All FreeDesktop.org Projects Now Appear To Have A Contributor Covenant

[damonlynch]

I haven't read the book -- have you?

No plans to, just like I have no plans to read "The Doctrine of Fascism" by Benito Mussolini.

[microcode]

Your claims about racial difference are very easily refuted by scientific research. It's a fact that you (and yes, that means you) can share more DNA with some random guy in Central Africa (for example) than someone who looks like you from your neighborhood, because that's how genetic variation works. That a Central African might have darker skin means nothing. Using skin color as a proxy for race is baseless because two people with identical skin color can very easily be from different ancestries and geographic locations. Using athletic performance as a proxy for race is also baseless. In the 30s Jews excelled at basketball, supposedly because of their "natural" qualities, which in reality were all racial stereotypes. No basketball fan thinks about Jews like that anymore.

You have a choice. You can educate yourself or not. It's up to you. The science is clear and has been for decades. If you choose to fight it then that says a lot about you and nothing about reality.

What is Race?: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06ybg84
AAA statement on Race: http://www.americananthro.org/Connec...temNumber=2583
Why we must talk about race: http://www.sapiens.org/blog/race/talking-about-race/
Racial realities: http://www.sapiens.org/blog/race/bio...e-and-reality/

You have chosen to dismiss the argument rather than addressing it, so I'm just going to assume that you do not know what the word means to the English speaking world. The fact that most genetic material is shared between human beings is the basis of humans as a species, it does not refute the existence of cohorts with even more shared genetic material (especially those which are visibly distinct) which people often identify as race.

[damonlynch]

You have chosen to dismiss the argument rather than addressing it, so I'm just going to assume that you do not know what the word means to the English speaking world. The fact that most genetic material is shared between human beings is the basis of humans as a species, it does not refute the existence of cohorts with even more shared genetic material (especially those which are visibly distinct) which people often identify as race.

Microcode, whoever you are: you have no idea what you're talking about with respect to race. It's irrelevant if you get your information from Nicholas Wade or a white supremacist website or you just make stuff up as you go along. The fact is that you are wrong, plain and simple. I gave you links where actual biological and social scientists discuss race. These people are experts and are recognized as such. You are not. Go educate yourself, or remain in your state of pretty much total ignorance.

[duby229]

You have chosen to dismiss the argument rather than addressing it, so I'm just going to assume that you do not know what the word means to the English speaking world. The fact that most genetic material is shared between human beings is the basis of humans as a species, it does not refute the existence of cohorts with even more shared genetic material (especially those which are visibly distinct) which people often identify as race.

There are only something like 12 or so genes that have an influence on skin color, That's it. And -ALL- people have the -same- genes that determine their skin color. Therefore -everyone- got those genes from a common ancestor. Pointing out morphological differences does not make a good arguement. The fact is that humans are among the most morphologically diverse species on this planet, but we are also genetically speaking one of the most closely related species on the planet.

edit: There is something like 10 times more genetic diversity just among black east africans then in all of the rest of humanity. East africans are something like 10 times more distantly related to each other on average than you are to them!!

edit: It's an absolute guarantee that throughtout most of human history, most of your grandfathers were black east africans.

[microcode]

Microcode, whoever you are: you have no idea what you're talking about with respect to race. It's irrelevant if you get your information from Nicholas Wade or a white supremacist website or you just make stuff up as you go along. The fact is that you are wrong, plain and simple. I gave you links where actual biological and social scientists discuss race. These people are experts and are recognized as such. You are not. Go educate yourself, or remain in your state of pretty much total ignorance.

I don't know who Nicholas Wade is. I did not write the wiktionary article on the word race. Academia does not own language, much less do individual academics.

If you can't explain it, in your own words, you are appealing solely to authority. You talk about my "state of total ignorance" when you can't explain your assertion to any extent. You instead rely on authority figures to make the same vapid assertions and move the goal posts as far as they need to move to feel good about yourself.

I don't need an education to see that you don't know what you're talking about, and can't think for yourself.

If you can't explain it, you don't know it. It doesn't matter if there are a thousand qualified people asserting that summation doesn't exist because they refuse to acknowledge what people mean when they say summation. The existence of race is self evident in that the term would never have been coined if you couldn't see it plainly with your eyes. No amount of ad verecundiam, ad populum, ad baculum, or ad hominem will disprove the existence of something which by definition would not have been named if it didn't exist.

One of the great commandments of science is, "Mistrust arguments from authority." ... Too many such arguments have proved too painfully wrong. Authorities must prove their contentions like everybody else.

[duby229]

If you can't explain it, you don't know it. It doesn't matter if there are a thousand qualified people asserting that summation doesn't exist because they refuse to acknowledge what people mean when they say summation. The existence of race is self evident in that the term would never have been coined if you couldn't see it plainly with your eyes. No amount of ad verecundiam, ad populum, or ad hominem will disprove the existence of something which by definition would not have been named if it didn't exist.

There have been plenty of things that have been named scientifically that didn't exist. Science is nothing more than a collection of theories that only hold true for as long as they haven't been disproven. Race has already been disproven. That theory is already broken.

[microcode]

There have been plenty of things that have been named scientifically that didn't exist. Science is nothing more than a collection of theories that only hold true for as long as they haven't been disproven. Race has already been disproven. That theory is already broken.

The question of whether race exists or not is not related to how similar people are, it is not related to how useful it is as a category (we all know it's effectively useless). The only criterion for whether race exists or not is if it can be observed as it is described, and indeed it can. You, I, and everyone here know what races look like, and know more or less what people mean when they use the term.

Is it useful? Not for most scientific or professional purposes.
Does it exist? Without a doubt. A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.

[Frogging101]

This is very disappointing and worrying. It is a suggestion by freedesktop.org that the free software projects they host are acceptable platforms for agenda-pushing. I think it would be wise for important projects to start looking for other hosting.

[duby229]

The question of whether race exists or not is not related to how similar people are, it is not related to how useful it is as a category (we all know it's effectively useless). The only criterion for whether race exists or not is if it can be observed as it is described, and indeed it can. You, I, and everyone here know what races look like, and know more or less what people mean when they use the term.

Is it useful? Not for most scientific or professional purposes.
Does it exist? Without a doubt. A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.

Morphology is only skin deep. You don't call breeds of dog races, because that's not what they are. In fact they are all dogs, even though dogs in total as a species have hundreds of times more genetic diversity than humans do.

If you want to consider morphology as the foundation for race, you'll have to consider all types, including geological morphism, sexual dimorphism, or even morphology caused by disease. Then to make it worse you'll find that whole paradigm breaks when you consider inter- and cross-breeding. And then there's the whole matter of retro-viruses, and that breaks the morphological definition for race even further, because it's possible for you to die a different race than you were born!

[damonlynch]

If race does not exist, then why do e.g. does the national bone marrow donation registry require detailed racial background to help find bone marrow matches so donations will not be rejected by the immune system? [1] And why do bone marrow donation organizations state "the specification of the donor’s ethnic origin is extremely important?" [2]. Here is a study relating to bone marrow transplant success matching and success rates involving ethnic background [3].

[1] http://assets.cheekswab.org/img/donor-form/big/race.jpg
[2] http://www.cheekswab.org/join-the-re...ation-process/
[3] http://www.nature.com/bmt/journal/v4...t2012150a.html

Why don't you ask one of their actual scientists to explain the connection between the information they say they need and what evolutionary biologists and physical anthropologists say about human variation? The answer is sure to be interesting.