance, known to be derived by direct descent largely or at least partly from Mongoloid ancestors emigrating from the Asiatic mainland, would have to be placed in a quite different race on the basis of blood groups. This only serve to emphasize the meaning which is being given to the term "race" in this book...The very idea of racial differentiation implies that geographically isolated groups, although ultimately of the same origin may eventually come to differ... It must not be thought that the divisions between our genetic races will be absolutely sharp, any more than is the difference between races which are characterized by any other method. Isolation has not been enough for that... It will be noted that our proposed racial classifications, although it is based upon gene frequencies, as we decided a valid classification must be, does not really differ in any very startling way, in so far as the ultimate categories are concerned, from some of the older classifications...Consequently [previous classifiers] always reached...a final goal of human races distributed roughly according to geography and common descent. All we have done is to show that the same thing can be accomplished more simply, and without so many inconsistencies in the application of our method, by considering genes frequencies.

There are obvious points on which I disagree with Boyd and the other early "population" geneticists. Boyd for example notes:

The difficulties in the above instance are party due to the underlying assumption that any individual of one race should be distinguishable from any individual of any other race. This is not generally true, and we shall see that a more modern concept of race does not assume it...

This data on the physical characteristics of the human race have accumulated, however, and it has become clear how they are mostly independent of each other, this point of view has become more and more patently absurd, and it has gradually become clear that whatever races we choose to distinguish will be almost entirely arbitrary

While they granted that racial divisions should be based on as many genes as possible, they didn't realized -- or, if you believe Hooton, they didn't want to realize -- that one could use numerous molecular character to unequivocally classify individuals into "populations" and that the vast majority of alleles correlated allowing one to make non-arbitrary divisions (e.g., using cluster analysis). As a result, their "populations" were conceptually different from the modern population geneticist's genomic population, which represent cluster classes. (Read: The concept of "population", with respect to race, has shifted back to a class based one -- this is a point which you have been missing. The new population concepts are class ones such as, "In population genetics, a race is a group of organisms in a species that are genetically more similar to each other than they are to the members of other such groups". This noted, your point is not supported. Boyd clearly did not require deeply discontinuous populations nor did he think that populations differences involve more than frequency ones.

But you say:

Dobzhansky also wrote: "The sharper the discontinuities, the more
"‘natural’’ the races’ (1950 [1946], p. 120). See Gannett (2013).

Meaning, as Boyd noted, the less arbitrary, that is, the more nature cuts out the partitions for us via providing barriers to reproduction. I noted the same in my discussion of "arbitrary" versus objective delineations (section II). Nonetheless, the not so sharp divisions are still races. Indeed, Dobzhansky makes the common point that one can cut races from a continuum. And discussing minor races, he notes: "One may perhaps question the desirability of applying the term ‘racial differences’ to distinctions as small as those that can be found between populations of neighboring villages and as large as those between populations of different continents. Might one modify the definition of race by specifying that the differences in gene frequencies be above a certain minimum magnitude? Such a modification is undesirable for two reasons..." "Sharp discontinuities" is hardly a part of his definition of race!

So now provide some better examples.

Many edits. Failed multitasking.

Most, if not all, your sources are saying gradients ("intermediate" populations) are the product of race mixture/migration, not in situ. This means these 18th-19th century scientists thought there are/were homogenous races, and the continuum was the product of these sharply discontinuous races. You can't have it any other way.

As several of your recent comments are redundant, I will simply reply to this.

(1) Firstly, I asked for primary references. I have demonstrated in my paper -- and in this thread discussion -- that the historiography of the race concept is generally poor. Moreover, I have shown that numerous philosophers and historians of race have made gross errors in their treatment of the subject. One can not then rely on these narrative accounts, especially when the writers find their concept of study to be morally offensive. Also, it is bad scholarly practice to rely on secondary accounts.

(2) Regarding the excerpts in my most recent reply, I selected them to refute your nonsensical claim that intraspecific races were traditionally definitionally thought of as divisions between which there are deep discontinuities. I can show through textual references that the same authors (and many more) did not think of races -- again understood as divisions of a species -- as being originally homogenous groups; I believe that I have already provided ample evidence in this regards; but I will happily provide more.

