Talk:White people/Archive 16

Mediation suggestion

As I've been reading the discussion on this page, I was thinking that I'd like everyone involved in the mediation case to make an optional statement about the dispute, i.e. what the dispute is, their opinion, and ideas for a compromise. Hopefully this will help everyone begin to come to a solution. Neranei (talk) 23:03, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Sure, here, or on the mediation case talk page? SamBC(talk) 23:17, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, as all of the discussion is here, here. (I will probably transclude it later, if the need arises.) Thanks. Neranei (talk) 23:18, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, I'm happy to go first, but I'd like to make one request and give people a chance to respond to that before I post my "summary". Based on my experience with mediation IRL, I'd request that everyone attempt to make their summary as polite as possible while also being full and frank, and also that no-one respond directly to any of the summaries until "everyone" has had a chance to make their own summaries. Avoid addressing point in other people's summaries in your own. This isn't point-counterpoint, although I'm sure we'll get back to that later. This is just everyone putting forward their own view without a context of conversation. SamBC(talk) 23:28, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

I do not believe this article can ever reach a consensus. I hope I'm proven wrong. - Jeeny ^Talk 23:32, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

To Sam: Thank you for being a proponent of politeness, and to Jeeny: That's what Singularity and I are for. We will try our best. Neranei (talk) 23:33, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Slrubenstein's position

This was my original comment on the article and I still stand by it. Aside from census data, this article is mostly about the relationship between certain genotypic and phenotypic features associated with "white people." I have two problems with this. First, it utterly ignores a vast literature in anthropology, sociology, and cultural studies on the social construction of whiteness, how the notion of "white" people has changed historically, and its cultural dimensions. I realize that to write about this someone would have to go through peer-reviewed journals (including interdisciplinary ones like Critical Inquiry, Representations and Public Culture) to find the important articles and look through book reviews to identify the important books (I provide a list of some of the most important such books above) - but hey, that is what you have to do if you want to write an encyclopedia article, right? Until someone does this, the article fails to live up to our NPOV standards by ignoring many important points of view. Second, the sections on genoytpe strike me as original research insofar as they are synthetic i.e. making claims about "White people" in general. All the scientific studies are on specific populations, and different populations will have diferent features and it is not scientific to take results from different populations and average them unless you have a good reason. Here is a good reason based on the article itself: country by country. When the US does a census to identify White people, and the Ecuadorian census identifies White people, they are NOT referring to members of the same race or ethnic group. Censuses reflect states' views of their citizenry, although the degree to which they reflect the interests of bureaucrats, social scientists, or political negotiations with representatives of ethnic groups varies. But often time within many countries (certainly the US and Brazil) the boundaries between ethnic groups and how people self identify may vary from what is recorded by the census ... which is why you really need to look at work by historians, sociologists, and anthropologists - otherwisewhat you have is at best a distortion, or at worst amounts to OR (in the form of synthesis.

Although I have presented my position in terms of compliance with NOR and NPOV, Fourdee and others have challenged me arguing not only that I am pushing a POV but that it is a fringe POV. Thee is no way to make sense of this dispute without my trying to understand Fourdee's position. Fourdee writes, "I have repeatedly said that the material that slrubenstein and others are promoting can be included in the article however it should not overwhelm a topic with criticisms rather than a discussion of the actual topic and that I will be watching for anything that is willfully misleading, improprerly paraphrased, and arrangements of material that give undue weight to tiny minority views." It is true that Fourdee has said this, and I believe that his formulation here may provide one possible starting point for mediation. I am sure that all agree in principal that we want to avoid "anything that is willfully misleading, improprerly paraphrased, and arrangements of material that give undue weight to tiny minority views" and another way to frame the dispute is that people disagree over what material fits this description. My statement above asserts that much of the material in the article, although sourced, was misleading. Perhaps when first added it was not "willfully" misleading, but a number of editors (notably Alun/Wobble) besides myself have since explained how and why it is misleading. Nevertheless, this remains a point of contention that may require/benefit from mediation. Another point for mediation involves Fourdee's sugestion that the views I wish included are "criticisms" of the topic; my position is that they express alternate views. At stake is where the material would go in the article: in a special "criticism" section at the end, or in the beginning as one of several major views. A linked issue is Fourdee's characterizing these views as fringe or minority. I contend that they represent major views within the academy. It is true that many people are ignorant of or reject scholarly research, but I do not believe that this renders scholarly research "fringe" or "minority." I believe that "fringe" or "minorty" can have meaning in an encyclopedia only in relation to a particular community or constituency (mass media, the scientific community, and so on) and are not meaningful in absolute terms. I believe Fourdee and others disagree - so this too would be an important area requiing mediation.

There is in fact a huge body of academic literature on who Whites are and what it means to be White. I list several such books above. Some have suggested that discussion of this literature belongs in Whiteness studies. But that article provides a general context for the academic trend - it does not provide a detailed account of thier findings. I think there is a place for a Wikipedia article on Whiteness, as long as it complies with NPOV and NOR; I believe the starting point for such an article would be to present the findings of this massive body of scholarly research on whites. I would further propose that such an article should absorb the article on Caucasian race (which needs to be updated to take into account current evolutionary science/physical anthropological research on race as a biological concept), but could be separate from an article on European peoples, which would be about ethnic groups in Europe. Slrubenstein | Talk 23:55, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

KarenAER's position

Problems:

1) Afrocentricism by User:Muntuwandi :

Few Ex: [1] or pictures like this:[2]. This article is not about who is non white.

2) Genetics and other population section is a POV fork. Either delete or add more arguments like this: [3].

3) Relations with blacks section is irrelevant. Again, it is afrocentricism by Muntuwandi. One drop rule may be mentioned with couple of words but a whole section is irrelevant.

