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"To do science is to be a social actor engaged, whether one likes it or not, in political activity"
One of the greatest passages from Richard Lewontin's 'Dialectical Biologist' (1985)
dialecticbio.bsky.social
4,332 posts
- The race science crowd struggles with basic concepts in biology. Yes, crocodiles and alligators look similar but are different species. Yes, humans are all one species because even different looking people can produce viable offspring. These are facts, I'm sorry this upsets you.Why are the crocodile, ladybug, and beetle different but we're the same? Make it make sense because it doesn't... and yes I've read more on the subject than you'd like to hear. It's politics, that's my conclusion.
Readers added contextThe biological species concept defines a species as members of populations that actually or potentially interbreed in nature, not according to similarity of appearance. Although appearance is helpful in identifying species, it does not define species. evolution.berkeley.edu/biological-spe… - Race science guys have told us that refusing to consider hypothetical questions is a sign of low IQ. They've made memes out of it. Anyway, here they are refusing to consider the simple hypothetical "what if you weren't born a white guy?".
- IQ fans are like "IQ is the most reliable metric ever. Sure, test-retest variation is huge, and retesting is avoided because people get better at the test, meaning the error is unknown, and different tests have huge variation b/w them, but we should reshape all policy around IQ"
- Replying to @DialecticBioI don't think they got the memo that evolutionary biology moved away from the whole "if a thing looks the same they're the same species, and vice versa" style of classifying taxonomic groups.
- Replying to @TheDrRansom"How would you feel if you didn't have breakfast yesterday?" "But I did have breakfast! it is simply impossible for me to not have had breakfast! if I didn't have breakfast I would be a completely different person at a deep genetic level and not even be me!"
- Replying to @DialecticBioI AM A WHITE GUY. I AM A WHITE GUY. I AM A WHITE GUY
- Replying to @cceichhorn1I guess he accepts that different cats are the same species, but dogs are not. The logic is not consistent.
- Replying to @AX4sqhGSCapable of having offspring and capable of producing viable (i.e healthy, fertile) offspring are different things. Human "races" can produce perfectly healthy offspring, unlike Tigers and Lions.
- Replying to @BarnfieldMonroeLiterally just imagine your mind in another person's body. It's not hard to do if you have a sufficiently high IQ
- Replying to @DialecticBioRacists are trying to argue that the existence of Ligers somehow implies humans can be subdivided into species based on vibes. No, we are not speciating. Humans cover the entire globe yet are still less differentiated than chimps on the same continent sci-hub.st/https://doi.or…
- Replying to @TheDrRansomIt's really not a complicated question, it's just a way of asking you to empathise with other people. Just imagine you were in the situation of someone less fortunate than you. That's it. It doesn't require you to write a philosophy dissertation
- A good visualisation of why the concept of 'race' is misleading in a biological/genetic context and shouldn't be considered a real biological/genetic term geneticsandsociety.org/sites/default/… understandingrace.org/resources/pdf/…
- The "2024's best estimate" here is just the Lynn data again. A couple of race science bloggers averaged all the iterations of Lynn's data to make a "best estimate". This is like saying the data is valid because it correlates well with a copy and paste of itself
