This evening, Spawktalk, who goes by the name of Sean Last for The Right Stuff (TRS), wrote a rebuttal to my first post on the topic of race, "Lewontin's Fallacy" and Race. As I explained in the comments on his article, I've opted not to reply for a multitude of reasons, but am still interested in writing a reflection on the discussion we had. First, though, I want to talk about my experiences reading the article first.
Having been familiar with the kind of articles TRS produces, I was honestly a bit nervous. They're typically, even as Sean admitted, quite inflammatory and hostile, especially towards liberals (which, I suppose, is what they might see me as, though I'd disagree). I was surprised to find that the only things that caused my brow to furrow while reading his article were the title (which Michael Enoch admitted was not Sean's doing) and the subtexts under the pictures (which were funnier than they were offensive). It was a pleasant surprise, although it really shouldn't have been. My exchange with Sean was quite friendly, and so I shouldn't have suspected his rebuttal to be much different.
The comments were even more surprising, at least initially. My experiences on TRS have told me that the commenters can and will be very vicious in their responses, and can quickly reject any type of reasoned discussion in exchange for aggression and toxicity. This was by far not the case tonight. The commenters were friendly, gracious, and quite nice to speak to. As one commenter expressed, it was a real breath of fresh air. As I said there as well, there's no reason that people of different views can't have a friendly discussion. While this was initially the case, now the comments seem to have devolved into the typical exchange I'd expect there. It's a shame, but what can you do?
To reflect on the discussion itself, it was quite enjoyable. Sean brought up some interesting points, and there were moments where I had to concede to his arguments, and ultimately I took away some new perspectives; namely how race realists typically define "race." To Sean, race does retain a degree of arbitration, and it is only one of a multiplicity of ways in which someone can examine human genetic variation. I came to realize this isn't entirely inconsistent with my own views; the conclusions we draw, however, regarding the significance of racial categories, or whether or not those categories are objective or biological in nature, is what we ended up having to agree to disagree on.
A lot of the points in the article seemed to be things I've addressed already, either in response to commenters or in sections of my other posts on the topic. Sean and I do fundamentally disagree on one factor which I think is important to bring up. Say, for example, that the social ramifications of racial categories is what has caused group differentials in IQ. To Sean, this is still a validation of race as a human taxonomy. To me, this is evidence of social construction, specifically not of biological validation. I don't see us reconciling this difference in interpretation, but I think it's interesting to note the stark contrast between the conclusions we drew from the same point. It just further shows the complication behind this subject.
Sean also brought up a point about the AAA, AAPA and HGP's definitions of race, and how they are problematic given race realists' definition of race. I absolutely agree, and I emailed the AAA on their article expressing my concerns. I've yet to receive a reply, and so I hope others will ask too, demanding a higher priority on the question. At the same time, Sean and I disagree on our trust in these organizations. I trust the consensus view of anthropologists while Sean is cynical of them. While I believe that these organizations have a much greater advantage in terms of access to scientific literature regarding the subject, Sean believes our access is comparable to theirs. Again, I suppose we'll have to agree to disagree on these points.
I don't think that Sean fully understands what I mean when I talk about the social or cultural construction of race, and so I'll clarify my views here. When one speaks about the social construction of race, we are drawing attention to its origins, its modern usage, and its social ramifications. One could argue that all things are socially constructed, but this is usually very uninformative. For example, we can talk about the social construction of a hammer; however, hammers were explicitly invented by humans, and so we naturally define what it is and what qualifies as a hammer. We could also talk about the social construction of grass, but this has a pretty universal consensus. Having said all of that, I do not believe that "race" as a general taxonomy is overwhelmingly a social construct. When I say that race is a social construct, I mean that our decision as to what groups of humans qualify as different races is socially constructed; that is, the classification itself is not overwhelmingly a social construct, but what people we choose to put into that classification (for humans, anyway) is. Another way to put it: race is "a culturally constructed label that crudely and imprecisely describes real variation" (Relethford 2009). I love that quote.
If I think of anything else to say about our exchange, I'll just keep adding it onto this post. All in all, I enjoyed the past two months of discussion over this topic, though there were major time gaps between our replies. I think that Sean puts a lot of thought into the responses he makes, and as I stated on his article, I greatly respect his intellect and passion for the subject. He seems to be, to me, an intellectually honest person, and I hope that he dedicates his time and effort to a related field of study later on in his career. While I personally believe racial categorization is problematic and mostly uninformative, there is no reason to stop someone who disagrees from contributing to the academic discussion over this issue. Our disagreement is based on our experiences, and so a shared experience in the future might bring us and like-minded individuals closer to an agreement.
Thank you all very much for reading.
Showing posts with label Anthropology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Anthropology. Show all posts
Saturday, December 6, 2014
Wednesday, November 19, 2014
Masculinity/Femininity And The "Return Of Kings" (ROK) Complex: An Anthropological Perspective
I know, I'm sorry, I'll get to some topics that people are asking for eventually. I have several in my queue that I want to get published some time soon, but the large majority of them are going to be covered by Nick who, as I'm sure many of you have noticed, is MIA. I promise to keep things interesting, though, until that time comes; that is, I'm going to try (at least in this post) to give the attitude he may have, had he done this himself.
This is actually on behalf of a new friend of mine who will go unnamed for personal reasons. He's unfamiliar with typical Western culture and is confused easily by the way we approach issues, topics and ideas in general. Not so recently, he dug through my search history (I know, right?) and found a website that I'm pretty sure is going to inadvertently mentally scar him. This website is none other than Return Of Kings.
Return Of Kings (ROK), in my own words, is a misogynistic website filled with misogynistic people who have fringe, uninformed ideas of the way society (and people) operate. I'm fairly certain most of the stories told on that website are made up, or at least exaggerated, but that's beside the point. Its central focus rests on the concepts of masculinity and femininity, which they use as universal terms which only have one meaning. It's run by a guy who goes by the moniker "Roosh V," who has been dubbed the internet's most infamous misogynist.
When I say misogynist, I mean the traditional
definition of the word (not the meaningless semantics that
surround its modern use): woman-hater.
Nothing particularly new or interesting here, so let's get to the point: what did my friend see that confused him so much? Well, it was this:
I should be honest here: I'm not a feminist. I think that the goals of feminism, as it was originally intended, have long been achieved. I believe that the prejudices and discriminatory institutions/practices which may disenfranchise underprivileged groups are contingent upon complex social structures which hardly anyone actually understands (if you even understood that sentence, you're on the right track), and thus the remaining facets of the social movement are just about politics and shouting (or "critical analysis," cue laugh track). These kinds of topics normally aren't a huge focus of mine, because I'm not interested in them; quite frankly, I agree with the rest of the world that ROK should continue to be ignored, and that their idiocy is recognized by the majority of sensible people. It should really end at that.
Someone accused me on my last post of writing specifically to apply social constructionism and "cultural determinism" to these topics; so I've figured out a way to tie this into my anthropological/psychological interests, namely by just examining their About page. Not only do I get the satisfaction of knowing that they're idiots, but I also get the joy of being able to incorporate an otherwise uninteresting topic (for me, personally) into something unique and cool. I don't think anyone else has taken the approach I'm about to take, and so this should be pretty exciting for some of you. For the rest of you, well... try anyway.
So here's what I actually figured out: the About page is, no duh, a representation of the premises the website is founded on. Rebut their premises, and you have dismissed their conclusions and insulted their ideas of masculinity and being douchebags. I don't feel like just saying that they're dumb -- I feel like explaining why they're dumb, rationally, so that other people can recognize their idiocy as well without sharing the kind of innate reactions I have to individuals/groups with behaviour similar to that of ROK. I'm going to do a point-by-point refutation of the seven premises that ROK is founded upon, and hopefully make a few people angry. Most importantly for me, however, I'm going to explain to my friend (who will, hopefully, read this post in its entirety) why none of what ROK says makes any sense given the knowledge we have, and why he may have been confused in the first place.
With that, let's begin.
1. Men and women are genetically different, both physically and mentally. Sex roles evolved in all mammals. Humans are not exempt.
This is not wrong at its face: the sexes naturally have their own physical/mental differences due to the fact that, as the nature of being male or female demands, they differ genetically. The error is in omission, or at the very least implication. Presumably, what they mean is that the sex roles found in humans (I will warn now that this is dependent on cultural context) are a result of genetic differences, and the physical/mental differences in males and females are genetic in origin. This is not the case. We hardly understand the nature of sex differences in many areas (as my last post shows), and so don't understand the origin of those differences, whether they be environmental, genetic, or a complex combination of the two. What's even more interesting is their admission that sex roles evolve in mammals. In fact they do, but these roles are not consistent with each other, and we often find "role reversal" among many species of mammals that is counter intuitive to what most people think, as many people believe that sex roles are the result of just having a sex chromosome.
Usually, one replies to these arguments by arguing Bateman's principle, which has generally been accepted as being true. It's important to note that Bateman's original experiment was flawed methodologically, although his conclusion appears to be true for most mammals, and the traditional argument that when sex roles are reversed in a species, so are other factors like reproductive success (RS) variance is not always the case. But is it true for humans? Not entirely sure, as reliable information is limited and human populations are quite diverse; however, analysis of what data is available brings some questions to Bateman's principles as applied to humans. This study has been batted around as both supporting and opposing Bateman's conclusions, but such debates should be suspect to scrutiny due to the fact that there were only 18 populations examined in the study. At present, as stated, we're not sure what the nature is of many complexities in the human species in terms of sex/gender differences. It is vital to remember, though, that the extent that culture plays a role in our species is unprecedented in any other species of mammal, and so the consequences are very possibly not what we'd expect.
2. Men will opt out of monogamy and reproduction if there are no incentives to engage in them.
This is a peculiar claim. I'd venture to guess that the reason they included "if there are no incentives to engage in them" is that the people at ROK see monogamous marriage (i.e. to them, dedication to a woman) as a sign of weakness or inferiority in men, and so if they find themselves in this position, they can say "I had a logical reason to do this for my own benefit."
The reason it's peculiar, however, is that it's at odds with reality. While the majority of societies in the world do practice polygamy (about 83% of sampled societies), most people practice monogamy due to increasing industrialization and the fact that industrialized cultures have greater populations than pre-industrialized cultures. What I find funny about the argument, however, is that if we're speaking in terms of RS variance or just evolution, what incentive could be greater than having more children? Then I get confused, because it says they'll opt out of reproduction as well, which is antithetical to Bateman's principles and, well, evolution, which is (according to them) the cause of the differences between men and women that they so desperately want to preserve and declare. Maybe this is bad writing on the owner's part, but I think it's more likely that this is a result of stupidity.