4) This pic [4] should go because, for every 4 people whose skin color is similar like that, there may be 4000 with clear skin tone differences. Europeans are the lightest ethnic group (Spectrophotometry confirms that). That's why they are called white. And the pic is POV pushing. There seems to be no objective comparison, ie: suntanned Kerry vs other people in bright lightening. Also look at here: [5]. Thandie Newton's skin color is clearly non-white compared to Matt Dillon...

5) If there will be a gallery and Mid Easterners will be included, they should be in a seperate gallery because their whiteness seems to be a minority opinion, given the quotes in the article.

Summary from my perspective — SamBC(talk)

Reason for dispute

There have been some fairly polarised views as to what this article should be, never mind what it should contain. This has since developed into further evidence that there is disagreement as to whether this article should even exist. Should the article be based on the use of the term (broadly), on strictly ethnic interpretations, on particular ethnic interpretations, and so on.

My opinion

My opinion is largely that there should be a compromise; I don't have a firm opinion beyond that the article should exist, should be more than disambiguation, and should cover the full range of (verifiable/notable) uses and meanings.

Suggested compromise

I would suggest that the page become a sort of enhanced disambiguation. Sections and subsections to cover the ways in which the term is used and what it is used to mean, with pretty brief coverage, and "main article" links to articles with fuller coverage where possible. Because of the controversy over images, I would suggest that no images be used in the article lead or otherwise prominently. Instead, images directly applicable to a section/subsection should be included there only, and based on their appropriateness to that section rather than based on any idea of what should be in the article overall. For example, if there is a section on "racial/ethnic usage", with subsections on specific interpretations within that usage, the section would potentially include an image indicating a range of ethnicities to put the concept in context. General examples, however, of who is/isn't white should not be included, largely because they would have to be variations of such for each section/subsection, as there is no overall consensus on or off wikipedia as to what constitutes a "white person".

I think that covers it. SamBC(talk) 00:13, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

fourdee's position

My main concern is that the first photographs in this article be of the most widely understood concept conveyed by "white people" and that any photographs of "why other people aren't considered white" be located lower in the article and be tastefully selected, and should not overwhelm the article. How can there be more pictures of "people who aren't white" than "people who are white"? How can they appear first in the article? I also strongly object to any user-generated collages unless they are created by consensus.

Integration with or absorption of the caucasian race article doesn't make sense because "white" is used as exclusive of many caucasians in my understanding of the most common meaning. Perhaps some matters can be cross-referenced between the articles as appropriate.

As to alternate views I have zero objection to a fair treatment of all points of view on this. I do think that if we are going to include material from left-wing political agendas (such as Muntuwandi cites at times), it should be equally balanced with any opposing points of view. For example if someone is going to be introduced as a citation who is arguing white americans should be more inclusive of mulattos, equivalent counter arguments should be introduced, since the argument itself is not factual but is an appeal to belief or emotion.

-- fourdee ᛇᚹᛟ 05:40, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Muntuwandi's position

• My first issue regards the use of earlier versions such as 3rd August. This version has a section on "physiology and genetics". My impression is that the editors of this version were somehow trying to promote the uniqueness of people who are white. Statements like "Europeans are the big exception..." etc. and Dbachmann

• I am against the use of hair and eye color maps. I am not opposed to mentioning that Europeans have a variety of hair and eye color, but I believe it is not central to the concept of who or who is not white. Furthermore the emphasis on these trivial traits takes away the focus on more detailed information that could be added.
• I am for including information on racial taxonomy with regards to the social construction of whiteness. Such as not all light skinned people are considered white, and why they are not. For example some East Asians have skin reflectance that overlaps with Europeans. Some hispanics who are white sometimes complain that their whiteness in the US is compromised because they speak spanish[6]. Historically also not all Europeans were granted membership to whiteness.
• I am also for including a discussion on the more flexible definitions of who is white that are found outside the US. People who are mixed race may often be considered white or have access to white privilege outside the US [7]. Since the skin color line that divides whites, from "non whites" is arbitrary, I would like a discussion on the arbitrariness of this line. Henceforth the possible use of some of the controversial pictures.
• I am for inclusion of a comparison between the terms White, caucasian and European. For example not all caucasian people are considered white, not all europeans are white, not every light skinned person is caucasian etc.
• This article or the Black people article or any other race related article should not serve as an advertisement for its race, but should be an educational article. This is why I believe some of the editors on the "other side" are resistant to including information on any group or individual who they do not consider as belonging to white race according to their personal views.
• I am for caution with the use of pictures. Some editors have tried to make this article into a beauty pageant of young white women. Not all white people are women and not all are young. Though some of the images I propose are controversial, I believe they try to make meaningful comparisons rather than a random pictures of caucasian peoples.

Muntuwandi 06:51, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

AlanD's position

I'll keep it brief as people have complained about overly long answers (a comment I find quite rude to be honest).

This is not an encyclopedic article. This is an attempt to write an article because "black people" exists as an article. There is no material in this article that isn't covered better elsewhere. Frankly this is a very subjective article with no focus and no point. This article has no place whatsoever in Wikipedia. I have never read a bigger collection of subjective POV tripe in my life. As one proceeds through the article it becomes clearer and clearer that the editors are simply grasping at straws to pad out an undeserving entry.

I have no idea why on Earth this survived a AfD as one read through it is enough to show that it is an irrelevance and an embarressment to the project. The article fails to state what "White People" are objectively, it strays into other subjects frequently and it is a magnet to racists and white supremisists (who no doubt have articles already).

What is a white person? Who cares? Everything that is relvant to this article is already contained in other article.

