[Hasbinbad]

Originally Posted by bman8810 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Race (for humans) is a concept that allows us to quickly distinguish between various people. At one time that was solely skin color. As we progressed we realized that skin color was not nearly enough to encompass all that a person is. As such, race is now a much more complicated topic. Here is the current US Census Bureau definition. However, I can guarantee you that in ten years it will be different.

From Wikipedia: The OMB defines the concept of race as outlined for the US Census as not "scientific or anthropological" and takes into account "social and cultural characteristics as well as ancestry", using "appropriate scientific methodologies" that are not "primarily biological or genetic in reference."

As far as it being ridiculous to group an Irishman and a Romanian? It is entirely about your goal. If your goal was to separate based upon an umbrella color (i.e. white, black, red, orange, etc) then you are correct and have distinguished correctly. However, you could also say that their skin tones do not match exactly and that it is now an incorrect grouping. Hell, you can take two Irishmen and say they don't belong in the same grouping. You are entirely too hung up on this notion that there is a "correct" way to differentiate between people. There isn't. It is entirely about motives, goals, assumptions made, and whether it is ethically correct to do so.

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

^^^^^

The classic definition of race is arbitrary. Largely because of the colonial evil that has been done with the backing of that definition, the word "race" has fallen out of favor. "Race" isn't the preferred scientific term, as its definition is extremely loose. For example, "native american" is often called a race, but certain tribes experienced extreme genetic isolation and are not much more genetically comparable to the Apache than they are to us.

So people who say races don't exist aren't wrong, but they are only correct on a boring semantic technicality.

The idea of a unique evolutionary history for grouped populations is scientifically valid. Race would sure be a convenient term for differentiating between these populations, but it's been hijacked by ignorant rednecks and RL bloob reactionaries who are more concerned about arguing with retards than actually furthering human understanding. The word just has too much history to be useful, as long as we live among such shitheads.

tl;dr this whole thing is a semantic argument

Nether one of you has defined what a race is, so I am going to assume that there is in fact no such thing.

Give me a one (two at most?) sentence clear cut definition of what a race is, and I might believe that you two aren't completely idiotic..