Section 5 :

(EDIT: I have forgotten to copy paste the changes you have made; but you should post that in the thread, not just by email)

Section IV: "The THRs correspond with ecotypic races/subspecies when ecotypes are broadly understood to be environmentally adapted subdivisions of a species. Since virtually all geographical races are, as aggregates, adapted to the regions in which they evolved, they fit this definition. This broad formulation was expressed by Mayr (1970), when he noted that "not a single geographic race is known that is not also an ecological race”, or by Dobzhansky (1970) when he wrote, "Is there a difference between a geographic race and an ecotype? To a large extent the two terms are synonymous.” As some envision the ecotype concept more narrowly, whether the THRs constitute ecotypes depends on the specific concept employed. This issue is discussed more in section V-B.

Section V "Of course, they are only able to make this case with regards to ecotype by narrowly understanding the concept. In their hurry to dismiss 'folk races', they miss a broader understanding of the ecotypic concept, one which does not exclude “phylogenetically divergent subspecies” or the like. There has been a long history of such usage. To give some examples:

[Ecotypes] parallel, but are not nearly always identical with, the geographic subspecies... As in ecospecies, it is sometimes necessary to include more than one ecotype in a subspecies, stating that it consists of certain ecotypes that appear ecologically important but are morphologically indistinguishable. The objective is to have limits of subspecies (a morphologic term) correspond to the limits of one or a group of several ecotypes (an experimental term). (Clausen, et al., 1939).

The ecotype as defined by Turesson is any assemblage of organisms which genotypically reflects the selective action of environment, and may represent anything from a small colonial community to a large regional race....The term ecotype is therefore a general one covering assemblages of very different taxonomic significance. (Gregor, 1944)

Ecotype: subdivision of an ecospecies, comparable to a subspecies or geographic race and consisting of an isolated population selectively adapted to a particular set of environmental conditions" (ecotype. (n.d.). The American Heritage Science Dictionary)

In any case, the ground finch lineage seems to represent, on at least some islands and at least some times, ecological races rather than species (Zink 2002)… We usually do not class these ecotypes or races as species… Nonetheless, while most actual ecological races probably never reach the status of species, some ecological races are likely to speciate as they already maintain the linkage disequilibria needed to evolve further speciation-related traits (Felsenstein 1981), leading to assortative mating. It does not seem unlikely that speciation via this route is the source of most new and successful species. (Mallet, 2008)

Races of animals (also called “subspecies” or “ecotypes”) are morphologically distinguishable populations that live in allopatry (i.e., are geographically separated). (Coyne, 2012)

The gist is that the two concepts, ecotype and “phylogenetically divergent subspecies”, overlap. Thus, Clausen’s ecotypes can correspond with taxonomic category subspecies, Gregor’s ecotypes can be regional races, Mallet’s ecological races can be lineages which can speciate, and Coyne’s human divisions are both subspecies and ecotypes. Not all ecotypes ae races (i.e., genealogy-based units), let alone formally recognized ones. Yet, taxonomic subspecies and large regional races can be – and arguably always are (e.g., Mayr (1970)) – ecotypes.

Granted, some have argued that ecotypes “are not taxonomic units” (Cronin et al. 2009) and “do not necessarily share common ancestry and should not be classified as taxonomic groups” (Lyon et al. (2014)). If these authors mean that ecotypes necessarily are not phylogenetic units, then they are using a concept different from the original. Whatever the case, it can not be denied that “ecotype” has a long history of being used, at times, to describe something “like phylogenetically divergent subspecies”. So any argument against the recognition of broad regional groups as ecotypic races rests on a narrow reading of the concept. And any claim that ecotypes which do not correspond with genealogical unites are races, misapplies, with respect to typical usage, the term “race”.

I agree with the changes you've made (pp 114-115) concerning the matter with regard to Pigliucci & Kaplan's point (b). You have elaborated and clarified your previous argument. You showed convincingly why "The gist is that the two concepts, ecotype and “phylogenetically divergent subspecies”, overlap.". So, I appreciate. That said, I don't disagree with that argument. My point was that you have misunderstood what they meant by folk races (their point (a)). So, I agree with their point (a) but disagree with their point (b). I think point (a) is irrelevant, however, because their folk races are not the biological races you are attempting to defend. As soon as you don't misapply the term folk race, I'm fine.

I don't have any other request concerning Section 5. I will just ask you to change ...

Not all ecotypes ae races

... ae into are.

And not to forget the quotation mark on the quote from the The American Heritage Science Dictionary.

Aside from all the psychologizing ("racists" "fit their preconceived ideas for racist ends"), I'm curious about the claim that non-Hispanic Whites does fit fit the genomic cluster. It seems to me that this is exactly what it does. Non-Hispanic White is identical with European as far as I know, which of course emerges as a cluster.

I think the answer is provided somewhere in section 2 :

Correspondence with historic continental-level race is not, of course, a prerequisite for constituting different biological races. What is is that groups cut out different natural divisions with respect to each other. An analysis by Tang et al. (2005) suggested that “white, African American, East Asian, and Hispanic” ethno-racial groups in the U.S. more or less do – that is, they cut out distinct genomic divisions. As the authors noted, though, the Hispanic group in their sample was based on a Mexican-American one. When using a more diverse Hispanic sample, another research group (Lao et al., 2010) found that the Hispanic ethnic groups did not form a discrete cluster but rather overlapped with the other groups (in this case, Europeans, East Asians, and Africans). This is not unexpected since, across Latin America, there is substantial heterogeneity in historic continental-level racial admixture. Given the genomic heterogeneity in their region of origin, it is probably better to understand U.S. Hispanics as representing a cultural group. If they are called a “race”, they would be a non-biological, sociological one. More generally, it is probably best to understand U.S. sociological races (and ethnic groups) as overlapping with -- to some degree or another – not constituting biological races.

So, I don't understand either what Kaplan meant by

"non-Hispanic Whites" is not a genomic cluster.