Getting back to the argument, it could be countered that the "incentive" (or rather, the pressure) for more people to practice monogamy is industrialization; that is, to keep up with the status quo, men are practicing monogamy at "unnatural" levels. But societies change -- if we go back far enough, all of our ancestors were hunter-gatherers (H/G). These changes don't just occur as preemptive self-pressures from the future status quo, but as responses to many different pressures as a result of cultural adaptation, a unique phenomenon mostly exclusive to humans. It could be argued that this is "bad," but to what standard do we hold this to be true? Because it's assumed to be biological? This is an appeal to nature, as what's "natural" isn't always the best, and what's biological isn't necessarily the prevailing pressure on how we behave and think.
What's even more interesting about this is that our origins aren't even polygamous. Many H/G cultures did and do exhibit monogamy. This is because marriage systems only make sense in the context of culture, not as part of some evolutionary preference in our species.
3. Past traditions and rituals that evolved alongside humanity served a net benefit to the family unit.
Of course, but this is a universal statement for a multifaceted phenomenon. The structure of a family unit changes from culture to culture, from consanguineous to nuclear to polygamous to extended families dominating whatever given society, and so "traditions and rituals" (as vague as that is, but I'll go with it) "evolved" alongside human cultures in a way that these complex social systems make sense when combined together. Here, it's assumed that "traditions and rituals" holds no ambiguity and makes sense even when not given a particular time or space in which those traditions and rituals were found, but this is consistent with the assumed universality of all of the claims made on ROK as the basis for their beliefs. This one isn't too interesting, so let's move on.
4. Testosterone is the biological cause for masculinity. Environmental changes that reduce the hormone’s concentration in men will cause them to be weaker and more feminine.
Here we get into the definition of masculinity. I can't make any assumptions based just on what I see here, but what I can say for sure is that "masculinity" changes, again, from culture to culture and has no set definition. Presumably what they mean is that their definition of "masculine" is the right one, and so that is the basis for their claims. Circulating testosterone levels are higher in males than in females and do result in the enhancement of sex traits, and to this extent I might agree with this premise. The difficulty to be found here, however, is the burning question: what is masculinity?
Testosterone can be linked to a suite of traits, including muscle growth and efficiency, alcoholism and aggression (although the evidence for the latter is up for scrutiny); yet I wouldn't start calling a man less "masculine" for not being an alcoholic or being able to control his temper. This is because masculinity is up for interpretation, and testosterone is not the only thing which influences this trait. For example, one might consider it gay for men to be hugging and kissing in a bar, yet this is quite common in Spain and Italy after a celebration or a winning football game. It might be considered feminine for men to be shy and timid, avoiding direct eye contact in America, but this is the norm in Japan. Gender roles are culturally constructed, and so to say that hormones cause men to be "masculine" is only one perspective. It would be more accurate to say "testosterone is important in the expression of sex traits in males and females, and some attributes of those traits, such as increased muscle or more hair, are considered 'masculine' in American society." There are no universal claims to be made here, however.
5. A woman’s value significantly depends on her fertility and beauty. A man’s value significantly depends on his resources, intellect, and character.
This seems contradictory to the "men will opt out of reproduction" claim, unless of course "beauty" is the incentive to marry and reproduce... but then what is beauty? There are different standards of beauty around the world, again: probably the most well known example of this is the 'peculiar' tradition of women of the Kayan tribe in Thailand to add gold rings to their neck when they're young and keep adding to stretch out their necks. Another example might be self-scarring in the Karo tribe of Ethiopia, which is seen as a beautiful trait for women. This same habit of self-scarring is seen among the Nuer of southern Sudan, only it is also seen as a sign of maturity and masculinity among the men (the boys receive gaar on their foreheads to enter manhood, while the women have their skin plucked to create bumps on their skin).
So we see that beauty has different definitions; but whatever the case may be, is it true that fertility and beauty are what women are valued for universally? This is not so. Women in many horticultural societies with bride-wealth systems of marriage exchange are seen as valuable purely for the fact that once they are married off, they receive wealth from the groom, and this wealth is shared with their brothers so that they are able to marry. A woman's value in these cultures, then, is dependent on their ability to get their brothers married as well. A woman's wealth is her value in systems where the marriage exchange is through a dowry, as (although this is unintended) her wealth is then transferred to the husband's possession (unless the woman is smart enough to bury it, or something).
So, a woman's beauty is subjective, her fertility should be irrelevant according to ROK, and neither of these are necessary/sufficient conditions for her to be seen as valuable. What of men? Is their value dependent on their resources, intellect and character?
Notice how these three traits enable the man much more leniency than the woman. ROK sets strict standards for beauty and denounces many things which may be seen as beautiful to other people from other cultures or backgrounds, such as piercings or tattoos. Their fertility is not up for interpretation. A man's character, intellect and resources, however, are all up for interpretation, with the former probably having the strictest conditions of the three. What makes a man intelligent? I doubt they ask for a man's IQ upon meeting him, or expect women to do so. I also doubt that their only condition for intellect is "think like us" (though this wouldn't surprise me). What is "character," too? Confidence? Is that it? Who knows? I certainly don't, but I can say quite easily that a man's value can be dependent on other things as well.
Consider the Nuer again. A man's value in their culture is the beauty, strength and health of his cattle, which he worships as being his connection to God. Could this be considered a resource? Perhaps, but you could say then that everything is a resource: beauty is a resource if used correctly, as are power tools. Resource is a vague term, and so if this is the standard of value for men, men have a lot of leeway; and coming from ROK, it's not hard to see why this may be the case.
6. Elimination of traditional sex roles and the promotion of unlimited mating choice in women unleashes their promiscuity and other negative behaviors that block family formation.
We've already discussed how the family unit is also a cultural construct, but what of this claim that if "traditional sex roles" are eliminated, and unlimited mating choice is promoted, that women will become promiscuous? This is also not so, but this is by their own admission. As we've seen, a woman's value is dependent on her beauty and her fertility. If, then, a woman is "ugly" and infertile, she can try to be as promiscuous as she wants and violate all the traditional sex roles that they want her to have; her desires will not come to fruition, and "true men" will shun her as being low in worth and not appropriate for marriage. Also, what family formation do they see as being desirable? Presumably not one contingent on monogamy, but then what is their standard for the family unit? Polygamous marriage and subsequent creation of an "odd" family unit in America, for example, would be antithetical to personal liberties and individualization which marks industrialized societies.
Let's get past that, though. Do women become promiscuous if sex roles are destroyed and unlimited mating choices are granted to them? Apparently not, as the fertility rate (according to them) drops when these things occur, as we will see in their final premise. In addition, as one of the articles reveal, they find this perfectly acceptable and go out of their way to benefit from such behaviour.
So their arguments are contradictory, we get that, but I know that someone is going to say "contraception!" So, assuming contraception is available to all women, and they meet the qualifications again, does their promiscuity increase? Again, it is not so. If this were the case, we should expect that women who are more promiscuous would use more contraceptives to counter their behaviour, but this isn't the case. Women who use contraceptives are no more likely to engage in promiscuous behaviour than their counterparts. At every facet of this argument, it falls apart. Now, for the final point.
7. Socialism, feminism, cultural Marxism, and social justice warriorism aim to destroy the family unit, decrease the fertility rate, and impoverish the state through large welfare entitlements.
I wanted to make a post about this in the past, but since it has come up here, I'll just state the facts. First off, the concept of "cultural Marxism" is a joke. Secondly, there's no connection between socialism and fertility (otherwise the United States TFR would be skyrocketing, and Sweden's TFR would be plummeting, but they're comparable). There's also no connection between feminism and fertility (otherwise Japan's TFR would be skyrocketing, and America's TFR would be plummeting, but America's TFR is higher than Japan's). We've already gone over the family unit, and socialist nations are by far not the most impoverished states in the world. Fertility rates are dropping because of economic downfall, higher rates of education, government policy actions (i.e. China, India), etc. This is not too interesting to talk about since the data is out there and readily available. It's just wrong.
We're finally done. For those of you who kept up with all of this, good job. Now it's time to talk about the Return Of Kings Complex. As we've observed ROK seems to set standards that are much more lenient on men than on women, and do so without any backing. They are also contradictory in their stances, and so will say that one thing (feminism) causes fertility rates to fall, but will also cause promiscuity to rise. We know this to not be the case. Another example was that they claim promiscuous behaviour is bad and destroys the family unit, and yet they indulge in it.
So what are their motivations? Why is it that they make so many contradictory claims, and are so strong about how they think men and women should behave, when they have little-to-no support for their views? Let's consider a combination of things they believe:
1: Women will be promiscuous if given certain pressures, and this is bad; however, they're okay with it.
2: Men will not engage in monogamy unless given incentive to, yet the family unit (presumably the nuclear one) needs to be preserved.
3: Feminism is causing the destruction of the family unit and the fertility rate.
4: Women are only valuable because of their fertility and beauty, nothing else.
What can be inferred from each of these beliefs?
1: Women shouldn't be promiscuous, but men should be promiscuous and thus it's okay to be promiscuous with women who are promiscuous, so long as they're beautiful.
2: Men will naturally want more than one wife, but the family unit is being destroyed by women.
3: Empowering women and bringing them up in society causes the destruction of fertility rates and the family unit.
4: Women are not valued for anything besides how useful and appealing they are to men.
The motivation? No shit, they just really don't like women (but love them) and really love men (but they're not gay) and want men to be in charge (they like it like that). The conclusion?
The folks over at ROK are bisexual misanthropes who like to take it doggy style. This is the ROK Complex.
Thank you all very much for reading.
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This is actually on behalf of a new friend of mine who will go unnamed for personal reasons. He's unfamiliar with typical Western culture and is confused easily by the way we approach issues, topics and ideas in general. Not so recently, he dug through my search history (I know, right?) and found a website that I'm pretty sure is going to inadvertently mentally scar him. This website is none other than Return Of Kings.
 |
| I have more game than Roosh V. |
Nothing particularly new or interesting here, so let's get to the point: what did my friend see that confused him so much? Well, it was this:
"Return Of Kings is a blog for heterosexual, masculine men. It’s meant for a small but vocal collection of men in America today who believe men should be masculine and women should be feminine."He didn't understand what it meant for men to be masculine or women to be feminine; that is, he didn't realize that men could be anything but masculine, or women to be anything but feminine. I knew instantly what he was confused about: the difference between "sex" and "gender" in our culture (and all others), and how those roles can sometimes not be coincident with one another. For those of you unfamiliar with what I'm talking about, it's easily summed up in this way: sex refers to the biological differences between males and females, while gender refers to the interpretations and expectations of them prescribed by society. What ROK means by "men should be masculine" or "women should be feminine" is that the sexes of humans should maintain their "traditional" gender roles, which have been prescribed to them by their biological predispositions (or so ROK says). This is an issue that has been addressed exhaustively by people from many disciplines, but most recognizably by feminists.