Speedily delete this embarressment and replace with a disambig page please.AlanD 08:29, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

I've just read my comments and I have no idea why I put them across so aggressively. I stand by the content of my statement but I apologise for the way I conveyed it.AlanD 08:34, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Alun's position

On the whole I tend to agree with AlanD's position. There is nothing in this article that cannot be presented in a more complete and contextually more appropriate way in many other articles. SLR may well have a better idea of what this article should look like, but I think he has suggested on this talk page that any appropriate information for this article could be included in the article Whiteness studies. On the whole this dispute is really about which group of people the term White people applies to. I'd frame it in the context of an absolutist versus a generalist approach. The absolutists take the position that White people are only those people with an European ancestry who also "look European" (though in the USA this does not preclude people with a significant or even majority of non European ancestry [8][9]). There is a tendency among the people supporting the absolutist position to state that although other points of view should be included, these should be presented as minority points of view, because the concept that White is synonymous with "looking European" is the most widely held view. On the other hand there seems to be little evidence that this view is held globally. In Brazil "'White' was (and continues to be) more an indicator of existence of a series of moral and cultural attributes than skin color"[10][11] People who hold a more generalist view, as I do, tend not to distinguish between any "majority" or "minority" opinion, but think that we should treat all conceptions of White as equal and socially constructed. Personally I am of the opinion that the absolutist position is derived from systemic bias on the part of these good faith editors, after all we are all conditioned to think that our own world view is the norm. I support a situation where this article tries to disambiguate different meanings of the term White people and redirect users to articles where they can actually get detailed encyclopaedic information about what they are interested in. Cheers. Alun 10:44, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Ramdrake's position

When I stumbled upon it, this article struck me as a cross between Caucasian race and Europeans, with the strong implied suggestion that one wanted to equate Caucasian race==Europeans. While Europeans are possibly the one major population group who are likely to be included in all possible definitions of "white", this doesn't sum many of the more interesting aspects of "whiteness": its much more restrictive membership than all other major racial groupings (see the One-drop rule, for example), the debate aout which ethnic groups are to be considered "truly white", and so on. This article, by its very subject is bound to be controversial and to be a magnet for many extreme positions. Also, in all fairness much of its content can be merged into other articles (Caucasian Race, Europeans, Whitesness Studies), and would probably look more at home there. As I said earlier, this article looks like a cross between subjects, and by this very quality represents a tremendous potential for OR. Given all these factors, and the faqct that many positions around this mediation table are diametrally opposed to each other, I honestly think the best and simplest way to deal with this article and resolve the many issues its nature raises is to merge all relevant content to other, less controversial articles (see above for three prime candidates) and to turn this into some sort of disambiguation page, which would refer the reader to the appropriate subject they're looking for, whether the racial, ethnic or sociological aspects of the term. I wouldn't oppose and would even welcome the inclusion of brief, summary-style paragraphs to complement each redirection target and to give the reader finding this page a something akin to a preview of what each redirection target represents. I would also welcome some sort of general introduction which would state that the "white" epithet has many different meanings, both historically, geographically, socially and politically.--Ramdrake 11:38, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Dark Tea's position

The white people article should only have definitions of white people. Since these definitions of white people do not agree with each other, it would violate the ideal neutral point of view of the article to have information about physical appearence, population numbers, genetics and galleries of people. These sections would have to take a point of view about the definition of white people, violating the neutral point of view policy. I think the whole dispute is due to these sections, since the editors do not agree on the definition of white people.----^DarkTea©20:49, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Mediation related - polite requests/feedback between users

Section initially created to hold comments moved from section above to discourage dialogue in that section — SamBC(talk) 00:16, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

May I also suggest Slrubenstein to try to be more concise? His answers usually seem to be long.. KarenAER 23:58, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Sometimes it's necessary to be verbose in order to say exactly what you mean to say (or as exact as possible). Some people are more naturally concise than others. As long as we can all understand eachother, I think that everything else is pretty minor. SamBC(talk) 00:17, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

KarenAER seems to think that the views of blacks or the relationshiop between whites and blacks is either irrelevant or tangential or trivial in the context of this article. I think this is evidence of a clash of points of view. perhaps there is a verifiable POV that races can be understood on their own terms and in isolaion. However, all of the literature I know of states that races exist and have meaning in relation to other races. This is not a criticism of the idea of race let alone a criticism of the white race. It is a well-established scholarly method for studying races. Nor does this mean that how self-identified whites viw themselves doesn't belong in this article. But it does mean that how non-whites have viewed whites may be relevant, and it means that many social scientists have interpreted how self-identified whites view themselves by examining the relationships between whites and non-whites. And all thisw has to be in the article too. Slrubenstein | Talk 03:29, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Just a little comment on one of Ramdrake's statements. You mention "white people" as being a restrictive group and cite the One drop rule. I have to say this highlights yet another problem with the article. I had never heard of the one drop rule before reading this article and it is not something I recognise from daily life in the UK. For me, this just shows how subjective this whole article is (no offense meant to you Ramdrake quite the opposite as I support most of your comments). Surely the one drop rule must work in both directions (ergo a mixed race person could be considered white or black). Most people I know don't tend to categorise people into racial groups (an awareness of cultural background is a different thing altogether and is necessary in education where treating everyone equally can actually equate to discriminating against some people) but those who do (even the more racist of them) often consider mixed race people to be white. AlanD 13:12, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Alan, just so you know: the one drop rule is found generally in New World societies which were based on slavery, in which slaves were mostly from Africa and masters mostly from Europe. It works in only one direction, because of its economic function (if a White master raped a slave, her child would be a slave not free. Since "black" and "white" largely functioned as code words for slave and master, the slave-child would be considered completely slave and thus completely black.) For very different reasons, the opposite occured in the Dominican republic where people with one drop of white blood were considered entirely white, but that is the only exception I know of in the New World. So the reason people in the UK are unfamiliar with the term is that the vast majority of slaves owned by British subjects were in the New World, not in the UK. Slrubenstein | Talk 13:20, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Actually, the "reverse one drop rule" is found all over Latin America [12]. Muntuwandi 13:38, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Well... It is not as simple as that, Muntuwandi. Most of the time, in Ibero-America, namely Brazil (but you can also find something similar in Mexico), mixed people were called... mixed people! Of course social and cultural factors intervened in the exact type of category they would be placed at, and yes, the more higher the status, the more white people became (But not linearly! Even whites without Jewish ancestry, see Limpeza de Sangue, but born outside Europe were deemed inferior to European born ones!). Go and see articles like Pardo and Mestiço. The Ogre 14:39, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