(3) As for your statement above, you are incorrect again. Authors like Darwin could and did both agree that intermediate populations resulted from admixture and that races contained "in situ" inter-individual variation. Evolutionists, had to concur with this position, since they realized that selection acted on individual variation and they viewed races as way-stations to new species. Pre-evolution monogenists also had to agree because they contrasted races as constant varieties with inconstant individual varieties on the one hand and species on the other. This leaves as the third major possibility the heretical minority polygenists, who argued that "races" were "species", and thus dealt with a different concept.

(4) But I like to settle one point at a time. When you concede that races per se were not typically thought of as deeply discontinuous and were often recognized to be continuous I will revisit the question of original -- "in situ" -- homogeneity.

(5) Personally, I don't care for your rhetorical style, since it leads nowhere. When I demonstrate that you are wrong on a point, instead of conceding the point, asking for more time to investigate, or continuing to debate it, you suddenly switch topics. Did you ever, for example, agree that a "natural division", in biology, generally refers to what I said it does?

(6) But you cite Grover Krantz, who opposed the concept of race -- as opposed to an actual proponent of the concept. Who did he specifically refer to? And what does the statement, "races are natural units that tend to maintain their identity" and "the implied permanence of each race", mean given that by "races" we mean groups which diverged from a common stock. Different races, so understood, necessarily could not have maintained their identity across time. Perhaps he is thinking of polygenists, who used the term "race" to refer to Linnaean species. More poor historiography. But please try to locate the primary sources which he refers to. Here let me try: "No-racers claim that there is no geographical hereditary variation in a species. But we now know that this is not true. Which is why biologists agree that races exist." There! (Note: my statement is no less accurate than Grover Krantz'.)

(7) As for clines, we have gone over this innumerable times. A cline, properly understood, refers to a character gradient. Races have come to refers to populations, groups, divisions, or types of organisms. The two are not comparable concepts. If your authors mean "isolates" and "population continua" -- both of which refer to distributions of organisms -- they should use those terms. If all there was were clines, '"population" geneticists would be out of a field of study, since they focus on groups of organisms, not gradients of characters.

"The philosophical concept of race did not actually emerge in its present form until the 1684 publication of “A New Division of the Earth” by Francois Bernier (1625–1688) (Bernasconi and Lott 2000, viii; Hannaford 1996, 191, 203). Based on his travels through Egypt, India, and Persia, this essay presented a division of humanity into “four or five species or races of men in particular whose difference is so remarkable that it may be properly made use of as the foundation for a new division of the earth” (Bernasconi and Lott 2000, 1–2)."

I already referred you to Doron's excellent discussion of Bernier: Doron (2011) "Races et dégénérescence. L'émergence des savoirs sur l'homme anormal" (page 760 on). Quote:

Mais le problème doit se poser autrement: y a-t-il tout simplement un concept de "race" chez Bernier? Y a-t-il un niveau bien particulier et défini, un niveau positif, qui serait celui de la race et qui mériterait un traitement propre? La réponse, aussi paradoxale qu'ell eparaisse, est négative. Jamais Bernier n'utilise le terme de "race": il utilise le syntagme "espèces ou races" deux fois [note], et l'abandonne aussitôt – ce qui montre combien la notion de "race" est pour lui indifférente – pour celui d'espèce. [note: en outre, dans cette première version du texte le terme même de "race" n'apparaît pas, cédant cette fois totalement la place à "espèce".]...En outre, que signifie "race" pour Bernier? Le syntagme, puis la disparition du terme au profit de celui d'espèce, le montre nettement: la race est un strict synonyme d'"espèce" et "espèce" ici doit s'entendre, comme le mot "race" lui-même, en un sens purement logique...Blumenbach est sans aucun doute, plus de cent ans après le texte de Bernier, celui qui est à l'origine du contresens qui institue Bernier comme l'auteur de la première classification raciale de l'espèce humaine. Il n'est pas vrai, avons-nous dit, que Bernier divise l'espèce humaine ou le genre humain en quoi que ce soit: ce sont là des problèmes typiques des classifications d'histoire naturelle, que Blumenbach pouvait bien se poser mais que Bernier ne se pose absolument pas. Son référent n'est pas l'espèce humaine, prise dans un ensemble taxinomique hiérarchisé où il faudrait lui assigner un rang ainsi qu'à ses variétés; encore moins, contrairement à ce que certains prétendent2468, l'homme pensé en continuité avec l'ensemble des animaux et des végétaux dans un système classificatoire...