I should be honest here: I'm not a feminist. I think that the goals of feminism, as it was originally intended, have long been achieved. I believe that the prejudices and discriminatory institutions/practices which may disenfranchise underprivileged groups are contingent upon complex social structures which hardly anyone actually understands (if you even understood that sentence, you're on the right track), and thus the remaining facets of the social movement are just about politics and shouting (or "critical analysis," cue laugh track). These kinds of topics normally aren't a huge focus of mine, because I'm not interested in them; quite frankly, I agree with the rest of the world that ROK should continue to be ignored, and that their idiocy is recognized by the majority of sensible people. It should really end at that.
 |
| Paraphrase: "Men should be masculine." - Cher |
So here's what I actually figured out: the About page is, no duh, a representation of the premises the website is founded on. Rebut their premises, and you have dismissed their conclusions and insulted their ideas of masculinity and being douchebags. I don't feel like just saying that they're dumb -- I feel like explaining why they're dumb, rationally, so that other people can recognize their idiocy as well without sharing the kind of innate reactions I have to individuals/groups with behaviour similar to that of ROK. I'm going to do a point-by-point refutation of the seven premises that ROK is founded upon, and hopefully make a few people angry. Most importantly for me, however, I'm going to explain to my friend (who will, hopefully, read this post in its entirety) why none of what ROK says makes any sense given the knowledge we have, and why he may have been confused in the first place.
With that, let's begin.
1. Men and women are genetically different, both physically and mentally. Sex roles evolved in all mammals. Humans are not exempt.
This is not wrong at its face: the sexes naturally have their own physical/mental differences due to the fact that, as the nature of being male or female demands, they differ genetically. The error is in omission, or at the very least implication. Presumably, what they mean is that the sex roles found in humans (I will warn now that this is dependent on cultural context) are a result of genetic differences, and the physical/mental differences in males and females are genetic in origin. This is not the case. We hardly understand the nature of sex differences in many areas (as my last post shows), and so don't understand the origin of those differences, whether they be environmental, genetic, or a complex combination of the two. What's even more interesting is their admission that sex roles evolve in mammals. In fact they do, but these roles are not consistent with each other, and we often find "role reversal" among many species of mammals that is counter intuitive to what most people think, as many people believe that sex roles are the result of just having a sex chromosome.
 |
| Nobody denies sexual dimorphism. |
2. Men will opt out of monogamy and reproduction if there are no incentives to engage in them.
This is a peculiar claim. I'd venture to guess that the reason they included "if there are no incentives to engage in them" is that the people at ROK see monogamous marriage (i.e. to them, dedication to a woman) as a sign of weakness or inferiority in men, and so if they find themselves in this position, they can say "I had a logical reason to do this for my own benefit."
The reason it's peculiar, however, is that it's at odds with reality. While the majority of societies in the world do practice polygamy (about 83% of sampled societies), most people practice monogamy due to increasing industrialization and the fact that industrialized cultures have greater populations than pre-industrialized cultures. What I find funny about the argument, however, is that if we're speaking in terms of RS variance or just evolution, what incentive could be greater than having more children? Then I get confused, because it says they'll opt out of reproduction as well, which is antithetical to Bateman's principles and, well, evolution, which is (according to them) the cause of the differences between men and women that they so desperately want to preserve and declare. Maybe this is bad writing on the owner's part, but I think it's more likely that this is a result of stupidity.
Getting back to the argument, it could be countered that the "incentive" (or rather, the pressure) for more people to practice monogamy is industrialization; that is, to keep up with the status quo, men are practicing monogamy at "unnatural" levels. But societies change -- if we go back far enough, all of our ancestors were hunter-gatherers (H/G). These changes don't just occur as preemptive self-pressures from the future status quo, but as responses to many different pressures as a result of cultural adaptation, a unique phenomenon mostly exclusive to humans. It could be argued that this is "bad," but to what standard do we hold this to be true? Because it's assumed to be biological? This is an appeal to nature, as what's "natural" isn't always the best, and what's biological isn't necessarily the prevailing pressure on how we behave and think.
What's even more interesting about this is that our origins aren't even polygamous. Many H/G cultures did and do exhibit monogamy. This is because marriage systems only make sense in the context of culture, not as part of some evolutionary preference in our species.
3. Past traditions and rituals that evolved alongside humanity served a net benefit to the family unit.
Of course, but this is a universal statement for a multifaceted phenomenon. The structure of a family unit changes from culture to culture, from consanguineous to nuclear to polygamous to extended families dominating whatever given society, and so "traditions and rituals" (as vague as that is, but I'll go with it) "evolved" alongside human cultures in a way that these complex social systems make sense when combined together. Here, it's assumed that "traditions and rituals" holds no ambiguity and makes sense even when not given a particular time or space in which those traditions and rituals were found, but this is consistent with the assumed universality of all of the claims made on ROK as the basis for their beliefs. This one isn't too interesting, so let's move on.
4. Testosterone is the biological cause for masculinity. Environmental changes that reduce the hormone’s concentration in men will cause them to be weaker and more feminine.
Here we get into the definition of masculinity. I can't make any assumptions based just on what I see here, but what I can say for sure is that "masculinity" changes, again, from culture to culture and has no set definition. Presumably what they mean is that their definition of "masculine" is the right one, and so that is the basis for their claims. Circulating testosterone levels are higher in males than in females and do result in the enhancement of sex traits, and to this extent I might agree with this premise. The difficulty to be found here, however, is the burning question: what is masculinity?
 |
| Notice how most of these effects are non-behavioural. |
5. A woman’s value significantly depends on her fertility and beauty. A man’s value significantly depends on his resources, intellect, and character.
This seems contradictory to the "men will opt out of reproduction" claim, unless of course "beauty" is the incentive to marry and reproduce... but then what is beauty? There are different standards of beauty around the world, again: probably the most well known example of this is the 'peculiar' tradition of women of the Kayan tribe in Thailand to add gold rings to their neck when they're young and keep adding to stretch out their necks. Another example might be self-scarring in the Karo tribe of Ethiopia, which is seen as a beautiful trait for women. This same habit of self-scarring is seen among the Nuer of southern Sudan, only it is also seen as a sign of maturity and masculinity among the men (the boys receive gaar on their foreheads to enter manhood, while the women have their skin plucked to create bumps on their skin).
So we see that beauty has different definitions; but whatever the case may be, is it true that fertility and beauty are what women are valued for universally? This is not so. Women in many horticultural societies with bride-wealth systems of marriage exchange are seen as valuable purely for the fact that once they are married off, they receive wealth from the groom, and this wealth is shared with their brothers so that they are able to marry. A woman's value in these cultures, then, is dependent on their ability to get their brothers married as well. A woman's wealth is her value in systems where the marriage exchange is through a dowry, as (although this is unintended) her wealth is then transferred to the husband's possession (unless the woman is smart enough to bury it, or something).
So, a woman's beauty is subjective, her fertility should be irrelevant according to ROK, and neither of these are necessary/sufficient conditions for her to be seen as valuable. What of men? Is their value dependent on their resources, intellect and character?
 |
| "Beauty" to the Nuer. |
Consider the Nuer again. A man's value in their culture is the beauty, strength and health of his cattle, which he worships as being his connection to God. Could this be considered a resource? Perhaps, but you could say then that everything is a resource: beauty is a resource if used correctly, as are power tools. Resource is a vague term, and so if this is the standard of value for men, men have a lot of leeway; and coming from ROK, it's not hard to see why this may be the case.
6. Elimination of traditional sex roles and the promotion of unlimited mating choice in women unleashes their promiscuity and other negative behaviors that block family formation.
We've already discussed how the family unit is also a cultural construct, but what of this claim that if "traditional sex roles" are eliminated, and unlimited mating choice is promoted, that women will become promiscuous? This is also not so, but this is by their own admission. As we've seen, a woman's value is dependent on her beauty and her fertility. If, then, a woman is "ugly" and infertile, she can try to be as promiscuous as she wants and violate all the traditional sex roles that they want her to have; her desires will not come to fruition, and "true men" will shun her as being low in worth and not appropriate for marriage. Also, what family formation do they see as being desirable? Presumably not one contingent on monogamy, but then what is their standard for the family unit? Polygamous marriage and subsequent creation of an "odd" family unit in America, for example, would be antithetical to personal liberties and individualization which marks industrialized societies.
Let's get past that, though. Do women become promiscuous if sex roles are destroyed and unlimited mating choices are granted to them? Apparently not, as the fertility rate (according to them) drops when these things occur, as we will see in their final premise. In addition, as one of the articles reveal, they find this perfectly acceptable and go out of their way to benefit from such behaviour.
So their arguments are contradictory, we get that, but I know that someone is going to say "contraception!" So, assuming contraception is available to all women, and they meet the qualifications again, does their promiscuity increase? Again, it is not so. If this were the case, we should expect that women who are more promiscuous would use more contraceptives to counter their behaviour, but this isn't the case. Women who use contraceptives are no more likely to engage in promiscuous behaviour than their counterparts. At every facet of this argument, it falls apart. Now, for the final point.
7. Socialism, feminism, cultural Marxism, and social justice warriorism aim to destroy the family unit, decrease the fertility rate, and impoverish the state through large welfare entitlements.
I wanted to make a post about this in the past, but since it has come up here, I'll just state the facts. First off, the concept of "cultural Marxism" is a joke. Secondly, there's no connection between socialism and fertility (otherwise the United States TFR would be skyrocketing, and Sweden's TFR would be plummeting, but they're comparable). There's also no connection between feminism and fertility (otherwise Japan's TFR would be skyrocketing, and America's TFR would be plummeting, but America's TFR is higher than Japan's). We've already gone over the family unit, and socialist nations are by far not the most impoverished states in the world. Fertility rates are dropping because of economic downfall, higher rates of education, government policy actions (i.e. China, India), etc. This is not too interesting to talk about since the data is out there and readily available. It's just wrong.
 |
| Fertility rate by country. No signs of socialist interference here. |
So what are their motivations? Why is it that they make so many contradictory claims, and are so strong about how they think men and women should behave, when they have little-to-no support for their views? Let's consider a combination of things they believe:
1: Women will be promiscuous if given certain pressures, and this is bad; however, they're okay with it.
2: Men will not engage in monogamy unless given incentive to, yet the family unit (presumably the nuclear one) needs to be preserved.
3: Feminism is causing the destruction of the family unit and the fertility rate.
4: Women are only valuable because of their fertility and beauty, nothing else.
What can be inferred from each of these beliefs?
1: Women shouldn't be promiscuous, but men should be promiscuous and thus it's okay to be promiscuous with women who are promiscuous, so long as they're beautiful.
2: Men will naturally want more than one wife, but the family unit is being destroyed by women.
3: Empowering women and bringing them up in society causes the destruction of fertility rates and the family unit.
4: Women are not valued for anything besides how useful and appealing they are to men.
The motivation? No shit, they just really don't like women (but love them) and really love men (but they're not gay) and want men to be in charge (they like it like that). The conclusion?
The folks over at ROK are bisexual misanthropes who like to take it doggy style. This is the ROK Complex.
