Hi Folks,
Despite its great length, I'd like to say a word of welcome to
John Barker's discourse on "race". I've not had time to evaluate
his comments on other people's contributions to this discussion,
still less his discussion of other work.
However, I read with interest his statements about his understanding
of the biological use of "race", and welcomed his laying out of the
biological and genetical background from the point of view of someone
whose studies had given him a thorough background in genetics.
Though I'm a statistician/mathemtician, not really a population biologist,
and still less a geneticist, nevertheless over a period of several years
I was involved in studying the classifications of, especially, fishes
into species and races. Though not really qualified to give a "peer
review", I would like to state that what I read in John's essay matches
very closely the experience I had in studying the literature on these
matters.
As John states, the concept of "race" as a technical term in animal
biology, while subject to some fuzziness on the borders, is nevertheless
pretty definite and beyond doubt has biological significance. In
understanding a term, an important issue is to study how it is defined
and how it is used.
Back on 31 May, I cited definitions and gave examples of use. Study
of biological literature will yield many examples of strictly scientific
use.
Therefore, from this point of view, there is nothing whatever
reprehensible or even politically incorrect about using "race" in
discussing human beings, so long the usage is scientific in the same
way as for other animals.
I do tend to get an impression, when people get upset about "race" in a
human context, that simply because there are people who will abuse the
term in nasty ways, objectors would wish that the term should not be
available, and reject scientific justification for its use because this
would put a weapon in the hands of the racists. Therefore let the concept
of "race" be discredited, even in its biological sense: as it is
sometimes put, "there are no human races". Which, biologically, is not
true. But rejecting a valid term because some people may abuse it is
simply running away from the problem; or, to put it bluntly, being
frightened of the problem; it is cowardly.
To revert to the issue which started all this off, I felt great
indignation on reading of the QCA's apparent attempt to sweep "race"
away in education: "Race has no biological significance". Rubbish.
If education is to be perverted to the extent of censoring valid
scientific concepts, then it will pervert the minds of the young.
Far better to properly explain what "race" means in biology, perhaps
using familiar experiences such as breeds of dog, so that people
grow up with a proper understanding of what it should mean. Though
at the end of the day you will never prevent people from using language
for the purpose of insult, and I dare say that education in the racial
characteristics of dogs could give them ammunition.
(Who's the latest candidate for X's "poodle", by the way? And who's
the currently dominant political "rottweiler"? All is flux.)
One is reminded of the censorship of the square root of 2 by a school
of ancient Greek mathematicians when they realised that it was
what would now be called an irrational number. In their terms, this
was a politically incorrect fact which should not be broadcast.
Fortunately we now know better ...
Oh dear,
Ted.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <[log in to unmask]>
Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 167 1972
Date: 01-Oct-03 Time: 11:11:17
------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------
******************************************************
Please note that if you press the 'Reply' button your
message will go only to the sender of this message.
If you want to reply to the whole list, use your mailer's
'Reply-to-All' button to send your message automatically
to [log in to unmask]
*******************************************************
|