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I came across this long form article on genetics and race in TIME from 2014.
I’m impressed it was published at all and that it’s still online. Written by a former NYT editor no less, taken from his book.
https://time.com/91081/what-science-says-about-race-and-genetics/
It was denounced, of course.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Troublesome_Inheritance
Still, I can’t imagine any mainstream publication coming within a mile of “race” correlating to “genetics” today.
Geneticists have to be the biggest deniers of anything associated with race because they fear the backlash. Hell of a situation to be in. Good thing there’s only strong and increasing genetic evidence regarding populations, which have no overlap or correlation with race whatsoever.
A current example, drama over a genetics chart perhaps showing racial categories:
https://old.reddit.com/r/biology/comments/1ay54u4/all_of_us_genetics_chart_stirs_unease_over/
https://old.reddit.com/r/genetics/comments/1ay42d3/comment/krsjl7c/
This could be used to teach a class on propaganda and doublethink:
https://old.reddit.com/r/genetics/comments/14rgx56/how_can_race_and_iq_possibly_be_genetically/
Freedom of speech matters, it seems.
Makes we want to scream. Of course it's genetic! Even if we had zero knowledge of genetics, even if we were in 1000 BC we understood that race was hereditarian, that if you had a big Gaul breed with a small Malayan you'd probably get an in-between sized, half-Gaul, half-Malayan with South-Asian and European facial features.
I was taught in university that of course race doesn't exist and in the next few sentences the teacher was talking about how some populations were more or less vulnerable to sickle-cell anemia or their bone marrow was different. Hmm... What does she think race means, what is the use of the word? Is it really impossible for them to see through these word games, or are they knowingly lying?
Saying that race isn't genetic today, when we can look at haplogroups... it's like denying the colour blue just because you can't justify the exact nanometer blue turns to green. Or we could look at breeds of dog with remarkably different sizes and behaviours, aligning with heredity (and thus genetics)!
They use a tactic that's common to leftist thought. Set up an 'essentialist' strawman of a concept that is 100% discrete and definitive and then after knocking down this strawman declare any more nuanced approach just as essentialist and false as the strawman. It doesn't matter if the 'essentialist' idea of race or sex works 99% of the time, you already defeated any notion that discrete races or sexes exist, so any attempt to categorize people by race or sex must be just as false as the strawman(and motivated by racism and sexism).
Going to second Mushroom here. Foot-in-the-door strategy is not unusual.
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I don't think it's only common to leftist thought. Lots of people do this to lots of things. You notice it more from them because:
That's true, but postmodernist leftist philosophers and critical theorists use this kind of thing as a basis for their whole ideology. It isn't just a debate tactic it's something they really believe is true in their heart of hearts.
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Yeah it’s incredible to watch biologists deny even simple biological reality when it clashes with progressive orthodoxy. They have to play word games with “population” and “spectrum” to convince themselves they’re not giving aid and comfort to their ideological enemies.
There’s biology and then there’s human biology. It’s as if humans had their own physics.
So it’s refreshing to this commenter just applying basic logic, as if the progressive worldview is coherent.
I think it’s a combo of motivated reasoning, self-delusion, and indoctrination. Rarely is it intentional lying. Plenty of ideologies and religions will cause people to exhibit this kind of behavior to overcome contact with inconvenient facts.
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