I'm extremely bothered, annoyed. Again, what's the use of this thread ? Think about how the journal will refer to the review thread. Usually, it's something like :

You asked me to post the full paper. I did.

You should read my comment carefully. I asked for a full version to be uploaded, but never asked to create another (useless) thread. I said that many times, and I explained here why it's not making any sense. But if Emil is going to merge everything now, I hope everyone here will edit their own messages. Because I expect something bad would happen.

Consider for example :

post1 : Meng Hu commenting on section 2
post2 : Chuck replying to post1
post3 : Peter Frost commenting on section 4
post4 : Chuck replying to post3
post5 : Meng Hu replying to post2

If none of these posts use quotation (as it happened sometimes), it's not easy to follow the conversation. One can easily get lost.

I suggest to add a short message at the top of the post, such as :

This is a comment to Chuck's at 03-22-2015, 01:51 AM.

By the way, I insist that the abstract is not actually what I can call an abstract. Rework that. The abstract is important to the extent that it gives a short overview of the argument you're making. Curiously, the Introduction looks like an abstract.

There is, of course, an element of truth to all four of the stated claims; for example, the word “race” indeed has no unique definition; anyone can choose to feel that whatever genetically based differences exist between human populations are not meaningful; there are race concepts which are fundamentally non-biological; and there are biological race concepts (frequently made of straw) by which there are no human biological races. All of this is true, and rather trivial, but since statements 1 through 4

If you write statements 1 through 4, you should do that :

(1) for example, the word “race” indeed ...; (2) anyone can choose to feel that ...; (3) there are race concepts which are ...; (4) and there are biological race concepts ... .

Furthermore, where's the name of the journal ? The presentation is bad and does not follow the guidelines. For example, the size of the title, which should be 24 and in bold, the size of the author's name which should have a size of 16, etc. And whether it's a commentary, research article, etc.

You do what you want, but I don't understand the logo CC by NC. If all of the papers published here has no such CC logo, I can guess that the readers will wonder why it is applied inconsistently in OP journals.

Contents

Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………..3

I. Biology -- A Philosophical Clarification………………………………………………………..4
I-A. Existing Views: Confusions Abound
I-B. Biological Concepts in General
I-C. The Validity of Biological Concepts

I don't really like that presentation, but if you want to page number the sections, you should also do that for all the sections; I-A, I-B, I-C, etc.

I got an answer from Kaplan :But, to answer your question: By folk racial category, we meant just that. Folk racial categories are the sort of racial categories used by people in the U.S. in thinking about race in everyday life.

I specifically quoted Pigliucci (2013):

"Pigliucci and Kaplan (2003) have therefore proposed that human races—to the extent that they exist—could be thought of from a biological perspective as ecotypes. There are several implications to this proposal, the most fundamental being the following two: (a) there is little relation between human races qua ecotypes and the folk concept of race, because the same folk ‘‘race’’ may have evolved independently several times in response to local environmental conditions, and be characterized by different genetic makeups; (b) ecotypes (and hence races) are only superficially different from each other because they are usually selected for only a relatively small number of traits that are advantageous in certain environments. This means that races are nothing like phylogenetically divergent subspecies, and that racial differences are literally skin deep. Somewhat ironically, a number of philosophers (e.g., Glasgow, 2009) have criticized our approach on the ground that applying the biological technical sense of ecotypes to human races ends up showing that races (in the folk sense) do not really exist, at least not in the relevant sense of the term used in the race debate. That is indeed a correct interpretation of Pigliucci and Kaplan (2003), and the validity of such contribution lies precisely in the fact that it shows that Sesardic-like accounts of race are ill-informed scientifically, so that we can all move on and concentrate on the more
relevant and complex issue of the social construction of the concept of race, which has well known and quantifiable consequences in its own right. So what we are left with is that human races do exist (as ecotypes), but in nothing like the sense that is used in Sesardic-type discussions about race; and that the complexity and non-linearity of the genotype to phenotype mapping function, together with the phenomenon of phenotypic plasticity, make much debate about the genetic basis of behavioral and cognitive traits in humans moot. Why, then, are we still talking about this?"

He is clearly talking about Sesardic-like population genetic races and saying that these are not "ecotypes". He is also saying, in the same discussion, that "folk races" are not ecotypes. But yes, he could be making two separate points. But then he says:

"As for the biological interpretation of the concept of race, I have reiterated Pigliucci and Kaplan’s (2003) suggestion that it is not meaningless, but it does have a sufficiently different meaning from that of folk races to create serious problems [b]for most of the published scientific and philosophical literature on biological differences among ‘‘races""

Again, he could still be making two separate points... but much "published scientific and philosophical literature on biological differences" (e.g., Lynn, 2008; Jensen, 1998; Rushton, 1995) concerns itself with Sesardic-like population genetic races. So here again Pigliucci (2013) seemingly equates Sesardic-like races with folk races. Note, that Sesardic made the same interpretation as I did:

"Fine, the argument could go (and actually did), it may well be that heterogeneous
human populations indeed cluster into a number of distinct groups based on the
multivariate genetic similarity, but it may still turn out that these gene-based
clusters do not correspond to common-sense races at all. In that case, the colloquial racial classification would still be left with no support from biology: ‘ ‘While we argue that there likely are a variety of identifiable and biologically meaningful races, these will not correspond to folk racial categories’’ (Pigliucci and Kaplan 2003, 1161)...Ironically, empirical knowledge about race and genetic is advancing so fast that Pigliucci’s and Kaplan’s prediction was already refuted while the article with their bold claim was still in print. In an important paper that came out in Science at the very end of 2002, a group of geneticists showed that the analysis of multilocus genotypes of 1,056 individuals from 52 populations did allow an inference of group structure and that, furthermore, five clusters derived from that analysis of purely genetic similarities corresponded largely to major geographic regions (Rosenberg et al. 2002). This is an important discovery that makes it much more difficult than before to claim that race is entirely disconnected from genetics."