Thank you all very much for reading.
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Friday, November 14, 2014
Evolutionary Sins: The Gender Gap In Spatial Cognition And Navigation
 |
| Layne Vashro and wife Chelsea with Chief Koyo and family. |
This study conducted several tests of spatial ability on the subjects, including pointing to different directions in the Kunene region and stating whether a rotated hand on a screen was a left or a right hand after 7.5 seconds. It was found on the tests, after excluding individuals who didn't understand them, that men did significantly better than women. These findings, the research authors suggest, support the hypothesis that spatial ability has evolved in men for reproductive success. The reason for this, they continue, is because men who were better able to navigate long distances were also better able to find several mates with whom they could have children with; and since marriage does not restrict a man's sexual behaviours in these tribes, they were best to be studied, as they were less likely to be constrained by their marriages.
"Some people think it is culturally constructed, but that doesn't explain why the pattern is shared so broadly across human societies and even in some other species," explained Elizabeth Cashdan. At an initial glance, this seems like a pretty rational conviction with a cultural hypothesis: if this is contingent upon culture, then why is it that multiple cultures, and even multiple species, have these same abilities?
 |
| The novel debate. |
Second of all, the hypothesis in question has little support from research which directly tests its viability. If spatial ability is a dimorphic trait which evolved in men over women to travel over wide ranges and navigate to find more mates and produce more offspring, then we should expect the differential to be constant across species with such wide ranges, and for the gap to decrease when ranges decrease. In fact, this is not the case. The comparative analysis by Clint et al. (2012) shows that across 35 studies of 11 species, while 8 out of 11 of the species do display this gap in spatial navigation, this tendency occurred regardless of the size of territories or the extent to which male ranges spanned further than female ranges. The authors suggest an alternative hypothesis, that perhaps the differential is a side effect of sex differences in testosterone, but there is little evidence to support this; certainly, however, there seems to not be much evidence, if any at all, for the evolutionary hypothesis.
Well, one reason which might suggest that spatial ability is the product of culture is that we know this to be the case based on already existing evidence; and in fact, the discrepancy between cultures (i.e. the lack of total universality) is what supports this.
To begin, consider the way direction is analyzed in the west; that is, in America, Canada, Europe, and so on -- English speaking countries. In common usage, direction is usually told respective to ourselves: left, right, front (or forward) and back (or behind). This is how we tell stories, how we give directions, and how we map the world around us, and in fact this has been fairly unproblematic in our daily lives. It's natural -- second nature to us, and because we can all understand it, we can all interact via these methods.
However, this method of navigation is not consistent between cultures. The most famous example of this is the Australian Aboriginal tribe, the Guugu Yimithirr. Their navigational abilities, unlike ours, are based on cardinal directions: North, South, East and West. Like us, this is also their practical use of direction, i.e. the one they use when speaking to other people, giving directions, telling stories, etc. When telling stories, for example, about when a fishing/hunting boat capsized, they would say the people jumped off the East side of the boat. When comparing the same story told by multiple individuals, this direction is remarkably consistent. This use of direction isn't biological, however, but is taught from a young age, as early as two.
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| Guugu Yimithirr warriors. |
These are only two examples of how culture constructs our navigational abilities, and thus potentially explain the differences between cultures and even between sexes/genders in a particular culture. This analysis examines the differences between how cultures utilize direction without regarding gender. There is evidence, however, which examines the gender gap as well, and provides strong support for the cultural explanation, namely by displaying how difference in kinship and marriage systems might explain the discrepancy.
Consider the Khasi and Karbi tribes of northern India. The Karbi tribe practices a patrilineal kinship system, which (very briefly) means that inheritance and descent are passed down through men to their offspring. Characteristic of this type of kinship system is very strong, hard-to-break marriages as well as strict gender roles and restriction of women's sexuality. The Khasi tribe, on the other hand, is matrilineal, which means descent is passed down by women, by inheritance is passed by men -- but the assets which men own are often reliant on marrying women. Cultures which have this type of kinship system more often exhibit egalitarian characteristics, with women not being restricted in their sexuality, with relationships between siblings being strong, weaker marriages, etc.
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| The Khasi people at a dancing festival in 2005. |
Admittedly, this doesn't explain why or how culture influences these factors, but lends very strong credence to the cultural hypothesis, and reconciles for factors which may not be accounted for by Vashro & Cashdan (2014). There are problems with the Hoffman study, however: their test of spatial abilities (an Object Assembly task) may or may not accurately represent the cognitive faculties in question. It should be noted however that their sample was a rare one, and was intended to promote future prospective research, but to my knowledge no such research has been conducted, likely due to the difficulties Hoffman et al. (2011) faced when attempting to teach their sample subjects how to conduct higher-level tasks of spatial abilities.
Nonetheless, this study remains significant for the subject at hand: whether or not Vashro & Cashdan's evolutionary hypothesis of sexually dimorphic expression for spatial cognition holds water. Likewise, the very fact that there exists such discrepancies in spatial abilities between cultures, and even within cultures, further supports the cultural hypothesis. Finally, while I won't discuss it in full detail here, we also have the pioneering work of anthropologist Dianna Shandy and economist Karine Moe to explain the cultural pressures which cause gender gaps in and different responses to certain tasks, including navigation.
It's honestly hard to believe that this recent research is being used to support the idea that spatial memory has evolved higher in men than women everywhere, even though there are clear cultural differences in this cognitive gap. To accept the evolutionary hypothesis, the trait should be much more universal than is the gap between genders in spatial abilities; nonetheless, this is a good example of western reductionism and how we find it very easy to find simple explanations for complex traits. This is much less a criticism of Vashro & Cashdan, but of the reports of their study. It's important to suggest alternatives in the scientific literature, as the two authors have done, but there are no definitive answers to be found here. We need to be careful that when we suggest an evolutionary explanation for observed traits, that the evidence is robust enough. While it's clear that there is cultural influence on spatial ability, there may be biological influences as well; however, the evidence at present, in my opinion, is not clear to support that suggestion.
Thank you all very much for reading.
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References:
Haviland, J. (1998). Guugu Yimithirr Cardinal Directions. Ethos, 26 (1), 25-47 DOI: 10.1525/eth.1998.26.1.25Hoffman, M., Gneezy, U., & List, J. (2011). Nurture affects gender differences in spatial abilities. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 108 (36), 14786-14788 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1015182108
Vashro, L., & Cashdan, E. (2014). Spatial cognition, mobility, and reproductive success in northwestern Namibia. Evolution and Human Behavior, DOI: 10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2014.09.009
Wednesday, September 24, 2014
Evolution: Common Misconceptions, or "What Evolution Is Not"
I've recently been reading a book by AgustÃn Fuentes, Race, Monogamy, and Other Lies They Told You: Busting Myths about Human Nature with my girlfriend. We're only through part 1 (and the prelude of part 2), but it's an incredible read thus far, and I highly recommend it to anyone who is serious about their research in anthropology, evolution or human variation. Dr. Fuentes lays out a "toolkit," in his own words, on how to bust myths about human nature by applying the principles of genetics and culture to three common pervasive myths found in our society: (1) human race; (2) inherent human aggression; and, (3) sex.
Chapters 2 and 3 struck me well, but chapter 3 "Evolution Is Important -- but May Not Be What We Think," was especially informative and helpful. Dr. Fuentes starts off with a quote by popular science writer Nicholas Wade, who has recently come under fire for his book A Troublesome Inheritance: Genes, Race and Human History. The quote is from an article in the New York Times, and it says the following:
Of course, many people in the public hold the beliefs that Wade is referring to; however it simply isn't true that the primary debate amongst informed scholars is over whether or not evolution is happening in humans or, as some people often misinterpret, that evolution "stopped at the neck" in humans.
This objection refers to the debate over the Black/White IQ differential, specifically the position that most, if not all of the variation in IQ results between these two groups is a result of the environment. The problem with the characterization "evolution stopped at the neck," however, is that just because someone doesn't believe the differential is a result of evolutionary or genetic differences, that doesn't mean they don't believe human cognition has evolved. Evolution is complex, and even someone who suggests that the differential is a result of evolution doesn't necessarily mean it was a product of adaptation or natural selection. This is a gross oversimplification of how evolution works, and what the real debate entails, and thus we should now move into the five common misconceptions about evolution that are popularly held by the public.
1: Evolution is "survival of the fittest."
I can't tell you how many times I've heard this implication. To begin, Charles Darwin never used the phrase "survival of the fittest" -- this concept otherwise known as "social Darwinism" is attributable to Thomas Hobbes and Adam Smith. The concept is an interpretation of one aspect of evolution: natural selection. Natural selection is Darwin's process of "descent with modification," and states that some gene variants will help an organism reproduce more successfully, and that if these variants are heritable, they will become more common within a population over time. These variants are then seen as adaptations to a specific environmental context.
What this means is that "the fittest" doesn't necessarily mean the biggest, baddest or strongest. It's specific to an environment, where "the fittest" may be the exact opposite. Consider an easy example: the field mouse. It is not the fastest creature in the world, it is not the strongest, it does not have a serious bite, and it poses pretty much no risk to any creature of any size bigger than itself. So why does it continue to succeed and reproduce? Because "bigger" does not mean "better." Speaking of better, this brings us to the second misconception about evolution.
2: Evolution results in perfection.
As Fuentes notes, evolution is not oriented towards progress, nor does it result in organisms fitting perfectly with their environment. To quote, "The corollary to this is that if something works well we perceive it as having 'evolved' for this particular purpose."
Evolution is not perfect -- it's sloppy, and isn't geared towards making something ultimately "better." When an organism has traits which allow it to successfully reproduce in its environment, and these traits are a result of evolution, it does not mean that it evolved that way for a purpose.
3: Evolution happens by chance.
There is only one aspect of evolution that represents "chance," and that would be genetic drift. Genetic drift suggests that random events can sometimes alter the allelic frequencies of a population. Fuentes offers an example of this: take hair color. There is a small population living on an island with hair color gene A, and there are three alleles of the gene: A1, A2 and A3. Say the population is made up of 80% A1, 10% A2 and 10% A3. Now, imagine that most of the population lives on the north coast of the island, and that part of the island is hit by a major tsunami. Now, the only people remaining are the smaller numbers of people on the south end of the island, changing the allelic frequency to maybe 33% for all alleles of the hair color gene A. This results in evolutionary change, but not because of anything having to do with the genes or the alleles themselves, but with a random event which drastically changed the makeup of the organisms in the population. Genetic drift, then, is most potent in smaller populations, because random events are less likely to have significant effects on larger populations.