By "reverse one drop rule" I mean that anyone with one drop of white blood is considered White, which is or has been found in the DR. What is happening in Brazil is definitely different (and far more complex) - it is covered in the Race article as a case-study in the social construction of race. Put simply, Brazil has a racial system of classificaiton that is far more complex and simply does not map onto either the US or the DR. Slrubenstein | Talk 14:52, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for that.AlanD 22:27, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes it is more complex in Brazil. I read somewhere that to some extent socioeconomic status can lead to "whitening", or upward mobility through the various racial categories. Muntuwandi 01:24, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

I highly recommend to you Marvin Harris's Patterns of Race in the Americas. It is dated and some things will irritate you (he uses caucasoid and negroid following the convention of the time and it irritates me it is so dated) but aside from being short, well-written, and available in cheap paperback, given your own interestes I think you will find it very fascinating and edifying. Slrubenstein | Talk 10:08, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Mariah Carey picture

The Mariah Carey picture is suitable for the article, I think, but who is the very dark woman next to her and why is she there? I think her pic should be removed.

Also, Carey's name is misspelled in the picture caption as Maria. Victor Chmara 12:15, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Based on positions

I know I suggested waiting until everyone posted, but it looks like most people have, and most positions are represented.

Would people agree that there is a) direct support and b) distinct compromise arguments for largely merging content and creating the sort of 'enhanced disambiguation' that has been suggested? That is to say sections for each other article/group of articles and reasonably brief coverage of that subject to help people figure out what they're looking for and provide a general overview. This would seem to serve as a compromise between the most extreme views, as well as meeting some of the suggested compromises already suggested. SamBC(talk) 15:57, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

I am for any disambiguation that keeps race and ethnicity separate, as they would draw on distinct bodies of research. Slrubenstein | Talk 16:00, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

I would like to see an example developed at a sandbox page. I think that I would support this. --Kevin Murray 16:58, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Slrubenstein, race and ethnicity are not mutually exclusive terms. The traditional meaning of race was something more like ethnicity. And if for example we can find published evidence that a common classification of white coincides largely with the R1 Y-haplogroup of Europe (as I believe), or some other particular set of ethnic groups, a discussion of their genetic traits would certainly be appropriate.

As far as this compromise it does sound reasonable but it also sounds like it will just make this article into a clearinghouse for arguments about why "white people" is a bogus categorization. Again, any sources which include appeals to belief or emotion will need to be balanced with opposing points of view. Let's look at a sandbox version though - which should be created under this page, not within it - for example at Talk:White_people/SamBC_version. -- fourdee ᛇᚹᛟ 17:36, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't think anybody is planning on using such sources, if they are only based on beliefs and emotions. I think it's clear to everyone and that everyone agrees that all positions represented need to be reliably and veritably sourced, and in proportion to that position in the real world.--Ramdrake 18:03, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

I mean this sort of material that Muntuwandi pushes:

"easily one-third of blacks have white DNA" she wonders why, in light of this, so much of the focus on tracing ancestry in the black community has focused on finding a link back to a region in Africa. She holds that in ignoring their white ancestors African Americans are denying their fully articulated multi-racial identities.

It's not factual; it's a discussion of coulds and shoulds and a blatant social agenda. This sort of material is not peer-reviewed science. To introduce material like this invites counter-citations of people who believe differently. -- fourdee ᛇᚹᛟ 18:33, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

fourdee:"And if for example we can find published evidence that a common classification of white coincides largely with the R1 Y-haplogroup of Europe (as I believe)..." So this would include many people from Europe, India (where millions of men belong to haplogroup R1) and China, (see the map here) but exclude many people from Europe, notably the majority of men from Finland (predominantly Y haplogroup N see map[13][14]) and a very significant number of men from Germany and Scandinavia (30-40% Haplogroup I). Haplogroup I is most common in northern Germany, Denmark and southern Norway and Sweden. Indeed Haplogroup I is a native European haplogroup that is not found outside of Europe at all.[15] pdf I myself belong to haplogroup I1a which is found in about 8% of Welsh men. And of course if we are equating "white" with the R1 haplogroup (R1 is hardly ever discussed as a haplogroup because nearly all men belonging to the R haplogroup are R1a, R1b or R2, see Haplogroup R (Y-DNA)), then obviously no women would ever be White, because women do not have Y chromosomes at all!! There is zero chance of finding anything approaching a reliable source for this statement because no one with any competence in genetics would ever make a statement like this. As Keita et al. state in their 2004 paper Conceptualising human variation "Y-chromosome and mitochondrial DNA genealogies are especially interesting because they demonstrate the lack of concordance of lineages with morphology", by that they mean that Y chromosome haplogroups do not show any correlation with so called "racial types".[16] I also don't understand what fourdee is talking about when he says "or some other particular set of ethnic groups, a discussion of their genetic traits would certainly be appropriate." Ethnic groups are social constructs, they do not represent reproductively isolated populations, they certainly do not represent populations that display significant biological diversity. fourdee seems not to want to accept the conclusions of academic research when they do not support his personal view (he characterises them as fringe for example), but seems to be happy to accept academic opinion when he thinks this opinion supports him. Alun 19:49, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Alun, you have said this before, several times, and Fourdee keeps and will continue to keep ignoring you. I know people will yell at me for not being constructive in seeking a mutually acceptable compromise - but the fact is, and yes it is a fact, Fourdee has (1) admitted to being a racist and (2) admitted that he intends to use this article to push his POV. Of course he is going to consistently ignore or misrepresent the science. Frankly, I doubt we will have a successful mediation unless we address these uncomfortable facts. Slrubenstein | Talk 21:29, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

This isn't very helpful in a number of ways, but I would suggest that the best way to deal with this for now would be if Fourdee is willing to state that, whether any of that is true or not, and whether or not he has been before now, that he is now willing to work towards a NPOV solution with no agenda-pushing. SamBC(talk) 22:24, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

In relation to other comments, I would like to say that NPOV does not require that there be no points of view - it requires that they be balanced, given the availability of reliable sources. SamBC(talk) 22:24, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Please excuse any errors don't really have time at the moment for this niggling conversation about genetics that are not in dispute by any party.