Also, Kaplan didn't deny the point so much as miss it. He grants that "folk race" as he and Pigliucci used the term could -- and seemingly often do -- correspond with "genomic clusters":

"Note well that folk racial categories do not always align well with e.g. genomic clusters"

In which case my point stands. And he notes that "folk race" is a broad category"

"but recognize that in fact there is no one set of "folk racial categories" in the U.S. -- different survey instruments recognize different races, and the same instrument will recognize different races at different times, and individual people differ in what races they recognize in their everyday lives, etc. Nevertheless, there is a kind a broad overlapping sense of what races get picked out in everyday life"

So I maintain my claim -- that by "folk race" Pigliucci (2013) was, in the cited passage, referring to sesardic-like races. I should note, of course, that Pigliucci's claim involves yet another non sequitur:

"ecotypes (and hence races) are only superficially different from each other because they are usually selected for only a relatively small number of traits that are advantageous in certain environments. [b]This means that races are nothing like phylogenetically divergent subspecies, and that racial differences are literally skin deep....So what we are left with is that human races do exist (as ecotypes)...make much debate about the genetic basis of behavioral and cognitive traits in humans moot. Why, then, are we still talking about this?"

In ecology, ecotypic differences involved behavioral ones, too. For example, look at the discussion of the African and European honey bee ecotypes here. Table 3.1. Reproduction, storage, defensiveness.

One could just replace bees with humans. Thus, "ecotype" doesn't preclude Rushton-like behavioral genetic differences. In fact, it could be a useful HBD term since it is more expansive than race -- as not all ecotypes, as sometimes defined, need to be races -- and since many behaviors cut across races and follow ecological systems e.g., IQ and climate. "Ecotype" allows one to talk about, for example, the South Hemispherian ecotypes (Africans+Australoids+South Amerindians) and better explain the climate theory of global variation in IQ.

This is obvious. (I didn't discuss it in the paper because I thought it was so,)

Meng Hu,

It would help if you could give me the necessary conditions for your approval -- and if you could distinguish between these and your suggestions for improvement. I could then better allocate my time.

By the way, I insist that the abstract is not actually what I can call an abstract. Rework that. The abstract is important to the extent that it gives a short overview of the argument you're making. Curiously, the Introduction looks like an abstract.

It's an atypical paper. But I will work on that. What about a preface instead? Recall, this is intent for publication after publication here -- mainly because I want a graphic cover with two tangled races of strawberries. Could you design that? The point would be to communicate that "race" is not just about humans or "significant differences".

non-biological; and there are biological race concepts (frequently made of straw) by which there are no human biological races. All of this is true, and rather trivial, but since statements 1 through 4

If you write statements 1 through 4, you should do that :

I will change this to: "All of this is true, and rather trivial, but since the statements are so often taken to mean something true and nontrivial -- that there is no robust sense in which there are human biological races -- "

Furthermore, where's the name of the journal ? The presentation is bad and does not follow the guidelines. For example, the size of the title, which should be 24 and in bold, the size of the author's name which should have a size of 16, etc. And whether it's a commentary, research article, etc.

What about Frost's paper. OBG has different standards. I wasn't sure what to call it, by the way.

You do what you want, but I don't understand the logo CC by NC. If all of the papers published here has no such CC logo, I can guess that the readers will wonder why it is applied inconsistently in OP journals.

I didn't want some Grad student riffing the content while it is under review. I don't see any rules against a copyright logo. Maybe we should include one at the bottom of all papers.

I don't really like that presentation, but if you want to page number the sections, you should also do that for all the sections; I-A, I-B, I-C, etc.

Obviously, I am waiting for the paper to be finished -- all approvals. Since I don't want to continually change the page numbers with each addition/edition.

The guidelines for acceptance for title and stuff has to do with Google's auto-indexing. However, we have now proper code in place, so it should not be strictly necessary.

A new version has been uploaded.

Dear Peter Frost and Meng Hu,

I was considering adding the following to section IV to give some background about the discussion of behavioral differences. Let me know if you see a substantive problem with adding this.

Box 4.3. Raciology, Environmentalism, Behavioral Population Genetics, and Social Constructionim.

The focus of raciology was recently articulated by Russian proponent Vladimir Avdeyev in the best selling Russian book, "Raciology. The Science of the Hereditary Traits of People (2007)". According to Avdeyev, raciology is a philosophical system under which "all social, cultural, economic, and political phenomena of human history are explained by the influence of hereditary racial differences in peoples...raciology—the science—studies the biological factors of world history." Avdeyev (2007) gives a comprehensive and sympathetic review of the projects of historic racial scientists form Kristof Meiners to theorists of national socialist Germany. Under raciology, race is associated with social value since the "fate of peoples, tribes, and states depends to a decisive degree on the racial nature of their carriers. World history—is part of racial history" (Fischer, 1927).

Following the end of the Second World War, the study of hereditary differences between both individuals and peoples was morally discredited and largely deemed taboo. In its place, arose behaviorism, according to which intraspecifc behavioral differences were largely the product of environment and learning. Ethnic and racial differences were, in turn, seen as environmentally determined and/or as the product of discrimination. Between the 1970s and 1990s, the field of behavioral genetics established that inter-individual differences were substantially hereditary. The evidence was so overwhelming that it led to the proposal of the first and second laws of behavioral genetics, according to which "All human behavioral traits are heritable" and "The effect of being raised in the same family is smaller than the effects of genes" (Turkheimer, 2000).

In the early 1970s, the research program of behavioral population genetics was proposed by Lindzey and Thiessen (1970) as a corollary to behavioral genetics. The focus of field was to be global genetic variance in species' behavior. One of the modest goals of the program was to show that the then popular idea of "species-wide uniformity in behavioral adaptations" was untenable and that species were behaviorally polytypic. The scope of the field was pan-specific. Lindzey and Thiessen (1970), themselves, conduct their preliminary study on mice, but they made it clear that the research program would extend to humans. In the proposed field, race was one of a number of intrapecifc concepts used -- others being populations, demes, and isolates.