But as said, this is the only aspect of evolution that relies on randomness or chance. There are three other major components of evolution: gene flow, natural selection and mutation. We've already explained natural selection. Mutation is the means by which organisms gain new genetic material, where it creates a new sequence in a gene that produces a protein or regulation that functions better than previously. Gene flow is the movement of alleles within and between populations as a result of migration. The allelic frequencies within and between two populations can change if the populations are close enough together that allows for migrations between them. The allelic frequencies between the two populations can either become more similar if there's enough gene flow or, if gene flow is restricted, they can remain the same. Gene flow, natural selection, and mutation, then, do not occur by chance, but have multiple reasons for occurring.
4: If something has evolved in a certain way, that is how it should be.
This one is a bit complicated, but it's similar to misconception #2. Basically the idea is that if an organism exhibits a certain trait, and that trait is a result of evolutionary change, then the exhibition of that trait is the way things are supposed to be. This is not necessarily true, because there are many things that have occurred via evolutionary means, but were intended for a different purpose than what they're used for today. This is called exaptation.
One beautiful example of this is bird feathers. Originally, bird feathers evolved as a structure of temperature regulation. The feathers on a bird's wings allowed it to trap air underneath, allowing it to either cool off by lifting its wings up, or warm up by bringing its wings in. At some point, the wings on some birds became substantial enough that they were able to glide, and this unintended function resulted in reproductive success. Now, wings are used for flying. This is a perfect example of something that occurred through evolutionary processes, but did not serve the function it does now, thus showing that even if something has evolved does not mean it was intended to be what it is today.
5: Evolution can stop, has an end, or has a goal.
This is our last misconception. Evolution does not stop; it is always ongoing. Evolution is also not goal-oriented -- it doesn't have a goal, and it doesn't seek perfection. Something that has occurred by evolutionary means is not the finish line, and it is not more "natural" than other things. Traits that have evolved are the result of any number of processes that can and will continue to act on us and every other organism over the course of time.
These misconceptions overlap in many ways, but are very applicable to modern times. It's commonly held that if something has evolved, or if something is engrained in our biology, then that is "correct" or "natural." This is the basic premise of human nature which Dr. Fuentes argues against. Just because something is biological or evolutionary does not mean it is any more natural than any other aspect of our lives. The premise of this idea is that, for example, between our biology and our society, biology takes precedence as we cannot avoid its grasp, and our society or social situation can change. This simply isn't the case, though: our biology is constantly changing, and the strength of our genes is not more powerful than the strength of our environment.
Creationists, determinists, indeterminists, racialists, and many other groups of people will commonly fall into the belief in one of these misconceptions as part of their arguments. Be equipped and well-informed of what evolution is and is not so that these misconceptions can be further dispensed, and the core of the arguments can be reached instead of the nuances of what evolution does or does not imply.
And above all, thank you very much for reading.
Follow me on social media!
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AlexisDelanoir
Google+: https://plus.google.com/+AlexisDelanoir0/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/AlexisDelanoir
Chapters 2 and 3 struck me well, but chapter 3 "Evolution Is Important -- but May Not Be What We Think," was especially informative and helpful. Dr. Fuentes starts off with a quote by popular science writer Nicholas Wade, who has recently come under fire for his book A Troublesome Inheritance: Genes, Race and Human History. The quote is from an article in the New York Times, and it says the following:
"Many have assumed that humans ceased to evolve in the distant past, perhaps when people first learned to protect themselves against cold, famine and other harsh agents of natural selection. But in the last few years, biologists peering into the human genome sequences now available from around the world have found increasing evidence of natural selection at work in the last few thousand years, leading many to assume that human evolution is still in progress."The quote reflects on two popular misconceptions held by the public about evolution, which we will get to in a moment. It's important to note first, though, that this illustrates more than just misconceptions about evolution, but a lack of understanding in even the educated public, and the necessity of a false dichotomy. As Dr. Fuentes points out, "To sell the story, the false representation of a 'debate' as to whether evolution happens in humans has to be a central theme."
Of course, many people in the public hold the beliefs that Wade is referring to; however it simply isn't true that the primary debate amongst informed scholars is over whether or not evolution is happening in humans or, as some people often misinterpret, that evolution "stopped at the neck" in humans.
This objection refers to the debate over the Black/White IQ differential, specifically the position that most, if not all of the variation in IQ results between these two groups is a result of the environment. The problem with the characterization "evolution stopped at the neck," however, is that just because someone doesn't believe the differential is a result of evolutionary or genetic differences, that doesn't mean they don't believe human cognition has evolved. Evolution is complex, and even someone who suggests that the differential is a result of evolution doesn't necessarily mean it was a product of adaptation or natural selection. This is a gross oversimplification of how evolution works, and what the real debate entails, and thus we should now move into the five common misconceptions about evolution that are popularly held by the public.
1: Evolution is "survival of the fittest."
I can't tell you how many times I've heard this implication. To begin, Charles Darwin never used the phrase "survival of the fittest" -- this concept otherwise known as "social Darwinism" is attributable to Thomas Hobbes and Adam Smith. The concept is an interpretation of one aspect of evolution: natural selection. Natural selection is Darwin's process of "descent with modification," and states that some gene variants will help an organism reproduce more successfully, and that if these variants are heritable, they will become more common within a population over time. These variants are then seen as adaptations to a specific environmental context.
What this means is that "the fittest" doesn't necessarily mean the biggest, baddest or strongest. It's specific to an environment, where "the fittest" may be the exact opposite. Consider an easy example: the field mouse. It is not the fastest creature in the world, it is not the strongest, it does not have a serious bite, and it poses pretty much no risk to any creature of any size bigger than itself. So why does it continue to succeed and reproduce? Because "bigger" does not mean "better." Speaking of better, this brings us to the second misconception about evolution.
2: Evolution results in perfection.
As Fuentes notes, evolution is not oriented towards progress, nor does it result in organisms fitting perfectly with their environment. To quote, "The corollary to this is that if something works well we perceive it as having 'evolved' for this particular purpose."
Evolution is not perfect -- it's sloppy, and isn't geared towards making something ultimately "better." When an organism has traits which allow it to successfully reproduce in its environment, and these traits are a result of evolution, it does not mean that it evolved that way for a purpose.
3: Evolution happens by chance.
There is only one aspect of evolution that represents "chance," and that would be genetic drift. Genetic drift suggests that random events can sometimes alter the allelic frequencies of a population. Fuentes offers an example of this: take hair color. There is a small population living on an island with hair color gene A, and there are three alleles of the gene: A1, A2 and A3. Say the population is made up of 80% A1, 10% A2 and 10% A3. Now, imagine that most of the population lives on the north coast of the island, and that part of the island is hit by a major tsunami. Now, the only people remaining are the smaller numbers of people on the south end of the island, changing the allelic frequency to maybe 33% for all alleles of the hair color gene A. This results in evolutionary change, but not because of anything having to do with the genes or the alleles themselves, but with a random event which drastically changed the makeup of the organisms in the population. Genetic drift, then, is most potent in smaller populations, because random events are less likely to have significant effects on larger populations.
But as said, this is the only aspect of evolution that relies on randomness or chance. There are three other major components of evolution: gene flow, natural selection and mutation. We've already explained natural selection. Mutation is the means by which organisms gain new genetic material, where it creates a new sequence in a gene that produces a protein or regulation that functions better than previously. Gene flow is the movement of alleles within and between populations as a result of migration. The allelic frequencies within and between two populations can change if the populations are close enough together that allows for migrations between them. The allelic frequencies between the two populations can either become more similar if there's enough gene flow or, if gene flow is restricted, they can remain the same. Gene flow, natural selection, and mutation, then, do not occur by chance, but have multiple reasons for occurring.
4: If something has evolved in a certain way, that is how it should be.
This one is a bit complicated, but it's similar to misconception #2. Basically the idea is that if an organism exhibits a certain trait, and that trait is a result of evolutionary change, then the exhibition of that trait is the way things are supposed to be. This is not necessarily true, because there are many things that have occurred via evolutionary means, but were intended for a different purpose than what they're used for today. This is called exaptation.
One beautiful example of this is bird feathers. Originally, bird feathers evolved as a structure of temperature regulation. The feathers on a bird's wings allowed it to trap air underneath, allowing it to either cool off by lifting its wings up, or warm up by bringing its wings in. At some point, the wings on some birds became substantial enough that they were able to glide, and this unintended function resulted in reproductive success. Now, wings are used for flying. This is a perfect example of something that occurred through evolutionary processes, but did not serve the function it does now, thus showing that even if something has evolved does not mean it was intended to be what it is today.
5: Evolution can stop, has an end, or has a goal.
This is our last misconception. Evolution does not stop; it is always ongoing. Evolution is also not goal-oriented -- it doesn't have a goal, and it doesn't seek perfection. Something that has occurred by evolutionary means is not the finish line, and it is not more "natural" than other things. Traits that have evolved are the result of any number of processes that can and will continue to act on us and every other organism over the course of time.
These misconceptions overlap in many ways, but are very applicable to modern times. It's commonly held that if something has evolved, or if something is engrained in our biology, then that is "correct" or "natural." This is the basic premise of human nature which Dr. Fuentes argues against. Just because something is biological or evolutionary does not mean it is any more natural than any other aspect of our lives. The premise of this idea is that, for example, between our biology and our society, biology takes precedence as we cannot avoid its grasp, and our society or social situation can change. This simply isn't the case, though: our biology is constantly changing, and the strength of our genes is not more powerful than the strength of our environment.
Creationists, determinists, indeterminists, racialists, and many other groups of people will commonly fall into the belief in one of these misconceptions as part of their arguments. Be equipped and well-informed of what evolution is and is not so that these misconceptions can be further dispensed, and the core of the arguments can be reached instead of the nuances of what evolution does or does not imply.
And above all, thank you very much for reading.
Follow me on social media!
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AlexisDelanoir
Google+: https://plus.google.com/+AlexisDelanoir0/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/AlexisDelanoir
Monday, April 14, 2014
Mailbag: Clearing the Air Anthropologically
I noticed that there are, in addition to the things already discussed, a few questions regarding some of the things I've said having to deal with anthropology; thus, I decided it'd be best if I made another short mailbag post to clear the air.
The first two questions are responding to my post on "Lewontin's Fallacy" and Race, but since these (unlike what I'm used to) are constructive and very clearly objective, I'm going to reply to them despite my having ended any discussion on that post. First:
This email is two things: (A) completely correct; and, (B) a great talking point. It is entirely true that the most up-to-date data in anthropology supports the multiregional hypothesis. The difference between these two hypotheses is that Out of Africa supported the large-scale replacement hypothesis, in that it suspected that modern humans who migrated out of Africa replaced the existing human populations such as the Denisovans and the Neanderthals with little-to-no intermixing involved; however, recent evidence suggests the contrary, that some populations can have as much as 4% Neanderthal admixture. I actually had a brief discussion with somebody on my debate page comments regarding this. These findings do support a multiregional hypothesis (not a candelabra model) because the multiregional hypothesis suggests a series of migrations and back-migrations with substantial intermixing with existing human populations, thus resulting in a widespread, complicated network of human interaction and gene flow.