Most of what you said was not really correct alun. I meant that R1a, R1b, and I together form the group that is called white. I just didn't want to go into this excruciating and distracting detail. And of course this is only the male line; there are interesting female mtdna patterns too but much less striking than the geographic distribution of R1a and b (and I as well, which is obviously nordic and co-exists with the other two). There is a homogeneity of those 3 particular male lines among the people we call white. So I think the important part of this question is: what sort of basic facial traits does that ancestry impart if any. I think that is definitely why some aryan people in india look like white people in basic features, and that is far from a novel proposition... The people who lack this basic feature don't look as white as others because they look more alien. As you know, the actual male line heritage, which in this case for all "whites" originates in 1 of 3 men, doesn't mean you dont have traits from one of the other lines, or even predominantly of a different background.

Further, what I'm arguing is that the most dominant "background" just based on the percentage of male line inheritance in that region including places with I haplogroups should be either r1a or r1b or a combination of both in the regions in between, rather than the background necessarily being a set genetic traits associated with I's alleles. I don't really know about the history of I or why it is related to the trojans or people in that general area but it's not so important. Wasn't that something the Nazis claimed about nordic people - that they are related to the trojans? Anyway, I is not very different looking and closely related to R1a and R1b, so its geographic distribution would not affect the lines of the map much and doesn't really matter if one looks at the distribution of R1a and R1b.

So according to my recollection of the distribution this version of "white" would be something like Spain, France, Switzerland, germany, austria, czech, poland, (baltic states i would include), belorussia, many in russia, not sure which other slavic countries, denmark, sweden, norway, great britain, ireland, iceland, many people in finland... Basically where whites come from. Ethnic groups are genetic constructs and it's just a lie that they are "social constructs" any more than anything is a social construct. There are many genetic metrics for the people called white by just about any standard. Being R1a (slavic), R1b (celtic), or I is basically the standard I meant - I mostly occurs with R1a and R1b.

I think the important factor here is the male lineage all from these few individuals among this population that looks "familiar" or "stereotypically" white. It's why a Spaniard does look in a way that is similar to a pole, when compared to other people, and why in my opinion the populations where I is the dominant male line background look most "familiar" and therefore get automatically grouped with R1a and b groups is because they have such a degree of co-incidence with with them. There are a very limited number of mtdna line mothers for Europe too, this is quite well documented and only strengthens the argument that there is a genetic reason some people look familiar and some look more foreign and this is closely related to whiteness.

Of course features mix up more than is reflected by male or female line inheritance but it is a significant metric to understand. This is also why it's absurd to say that there is no "genetic" basis for racial or ethnic terms - there is always a genetic reason or set of reasons for any generalizations you can observe about the appearance (and probably the behavior) of any population of people with a significant degree of common genetic heritage. Ethnicity is closely linked to concepts of race and nation and is caused by direct inheritance of important alleles. These few genes make all the difference in who you are and there is a huge degree in commonality among them in certain populations. Anyway, what I am saying is, take the map of R1a and R1b distribution and compare it with an idea of whiteness? How close is it? I don't really know it was just my impression. I'm sure some of these "books" slr linked must cite ethnicities included in different ideas of white. -- fourdee ᛇᚹᛟ 23:33, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

• "Most of what you said was not really correct alun." Please provide sources. I provided citations from reliable sources. I have a BSc in genetics, I think I understand the subject matter at hand. If you dispute the veracity of what I am saying then please provide evidence. Alun 04:07, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

You're not repeating facts, you're repeating conclusions which are far-removed from the science.

I did not claim to be "repeating facts". There is nothing "far removed from science" in what I am saying. Can you provide some sources please? I have asked several times for you to do this. You are merely denying the conclusions reached by reputable scientists because they do not support your personal opinion. Whereas you are entitled to your personal opinion, you have not supported any of it with citations from reliable sources. I can only conclude, as someone who has read a great deal of this body of scientific literature, that you do not have any sources to support your opinion. You just believe it, it seems to be a matter of faith with you. This is fine as far as I am concerned, but of course you cannoy include any of it in any article. Alun 14:51, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

• "There is a homogeneity of those 3 particular male lines among the people we call white." How can three distinct haplogroups be homogeneous, the very fact that there are three shows heterogeneity. Besides these are just the dominant haplogroups in Europe, there are many many more Y chromosome haplogroups in Europe.

Um, because the overwhelming majority of people in the area are descended from these 3 people.

Indeed, every human being on earth may well share a common ancestor who lived a mere 3,500 years ago, by some estimations, and every single person on earth may be the direct descendant of all the people who were alive only 7,500 years ago (or at least all those that have descendants that are living today).[17] Most of the data indicate that our species is, in it's totality very closely related. Beside every person belonging to this group is not descended from three people, this cannot be the case, three men cannot produce offspring without women, and genetic drift, something that is a common phenomenon, means that the number of males that contributed to the European gene pool is likely to have been far greater, it's just that their Y chromosomes did not survive into modern times. This is a well known phenomenon.Alun 14:51, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

• "there are interesting female mtdna patterns" Men carry mtDNA as well, they just don't pass it on to their children. Besides mtDNA is a tiny piece of DNA that is carried in the mitochondria. mtDNA data do not show the same level of geographic localisation, this is thought to be indicative of males having been geographically stationary while females may have moved around. The usual explanation is that women joined their husbands band or tribe when they got married, thus mtDNA haplogroups are geographically more diffuse than Y chromosomes haplogroups.