Bernier did not develop a "concept of race", rather he used the term "race" and provided no definition; he ambiguously referred to major groups as "species or races" ("Especes ou Race") and used "race" only three times -- including in the title -- in the later edition (of his several page article) in contrast to species, which was used 13 times; in the original, groups were not even once referred to as races, just as species -- that is, he added "or races" a couple of times, probably to keep out of trouble; this hardly constitutes "a concept of race". Again, poor historiography.

That said, we should look at what he actually said. Regarding magnitudes of differences and individual variation there are, as far as I can tell, five relevant passages. Note that there is a typo in the attached translation "of" instead of "or" in one of the lines:

1. "For although men are almost all distinct from one another as far as the external form of their bodies is concerned, especially their faces, according to the different areas of the world they live in, and while they differ so clearly that people who have travelled widely can thus often distinguish unerringly one nation from another, nevertheless I have observed that there are in all four or five species or race among men whose distinctive traits are so obvious that they can justifiably serve as the basis of a new division of the Earth."

Here he does not actually say that there are only four or five "species or race", but just that there are only four or five that are different enough to justify "a new division of the Earth" in the cartographic sense. The phrase, "among men whose distinctive traits are so obvious" suggests "among men whose distinctive traits ARE NOT SO OBVIOUS". And "so obvious" doesn't suggest any deeper differences than are OBVIOUS and than he discussed.

2. "It is true that most of the Indians are somewhat different from us in the shape of their faces and in a colouring that inclines them to the yellowish; but those traits do not seem to me enough to warrant classifying them as a separate species: or rather, if they were thus classified, you would have to create another special species for the Spaniards, and another for the Germans, and so on for all the peoples of Europe"

Here he gives a sense of the size of differences that he considers worthy for a new cartographic division or the Earth. The "or rather, if they were thus classified, you would have to" tells us that he recognizes, essentially, the lumper-splitter issue -- that is, he recognizes that one could make divisions between less differentiated peoples.

3. "As far as the Americans are concerned, they are really mostly olive skinned and their faces have a rather different shape from ours. Nevertheless I do not consider that that difference is so large as to warrant making them a special species distinct from our own."

Here he expresses the idea that the magnitude of differences between Americans and Europeans is not worth making a "special" species division for his map of the earth. However, his previous discussion of "four or five" "species or race" -- this being the fifth -- indicates that he is uncertain on this point.

4. "Among the second species, I place the whole of Africa, except for the
Coastal areas [North Africa] just mentioned...Furthermore, as in our Europe, there are usually many differences between individuals as to height, the look of their faces, their colouring and their hair, just as occurs, so we said above, in the other parts of the World. For instance, the Blacks of the Cape of Good Hope seem to constitute a different species from those of the rest of Africa"

Here, he notes that "Blacks of the Cape" "seem to constitute a different species", thus indicating that his four or five "species or race" are not the only ones, just the only ones worth making a "division of the earth" on the basis of.

He doesn't discuss deep discontinuities anywhere, just groups which have distinct enough traits so to "justify" a map of the earth based on differences between peoples. It is notable that again we see qualifications when it comes to descriptions of differences, "but they usually have", " they are really mostly", etc.

5. " What I have observed as regards the beauty of women is no less differentiated... Among the Blacks of Africa... beautiful women in the Indies...[the beauty] does not result, therefore, only from water, food, land and air, but also from the nature of semen which must vary with specific races and types... women who are natives of Persia..."

Here he uses " races and species" in discussion of both continental and national differences (in the beauty of women), instead of his previous "races or species" (employed once, aside from the title), when not just "species" (employed around a dozen times) used in discussion of his cartographic divisions. He apparently did have in mind a distinction between "race" (as "breed") and "species", meaning that the "or" in his cartographic "races or species" signal indecision in regards to what they were, or more likely, given the previous versions, his not wanting to exclusively characterize groups as species (a heretical act at the time).. Thus we can't infer from his discussion of his ""races or species", his notion of race (in a non-species sense). And his "which must vary with specific races and types" situated in the discussion of national and continental differences as it is suggests a much broader notion -- but surely not well defined concept -- of race.