The field never took off and the default position for group differences remained an environmental and group discrimination one. As in the case of Jarred Diamond's U.S. best selling book, "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies (1997)", societal differences continued to be interpreted from a macro-environmental perspective. Such explanations could not account for persistent intrasocietal differences associated with race. To fill the gap, an inverted form of raciology evolved. According to this, social, cultural, economic, and political inequalities are explained by systems of power and cultural oppression. The idea of race, in turn, is a manifestation of this system. Hosang (2014), a proponent of the position, recently articulated this point: "Constructionist theory also argues that race itself is an artifact of power, a historical legacy of colonial expansion, slavery, and mass violence that has shaped much of the past 500 years of world history. In these accounts, race does not form the basis for domination; domination forms the basis for race". Like Raciology, (racial) constructionism is an expansive philosophy frame. It is both a way of researching the world and a value system. Whereas race is a value for raciologists, racial deconstruction is one for the constructionists.

Despite the predominance of the constructionist position, the societal implications of behavioral population genetics have been explored, for example, by Rushton (1995), Hart (2007), Weiss (2007), Lynn (2011), and Wade (2014). These and other authors have interpreted history and societal development partially through the lens of population and racial behavioral differences. These analyses differ from raciological ones in a number of respects. For one, while seen as important, hereditary racial differences are viewed as having only modest contemporaneous and historical explanatory power. Also, as with behavioral population genetics, the focus is broader than race differences. Generally the concern is with the differential distributions of behavioral traits across space and time (as in the case of dysgenics). For these authors, to the extent that race is sociologically significant it is insofar as races vary in societally important behavioral traits.

Chuck,

I have mixed feelings about this section. You seem to be trying to explain two things:

- the decline in academic interest in human races, specifically the idea that human populations differ statistically in a wide range of mental and behavioral traits. This decline began in the early 1930s, leveled off in the 1950s, and then really nosedived in the period from the early 1970s to the mid-1990s.

- the subsequent revival in academic interest from the mid-1990s onward (generally called HBD).

You give much prominence to Vladimir Avdeyev, yet his role in HBD is recent and still tangential. HBD essentially began in the mid-1990s as a network of American academics or semi-academics, plus a few Canadians, a few Brits, one Danish scientist, and a French author. Since then, the circle has expanded, but it's still a largely North American phenomenon.

"For one, while seen as important, hereditary racial differences are viewed as having only modest contemporaneous and historical explanatory power."

I can't agree. If anything, there is growing acknowledgment that human genetic evolution is not limited to prehistory. Gregory Clark has argued that the English population has evolved significantly over the past millennium. Greg Cochran has similarly argued that mean Ashkenazi IQ has diverged from mean Sephardic IQ over an even shorter timeframe. More genetic evolution has happened in humans over the past 10,000 years than over the previous 100,000, and most of this evolution seems to be a response to the diversification of cultural environments.

There is an older tradition of thinking according to which human nature assumed its final form back in the Pleistocene. We see this in much of Rushton's works, for instance, but the trend now is to see significant evolution in mental and behavioral traits during historic times, even as late as the 19th century.

"Following the end of the Second World War, the study of hereditary differences between both individuals and peoples was morally discredited and largely deemed taboo. In its place, arose behaviorism"

Behaviorism became dominant before the war. It was already tipping the balance away from hereditarianism back in the 1920s, along with the idea of cultural conditioning in the 1930s. I agree that the period of 1933 to 1945 was critical. The rise of Hitler to power created a feeling of urgency among many academics, the consensus being that it was necessary to fight all forms of hereditarian thinking. The word "racism" itself was originally a synonym for Nazism, and the war on racism was very much part of the war on Nazism.

I wouldn't say that the study of hereditary differences became taboo in 1945. The word "taboo" best describes the period from the early 1970s to the early 1990s. Antiracists have tried to legitimize their actions by portraying them as a continuation of the Second World War, but it was still possible for many academics to write and talk about hereditarianism well into the 1960s. The sustained effort to purge academia of "racists" did not begin until the 1970s, and it was largely done by people who were too young to have served in WWII.

I am surprised you make no mention of academics like Greg Cochran, Gregory Clark, Henry Harpending, Vincent Sarich, Charles Murray, or Richard Herrnstein. Is the omission deliberate?

Peter,

I am trying to explain how "HBD" or whatever we want to call the stuff I discuss at the end of section IV is not just like Nazi-esque race science as some would have it.

How about:

Box 4.3. Raciology Versus HBD

In the late 19th and early 20th century, a number of researchers came to see race as a fundamental explanatory variable with regards to global variability in social development, past and present. From this perspective, races differed in traits which were "pregnant with power for weal or woe" on the "present fortunes and ultimate destinies" or peoples (Brinton, 1895). As a result, race quality was associated with social value since the "fate of peoples, tribes, and states depends to a decisive degree on the racial nature of their carriers." (Fischer (1927), quoted in Avdeyev (2007)). The perspective led to a philosophical system, sometimes called raciology, under which "all social, cultural, economic, and political phenomena of human history are explained by the influence of hereditary racial differences in peoples" Avdeyev (2007).

The outlook never gained a dominant place in science in general, though it did in national socialist Germany. Following the end of the Second World War, the study of hereditary differences between both individuals and peoples was morally discredited, largely because it was associated with the more invidious policies of Nazi Germany. After the war, behavioralism, according to which intraspecifc behavioral differences were largely the product of environment and learning, became the dominant international perspective. Ethnic and racial differences were, in turn, seen as environmentally determined and/or as the product of discrimination.

Despite the predominance of behavioralism, interest in the hereditary differences between individuals remained. And the field of behavioral genetics as it is presently know was established in the early 1960s (Gottesman, 2008). During the 1970s to the mid-1990s there was a strong push from the academic left against this and related fields. Nonetheless, during this time behavioral genetics was able to establish the substantial heritability of inter-individual differences. The mounting evidence became so overwhelming that it led to the proposal of the first and second laws of behavioral genetics, according to which "All human behavioral traits are heritable" and "The effect of being raised in the same family is smaller than the effects of genes" (Turkheimer, 2000).