Often times, I conflate the multiregional hypothesis with the candelabra model for online debates because, considering who I'm debating against, they often do not know the difference, and if I were to tell them I supported the multiregional hypothesis but still believed human race does not exist, they would not understand why. Interestingly enough, the implications of the multiregional hypothesis suggest that Neanderthals and Denisovans are of the same species as Homo Sapiens, but perhaps different subspecies or races. That hurts the debate a little.
But, I'm willing to accept that I was incorrect in my framing of the debate, and I apologize to anyone who I misled. Knowing now that there are legitimate interest readers who look into the true science of what I write about on occasion, I'll do my best to improve my writing so that it is factually accurate, not socially convenient.
Next question.
I defend my support of Lewontin and Gould for different reasons. Lewontin's research was genuinely the birth of research which would serve to debunk traditional racial categories at the genetic level. Gould was rejected by many scientists in the last decade because of the Morton-Gould War. Neither Lewontin nor Gould deserve to be rejected, but of course, we need more recent and relevant data to defend our position.
Since I want to keep this short, I'll only include one more question:
You know, when I hear the phrase "human nature," I and many people in the field of anthropology let out a heavy sigh and put our fingers in between our eyes in frustration; but then, the words of Tim Ingold echo in my ears, and not only is my headache put at ease, but in all honesty, the eloquent phrasing of Ingold's argument makes my heart throb a little:
If you asked anthropologists today what their favorite quote was, I think many of them would pick this one out. The suggestion that a person, or a society's culture can be predetermined by their genes is absolutely ridiculous.
Thank you all for your input. Look forward to more
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The first two questions are responding to my post on "Lewontin's Fallacy" and Race, but since these (unlike what I'm used to) are constructive and very clearly objective, I'm going to reply to them despite my having ended any discussion on that post. First:
"Ms. Delanoir, I noticed that on your post on Lewontin and Race, you said that the general scientific consensus is in support of the Out of Africa hypothesis. This really isn't true anymore (although it may have been back in 2010 or 2011). Indeed, anthropologists do support the multiregional hypothesis, which is not to be confused with the candelabra model. Is this why you were confused?"
This email is two things: (A) completely correct; and, (B) a great talking point. It is entirely true that the most up-to-date data in anthropology supports the multiregional hypothesis. The difference between these two hypotheses is that Out of Africa supported the large-scale replacement hypothesis, in that it suspected that modern humans who migrated out of Africa replaced the existing human populations such as the Denisovans and the Neanderthals with little-to-no intermixing involved; however, recent evidence suggests the contrary, that some populations can have as much as 4% Neanderthal admixture. I actually had a brief discussion with somebody on my debate page comments regarding this. These findings do support a multiregional hypothesis (not a candelabra model) because the multiregional hypothesis suggests a series of migrations and back-migrations with substantial intermixing with existing human populations, thus resulting in a widespread, complicated network of human interaction and gene flow.
Often times, I conflate the multiregional hypothesis with the candelabra model for online debates because, considering who I'm debating against, they often do not know the difference, and if I were to tell them I supported the multiregional hypothesis but still believed human race does not exist, they would not understand why. Interestingly enough, the implications of the multiregional hypothesis suggest that Neanderthals and Denisovans are of the same species as Homo Sapiens, but perhaps different subspecies or races. That hurts the debate a little.
But, I'm willing to accept that I was incorrect in my framing of the debate, and I apologize to anyone who I misled. Knowing now that there are legitimate interest readers who look into the true science of what I write about on occasion, I'll do my best to improve my writing so that it is factually accurate, not socially convenient.
Next question.
"Alexis,
First, I would like to thank you deeply for your contributions to fighting race revival. Sometimes I look back on the progress we've made in anthropology and think 'where did we go wrong?' In any case, I just have a few minor comments.
You spent a little bit of time defending your citation of both Lewontin and Gould (in separate posts), and I'm just wondering if there's a specific reason you're doing so. In all honesty, even I acknowledge in this debate that citing Lewontin or Gould is kind of remedial, and I often look at it and think 'is that all you got?' There are many other, much more recent authorities and studies to cite that effectively prove the same point. One good place to start would be with this article:
http://www2.webmatic.it/workO/s/113/pr-1400-file_it-Barbujani-Colonna.pdf
If you're interested in more, let me know!"
I defend my support of Lewontin and Gould for different reasons. Lewontin's research was genuinely the birth of research which would serve to debunk traditional racial categories at the genetic level. Gould was rejected by many scientists in the last decade because of the Morton-Gould War. Neither Lewontin nor Gould deserve to be rejected, but of course, we need more recent and relevant data to defend our position.
Since I want to keep this short, I'll only include one more question:
"I noticed that a lot of issues you're having with people in the race debates have to deal with this mistaken idea that human behavior and phenotypes can be predetermined by their genes. Do you think that there's some inherent human nature that we cannot overcome?"
You know, when I hear the phrase "human nature," I and many people in the field of anthropology let out a heavy sigh and put our fingers in between our eyes in frustration; but then, the words of Tim Ingold echo in my ears, and not only is my headache put at ease, but in all honesty, the eloquent phrasing of Ingold's argument makes my heart throb a little:
"Human capacities are not genetically specified but emerge within processes of ontogenetic development. Moreover the circumstances of development are continually shaped through human activity. There is consequently no human nature that has escaped the current of history.
[...] This does not mean, of course, that a human being can be anything you please. But it does mean that there is no way of describing what human beings are independently of the manifold historical and environmental circumstances in which they become–in which they grow up and live out their lives."
If you asked anthropologists today what their favorite quote was, I think many of them would pick this one out. The suggestion that a person, or a society's culture can be predetermined by their genes is absolutely ridiculous.
Thank you all for your input. Look forward to more
Follow me on social media!
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AlexisDelanoir
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Tuesday, March 25, 2014
Mailbag: Race, Gene Clusters and Wright's FST
About a week ago, the storm over my most recent post on race finally settled down, and I found myself with a bit of peace. Then I received this email:
Should I give up, or should I try explaining again? (I'm kidding of course -- I only act this way because I think I know who sent the email, and that's what makes it funny).
First of all, the biggest warning sign that I can be given in these discussions is, right off the bat, being accused of censorship. The accusation isn't entirely untrue, but it isn't perfectly descriptive either. I control the comments that come into my blog because I write on controversial topics from time to time, and thus am inevitably going to receive comments that are NSFW. I don't want that, although I don't go ape over people swearing on my blog either -- I'm rather liberal when it comes to those sorts of things. I do like to keep the discussions in check, though. Anyone who freely comments on my blog can attest to this: if you have something worth saying, you can take the time to type it somewhat cordially so that I can permit it; otherwise, it's not getting published.
Aside from that, however, when a comment doesn't introduce any new arguments (and by this, I mean the answers to their arguments are given in the post or in other comment responses), then it's not worth my readers' time to publish that comment. This is just to avoid repetition.
However, in some cases, something can be repeated so many times in so many different ways. This leads me to believe that the question is in need of an extensive reply, such as the one I am about to provide. So, without further ado, let's get to the substance of S.T.'s email. S.T. states that he sympathizes with this comment from my post on Lewontin's Fallacy and Race:
Had S.T. continued to read on, he would have seen my reply to this commenter:
This is a little vague due to the fact that I had to condense it to have a more comment-appropriate length. It also doesn't directly respond to the argument that if multiple characteristics or genes correlate with an identifiable group, then that group is meaningful in nature, and in this case, these groups can be classified as races; more so, my reply argues against the conflation of population with race. The former, more or less, is what S.T. and the commenter he quoted were arguing. In any case, I probably would've ignored this email had I not received several of the same nature:
Thus, I have decided that it is worth responding to in whole. This will be a two-part response: (1) don't gene clusters imply that we can classify race; and (2) since other subspecies have been classified with a lower FST than 0.25, doesn't that mean it works just fine with humans?
The first part is a little ignorant. If I were to compare the elk population in Alberta to the elk population in Ontario and conducted an Analysis of Molecular Variance (AMOVA) and found their FST to be 0.01, that means that only 1% of the variation which exists can be explained by between-population differences. Now, within this 1%, there may be a cluster of a few genes which almost always correlate to the elk population we took our sample from. Let's say it's a set of 25 genes. Around 95% of the time, allele A of these genes is exclusive to the Albertan Elk, and allele B is exclusive to the Ontarian Elk. The logic of what is being suggested is that because this difference exists, even though there is only a 1% difference between these two populations, we can classify them into subspecies, or race, or deme, or whatever classification below the level of species you prefer.
So, even if the FST of humans were 0.003, if that 0.3% of variation contains alleles which almost always correlate with our traditional understanding of race, then those races are meaningful classifications in the context we're discussing. By this logic, I could divide Americans from the north and Americans from the south into different races; or, as I have suggested previously, I could identify a few dozen different races in India. The issue is not whether or not there are differences. The issue is whether or not the large majority of these differences can be best explained by our traditional racial classifications. Scientists have largely found that it is not so.
The second part is a bit trickier. There are probably subspecies that have been identified which have an FST of lower than 0.25. The general rule, as I've been taught, is that 25% between-population differentiation warrants separate classification. There are always going to be exceptions to these rules, because science itself needs to be somewhat flexible in order to account for things we don't fully understand. In these cases, we would look at the Albertan Elk and Ontarian Elk and see if there are other differences. Are they geographically separated, or do they regularly move between the borders of Alberta and Ontario? Do they have distinct ecology -- does one only eat a certain type of plant, or display a different social structure?
The different "races" of humans are not so distinct. We can all adapt to living in a different society than where we grew up in without too much difficulty. We are all capable of eating the same foods, for the most part (I'm aware that, for example, lactose intolerance occurs at higher rates in some populations). We show little genetic distinction from one another (more recent estimates suggest that our differences are in the range of 3% to 7% as opposed to the 15% I usually cite). Based on our current understanding of human variation, race is not the best classification we can use.
More over, the chart that was cited in the third email I received was an interesting one. It has been cited before on my blog -- specifically, it was cited by the person that the first emailer referred to. I know which website it came from, but specifically I don't know who created it. I guess it's safe to assume that the author of that website probably made it, but I wonder if it came from a journal article instead. Either way, there are many things that I find funny/interesting about the chart, and I think I'll be discussing those things in a separate post in the near future. For now, my general explanations are what I have to offer.
What other emails have I received regarding the debate over race?
Recently, HannibaltheVictor13 on YouTube made a video response to this, and if you don't like how I say things, maybe you'll like him. You can find his video here.
Otherwise, I'll continue to respond.
Stephen Jay Gould's original thought of Morton was, yes, that Morton was a racist and that he may have shown his bias in his calculations. The direct criticism, however, was that Morton had not controlled for sex or stature of the skeletons that he observed, and that he omitted certain skulls to fit his preconceptions of racial categories, and all of this skewed the results. In their study, Lewis et al. made the same mistake Morton did and failed to control for sex or for stature. In fact, Lewis et al. failed to remeasure the entire collection -- they remeasured about half of it.
