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Post by Miisa on Nov 27, 2012 17:48:25 GMT
Race itself is illogical from a biological perspective. So is species, but not as absurd as race, which is purely a social construct. But in fiction the two are often used interchangeably.
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bill
Senior members 
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Post by bill on Nov 27, 2012 19:32:07 GMT
That sounds like the start of a philosophical debate if ever I heard one. So you would say that it is wrong to differentiate between Europeans, Orientals and Black races for example. I know we all are supposed to have started from the same common ancestors but nevertheless there are some distinct differences between races apart from superficial colour and appearance.
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Post by tangent on Nov 27, 2012 20:08:42 GMT
Race itself is illogical from a biological perspective. So is species, but not as absurd as race, which is purely a social construct. But in fiction the two are often used interchangeably. A species is a useful biological categorization. It is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring, says Wiki, although interbreeding can sometimes take place. Neanderthal and Homo Sapiens are considered to be two different species although we think they were able to interbreed. We are asked to identify our race on government forms (although it is not compulsory). I have no objection to doing so and in general I have found most people are proud of the race to which they belong. Whether they should be proud is another matter (I'm not saying they should or should not, I'm just saying that it is a question we cannot ignore.) |
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Post by Miisa on Nov 27, 2012 20:31:09 GMT
That sounds like the start of a philosophical debate if ever I heard one. So you would say that it is wrong to differentiate between Europeans, Orientals and Black races for example. I know we all are supposed to have started from the same common ancestors but nevertheless there are some distinct differences between races apart from superficial colour and appearance. "Wrong" in a social construct /ethics sense, or do you mean incorrect? The latter, perhaps. It is more that it just doesn't exist. Sure, there are minor regional varieties between populations of beings if they are isolated, but within a few generations of the isolation disappearing it all is meaningless and jumbled. Sooner or later the majority is "mixed race" and the futility and bizarreness of insisting on clinging to pigeonholes becomes even more apparent. Biologically, there is often also more variety within one "race" than between races. It is exactly the same with dogs (breeds = races). Breeds are a wholly unnatural construct that have appeared initially because of geographical factors combined with human selective breeding for traits and later is sustained completely by human having complete control over breeding. If we relinquish the control or even the social construct of strict artificial classification, the idea of breed becomes meaningless, it is all in our heads. Similarly, the classification of people into "races" by skin tone is even more bizarre, as we are ALL various shades of brown on a sliding scale. What is the cutoff point for one? And since there are so many "races", the scale, if you want one, also has to go in many dimensions. Humans are mystifying. But this is all from a biology POV, I stay well away from social studies as a rule, too bizarre. |
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Post by Miisa on Nov 27, 2012 20:47:06 GMT
Race itself is illogical from a biological perspective. So is species, but not as absurd as race, which is purely a social construct. But in fiction the two are often used interchangeably. A species is a useful biological categorization. It is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring, says Wiki, although interbreeding can sometimes take place. Neanderthal and Homo Sapiens are considered to be two different species although we think they were able to interbreed. We are asked to identify our race on government forms (although it is not compulsory). I have no objection to doing so and in general I have found most people are proud of the race to which they belong. Whether they should be proud is another matter (I'm not saying they should or should not, I'm just saying that it is a question we cannot ignore.) How do you feel about ring species then? They demonstrate just how inherently unnatural the classification we insist on using about species is. But then I don't like ticking boxes for such things, not species, races, gender... It isn't political correctness, I am fundamentally bothered by the underlying incorrectness of the data and the ideas they rely on. Even gender is made up of a number of different factors, all on a sliding scale, not binary ones. People can be proud of heritage or genes or whatever all they like, but when someone has 8 great-grandparents of, say, five "races" or cultural backgrounds, what is the logic of ticking a box? Species is a term humans love because it puts things in neat little boxes. The problem is that this leads to a whole array of fallacious ideas and ways of thinking about the world, such as the classing chicken and egg problem, "when did the first human appear and where did they come from", etc. To me these are silly questions, but they demonstrate the way humans like to think and classify things into one box or another. You might as well ask people on a census if they are tall or short (non-compulsory, of course), intelligent or slow, talkative and friendly or unresponsive and silent. These are not objective, classifiable answers that fit into a box. |
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Post by tangent on Nov 27, 2012 22:10:39 GMT
Miisa: How do you feel about ring species then? Fascinating but I don't think the existence of an anomoly is a good reason to abandon the classification. I've spent my whole working life, as a technical author since 1975 putting things in neat little boxes. It's an invaluable and often essential way of explaining a new concept. We must first create a node in our brains to use as a hook for related ideas. We give it a name and it becomes a permanent idea in our minds. We can then link other ideas to it and develop an understanding of it. Learning would otherwise be impossible. I don't think it necessarily leads to a whole array of fallacious ideas if we are careful to understand the limitations. |
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Post by Miisa on Nov 28, 2012 9:40:45 GMT
The thing about ring species is that they are simply the rare cases where the intermediates still exist. For the vast majority of beings, the middle bits are gone, but that doesn't mean they weren't there. And every individual is a intermediate between its parents and its offspring, which could well by future taxonomists be even called "different species" from each other.
I cannot accept the idea of species: to me it is just illogical, incomplete and fallacious. Wrong.
I understand that it works fine for others. But species, race and gender all give me the same heebie-jeebies Pluto used to give me when it was called a planet* and how I thought about evolution before I understood the process from the POV of the genes; something is just a little off.
*I don't like pigeon-holing celestial bodies into planets, planetoids, stars, etc. either, but I do understand the societal need to do so.
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