In the early 1970s, the research program of behavioral population genetics was proposed by Lindzey and Thiessen (1970) as a corollary to behavioral genetics. The focus of field was to be global genetic variance in species' behavior. One of the modest goals of the program was to show that the then popular idea of "species-wide uniformity in behavioral adaptations" was untenable and that species were behaviorally polytypic. The scope of the field was pan-specific. Lindzey and Thiessen (1970), themselves, conduct their preliminary study on mice, but they made it clear that the research program would extend to humans. The field never took off and the default explanation for group differences remained an environmental and/or group discrimination one.

As in the case of Jarred Diamond's U.S. best selling book, "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies (1997)", the fate of peoples and states continued to be seen as determined by macro-environmental factors. Such explanations could not account for persistent intrasocietal differences associated with race, though. To fill the gap, an inverted form of raciology (in Avdeyev's sense) evolved. According to this, social, cultural, economic, and political inequalities are explainable by systems of power and cultural oppression; the idea of race, in turn, is a manifestation of this system. Hosang (2014), a proponent of the position, recently articulated the position: "Constructionist theory also argues that race itself is an artifact of power, a historical legacy of colonial expansion, slavery, and mass violence that has shaped much of the past 500 years of world history. In these accounts, race does not form the basis for domination; domination forms the basis for race". Like its mirror image, (racial) constructionism (in Hosang's sense) is an expansive philosophical frame. It is both a way of researching the world and a value system, with (racial) constructionist generally valuing the social deconstruction of race.

Despite the predominance of the constructionist position, the societal implications of behavioral population genetics have been explored, for example, by Rushton (1995), Hart (2007), Weiss (2007), and Wade (2014). These and other authors have interpreted history and societal development partially through the lens of populational and racial behavioral differences. In the 2000s the term "Human Bio-Diversity" or "HBD" was coined by writer Steve Sailer to describe this research. HBD was defined as the "study of biological differences among humans and their impact on society". These analyses differ from older raciological ones in a number of respects. For one, while seen as important, hereditary racial differences are viewed as having only relatively modest contemporaneous and historical explanatory power. Also, in accord with behavioral genetics, the focus is broader than race differences. Generally, the concern is with the differential distribution of behavioral traits both across space and time (as in the case of dysgenics) and within populations (as in the case of sex differences). For these authors, to the extent that race is sociologically significant it is insofar as races vary in societally important behavioral traits.

And I will call my previous section "HBD and Society"

As for your comments:

"I can't agree. If anything, there is growing acknowledgment that human genetic evolution is not limited to prehistory."

What I meant is that race and racial differences are not seen as that important, where that means as important as thought by e.g., Fischer.

"Behaviorism became dominant before the war."

Well, not internationally. I qualified the statement.

Murray and Herrnstein focused on social class as did Clark. I wasn't aware that Vincent Sarich actually did behavioral relate research. As for Cochran and Harpending, I mentioned, "and others".

....

If the section doesn't work I will cut it. NP.

"Following the end of the Second World War, the study of hereditary differences between both individuals and peoples was morally discredited, largely because it was associated with the more invidious policies of Nazi Germany. After the war, behavioralism, according to which intraspecifc behavioral differences were largely the product of environment and learning, became the dominant international perspective."

The war was used to justify a view that was already becoming dominant. In anthropology, the Boasian school had won out over the hereditarians by the late 1930s, both in academia and among the educated public through books like Coming of Age in Samoa (1928), Patterns of Culture (1934), and Race, Language, and Culture (1940). In psychology, behaviorism was already dominant:

"Behaviorism of one sort or another was an immensely popular research program or methodological commitment among students of behavior from about the second decade of the twentieth century through its middle decade, at least until the beginnings of the cognitive science revolution"
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/behaviorism/

"What I meant is that race and racial differences are not seen as that important"

I'm still not sure there's a difference. Pre-war hereditarians always acknowledged the importance of culture and upbringing. In some ways, present-day HBD writers are arguing for genetic influences where none were suspected before.

"Murray and Herrnstein focused on social class as did Clark."

Not exactly. Clark argued that class differences in fertility had the ultimate effect of changing the English gene pool (i.e., the lower classes were continually being replaced by downwardly mobile people from the middle class).

"I wasn't aware that Vincent Sarich actually did behavioral relate research"

You were listing people who had explored "the societal implications of behavioral population genetics." Vincent Sarich certainly qualifies, as would Linda Gottfredson.

"As for Cochran and Harpending, I mentioned, "and others"."

"Others" includes Mao Zedong, the mayor of Sioux Lookout, and my neighbour's cat. Seriously, it doesn't hurt to give people credit for the work they have done. In the past, I have unintentionally slighted people by not mentioning their contributions.

Dear Peter,

Thank you for your input.

You said:

The war was used to justify a view that was already becoming dominant. In anthropology, the Boasian school had won out over the hereditarians by the late 1930s, both in academia and among the educated public through books like Coming of Age in Samoa (1928), Patterns of Culture (1934), Race, Language, and Culture (1940). In psychology, behaviorism was already dominant:

You seem to focus on the U.S.

What was the status of hereditaranism and racial hereditarianism internationally? I mean, can you give me a rough estimate of percent of expert acceptance by macro region (Continental Europe, Anglo-sphere, Latin America) for 1895-1920 and 1920 to 1945? I'm not sure that the U.S. or even the anglosphere is the best reference point.

I come across a number of claims like:

“Race psychology” claims to explain the characteristics, cultural abilities, and mental traits of nations and peoples by analysing their racial make-up. It postulates that these characteristics or mental traits are linked to races in a hereditary and naturally determined fashion and thus exist independently of “external”, social factors. From this perspective, the physical characteristics of people, in which traditional physical anthropology was predominantly interested, are taken merely as indicators of mental and intellectual qualities. For proponents of race psychology, the specific mental quality of a nation constitutes its identity; at the same time, mental differences constitute the essential differences between nations. Thus defined, race psychology formed the core of the scientific racism which dominated disciplines such as anthropology and psychology in the first half of the twentieth century" (Klautke, E. (2007). German" Race Psychology" and its implementations in central Europe: Egon von Eickstedt and Rudolf Hippius.)

