Yeah I read the whole argument on rationalwiki, but it's pilpul. They argue that the existence of mixed people on the edges of geographic racial zones proves there is no such thing as race.
I hesitate to even say this as it's maybe obvious, but yeah anthropologists may want to use better proxies for genetic makeup than "white" or "black". But it's still a useful political concept because that's how people act.
I feel like if they used actual genetic analysis, they'd just get shut down harder. I mean so they find the "violence" gene. You know where that gene is going to be disproportionately expressed.
There are ton of words and categories that have ambiguous margins. Even something like "chair" is infamously difficult to define truly accurately. It doesn't mean the words mean nothing.
The internet has had a whole meme war over "Is a taco a hot dog?".
Language is, be design, vague, so that it can deliver concepts quickly and concisely. "There is a chair over there you can sit on", you look, and there is a padded cylinder with a slight concave top, but no other objects, you will likely correctly assume it is some type of stool, a chair subtype, to sit upon.
Likewise, if I said "there's an asian guy over there who you should talk to", you're not going to ask for phenotype tests of the red-haired white guy and the ebon-black afro-man while a fellow of clear Chinese ancestry stands beside them. Race may be ambiguous to an extent, but arguing that it doesn't exist is arguing that hot dogs don't exist because tacos also are bread product in a curve holding a meat product with toppings.
"Race is a made up concept invented by the white race."
If you are so stupid you read this and don't see what's happening, there's no hope for you.
Yeah I read the whole argument on rationalwiki, but it's pilpul. They argue that the existence of mixed people on the edges of geographic racial zones proves there is no such thing as race.
I hesitate to even say this as it's maybe obvious, but yeah anthropologists may want to use better proxies for genetic makeup than "white" or "black". But it's still a useful political concept because that's how people act.
I feel like if they used actual genetic analysis, they'd just get shut down harder. I mean so they find the "violence" gene. You know where that gene is going to be disproportionately expressed.
There are ton of words and categories that have ambiguous margins. Even something like "chair" is infamously difficult to define truly accurately. It doesn't mean the words mean nothing.
The internet has had a whole meme war over "Is a taco a hot dog?".
Language is, be design, vague, so that it can deliver concepts quickly and concisely. "There is a chair over there you can sit on", you look, and there is a padded cylinder with a slight concave top, but no other objects, you will likely correctly assume it is some type of stool, a chair subtype, to sit upon.
Likewise, if I said "there's an asian guy over there who you should talk to", you're not going to ask for phenotype tests of the red-haired white guy and the ebon-black afro-man while a fellow of clear Chinese ancestry stands beside them. Race may be ambiguous to an extent, but arguing that it doesn't exist is arguing that hot dogs don't exist because tacos also are bread product in a curve holding a meat product with toppings.