At the same time, it's funny that this email should mention and refer to Janet Monge. She was one of the researchers in the Lewis et al. study, and she is also the curator of the Physical Anthropology Section of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology; this is where the skull collection is held and was being held at the time of the study. The skull collection at the University of Pennsylvania is impressive, and the university wanted to publicly promote this collection in pride. When Stephen Jay Gould criticized the measurements of the skulls in the collection, and Janet Monge responded by participating in a study to respond to Gould's criticisms, funded by the University of Pennsylvania, she immediately triggered a conflict of interest. In the study, the authors declared no competing interests. Thus, as it stands, Gould's original criticisms were intellectually sound, and the criticisms of the Lewis et al. study remain brushed under the carpet.
But either way, the flaw with this criticism of Stephen Jay Gould (one which Libertarian Realist took part in) is that it's fallacious. Stephen Jay Gould, even if he had incorrectly criticized Morton, was a great scientist, and his work was phenomenal. One fault in his addressing of human variation, specifically race, would not destroy all of the other contributions he's made to science.
This concludes this mailbag post. The next one will be about more personal questions I've received regarding my life, not my work.
Thank you all for reading.
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"It seems that you are censoring comments on both of your posts on race, and so I thought I would send you this email with my thoughts on the discussion. It seems to me that you are playing a semantics game over racial classification. I could talk about gene clusters and morphological characteristics that easily correlate with our traditional idea of race, but to sum it up, I sympathize with this commenter:
'In other words, they evolved differently, but we shouldn't be calling them different races anyway because liberals get butthurt... Great argument against race, no doubt. You can call them populations, I'll call them race - same thing.'
Ignoring the political rhetoric, this commenter has the right idea. By the very nature of what a category is, if we can find that there are several characteristics which correlate with our traditional understanding of race (i.e. Europeans are much more likely to have light skin, light hair, light eyes, certain tooth shape, skull shape, etc.) then even if there are occasional overlaps, those categories are useful and cannot be ignored. This is why it seems, to me, that there is not much scientific reason to deny race. You fully acknowledge that certain people evolved in certain ways to adapt to their environments, such that Europeans became different from East Asians, but you somehow say that these groups cannot be called races? That convinces me you are not scientifically motivated.
Furthermore, in one of your comments on YouTube, you stated that in order to be classified into subspecies, an animal must have an FST of 0.25 - 0.3. This is a common mistake cited by race deniers. There is no set requirement for FST to be classified into subspecies because of the errors in estimating FST, and because it is arbitrary to set any certain requirement. There are plenty of subspecies which have been identified which have an FST of lower than 0.25. There is no set rule, so despite humans having an FST of around 0.15, classifying them into subspecies is just fine.
I hope you will give me an honest response.
- S.T."
Should I give up, or should I try explaining again? (I'm kidding of course -- I only act this way because I think I know who sent the email, and that's what makes it funny).
First of all, the biggest warning sign that I can be given in these discussions is, right off the bat, being accused of censorship. The accusation isn't entirely untrue, but it isn't perfectly descriptive either. I control the comments that come into my blog because I write on controversial topics from time to time, and thus am inevitably going to receive comments that are NSFW. I don't want that, although I don't go ape over people swearing on my blog either -- I'm rather liberal when it comes to those sorts of things. I do like to keep the discussions in check, though. Anyone who freely comments on my blog can attest to this: if you have something worth saying, you can take the time to type it somewhat cordially so that I can permit it; otherwise, it's not getting published.
Aside from that, however, when a comment doesn't introduce any new arguments (and by this, I mean the answers to their arguments are given in the post or in other comment responses), then it's not worth my readers' time to publish that comment. This is just to avoid repetition.
However, in some cases, something can be repeated so many times in so many different ways. This leads me to believe that the question is in need of an extensive reply, such as the one I am about to provide. So, without further ado, let's get to the substance of S.T.'s email. S.T. states that he sympathizes with this comment from my post on Lewontin's Fallacy and Race:
"In other words, they evolved differently, but we shouldn't be calling them different races anyway because liberals get butthurt... Great argument against race, no doubt. You can call them populations, I'll call them race - same thing."
Had S.T. continued to read on, he would have seen my reply to this commenter:
"Yes, some people 'evolved' differently from others. I say this because humans are still evolving, and it seems we will be for some time to come. Again, this doesn't warrant biological classification beyond the point of subspecies. "Race" and "geographic population" are not the same thing. The significance of studying geographic populations is in observing the population's interaction with its environment."
This is a little vague due to the fact that I had to condense it to have a more comment-appropriate length. It also doesn't directly respond to the argument that if multiple characteristics or genes correlate with an identifiable group, then that group is meaningful in nature, and in this case, these groups can be classified as races; more so, my reply argues against the conflation of population with race. The former, more or less, is what S.T. and the commenter he quoted were arguing. In any case, I probably would've ignored this email had I not received several of the same nature:
"Alexis,
If you scientifically believe races do not exist in the human species, please explain how we can look at gene clusters which express for morphological differences or otherwise in populations and accurately classify them into groups?"
"I think it's dishonest to say that typically, a subspecies classification requires a 0.25-0.30 FST, or that this applies to race. Plenty of subspecies have been identified which do not have such a high FST, and in fact have a substantially lower FST than humans. I'd suggest you look at this chart:
http://occidentalascent.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/fsthe3.png?w=640&h=625
To clarify, I don't believe you're dishonest, just that you're misled, by the way. You seem very intelligent."
Thus, I have decided that it is worth responding to in whole. This will be a two-part response: (1) don't gene clusters imply that we can classify race; and (2) since other subspecies have been classified with a lower FST than 0.25, doesn't that mean it works just fine with humans?
The first part is a little ignorant. If I were to compare the elk population in Alberta to the elk population in Ontario and conducted an Analysis of Molecular Variance (AMOVA) and found their FST to be 0.01, that means that only 1% of the variation which exists can be explained by between-population differences. Now, within this 1%, there may be a cluster of a few genes which almost always correlate to the elk population we took our sample from. Let's say it's a set of 25 genes. Around 95% of the time, allele A of these genes is exclusive to the Albertan Elk, and allele B is exclusive to the Ontarian Elk. The logic of what is being suggested is that because this difference exists, even though there is only a 1% difference between these two populations, we can classify them into subspecies, or race, or deme, or whatever classification below the level of species you prefer.
 |
| Since elk in Washington tend to be fatter, they're obviously a new subspecies. |
The second part is a bit trickier. There are probably subspecies that have been identified which have an FST of lower than 0.25. The general rule, as I've been taught, is that 25% between-population differentiation warrants separate classification. There are always going to be exceptions to these rules, because science itself needs to be somewhat flexible in order to account for things we don't fully understand. In these cases, we would look at the Albertan Elk and Ontarian Elk and see if there are other differences. Are they geographically separated, or do they regularly move between the borders of Alberta and Ontario? Do they have distinct ecology -- does one only eat a certain type of plant, or display a different social structure?
The different "races" of humans are not so distinct. We can all adapt to living in a different society than where we grew up in without too much difficulty. We are all capable of eating the same foods, for the most part (I'm aware that, for example, lactose intolerance occurs at higher rates in some populations). We show little genetic distinction from one another (more recent estimates suggest that our differences are in the range of 3% to 7% as opposed to the 15% I usually cite). Based on our current understanding of human variation, race is not the best classification we can use.
More over, the chart that was cited in the third email I received was an interesting one. It has been cited before on my blog -- specifically, it was cited by the person that the first emailer referred to. I know which website it came from, but specifically I don't know who created it. I guess it's safe to assume that the author of that website probably made it, but I wonder if it came from a journal article instead. Either way, there are many things that I find funny/interesting about the chart, and I think I'll be discussing those things in a separate post in the near future. For now, my general explanations are what I have to offer.
What other emails have I received regarding the debate over race?
"Alexis,
In your review of Stephen Jay Gould's 'The Book of Life,' you suggested that he was some kind of phenomenal scientist that was revolutionary to his field. This is where you're wrong, and I'm guessing this is where you received much of your education on human racial differences. Libertarian Realist did a good video on this in response to c0nc0rdance, who I see you're subscribed to on Youtube. Funny, huh?
Stephen Jay Gould was charged with intellectual dishonesty for his book 'The Mismeasure of Man' due to his anti-racism, much like you. He accused Samuel Morton of intellectual dishonesty and bias in his calculation of cranial capacities; however, when Lewis et al. remeasured the sample from the original study, they found that Morton was completely accurate, and if anyone was biased, it was Gould.
You can find Janet Monge's interview on the matter here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9oE_mVLH8fU"
Recently, HannibaltheVictor13 on YouTube made a video response to this, and if you don't like how I say things, maybe you'll like him. You can find his video here.
Otherwise, I'll continue to respond.
Stephen Jay Gould's original thought of Morton was, yes, that Morton was a racist and that he may have shown his bias in his calculations. The direct criticism, however, was that Morton had not controlled for sex or stature of the skeletons that he observed, and that he omitted certain skulls to fit his preconceptions of racial categories, and all of this skewed the results. In their study, Lewis et al. made the same mistake Morton did and failed to control for sex or for stature. In fact, Lewis et al. failed to remeasure the entire collection -- they remeasured about half of it.
 |
| S.J.G. -- a man who is a great evolutionary biologist. |
But either way, the flaw with this criticism of Stephen Jay Gould (one which Libertarian Realist took part in) is that it's fallacious. Stephen Jay Gould, even if he had incorrectly criticized Morton, was a great scientist, and his work was phenomenal. One fault in his addressing of human variation, specifically race, would not destroy all of the other contributions he's made to science.
This concludes this mailbag post. The next one will be about more personal questions I've received regarding my life, not my work.
Thank you all for reading.
Follow me on social media!
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AlexisDelanoir
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Saturday, March 1, 2014
Forensic Anthropology and Race
Looks like I'm temporarily going back to the topic of human races again. This is probably going to cause me to categorize my posts from now on, but that will come later, if at all.
This is stemming from my post on "Lewontin's Fallacy" and the topic of race as a biologically valid category for humans (or, rather, why it is not). Within the last week, I continued to receive a small number of comments, many of them branching from an ad nauseam argument regarding forensic anthropologists' ability to identify the race of an individual by either examining certain genetic clusters that correlate with self-identified race, or by examining bone fragments or other anthropometric features. I've disabled comments now, because I had already stated that I wouldn't further entertain the discussion, but I feel that a further explanation is needed to kill this line of reasoning.
To begin, the reason a forensic anthropologist can identify "race" with a high level of confidence can be narrowed down to two things: (1) a preconception of what "race" is, and (2) an informative prior.