Generally, Bernier offers a nice example of the poor historiography on this subject. His discussion is squeezed into a narrative which it doesn't readily support. He doesn't say that there are only four or five "races or species", and he points to species within "races or species". He doesn't claim that there are large discontinuities, but only large enough differences to justify a map of the earth base on them. He grants variation between nations with his cartographic "races or species" and notes that one could subdivide further.

But you say:

"This, combined with patterns of migration, geographic isolation, and in-breeding, led to the differentiation of four distinct, pure races.. Once these discrete racial groups were developed over many generations, further climatic changes will not alter racial phenotypes...Such inter-racial mixtures accounted for the existence of liminal individuals, whose physical traits seem to lie between the discrete boundaries of one of the four races[/b]; peoples who do not fit neatly into one or another race are explained away as groups whose seeds have not been fully triggered by the appropriate environmental stimuli."

So Kant discussed his four "base races", then his half or mixed races and also his incipient races. For example, he noted that American Indians were a Mongol race which hadn't acclimated long enough to count as a base race. e..g, " I believe <we> can derive all of the remaining, heritable characters of peoples from these four races either as mixed or incipient or degenerating races..." He is rather clear on how races arise and how hereditary individual variation is abundant. The major flaw with his definition is that he adopts "character essentialism". I discussed the point and his concept extensively in my paper. Refer to section II and III.

Grover Krantz was a proponent of race. Unlike you he wasn't trying to redefine the concept.

I was unable to locate any papers which he wrote on the topic. If you have a copy of his book send it along. A google search of the book mentioned turned up the following on page 18: "For special studies, as in comparing one gene pool with another in a limited area, such microgeographical populations may be a useful concept. They may be called micro-races."

How possibly are his "micro-races" qua micro geographical populations more authentic than my natural division ones? I can not comment more on his position since I do not have access to his book. None of this, of course, changes the fact that races, as divisions of a species, were not thought of as being permanent -- of course differences between them were thought of as being permanent in the sense of hereditary (hence "constant variety", but that's another matter.

As for Barbujani I discussed many of his arguments in my paper. He makes some annoying mistakes such as claiming that 85% of human genetic variance is between individuals, when actually almost half of it is within individuals. His claims are not infrequently sophistic, when not confused:

However, no classification is useful if the classification units are vague or controversial, and no consensus was ever reached on the number and definition of the human races.

Proponents of the race concept have largely reached a consensus -- did they ever typically think otherwise? -- that there can be no "true" number of races, just as there can be no true number of spatial populations and demes. Moreover, they do not claim to "define" races -- unless this means to describe or to delineate them. Also, why would a controversial classification be unitile? It is still controversial -- among e.g., certain sociologists -- to classify individuals by levels of mental ability, yet doing so is surely utile. This confuses scientific epistemology with sociopolitical desirability.

[However, clear-cut genetic boundaries between human groups, which would be necessary to recognise these groups as relatively isolated mating units which zoologists would call races, have not been identified so far.[/b] On the contrary, allele frequencies and synthetic descriptors of genetic variation appear distributed in gradients over much of the planet.

This sounds like weasley wording. No doubt zoologists would call relatively isolated interfertile mating units with clear cut boundaries races (if not phylogenetic diagnostic species), but this doesn't entail that they would not call units without such boundaries races. Indeed, as discussed in my paper, zoologists at times formally recognize races cut from a continuum (one which entails a lack of clear cut boundaries). As Albrecht et al (2003) note:

"Population structure refers to the geographic arrangement of local populations across the species' range. Population structure can be described in terms of three phenomena: the population continuum, geographic isolates, and zones of secondary intergradation (hybrid zones) (e.g., Mayr and Ashlock, 1991). The population continuum is that part of the species' range where there is continuity of contact among local populations, some of which may be recognized as subspecies if sufficiently differentiated."

Colin Groves, a well respected primatologist, has made a similar point: "[With subspecies] their interrelationships are genetically reticulate... they are simply the point along the continuum of population differentiation… at which it becomes worthwhile to give them a scientific name" (Groves, 2004)

Now, it is possible that Barbujani was unaware of this, but I suspect that he was being less than perfectly honest. As for this:

[i]n classical human genetic or physical anthropology textbooks races are envisaged as large populations of individuals who evolved together, share a significant fraction of their genes, and hence can be distinguished from other races by their common gene pool [12] or by different alleles fixed in each [13]. Under both definitions, races are necessarily separated by borders of increased biological variation.

