Sadly, Buzzfeed published an open letter (rebuttal) to David Reich’s piece signed by 68 researchers and academics claiming it’s a Straw Man that misrepresents & misunderstands concerns about the use categories of “race” and “population.”https://www.buzzfeed.com/bfopinion/race-genetics-david-reich?utm_term=.sdkGPzNAE#.brwgqQOv8 …
-
-
-
This article is laughable. Calling this a rebuttal is pathetic.
-
Tweet unavailable
-
''it also has a high prevalence in populations from much of the Arabian Peninsula, and parts of the Mediterranean and India.'' Many organisms share common characteristics, this doesn't mean that they can't be differentiated. These scientists often resort to single traits....
-
Tweet unavailable
-
"But science and the categories it constructs do not operate in a political vacuum."
-
Tweet unavailable
-
This is why you need to go in depth, look at the evidence yourself and build your own conclusions while disregarding appeals to authority. Signatures from eminent scientists don't mean much.
End of conversation
New conversation -
-
-
Diversity is code for not white
-
And diversity is used as a weapon only for whites.
-
I think you mean against whites, but we agree.
- 1 more reply
New conversation -
-
-
He's making no sense in this reply, saying race is a social construction then implying it's not. Saying behavior/cognition harder to trace to genes than bodily traits/disease, so why confident that some racial stereotypes will be validated, when differences could only be small.
-
He's saying.. - race is a social const. but there are genetic markers i.e. correlated genes that also largely correspond to these categories. - behavior/cognition may be more difficult to trace but there is def. also a genetic aspect to them. nuanced but not contradictory
-
If saying social construct reflects where nature is carved at the joints, then not answering the challenge of how race does not do that. Genetic aspect means nothing. There is a genetic aspect to who can use chopsticks; its use is heritable, but not genetically determined
-
Right, chopstick use is only 'heritable' through a social process eg someone has to teach you so it is not genetically determined. Heritable in the genetic sense implies physical and yes, behavioral traits that occur largely independent of environment.
-
Please don't waste my time. You don't know what you are talking about. The chopsticks example is discussed in a book by Dalton Conley strongly endorsed by Pinker.
End of conversation
New conversation -
-
-
Faint-hearted
Thanks. Twitter will use this to make your timeline better. UndoUndo
-
-
-
Maybe you can answer these questions for me
@sapinker. I have been struggling with them since this controversy with@SamHarrisOrg and@ezraklein came to my attention. I have not seen any of them sufficiently addressed.pic.twitter.com/pKNnlEOlR8
-
I think most of my questions were answered in this article:https://mobile.nytimes.com/2018/03/23/opinion/sunday/genetics-race.html …
-
Maybe you could point me to the answers of your insightful questions. Because i did not find them.
-
The only answer I really came across is the number of races they have settled on. I flip on this issue a lot. The bottom line for me is the boundaries are too grey to bother with any scientifically definitive claims.For me the takeaway is look at genetics, but forget about race.
-
Originally I thought the article cleared some of the mud, but upon further reading I am right back in the mud. To me the race distinction, whether it can be defined and verified or not is pointless. The word race should probably be left out of scientific discourse.
-
Why should ANY word "be left out of scientific discourse"? Trying to erase and/or replace it with some sort of euphemism is just absurd. But since you seem so confused, here is a 6-minute answer to your question https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yN8Jclaqf0Q …

-
A couple points: 1. I never said races don’t exist. I said focus on the genetics forget about naming the races. 2 your video refuses to number the races saying you could divide up to 600 and beyond, the reason why I said race should be left out of the discourse.
-
The genetic markers should be the focus, people self identifying race based on 4 options tells us nothing. Italians and Norwegians have many different genetic markers. Moroccans, Pygmys and Zulus as well. We have the technology to go beyond these arbitrary race names.
- 10 more replies
New conversation -
Loading seems to be taking a while.
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.