You are trying to lecture about things that were not incorrect and not disputed.

If you want to make unsupported claims about genetics then you have to expect to get informed replies, if you do not like the science then it is not my problem.Alun 14:51, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

• "As you know, the actual male line heritage, which in this case for all "whites" originates in 1 of 3 men" What? This is just not true and is not supported by any reliable source. Indeed it is thought that all men can trace their Y chromosome back to an ancestral Y chromosome from a man that lived about 70,000 years ago, but it is not claimed anywhere that I know that all White men are descended from one of three men, some Y chromosomes in Europe are distinctly differentiated, and arrived in Europe via several different routes. For example the haplogroups J2 and E3b occur in Europe, they are thought to be associated with the neolithic. E3b occurs at a rate of 33% in Abergele in Wales and is thought to derive from Ethiopia. If one wants to go back far enough then all modern Y chromosomes are descended directly from the man who carried this ancestral Y chromosome 70,000 years ago, but there can be no reliable sources that claim that all White men carry a Y chromosome derived from a single more recent common ancestor, and no scientist would make such a claim, for the simple reason that no reputable scientist would be prepared to put their career on the line to make statements that are impossible to support scientifically. The first and most fundamental problem with this statement is that no geneticist would ever use the term White people when they attempt to define a population. Because the term White people is so wishy washy any scientist that tried to equate Y chromosome lineages with Whiteness would become a laughing stock very quickly.

Here you deleted the correct material which already started that your Y chromosome doesn't necessarily reflect your features and genetics but when just one or two are dominant it's a good sign that the population isn't as mixed as others.

I haven't deleted anything from here, this is the first time I have read these posts, unless I removed something inadvertantly, in which case this was an accident. Your comment about Y chromosomes is not correct. Y chromosomes are affected by genetic drift a great deal more than autosomes. Due to the nature of the NRY it should be treated as if it were a single locus, there is only a limited amount about ancestry we can tell from NRY for the simple reason that it is inherited from only one ancestor per generation. Or to put it another way, you have eight great grandparent, which means that about 87.5% of your ancestry comes from those grandparents that you did not get your Y chromosome from in that generation. That means that the vast majority of the males in your ancestry do not pass their Y chromosome on to you. Non of the male ancestors of your mother have donated their Y chromosome to you, for example.Alun 14:51, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

• "I is not very different looking and closely related to R1a and R1b" Haplogroup I is not closely related to Haplogroups R1a and R1b, see ISOGG tree for example Q is more closely related to R than I is.

Yes, in the tree showing descent of haplogroups this is true (and is interesting to note, as well as the fact that asians and whites have a common ancestry that is distinct from negroes), but geographically and genetically there is a historic link between these two populations. The fact that Q is closer to R than I is is something I've noted in previous discussions about this. You seem to equivocate between believing I is going to have similar features to R1 today due to proximity in mixing (the "gene drift" argument which is certainly true) and saying that the hierarchy on the tree of haplogroups is the most significant in determining similarity (the strawman you put up which actually I do not agree with).

All out of Africa humans are more closely related to each other than they are to most Africans according to ROA. I am not equivocating at all. Y chromosomes do not recombine as the autosomes do, indeed they cannot because men usually only have one which only recombines with the X chomosome at it's ends. It is the non recombining Y (NRY) that is of interest. Because Y chromosomes do not recombine with each other they do not share any genetic material, this is why they form discrete lineages. The I haplogroup cannot become similar to the R1b haplogroup just because they occur in the same population, they will always be distinct because they are inherited patrilineally.Alun 14:51, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

• "Ethnic groups are genetic constructs and it's just a lie that they are "social constructs" Where's the evidence from reliable sources? This statement just doesn't stand up to any scrutiny whatsoever. If ethnic groups are genetic constructs then Welsh people are different genetically to English people, but the variation seem in Great Britain between the east and west is clinal. In Wales R1b is at about 85%, in East Anglia it is at about 60%, with a very gradual decrease in it's frequency, there is absolutely no evidence of any sharp discontinuity as one would expect if ethnic groups were "genetic constructs", see A Y chromosome census of the British Isles

I've seen the opposite - that English people are more similar in Y haplogroups to Frisians, and that Welsh are different - of course they are both predominantly R1b groups. Anyway those people have all mixed together. Surely you aren't suggesting the Welsh have the same genetics or origin as the English.

There is a great deal of debate about the origins of English people. The general consensus between geneticists and archaeologists currently is that variation in the UK is clinal and has an east-west axis. But this variation is very small. Mostly people from the west of England are indistinguishable from Welsh people, mostly people from the east of England are a little bit different. But English people are more heterogeneous than Welsh people (England is far bigger after all), English and Welsh people share the vast majority of their ancestry, the difference is not between Welsh and English but between west and east Great Britain (it applies to the west and east of Scotland as well, where we also get the the same linguistic difference between the highland Scots (western Scotland-Celtic speaking) and the lowland Scots (eastern Scotland-Germanic speaking)). So no, generally speaking there is little difference, if one were to sample East Anglia and Fishguard for example the difference would be maximal, but still quite small. If one were to sample Newport and Chepstow then the difference would possibly be zero, or too small to detect.Alun 14:51, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

• "I think the important factor here is the male lineage all from these few individuals among this population that looks "familiar" or "stereotypically" white. It's why a spaniard does look in a way that is similar to a pole": The Y chromosome carries very few genes, indeed the only genes known to be carried on the Y chromosome are the genes that determine sex. Anyone with a Y chromosome is externally male, because that's what the Y chromosome decides. So the only thing that is phenotypically similar between people carrying a Y chromosome is that they have a willy. Are you trying to make a case that men form a race?