Presumably Klautke means German "anthropology and psychology". I attached some papers from the same book concerning Eastern and Southern Europe.

I guess that I don't have a good idea of how popular, internationally speaking, the ideas were. So I am trying to stay vague -- We would agree that after WWII, behavioralism became internationally dominant, because the US+ USSR then became hegemonic.

"What I meant is that race and racial differences are not seen as that important"I'm still not sure there's a difference. Pre-war hereditarians always acknowledged the importance of culture and upbringing. In some ways, present-day HBD writers are arguing for genetic influences where none were suspected before.

I would guess that things were different in continental Europe.

I can add names. I think precisely zero people would feel slighted by my not mentioning them, though. And some might feel relieved.

.....

So what is it that we disagree with? Probably this paragraph:

"The outlook never gained a dominant place in science in general [Where?], though it did in national socialist Germany. Following the end of the Second World War, the study of hereditary differences between both individuals and peoples was morally discredited, largely because it was associated with the more invidious policies of Nazi Germany. After the war, behavioralism, according to which intraspecifc behavioral differences were largely the product of environment and learning, became the dominant international perspective [This seems correct]. Ethnic and racial differences were, in turn, seen as environmentally determined and/or as the product of discrimination."

"These analyses differ from raciological ones in a number of respects. For one, while seen as important, hereditary racial differences are viewed as having only modest contemporaneous and historical explanatory power. [Surely, though, HBDers don't believe that the fate of a nation is so dependent on racial compositions, that strict racial eugenics laws are needed; how can I change this to appropriately emphasize the degree of importance? Also, as with behavioral population genetics, the focus is broader than race differences. Generally the concern is with the differential distributions of behavioral traits across space and time (as in the case of dysgenics). For these authors, to the extent that race is sociologically significant it is insofar as races vary in societally important behavioral traits."

"You seem to focus on the U.S. What was the status of hereditaranism and racial hereditarianism internationally?"

For better or for worse, the U.S. is the center of the current world-system. When an idea or ideology becomes dominant there, it eventually tends to become dominant elsewhere, partly because of the country's high level of cultural production (books, movies, cartoons, TV programs, etc.) and partly because people elsewhere see it as an example to follow. This is why the race concept has held up better in the former Eastern bloc; the iron curtain blocked the spread of American ways of thinking.

To answer your second question, American antiracism diffused most quickly into other English-speaking countries (Canada, United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, etc.). Even in those countries, there was considerable resistance. Australia, for instance, didn't abandon its "White Australia Policy" until 1966. In Western Europe, the picture is more variable. Italian anthropology did not convert to the Boasian school until the 1960s. In general, the 1960s and the 1970s were the period when antiracism became fully internalized.

The same could be said for the United States. For most Americans, the word "racism" did not enter popular use until the 1960s, and popular science books referred to the "races of Man" without quotation marks. It is simply not true that the end of WWII (opening of the death camps to public view, interviews with Holocaust survivors) had a traumatizing effect on the Western world, causing people everywhere to reject racial thinking in any form. That is a later reinterpretation of past events. Whenever I have talked with veterans, none saw the war as a "struggle against racism" and most did not even mention the Holocaust. Again, the war has been reinterpreted and given a new meaning.

I'm not arguing that nothing changed ideologically during WWII. There was much change, particularly among the university-trained elites. But this change was already under way before the war, and it continued long after -- with the biggest changes happening during the 1960s and 1970s. The importance of WWII was largely mythical; it became a morality play that gradually took over the mental space formerly occupied by religion.

"From this perspective, the physical characteristics of people, in which traditional physical anthropology was predominantly interested, are taken merely as indicators of mental and intellectual qualities."

This is silly. Can you point to a physical anthropologist who has made this claim? Has anyone argued, for instance, that the melanization of the skin has a direct impact on mental abilities? I'm not talking about correlations here. I'm talking about genetic linkage.

"I would guess that things were different in continental Europe."

Actually, before the war, hereditarianism was weaker in France than in the United States.

"We would agree that after WWII, behavioralism became internationally dominant, because the US+ USSR then became hegemonic."

You're talking like my doctor. "We're feeling much better now, aren't we?"

"After the war, behavioralism, according to which intraspecifc behavioral differences were largely the product of environment and learning, became the dominant international perspective"

It always was. No one has ever claimed that behavioral differences are largely hardwired. The Nazis did? Well, why did they insist so much on controlling the press, the schools, youth organizations, and the like? Why bother, if behavior is largely hardwired?

Peter,

The disagreements seem trivial. If you withdraw approval of the paper on account of my adding the following, let me know:

Box 4.3. Raciology Versus HBD

In the late 19th and early 20th century, a number of researchers came to see race as a fundamental explanatory variable with regards to global variability in social development, past and present. From this perspective, races differed in traits which were "pregnant with power for weal or woe" on the "present fortunes and ultimate destinies" or peoples (Brinton, 1895). As a result, race quality was associated with social value since the "fate of peoples, tribes, and states depends to a decisive degree on the racial nature of their carriers." (Fischer (1927), quoted in Avdeyev (2007)). The perspective led to a philosophical system, sometimes called raciology, under which "all social, cultural, economic, and political phenomena of human history are explained by the influence of hereditary racial differences in peoples" Avdeyev (2007). The outlook never gained a dominant place in science internationally, though it did in some countries such as national socialist Germany. Following the end of the Second World War, the study of hereditary differences between both individuals and peoples was morally discredited, largely because it was associated with the more invidious policies of Nazi Germany. After the war, behavioralism, according to which genetic influences accounted for little intraspecifc behavioral variance became, internationally, the dominant scientific perspective. Ethnic and racial differences were, in turn, seen as environmentally determined and/or as the product of discrimination. Despite the predominance of behavioralism, interest in the hereditary differences between individuals remained. And the field of behavioral genetics as it is presently know was established in the early 1960s (Gottesman, 2008). During the 1970s to the mid-1990s there was a strong push from the academic left against this and related fields. Nonetheless, during this time behavioral genetics was able to establish the substantial heritability of inter-individual differences. The mounting evidence became so overwhelming that it led to the proposal of the first and second laws of behavioral genetics, according to which "All human behavioral traits are heritable" and "The effect of being raised in the same family is smaller than the effects of genes" (Turkheimer, 2000).

