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The notion of the 'gay gene' is hotly disputed in and out of queer circles. It's a convenient way to package a message for broad consumption but I don't think anyone takes it seriously as an academic or scientific proposition,

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contemporary post-modernist and post-feminist re-interpretations of Freud & Oedipus, and in contemporary understandings of the notions of subjectivity, desire and sexuality following Foucault, how they are produced within us while simultaneously producing us.

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What do people mean by "inborn" in this context? Do they mean it's literally a genetic inheritance (how could they possibly know?) or do they mean that the trajectory of their desire was established long before they realised it, long before they were even vaguely conscious of it and that they experience it as 'natural'?

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ORIGINAL: UllrsIshtar

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ORIGINAL: MercTech

Humanity has three distinct races; negroid, mongoloid, and caucasoid. (Anthropology is what you want to google if you want huge amounts of detail.)

Yeah, no, not anymore apparently.

A couple years ago I took a course in Anthropology in an American college, and was told that there are no different races in human being, because we all have the same amount of chromosomes, and therefor belong to the same species, which somehow meant racial differences didn't exist.

When I tried to argue in class that races isn't akin to species, but to breed, and that the races are more like the different breeds in dogs or horses (with humans often being 'mutts' because of interbreeding) I was told harshly that I was wrong, and race doesn't exist at all. After class I was taking aside and told that if I continued to attempt to present such arguments in front of the rest of the class, I would be receiving a failing grade for the entire semester, regardless of how well my grades were on the exams or assigned work...

So nope... there aren't any distinct races...

         In the end the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would have to believe it.

         It was inevitable that they should make that claim sooner or later:  the logic of their position demanded it.

         Not merely the validity of experience, but the very existence of external reality was tacitly denied by their philosophy.

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ORIGINAL: vincentML

Everything is not science

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and everything cannot be fact checked by science.

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Only a rigid, authoritarian mind would think so.

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When we talk or write socially about the archaic broad categories of racial phenotypes our discourse is guided by what we have learned and the stereotypes we have accepted, in which case Race is indeed socially constructed.

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At the same time, some anthropologists continue to argue that biological races are real and important entities, usually claiming that disbelief in the existence of such biological units amounts to nothing more than “political correctness.” “Political correctness” is rarely defined in such claims, but one of two general meanings is usually implied. It means either an inappropriate interest in the experiences of women, people of color, and the disadvantaged, or an inappropriate wariness about the objectivity of certain kinds of scientific research

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Science is not an exercise in nostalgia: when a term progresses from being burnished by long use to being made obsolete by increasing knowledge,it needs to be discarded. The concept of biological race in anthropology is at that point

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This author makes a detailed argument that the three broad categories of race arise from the prejudices of anthropologists, and it adds confusion to popular fears about "others."

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I have taken the liberty of selecting portions of personal interest without identifying them. If you are unhappy with my decision read the article in its full your own self.

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ORIGINAL: PeonForHer

I must admit I have trouble keeping up with the biological determinists' worldview. For instance, till recently, I'd thought that men rape women but not vice versa because testosterone and stuff. But one of the forum biological determinism experts here apprised me of the fact that women rape men as often as vice versa. How can this be possible if women lack the necessary biological make-up to make them aggressive enough to rape?

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ORIGINAL: vincentML
What are you saying? Liberals are tolerant, conservatives are not?

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I once read something that created an illustrative picture in my head about this. if you took all the people in the world and stood them side by side, one after the other, by skin color, you absolutely could not tell the difference between the person standing on either of any one particular person. differences wouldn't appear until way down the line, which might cause one to ask, at what point in the line, given the indiscernibility from one person to the next, does one cross over unto a different "race?"

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ORIGINAL: Awareness

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ORIGINAL: UllrsIshtar

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ORIGINAL: MercTech

Humanity has three distinct races; negroid, mongoloid, and caucasoid. (Anthropology is what you want to google if you want huge amounts of detail.)

Yeah, no, not anymore apparently.

A couple years ago I took a course in Anthropology in an American college, and was told that there are no different races in human being, because we all have the same amount of chromosomes, and therefor belong to the same species, which somehow meant racial differences didn't exist.

When I tried to argue in class that races isn't akin to species, but to breed, and that the races are more like the different breeds in dogs or horses (with humans often being 'mutts' because of interbreeding) I was told harshly that I was wrong, and race doesn't exist at all. After class I was taking aside and told that if I continued to attempt to present such arguments in front of the rest of the class, I would be receiving a failing grade for the entire semester, regardless of how well my grades were on the exams or assigned work...

So nope... there aren't any distinct races...

That's amazing. I used this just today and now I come across another scenario in which it's incredibly apropos.

         In the end the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would have to believe it.

         It was inevitable that they should make that claim sooner or later:  the logic of their position demanded it.

         Not merely the validity of experience, but the very existence of external reality was tacitly denied by their philosophy.

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ORIGINAL: vincentML

I found Foucault terribly dense, I'm afraid. But the notion is interesting. You would do me a favor if you could suggest a more lucid reading.

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ORIGINAL: bounty44

3rd girl over is reminding me of something I heard on the radio not long ago, that unless purposeful selective breeding/genetic manipulation is done, red hair will be gone from the population by something like 2060.

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ORIGINAL: dcnovice

FR

Are there races in other species?

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ORIGINAL: dcnovice

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ORIGINAL: bounty44

3rd girl over is reminding me of something I heard on the radio not long ago, that unless purposeful selective breeding/genetic manipulation is done, red hair will be gone from the population by something like 2060.

Interesting. Recessive gene?

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ORIGINAL: Awareness

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ORIGINAL: vincentML
What are you saying? Liberals are tolerant, conservatives are not?

No, that viewpoint is Leftist propaganda.

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Yeah what scared me about it most wasn't so much being told the whole "no such thing as race", cause whatever, maybe I'm wrong or something. I still think race is akin to breed and that a lot of humans are just 'mutts' and so you can't really tell what race they belong to without doing genetic testing, just like you can't tell which breeds the average street dog stems from without genetic testing. But again, maybe I'm wrong on that, so fine, I'll go with what the professor says for the purpose of the class, I'm there to 'learn' after all.

But being told, in a college class, that merely questioning the professor's views, and bringing up a (in my opinion logical) argument to back up your own views, will you'll get a failing grade for doing so???? Not being corrected, not being proven wrong, not being told that "we need to move on from this argument because of a lack of time, but we'll discuss it after class", but being told plain and simple: you are not allowed to present this view point in front of the other students or we'll fail you for the course.

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ORIGINAL: Awareness

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ORIGINAL: dcnovice

FR

Are there races in other species?

The equivalent would be breeds.

All variations which can mate and successfully produce offspring fall under the single species banner. Clearly, humanity are all the one species. However what we call "races" are particularly dominant phenotype variations which we classify based upon our experiences with them.

If, for example, you found a civilisation who had never met white people, they'd lack a word to describe them... but they'd probably rustle one up pretty quickly.

We define races based upon our perception of people's appearance and our knowledge of their culture. Someone who's unaware of the politics would probably have difficulty telling the difference between an Indian and a Pakistani, but someone more informed might know that Pakistanis are generally Muslim and Indians are usually Hindu or Christian and would use cultural indicators to refine their ability to tell the difference.

There's nothing inherently sinister in racial classification. We're always going to classify things - including people. The danger comes in selectively applying human rights on the basis of any classification scheme. And that's a violation which can occur in any taxonomy, not simply race.

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As for the word or notion of RACE, there are obvious differences between various peoples who, through thousands of years of geographical isolation,