Incredibly, He cites for [12], Vogel, F. and Motulsky, A.G. Human Genetics: Problems and Approaches, 2nd edn, Springer-Verlag, Berlin, 1986, 534

And for [13], Boyd, WC. Genetics and the Races of Man: An Introduction to
Modern Physical Anthropology. Little Brown, Boston, 1950,

As for Boyd refer back to my excerpt based summary of the book -- or to the actual one available on internet archives. Some relevant parts again:

Populations at two ends of such a gradient may be profoundly different in genetic constitution, but they may be connected by all grades of genetic variation between the two. In such a case, whether or not the systematist decides to break up the population into two or more sections and designate them as races is quite arbitrary. This decision will be based on considerations of expediency and nothing else. In favor of defining two or more races there will be the advantage of having unique simple reference names which apply to the various populations...Therefore, it is not all uncommon to find within a single species that two certain races may be easily separated from each other, while two other races show only a slight discontinuity where there populations meet or overlap....We may define a human race as a population which differs significantly from other human populations in regards to the frequency of one or more of the genes it possesses...Since every human individual has to belong to one or another of the four blood groups, the only racial difference we find, or can expect to find, will be differences in frequencies of the four groups among various populations.

I must have missed the parts, in Boyd's work, about having fixed allelic differences and being necessarily "separated by borders of increased variation". Could you point them out to me?

As for Vogel (1997), it is true that races share a "significant" fraction of genes in common" where significant means "enough to allow individuals of one race to be distinguished from ones of another". On the other hand, groups like "all the descendants of genghis khan" do not. So I fail to see the point or how if follows that the groups would need to be "separated by borders of increased biological variation." If we simply cut races out from two ends of a population continuum, individuals in each would share a "significant" enough fraction of genes in common. I suppose you would argue that Vogel meant something else by "significant", something which is now known to be inherently implausible, but wasn't in 1997. You can just look at his discussion of human variation to see, if this is what you are thinking, why you are wrong.

Generally, one of the problems seems to be that you are projecting your own interpretation on to ambiguous terms. Another is that you continue to rely on unreliable secondary sources.

How many of these secondary source claims have I debunked so far?

What you do is leave out stuff that contradicts what you are saying, I already showed this with Blumenbach. Now here is Darwin (1871)

As I noted above, I like to deal with one issue at a time. We have intermittently been discussing two:

(1) Were traditional races qua intraspecific races see as originally -- or "in situ" -- lacking of intra-individual variation?
(2) Where races seen as necessarily deeply discontinuous?

Now, without resolving either, you wish to broach another:

(3) Were the differences between races seen as larger than the differences within?

This is actually a complex question which requires a good deal of clarification and which has a complex answer -- as such I have been holding off on addressing it in detail. Generally, if we can not come to an agreement on (1) and (2), then there is no point to moving onto (3), which is a more specific version of (1) and which is conceptually related to (2).I mean if we can not agree that prominent race theorists like Darwin acknowledged inter-individual variation, then what is the point of arguing over whether they grossly overestimated the amount of differences between races relative to that between individuals within races?

Can you show or name a biologist that argues species are not useful? Whether species "exist" is a different debate, philosophy, not science.

This is something that biologists argue about all the time. There are many animal and plants whose status has repeatedly swung back and forth from species to subspecies and back again. In many cases, this kind of dispute cannot be resolved because the species concept is itself difficult to pin down. Yes, many biologists will say this openly.

But you're right in the sense that biologists will not argue as passionately about this topic as Ashley Montagu did about human races. There are historical reasons. Montagu denounced the race concept during the postwar era when memories of the Holocaust were still fresh. He himself had been subjected to anti-Semitic taunting as a young boy:

"Montagu began life as Israel Ehrenberg, having been born on June 28, 1905, in London, England. According to an interview in 1995 by Leonard Lieberman, Andrew Lyons, and Harriet Lyons, in the publication Current Anthropology, the young Ehrenberg grew up in London's East End. He remembered often being subjected to antisemitic abuse when he ventured out of his own Jewish neighborhood."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashley_Montagu

People approach the present and the future on the basis of past events. All too often, we end up fighting yesterday's battles. Antiracism is a good example of this human tendency.