The first should seem fairly self-explanatory, but it needs context. In order to meaningfully identify "race," a forensic anthropologist needs to be aware of the circumstances they're working under. Definitions of different races vary from society to society, thus if a forensic anthropologist were to say "this is the body of a black male" in America, it would be different than if he had said the same thing in South Africa.
This is fairly well discussed in the article "Understanding Race and Human Variation: Why Forensic Anthropologists are Good at Identifying Race" by Ousley, Jantz and Freid in 2009. The authors do concede that there are rather unambiguous morphological differences between American blacks and American whites; however, they explain why this can be taken out of context:
These comments serve to echo and confirm the findings of Sauer in 1992 in a paper entitled "Forensic Anthropology and the Concept of Race: If Races Don't Exist, Why are Forensic Anthropologists so Good at Identifying Them?" Humorously, I would like to note that the only mentioning you'll find of this study on Metapedia (or any study featured in the special edition of the American Journal of Physical Anthropology Race Reconciled) is that the name of this study shows how forensic identification has "bewildered race deniers." How selectively vague and uninformative, right? But enough of mocking "race realists" (lest I break my rule).
So, this is what it means to have a preconception of what race is. It means that a forensic anthropologist can both disagree with the biological concept of race, but also work very well within the confines of his/her work to identify someone's social race, and remain completely consistent. But, there remains a question to answer: if the biological concept of race is inaccurate, how can a forensic anthropologist find such high concordance rates between self-identified race and morphological race? Surely that means the traditional racial categories we use are useful, right?
They are meaningful, for identification purposes, and that only works within a given society. This goes into what I alluded to earlier: an informative prior. This one is a bit less obvious to work with, so I'll defer to a study also featured in Race Reconciled which explains this function of forensic anthropology: a 2009 study by Konigsberg et al. entitled "Estimation and Evidence in Forensic Anthropology: Sex and Race." Not only was this study an easy read, but it comprehensively explains what so many people don't understand.
This study discusses the identification of one "Mr. Johnson" from Iowa. Using craniometric features and matching them to the samples in FORDISC 2.0 and Howells' sample using linear and quadratic discriminant function analysis, forensic anthropologists were able to identify the gender and race of Mr. Johnson rather unambiguously. The posterior probability of the body being male ranged from 0.996 to 0.999 -- noting this, I would like to make it clear that it is not easier to identify race than it is to identify gender, unlike what some might suggest. This part was rather uncomplicated by comparison, however, when we get into the identification of race, my talk of an informative prior becomes relevant.
By matching to the sample data, the typicality of Mr. Johnson relative to the Easter Islander sample was 0.8415, indicating a high probability that Mr. Johnson could be correctly identified, if he were alive, as an Easter Islander. This is, however, using a uniform prior, i.e. no informative information about the demographics of the area Mr. Johnson was found in. Given that Mr. Johnson was found in eastern Iowa, the probability of him being an Easter Islander significantly decreases -- that's just a matter of knowing the demographics of Iowa. To continue, what does this do to the typicality of Mr. Johnson's craniometric features?
By using the 2000 US census for Iowa as an informative prior, the highest posterior probability for Mr. Johnson is for "American white" at 0.6976, whereas the probability of him being an Easter Islander is now at 0.0449. This is an incredibly significant change considering the posterior probability we had using the uninformative prior. How do these probabilities change depending on the prior we use?
By using the 2000 US census data for Hawaii, the posterior probability for Mr. Johnson being an Easter Islander is now 0.9068, while the probability for being an American white is 0.0188. Using data for Gary, Indiana, the probability of Mr. Johnson being American white is 0.2728, but the posterior probability of him being American black is the highest at 0.5342. To summarize, the authors state in the discussion:
Let me stress the significance of those words. Using race in forensic anthropology is largely reliant on probabilities, and even then, it requires context.
This is why I get somewhat tired and irritated when, while debating about race, a sentence starts with "a forensic anthropologist can-" or even mentions forensic anthropology at all. Within the field of anthropology, there exists "social race" and "biological race." Forensic anthropologists more often than not are using morphological features to identify social race, that is, the race the individual would've been identified as had they been alive. This is why informative priors can change the probability estimates -- because an individual's social race is quite fluid; therefore, it does not justify race as a biological concept.
Thank you for reading.
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References:
Konigsberg, L., Algee-Hewitt, B., & Steadman, D. (2009). Estimation and evidence in forensic anthropology: Sex and race. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 139 (1), 77-90 DOI: 10.1002/ajpa.20934
Ousley, S., Jantz, R., & Freid, D. (2009). Understanding race and human variation: Why forensic anthropologists are good at identifying race. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 139 (1), 68-76 DOI: 10.1002/ajpa.21006
Sauer, N. (1992). Forensic anthropology and the concept of race: If races don't exist, why are forensic anthropologists so good at identifying them? Social Science & Medicine, 34 (2), 107-111 DOI: 10.1016/0277-9536(92)90086-6
This is stemming from my post on "Lewontin's Fallacy" and the topic of race as a biologically valid category for humans (or, rather, why it is not). Within the last week, I continued to receive a small number of comments, many of them branching from an ad nauseam argument regarding forensic anthropologists' ability to identify the race of an individual by either examining certain genetic clusters that correlate with self-identified race, or by examining bone fragments or other anthropometric features. I've disabled comments now, because I had already stated that I wouldn't further entertain the discussion, but I feel that a further explanation is needed to kill this line of reasoning.
To begin, the reason a forensic anthropologist can identify "race" with a high level of confidence can be narrowed down to two things: (1) a preconception of what "race" is, and (2) an informative prior.
This is fairly well discussed in the article "Understanding Race and Human Variation: Why Forensic Anthropologists are Good at Identifying Race" by Ousley, Jantz and Freid in 2009. The authors do concede that there are rather unambiguous morphological differences between American blacks and American whites; however, they explain why this can be taken out of context:
"Part of the reason for the disagreement between forensic and biological anthropologists has been in their different approaches and goals. Forensic anthropologists answer practical questions of age, sex, and race to construct the biological profile and narrow down possible identifications. In examining American blacks and whites, forensic anthropologists would naturally think in terms of two biological races because of the concordance between social and morphological race. Identifying social race, available in missing persons reports, would be the stopping point. Biological anthropologists would explore within-group variation further. These findings illustrate the essential difference between a forensic analysis and a biological analysis: forensic analysis produces practical information useful for forensic identification, while a biological analysis provides insight about relationships among arbitrarily defined populations, which may be defined by social races, breeding populations, language, nationality, time periods, and other criteria." (pp. 73)
Forensics: Useful for practical reasons.
These comments serve to echo and confirm the findings of Sauer in 1992 in a paper entitled "Forensic Anthropology and the Concept of Race: If Races Don't Exist, Why are Forensic Anthropologists so Good at Identifying Them?" Humorously, I would like to note that the only mentioning you'll find of this study on Metapedia (or any study featured in the special edition of the American Journal of Physical Anthropology Race Reconciled) is that the name of this study shows how forensic identification has "bewildered race deniers." How selectively vague and uninformative, right? But enough of mocking "race realists" (lest I break my rule).
So, this is what it means to have a preconception of what race is. It means that a forensic anthropologist can both disagree with the biological concept of race, but also work very well within the confines of his/her work to identify someone's social race, and remain completely consistent. But, there remains a question to answer: if the biological concept of race is inaccurate, how can a forensic anthropologist find such high concordance rates between self-identified race and morphological race? Surely that means the traditional racial categories we use are useful, right?
They are meaningful, for identification purposes, and that only works within a given society. This goes into what I alluded to earlier: an informative prior. This one is a bit less obvious to work with, so I'll defer to a study also featured in Race Reconciled which explains this function of forensic anthropology: a 2009 study by Konigsberg et al. entitled "Estimation and Evidence in Forensic Anthropology: Sex and Race." Not only was this study an easy read, but it comprehensively explains what so many people don't understand.
This study discusses the identification of one "Mr. Johnson" from Iowa. Using craniometric features and matching them to the samples in FORDISC 2.0 and Howells' sample using linear and quadratic discriminant function analysis, forensic anthropologists were able to identify the gender and race of Mr. Johnson rather unambiguously. The posterior probability of the body being male ranged from 0.996 to 0.999 -- noting this, I would like to make it clear that it is not easier to identify race than it is to identify gender, unlike what some might suggest. This part was rather uncomplicated by comparison, however, when we get into the identification of race, my talk of an informative prior becomes relevant.
By matching to the sample data, the typicality of Mr. Johnson relative to the Easter Islander sample was 0.8415, indicating a high probability that Mr. Johnson could be correctly identified, if he were alive, as an Easter Islander. This is, however, using a uniform prior, i.e. no informative information about the demographics of the area Mr. Johnson was found in. Given that Mr. Johnson was found in eastern Iowa, the probability of him being an Easter Islander significantly decreases -- that's just a matter of knowing the demographics of Iowa. To continue, what does this do to the typicality of Mr. Johnson's craniometric features?
By using the 2000 US census for Iowa as an informative prior, the highest posterior probability for Mr. Johnson is for "American white" at 0.6976, whereas the probability of him being an Easter Islander is now at 0.0449. This is an incredibly significant change considering the posterior probability we had using the uninformative prior. How do these probabilities change depending on the prior we use?
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| Mr. Johnson's race somewhat 'transforms' from state to state. |
"From an evidentiary standpoint, sex of the individual is only of much use if the sex ratio is very biased for the population at large and the identification is for an individual of the lesser represented sex. Regarding the use of race in estimation and evidentiary problems, this, like many problems in forensic anthropology is very context specific. We have shown that prior information can be very important both in estimation and evidentiary problems. But in estimation problems, we are ultimately faced with posterior probabilities which we must decide how how to implement." (pp. 84)
Let me stress the significance of those words. Using race in forensic anthropology is largely reliant on probabilities, and even then, it requires context.
This is why I get somewhat tired and irritated when, while debating about race, a sentence starts with "a forensic anthropologist can-" or even mentions forensic anthropology at all. Within the field of anthropology, there exists "social race" and "biological race." Forensic anthropologists more often than not are using morphological features to identify social race, that is, the race the individual would've been identified as had they been alive. This is why informative priors can change the probability estimates -- because an individual's social race is quite fluid; therefore, it does not justify race as a biological concept.
Thank you for reading.
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References:
Konigsberg, L., Algee-Hewitt, B., & Steadman, D. (2009). Estimation and evidence in forensic anthropology: Sex and race. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 139 (1), 77-90 DOI: 10.1002/ajpa.20934Ousley, S., Jantz, R., & Freid, D. (2009). Understanding race and human variation: Why forensic anthropologists are good at identifying race. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 139 (1), 68-76 DOI: 10.1002/ajpa.21006
Sauer, N. (1992). Forensic anthropology and the concept of race: If races don't exist, why are forensic anthropologists so good at identifying them? Social Science & Medicine, 34 (2), 107-111 DOI: 10.1016/0277-9536(92)90086-6
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