In the early 1970s, the research program of behavioral population genetics was proposed by Lindzey and Thiessen (1970) as a corollary to behavioral genetics. The focus of field was to be global genetic variance in species' behavior. One of the modest goals of the program was to show that the then popular idea of "species-wide uniformity in behavioral adaptations" was untenable and that species were behaviorally polytypic. The scope of the field was to be pan-specific. Lindzey and Thiessen (1970), themselves, conducted their preliminary study on mice, but they made it clear that the research program would extend to humans. The field never took off. As in the case of Jarred Diamond's U.S. best selling book, "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies (1997)", the fate of peoples and states continued to be seen as determined by macro-environmental factors. Such explanations could not account for persistent intrasocietal differences associated with race, though. To fill the gap, an inverted form of raciology (in Avdeyev's sense) evolved. According to this, social, cultural, economic, and political inequalities are explainable by systems of power and cultural oppression; the idea of race, in turn, is a manifestation of this system. Hosang (2014), a proponent of the position, recently articulated the view: "Constructionist theory also argues that race itself is an artifact of power, a historical legacy of colonial expansion, slavery, and mass violence that has shaped much of the past 500 years of world history. In these accounts, race does not form the basis for domination; domination forms the basis for race". Like its mirror image, (racial) constructionism (in Hosang's sense) is an expansive philosophical frame. It is both a way of researching the world and a value system, with (racial) constructionist generally valuing the social deconstruction of race.

Despite the predominance of the constructionist position, the societal implications of behavioral population genetics continued to be explored, for example, by Rushton (1995), Sarich and Miele (2004), Hart (2007), Weiss (2007), Cochrane and Harpending (2009), and Wade (2014). These and other authors have interpreted history and societal development partially through the lens of population and racial behavioral differences. In the 1990s, the term "Human Biodiversity" or "HBD" was adopted by writer Steve Sailer to describe this research. HBD was defined as the "study of biological differences among humans and their impact on society". These analyses differ from older raciological ones in a number of respects. For one, while seen as important, hereditary racial differences are viewed as having only moderate contemporaneous and historical explanatory power. Also, in accord with behavioral genetics, the focus is broader than racial differences. Generally, the concern is with the differential distribution of behavioral and other socially relevant traits both across space and time (as in the case of dysgenics) and within populations (as in the case of sex differences). For these authors, race is sociologically significant insofar as races vary in socially interesting traits.

To reply to some points of your:

Peter:

For better or for worse, the U.S. is the center of the current world-system. When an idea or ideology becomes dominant there, it eventually tends to become dominant elsewhere, partly because of the country's high level of cultural production (books, movies, cartoons, TV programs, etc.)

The US is now the center. In many fields, Germany was the center in the late 1800s to early 1900s. Was it in anthropology and psychology? It was at least a major center. This is why influential American anthropologists like Boas were German in nationality. So, when we talk about behavioral genetics, individual or populational, in the early 1900s, we shouldn't restrict focus to the US.

Peter:

I'm not arguing that nothing changed ideologically during WWII.

Again, you are taking a US-centric view. The fact that the US and USSR dominated after WWII was a major change. A center of academic and cultural influence which was more focused on heredity and racial differences was eliminated. It would be similar to if China and Russia, the major current buffers against end of history post-nationalism, both imploded in 2020. And I said: After 2020 post-nationalism became hegemonic. And you said, "well, no actually it was prior, because throughout the West..."

"From this perspective, the physical characteristics of people, in which traditional physical anthropology was predominantly interested, are taken merely as indicators of mental and intellectual qualities."

This is silly. Can you point to a physical anthropologist who has made this claim? Has anyone argued, for instance, that the melanization of the skin has a direct impact on mental abilities? I'm not talking about correlations here. I'm talking about genetic linkage.

This is an uncharitable reading on your part. I read it as:

[Differences in] the physical characteristics of people, in which traditional physical anthropology was predominantly interested, are taken [as indicators of differences of race which are taken merely as indicators of] mental and intellectual qualities."

"After the war, behavioralism, according to which intraspecifc behavioral differences were largely the product of environment and learning, became the dominant international perspective"

It always was. No one has ever claimed that behavioral differences are largely hardwired. The Nazis did? Well, why did they insist so much on controlling the press, the schools, youth organizations, and the like? Why bother, if behavior is largely hardwired?

More uncharitable reading. I changed this too:

"After the war, behavioralism, according to which genetic influences accounted for little intraspecifc behavioral variance became, internationally, the dominant scientific perspective."

"If you withdraw approval of the paper on account of my adding the following, let me know"

I'll go along with whatever the others have to say. Here and there, you tend to exaggerate things.

"Again, you are taking a US-centric view. The fact that the US and USSR dominated after WWII was a major change."

One could argue that the U.S. was already the leading power before WWI. I would say it clearly was for the period under discussion (circa 1930 to the present).

Why do you write "behavioralism" and not "behaviorism"? If you're not referring to the behaviorist school of psychology, why not use the term "environmental determinism"?

"If you withdraw approval of the paper on account of my adding the following, let me know"

I'll go along with whatever the others have to say. Here and there, you tend to exaggerate things.

I'll either delete the section completely or rework it. I think something should be said, though, about the more outlandish forms of "HBD" that existed in some regions from the 1880s to 1940s.

I made the edits; also I changed two short sections, which are in red. Could you read them over.

...

I used a different translation of the Kant quote. It should be clearer.