As far as I am aware no biologist denies "human" (Homo sapiens) is a useful category,

Then you must lead a very sheltered life in academia (assuming you are an academic). The definition of Homo sapiens has expanded and contracted several times to include or exclude the Neandertals. With the recent discovery of the Denisovans and other archaic hominins, many anthropologists have questioned the usefulness of terms like "human", "modern human", hominins, hominids, etc. All of these are attempts to push and pull fuzzy sets into neat categories.

however most biologists deny human races are convenient classificatory tools.

Biologists? No. The surveys I've seen show neither group in the majority ("Races don't exist" versus "Races do exist"). You may be thinking of surveys among anthropologists.

The reason is that putative races like "Caucasoid", "Mongoloid", or "Black" and "White", etc., capture very little biological variation and not in an accurate way. This is why clines replaced race from the 1960s:

"Species" often captures very little biological variation. If we look at genes, we usually see considerable genetic overlap between young sibling species. Yet anatomically and behaviorally we see little if any overlap.

All the antiracists have shown is that Homo sapiens is a very young species that has branched out into many different natural and cultural environments over a short time frame. If we look at genes of little or no selective value - the vast majority of genes - we see relatively little differentiation among human populations, just as we see relatively little between sibling species. This is because the differentiation is overwhelmingly confined to genes of high selective value -- which are a minority of all genes.

By the way, in anthropology departments clines did not begin to replace race until the 1980s. Cavalli-Sforza's textbook on human races was still being widely used until the late 1980s. Yes, he talked about clines in that textbook, but he saw the two concepts as complementary.

but the fact most biologists do not regard categories like "Caucasoid", or "Negroid" to be useful.

Could you point us to the surveys which show that most biologists do not consider such and such race concepts to apply meaningfully to modern humans?

edits in italics.

They either must be 1, 2, 3 to be useful, not necessarily altogether.

I don't understand this.

1 and 2 are similar: there is a lack of variation in the race so it is homogenous

Recall the discussion:

I articulated a meaningful sense in which races, so defined, were both real and natural. So you changed the issue to one of whether the race concept and/or its application to humans was "useful". I noted that it was useful for me. And I noted that a number of others employ race or race-like concepts.

I also pointed out that the "genetic population", "genetic cluster", and "biographic ancestry group" concepts as often formulated -- ones which clearly are seen as being useful by many -- are equivalent to the general race concept which I was discussing. And I noted that a number of race-critics have pointed out the same, arguing e.g.,

“It appears that many scientists do not even believe this distinction makes a difference; they have concocted a thinly disguised euphemism for race they hope will not stir up as much controversy. Geographic ancestry has not replaced race — it has modernized it.” (Roberts, 2011)

“Thus, though the “population” concept is touted as an advancement in freeing genomics from racial bias, it is merely a terminological mask for “race” in genomics… The language employed to talk about “race” without talking about it overtly then takes the form of racial euphemisms like “population.” (Williams, 2015)

Recognizing that if you granted that e.g., "biographic ancestry" groups are races "in a phony moustache and glasses" (Silverstein, 2015) you would have to concede the "usefulness" argument, you began to double down on your race-revisionist one. According to this, old time races were conceptualized radically different from our new time "biographic ancestry" groups or "genetic populations", defined as:

"Thus for purposes of gene discovery we can define genetic population using retrospective terms based on the concept of IBD:

Two individuals, I1 and I2, belong to the same genetic population if (a) their genetic relationship, measured with the coefficient of kinship, is greater than zero and (b) their kinship is much higher than kinship between them and some individual I3, which is said to belong to another genetic population."

Or population genetic races, defined as:

"In population genetics, a race is a group of organisms in a species that are
genetically more similar to each other than they are to the members of other such groups. Populations that have undergone some degree of genetic differentiation as measured by, for example, Fst, therefore qualify as races"

To establish the radical difference:

1. First you argued that races, as divisions of a species, were traditionally thought of as having platonic essences. I showed that this wasn't the case.

2. Then you argued that races as such were traditionally thought of as lacking individual variation. I showed that this wasn't the case.

3. Then you argued that races as such were traditionally thought of as lacking individual variation "in situ". I again showed that this wasn't the case.

