[Dragaera] Boing!

[Jon_Lincicum at stream.com]

Philip Hart <philiph at slac.stanford.edu> 
Sent by: dragaera-bounces at dragaera.info
09/08/06 01:11 PM

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Re: [Dragaera] Boing!




>On Fri, 8 Sep 2006 Jon_Lincicum at stream.com wrote:
>
>> Now, while this is certainly a superficial distinction, since the 
marbles
>> are otherwise identical, I fail to see how it is an "artifical"
>> distinction. It seems to me it is based on an objective observation.
>
>For one, the standard categories often mask more than they reveal
>(there's more genetic diversity in Africa than the rest of the world
>combined, iirc) - and often they are based on really dumb criteria from a
>genetics pov - one might as well have the curly-haired and 
straight-haired
>races.  People have been arguing for a long time about how to define
>species or taxa or clades or whatever, stuff that'll make one's head
>spin, and given the problem of racism I think it's best to try to use
>neutral language where possible.  That's not to say that we shouldn't
>recognize that e.g. people in the US have different responses to some
>medicines based on where their ancestors lived at some suitable point in
>the past.

Yeah, well, reading the wikipedia article on "race" (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race) I can see how different disciplines and 
special interests are trying to interpret what the term really means. 
Ummm... I really don't want to get in the middle of this particular 
debate, so I'll say no more. 

>You write like one of those straight-hairs, btw.

Actually, my mother and sister are both jealous of my long naturally curly 
hair. 

Majikjon

-Currently a member of the sub-race /longhairdus hippius/.