Again I have already raised this issue. This doesn't mean that a population with a nearly homogeneous origin from a single male (for example R1b) doesn't carry a large portion of genetic material that is from or associated with that marker. Of course someone with a given Y haplogroup marker may have inherited important alleles from people with different male and female lines, however it is a useful factor to look at when there is this single dominant group of R1a and R1b. Its not possible to dismiss the fact that these populations reflect the progeny of a very few males.

These populations do not derive from a single male. This is a common misunderstanding of the science. Y chromosomes are subject to genetic drift. In fact there must have been far more than three males contributing to the gene pool in question at the time these three men existed. It's just that these three Y chromosomes are the extant Y chromosomes in the population. Y chromosomes, by the nature of their transmission, tend to become extinct. This does not mean that other men who lived at this time did not transmit their DNA to the current population, but any man who only produces daughters does not transmit his Y chromosome, obviously. Or to put it another way, the women who had children with these three men did not have fathers who posessed any of these three Y chromosomes, but we still have the DNA of these men. The same applies to the male counterparts of the founders of haplogroups I, R1a and R1b, other men did exist at these times, and they did posess different Y chromosomes, it's just that those Y chromosomes have been lost, but the dreivative population still contains the genes of these men. Look at the article Y chromosome Adam for a possibly better explanation. Alun 14:51, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

• "This is also why it's absurd to say that there is no "genetic" basis for racial or ethnic terms" Has anyone made this claim? I don't think so. There is no genetic basis for the concept of race, but clearly there is variation between people on the planet. This variation is usually discussed in terms of isolation by distance or by a small island model, given that scientists see both clinality and clustering in this genetic variation the truth is probably somewhere in the middle, Witherspoon has a nice discussion regarding the distribution of human genetic diversity. You should also read all of the papers in the Nature Genetics Supplement Genetics for the human race, but especially Conceptualizing human variation, Implications of biogeography of human populations for 'race' and medicine and Genetic variation, classification and 'race'. None of these scientists support what you are saying.

In my experience this sort of statement is a mischaracterization on the part of people pushing an agenda. No one claims that a groups of people don't share common alleles.

What experience is this? Have you any verifiable sources to support your claim? Have you experence in publishing population genetic work? I'd be interested to see it if you have. Are you accusing me of mischaracterising the science or are you acusing the scientists who published the work of lying? If you doubt my claims all you need to do is read the papers yourself to find that I have not mischaracterised them. If you are accusing the scientists themselves of lying, then I suggest you provide reliable sources to support your claim. Thus far all we ahve had is insinuation and inuends, without a shred of hard evidence. I urge you to cite reliable sources to back up your claims. What is it you say "put up or shut up"? I look forward to seeing your sources. I like to keep up to breast with events in population genetics and if there are sources that support what you have said I would very much enjoy reading what they say. Alun 14:51, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

• "Trying to paint them as ambiguous or "not scientifically valid" is foolish and seems to be just a sort of disruptive slander of the topic of an article." So I am foolish and slanderous? Well I have presented citations from reliable sources for what I have stated, you have provided personal opinion and pseudoscience. Wikipedia is not here so that you can express what you personally think genetics shows, it is here to present what reliable sources state about genetics. There will be no credibility in anything you have stated above unless you can provide reliable sources to support it. But as I say this is unlikely because all of what you have claimed is speculation, personal opinion and is based on a very superficial understanding of genetics. There is absolutely no way that anything you said above has a any chance of ever being expressed by any mainstream credible geneticist at any time in the future. Sorry to be so blunt, but I think think this is a case of calling a spade a spade. All the best. Alun 04:07, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

I think it is a case of a false appeal to authority and a wider pattern of deception. At any rate, these diatribes and lectures are distracting from the compromise that other editors are trying to do. Please have the last word. -- fourdee ᛇᚹᛟ 05:45, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

You know, I totally agree with you Fourdee here. But not in your favor. It appears that you are the one with a "pattern of deception" and "a case of false appeal". The diatribes that you make are not backed by reliable sources. Which is one of the five pillars of Wikipedia. Not POV. Why not make a blog for your views? This is an encyclopedia, you know. - Jeeny ^Talk 05:56, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

1) What false authority? My sources are from peer reviewed journals. Indeed Nature Genetics had an Impact factor of 26.494 in 2003 "first out of 120 journals in the field of genetics and heredity."[18] This is the premiere publication for genetics and most post docs and research students would kill to get a paper published there. No one publishes in Nature Genetics without having produced top quality research. The claim of false authority follows your usual pattern of dismissing any academic work that does not support your personal opinion. While you can believe what you like, you cannot include your beliefs in Wikipedia article without providing citations from reliable sources.
2) What deception? I have been open about my sources and information. You have given personal opinion and speculation. Please remain civil and don't accuse other editors of deception. You have provided no evidence for your position, therefore it remains unverified from any reliable source.
3) What diatribes? You started to introduce Y chromosome and a wider genetic analysis into the debate, I am a geneticist, I am merely contributing to the discussion with my expertise. It is not a diatribe to point out that the comments you have made are unsupported by any research into the field. This work does not support the position you have outlined here, it is really only your own uninformed personal opinion. You are entitled to believe what you like, you are not entitled to claim on a Wikipedia article that research supports your personal beliefs when it demonstrably does not. Alun 06:02, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

No reply here fourdee? Alun 14:51, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Sigh ... Sambc, I know in principle you are right but all I can say is: See what I mean? The above exchange between Fourdee and Alun perfectly illustrates my point. Alun unerstands the scientific literature and makes no claims beyond what is in that literature. Fourdee systematically misconstrues the sources by selective reading and misreading or misunderstanding to support his POV that race is a biologically meaningful way of conceptializing human variation and identity. Of course he is going to insist his view is NPOV and you know what, I think he is sincere, he means it - but that does not change the fact that it is not NPOV. There is a growing literature on the popular misinterpretation of molecular genetic research and Fourdee could be their posterboy. I have a serious procedural point here: NPOV is not the only issue and disputes here will not be resolved solely through a committment to NPOV. NOR is the issue specifically, using appropriate sources and representing them accurately. Yes, we should present multiple points of view, but Fourdee is presenting his own views as those of molecular geneticists. This is a problem I identified when I first read this article and it is still a problem. Slrubenstein | Talk 10:17, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Compromise version 1