4. Then you argued that races were traditionally thought of as being deeply discontinuous. I again showed that this wasn't the case.

5. Now you wish to argue that the differences between races per se was traditionally thought of as exceeding the differences between organisms within races. I noted that this is a complex issue and that I would like to come to an agreement about (1-4) before moving on to it.

Does that sound about right?

Could you point us to the surveys which show that most biologists do not consider such and such race concepts to apply meaningfully to modern humans?

Statement on Race proposed by the participants of the Scientific Workshop of the International UNESCO-Conference Against Racism, Violence, and Discrimination, June 8 and 9, 1995, Schlaining Castle, Austria:

The following scientists participated in the workshop and accepted the statement
"«Races» are traditionally believed to be genetically homogenous and different one from the other. This definition was developed to describe human diversity associated e.g. with various geographical locations. However, recent advances in modern biology based on techniques of molecular genetics and on mathematical models of population genetics have shown this definition to be totally inadequate. Current
scientific findings do not support the earlier view that human populations can be classified into discrete «races» like «Africans», «Eurasians» (including «Native Americans»), or any greater number of subdivisions. Specifically, between human populations, including smaller groupings, genetic differences may be detected. These differences tend to increase with geographic distance, but the basic genetic variation between populations is much less prominent. This means that human genetic diversity is only gradual and presents no major discontinuity between populations. Findings supporting this conclusions defy traditional classification of «races» and make any typological approach totally inadequate. Furthermore, molecular analysis of genes occurring in different versions (alleles), have shown that within any group the inherited variation among individuals is large, while, in comparison, variation between groups is comparatively small."

The reason we like surveys is because it cuts down on selection-bias. I’m sure that a different crowd would have been drawn to a UNESCO-Conference For Race Realism, just as a different one was drawn to the 1998 Russian conference, "Race: Myth or Reality”, in which the 100+ participants at the conference concurred that the reality of racial subdivisions was supported by the totality of the scientific evidence.

But apparently you have no surveys to present. But as to the statement you cite:

1. "«Races» are traditionally believed to be genetically homogenous and different one from the other.

No not typically, if by homogenous we mean without intra-individual variation. We should clarify this term; I have been interpreting it to mean: more or less "of the same kind; uniform, identical, unvaried, indistinguishable, and unvaried”; but it can also mean “alike, similar, much the same” and so on. Meaning alike, yes members of races were thought to be alike, as they are, relatively. Anyways, assuming the former, it’s not surprising that they said this as they would have relied on unreliable narrative reviews, just as you do.

2. “This means that human genetic diversity is only gradual and presents no major discontinuity between populations. Findings supporting this conclusions defy traditional classification of «races» and make any typological approach totally inadequate.”

The same as above can be said, replacing “major discontinuities” for “homogenous”.

3. "Current scientific findings do not support the earlier view that human populations can be classified into discrete «races» like «Africans», «Eurasians» (including «Native Americans»), or any greater number of subdivisions.”

And yet cluster analysis allows one to do just this. One can create descrete cluster class sets where an individual is assigned to one race or another or to a mixed or undefined race. The research demonstrating this was largely done between 2000 and 2010, so the error is somewhat understandable.

4. "Furthermore, molecular analysis of genes occurring in different versions (alleles), have shown that within any group the inherited variation among individuals is large, while, in comparison, variation between groups is comparatively small”

They forgot to say “on average”, since this does’t hold for a number of specific traits or when using multivariate analysis. Also this doesn’t actually hold between some groups for some important loci; for example the SNP fst between East Asians and Africans is around 0.20. The variance between individuals would be half that within populations, so the ratio of between-individual to between groups variance in this case would be 1:2. Is that really comparatively small? Also, most people don’t think in terms of variance explained, but rather mean differences. The average difference between individuals in a normally distributed trait is 1.17 SD; a magnitude this size would be roughly equivalent to 22% of the variance. So when you have trait differences that approach 1 SD, they are not at all small compared to the average difference between individuals in a group.

Generally, I don’t see what you think you are proving by citing people that are wrong or are only right given some non-obvious understanding of their phrasing. So, yes, you have proved that a lot of people believe silly things about what races were thought to be.

