[Raev]

Originally Posted by Hasbinbad [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

.. i mean .. *stifled guffaw* .. if there is such a thing as .. *probing eye contact* .. "racial markers" .. *gigglish outburst* .. then surely you can easily define race .. *knowing smile* ..

This is so silly that it can only come from someone who went to college. Any child of 5 can tell the difference between a Black man and an Asian man, yet because there isn't a magical 'Black' gene or an 'Asian' gene you are busy feeling superior on an internet message board to people using their common sense to make accurate real life predictions.

It's easy to show that races differ significantly genetically. For example, here is a paper on race in Nature. It has over 400 citations, and it says:

Of the 0.1% of DNA that varies among individuals, what proportion varies among main populations? Consider an apportionment of Old World populations into three continents (Africa, Asia and Europe), a grouping that corresponds to a common view of three of the 'major races'16, 17. Approximately 85−90% of genetic variation is found within these continental groups, and only an additional 10−15% of variation is found between them

So, while most genetic variation occurs between individuals, a solid 10-15% comes from what most people would call race. Scientists would probably consider the various races to be subspecies if it wasn't so politically incorrect. After all, an African human and an Asian human have far greater visibly obvious differences than a Siberian tiger and a Bengal tiger.

Edit: if you really want to have some fun, humans have 23 pairs of chromosomes for a total of 46. One of these differs between Men and Women, for about 2%. That's vastly higher than the 0.1% variance within the human species, and actually higher than the difference between humans and chimps (about 1%). So a male human is genetically closer to a male chimpazee than a female human, and a female human is genetically closer to a female chimpanzee than a male human. Meanwhile a cat only shares 90% of its genome with us.

And as long as I am busy writing this longwinded post that no one will read or understand, let me simply say that I am comfortable with racial differences between humans because I don't support government action based on, well, anything. If you believe in using government to fix problems, and you realize that races are genetically different, well one race must be better based on some criteria, and then you have the obligation to FIX it, and that leads you down a very unpleasant path. Whereas if you believe in small government that does not discriminate, you can simply accept obvious facts and move on with your life.