Once you check over the last two changes, I think that we will be good here.

Section 3 :

With regard to your comment that I haven't replied to, I agree with the changes you have made. Generally, the entire section is a strong argumentation against the view that historic concepts of race must involve essentialism, either from the perspective of species realism or character essentialism. I'm curious to know whether (or how much) the guys who defend this view are aware of Kant, Buffon and Blumenbach. For what I've read, they don't cite them. Even among the defenders of the race concept, except John Baker's Race.

Linnaeus characterized the metaphysics of the systematics of his day, thusly: “Nature makes species and genus, culture makes varieties, art and nature makes classes and orders.”

I don't understand the above statement, especially the bold part. That's my only question; there's nothing else I want to ask here.

Section 2 :

Remember, that you haven't replied to this comment :

One interrogation however concerns the section "II-A. Biological Race" and its subsection "A selection of Definitions of race from the 20th and 21st century" and specifically "2. Biological Anthropological". The four references you have cited seem not to describe the same idea. Or is it just me ?

Section 2 :

I re-read Section II-A, and I have always the same impression. It's frustating. 10 pages of history of race thinking, and I didn't understand what you want to show us (the underlying message). Apparently, it has something to do with the fact that today, thinkers employ the term race in relation to subspecies while centuries ago it meant either species or subspecies. First, this was mentioned only at the end of the entire section, the consequences of that conclusion being not even explicited, and I got lost at the middle of my reading, so I recommend that you explain the purpose of this section at the very beginning of this section. Your article, remember, is long, so it's not easy to stay focused if the intention of the author is not clearly expressed. Think about it if you want your readers to read what you wrote here. Most people would consider that 150 pages of reading is not very motivating, even if the content of your text is fascinating.

Others, such as Coyne (2012; 2014a; 2014b), define races as morphologically/genetically distinguishable populations that live in allopatry or which evolved differences because they once did.

I don't understand what's in bold.

In keeping with the etymology of the term “race” (e.g., mfr. razza “race, breed, lineage, family”) and with common usage in biology

This is probably a stupid question but what is mfr. razza ?

Alland’s argument is doubly strange because he would undoubtedly agree that there is a biological basis to the average differences in skin pigmentation between the “black”, “white”, and “Hispanic” groups. Anyone who recognizes differences in color must concede that a sociological understanding of race does not preclude genetic differences.

Good answer. Alland's argument (that there are no genetic group differences because "biological race" is not a real variable) was perfectly ridiculous, anyway. And the Simpson's (1961) quote earlier in your section 2 seems to me to be an appropriate answer one can make against Alland's affirmation that biological race is not a real variable. Your (c) "Sociological Race in the United States" is an excellent development of your idea that sociological race does not obscure our understanding of biological race given genetic clustering studies.

While these are races, insofar as they are natural divisions, races are more than these as races include natural divisions cut out of a continua.

Races are more than natural divisions because they are natural divisions cut out of a continua ? I'm not sure what you want to say, but I'm sure this sentence is not the best way to clarify the idea. Your idea was that cluster analysis is still meaningful despite genetic continuity. This sentence, in my opinion, doesn't add anything to our comprehension.

Linnaeus characterized the metaphysics of the systematics of his day, thusly: “Nature makes species and genus, culture makes varieties, art and nature makes classes and orders.”

I don't understand the above statement, especially the bold part. That's my only question; there's nothing else I want to ask here.

Linnaeus was a species realist + creationist. He believed that god created the world and with it species/genus. Therefore "classes and orders" and everything above did not index genealogical relationship, evolutionary history, or anything in the world. These categories were the product of people artfully grouping (art) sets of species/genus (nature) by coincidental general resemblance.

Remember, that you haven't replied to this comment :

One interrogation however concerns the section "II-A. Biological Race" and its subsection "A selection of Definitions of race from the 20th and 21st century" and specifically "2. Biological Anthropological". The four references you have cited seem not to describe the same idea. Or is it just me ?

Which ones?

I re-read Section II-A, and I have always the same impression. It's frustating. 10 pages of history of race thinking, and I didn't understand what you want to show us (the underlying message). Apparently, it has something to do with the fact that today, thinkers employ the term race in relation to subspecies while centuries ago it meant either species or subspecies. First, this was mentioned only at the end of the entire section, the consequences of that conclusion being not even explicited, and I got lost at the middle of my reading, so I recommend that you explain the purpose of this section at the very beginning of this section.

That's pretty rough. I mean what do I say?

The section was called "The Genealogy of the Concept". The should explain it. It was about the origin of the concept. And it was written in reply to Frost's claim that I was making the race concept seem to sensible. Hmmm....

Others, such as Coyne (2012; 2014a; 2014b), define races as morphologically/genetically distinguishable populations that live in allopatry or which evolved differences because they once did.

I don't understand what's in bold.

Human races often don't live together. Some East Asians, for example, live in France, while others live in Hong Kong. This doesn't make them not of the same race. Coyne clarifies that contemporaneous allopatry is not the issue. Historic is. Hence they are groups "]which evolved differences because they once [lived in allopatry].

In keeping with the etymology of the term “race” (e.g., mfr. razza “race, breed, lineage, family”) and with common usage in biology

This is probably a stupid question but what is mfr. razza ?

mfr. = modern French

While these are races, insofar as they are natural divisions, races are more than these as races include natural divisions cut out of a continua.

Races are more than natural divisions because they are natural divisions cut out of a continua ? I'm not sure what you want to say, but I'm sure this sentence is not the best way to clarify the idea. Your idea was that cluster analysis is still meaningful despite genetic continuity. This sentence, in my opinion, doesn't add anything to our comprehension.

[/quote]

No...my idea was that isolates are natural divisions, but they are not the only natural divisions -- regions cut out of a continuum are also races. I said:

While these [groups indexed by cluster analysis because there are discontinuities]
are races, insofar as they are natural divisions [i.e., sometimes cluster analysis programs produce nonsense results], races are more than these [discontinuous races] as races include natural divisions cut out of continua.