I guess, rhetorically, the problem for you is that I know the primary literature well enough to know that many of these people don’t have a handle on it. I also have a long list of bloopers made by antagonists of race, whether they are prominent researchers e.g., Alan Templeton or not.

I don't get why you think "young species" = anti-racist. As far as I can tell the opposite is the case. The Recent African Origin model is defended by racists such as J. P. Rushton etc., so they can argue "whites" are more evolved than say "blacks".

Dr. Frost’s point is that much of the anti-racialists argument rests on the claim that between population variance is modest (per Sewall Wright’s standard). But a modest average Fst just indicates that divergence time was relatively recent e.g., 10 to 100k. Quote: "They "have shown is that Homo sapiens is a very young species that has branched out into many different natural and cultural environments over a short time frame.” This doesn’t tell us about the magnitude of specific differences which were under selection.

Recognizing that if you granted that e.g., "biographic ancestry" groups are races "in a phony moustache and glasses" (Silverstein, 2015) you would have to concede the "usefulness" argument, you began to double down on your race-revisionist one.

I must take a couple of days off from this discussion to work on a paper which happens to employ the biological race concept as I define it. My colleague and I use it in contrast to sociological race, when looking at outcome differences. Now, how does this "usefulness" argument work exactly? If we find the concept useful and the calling of it "race" expedient for our research but some others do not for theirs then what? There is no such thing as useful in itself, just useful for him or her. You seem to be arguing that if the "majority" of researchers in certain countries do not find the term and/or concept useful, despite it being coherent and it referencing something in reality, then I can not. By a consensus gentium it can not be useful for me! This either makes no sense or assumes a strange epistemology/semiotics of science.

That said, I will be happy to pick up the discussion in a bit, since I appreciate your tenacious criticism.

One of your neo-Nazi fans on Stormfront:

https://www.stormfront.org/forum/t1076596/

The guy who wrote that blog is Chuck (aka John Fuerst). He also writes at Occidentalist and Human Varieties. The facts that need to be explained & The Nature of Race should be mandatory reading for any literate scientific racialist.

Its simply dishonest to attack what you call "deniers of race" as socio-politically motivated, when you have these connections and agenda yourself.

First, I have no beef against SFers or "neo-Nazis". I do against intellectual frauds.

Second, as for socio-politically motives, I specifically said: "As we see it, such extra-scientific intents are not, with regards to evaluating positions, problematic per se; such motives are only so insofar as they lead one to accept unsound arguments or as they dispose one towards intellectual dishonesty... Our focus here is exclusively on the merits of the arguments. We do not pretend to be purely passive voices of science ourselves."

Third, I did attack the moralism of the race deniers, but on logical grounds. That is, I granted the validity of moralist arguments and critiqued their coherence. Thus I said: "While we feel that scientific and philosophical fundamentalism is often the appropriate stance for knowledge seekers to adopt, we appreciate that our moralists see things otherwise. Cofnas (2015) has offered additional arguments, both pragmatic and communitarian, against scientific moralism. While these are reasonable, we will not rest our defense on them. The problem for us is not just that scientific moralism, as such, is epistemically problematic and also, by way of this, socially so, but that the attack on the race concept is impugnable given what we take to be common sense morality"

Fourth, as for the other point, the concept of race preceded modern political correctness by over 200 years, so you won't get much traction with that argument.

That said, I did point out that the (intraspecific) race concept was originally employed by moralists in an attempt to defend the PC Catholic dogma that all men were of the same species: "The position that different human groups represented different species (that is, did not share a common ancestral origin) was deemed heretical and considered to be a dangerous idea; it was thought to undermine the moral and spiritual unity of man. The concept of race, in the intraspecific sense, was advanced to defend the dogma that all humans formed but one species (Doron, 2011; Doron, 2012). It was offered as an alternative to the species or inconstant varieties dichotomy and it provided the monogenist position with an empirically plausible model of human biological variation. The moral aspect of the early race debates is readily apparent. For example, in reply to Kant, Georg Forster (1786) defends his position, much as we might ours, from moral-egalitarian criticisms..."

So I guess one could say that the race concept -- or at least its application to humans -- was, in part, motivated by moralism and "political correctness". But I don't imagine that that's what you have in mind.

Anyways, did you have any substantive critiques? I thought that we were going to discuss the issue of within race variance after you conceded my other points.