Sam, as you are the one proposing this version, would you please write it out as you would like it? (I am taking a leaf out of the Mediation Committee's book here) Everyone else involved, please vote on your support (as is done in an RfA). If you have comments, please place them in the comments section. Thanks, Neranei (talk) 16:38, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

SamBC's version

Please create this on a subpage Talk:White_people/SamBC_version

I'm going to put an initial skeleton on White_people/SamBC_version so it's in the right namespace and has a talk page for discussion. It's just going to be a skeleton from me to begin with, as I've not got a complete handle on the precise content, just the structure. If everyone's committed to this idea as a possible compromise result, then it makes sense for everyone to work on it once the structure is established and agreed upon. SamBC(talk) 17:51, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Comments

Hard to have a vote on this when the people on one side have been canvassing heavily to bring in supporters. I certainly am not agreeing to abide by any votes in this circumstance but let's see what the compromise version ends up looking like. -- fourdee ᛇᚹᛟ 17:43, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

I can't comment on canvassing (haven't seen any or participated in it, or seen any, but that doesn't mean there is none), but I agree that voting (or even just a straw poll) isn't really appropriate here for all sorts of reasons (not being a democracy, to start with). SamBC(talk) 17:51, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Ok, understood. What do you think would work better, then? Neranei (talk) 17:57, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Let's wait until there's a sandbox page and then have a discussion somewhat akin to an AfD for it, and try and base a final decision on the same sort of policy-and-sense based form of consensus. SamBC(talk) 18:14, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

If everyone is OK with that, that should work. Neranei (talk) 18:15, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

I edited boldly and created the sandbox here[19].--Ramdrake 18:24, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, we can get started on the compromising now. Neranei (talk) 18:26, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

I've put in a very vague start of a structure at White people/Compromise version - the previous location got userfied and redirect deleted, so I've put a note in at the top. Please see above as to why it makes sense for the compromise to be on a main page and a seperate talk page to discuss. SamBC(talk) 18:54, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Looks ok. Makes sense.AlanD 22:26, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Notice to all editors

For the record, and partly due to page moves, there are now three versions of the compromise page: [20], [21] and[22]. Can editors agree which version they will continue and which two other versions we can ask to be deleted? Thanks!--Ramdrake 22:47, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

I edited your version. Dont know if I should edit yours or create my own? Your first link will be deleted, second is talk page. If we will use yours, we should use the third one. KarenAER 22:58, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

I would rather this page not be under any one user's page tree, if an admin can answer whether this is permissible or not?--Ramdrake 23:00, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

The first two are the same - one compromise page, one talk page for it. I have issues with sweeping "will be deleted" pages, and there's no point in a compromise page to try to reach a compromise if there's going to be more than one.

I agree that, in the interests of neutrality and the point of mediation, it's best to keep it out of userspace. SamBC(talk) 23:04, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Sam. --Kevin Murray 23:08, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Ok, then I'll place it under one of the meditator's userspace? *rolls eyes* KarenAER 23:10, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Why be so trite in your unpleasantness? --Kevin Murray 23:16, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Because I'm frustrated that you are unable to comprehend this basic simple concept. Test pages shouldnt be in mainspace Wikipedia. Those are encyclopaedia pages. Get it? KarenAER 23:20, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Here is something else basic that you seem to fail to comprehend: mediation and meditation are two different words, with totally different meanings. I can't fathom why you keep spelling them the same. --Ramdrake 23:23, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

You cant fathom spelling mistakes? LOL KarenAER 23:30, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

I make spelling mistakes all the time; I just don't make systematic ones. (verbally spanking myself)--Ramdrake 00:15, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Come to think of it, a bit of meditation might do us all some good. :) SamBC(talk) 00:17, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

I'll second that! ;)--Ramdrake 00:21, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Okay, everyone stop with the personal attacks, unless you want to verbally spank me a little for being dumb, as I explain below. I give any and all permission to do that a little. Leave one another alone. SamBC(talk) 23:28, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Okay, reading Wikipedia:Subpages it should be in the talk namespace, as the mediator originally suggested, and that's my bad. The page should be Talk:White people/Compromise version, there should be no corresponding mainspace page, and the discussion should be here. Hope that clears it up, and I'd be obliged if someone else could do the copy-pasting because I'm in the middle of something else right now. SamBC(talk) 23:12, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

The version from Ramdrake's userspace is now at Talk:White people/Compromise version, where it should've been in the first place. I used this version as it was the most-worked on. SamBC(talk) 00:43, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Semi protection

I have put in a request for semi protection I know it is unusual for a talk page but it may give some respite from an IP block evading sock puppet. Muntuwandi 12:38, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Semiprotection isn't going to help when the disruption is coming from a registered user, even if that user is a sockpuppet. SamBC(talk) 13:05, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes it will, my bad, I'm not awake yet... SamBC(talk) 13:13, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

It's a big step though. Can you not ignore the socks? Is that not possible? Theresa Knott | The otter sank 13:15, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

In the last 8 hours, most of the discussion has been about the sock and not the article. Muntuwandi 13:17, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

I see. Can you not simple remove obvious sock posts from this talk page? Theresa Knott | The otter sank 13:18, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Given what I've observed of the psychology of trolls, I suspect they'd reappear, or worse. SamBC(talk) 13:22, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Hayden is one of the most persistent socks one will ever encounter. As long as he can evade blocks he will continue to troll.Muntuwandi 13:27, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps it's easier for an admin because we can block as well as remove. What you all could do, is not reply in the meantime. I don't know. I will semiprotect if necessary, but I'd like for everyone to give ignoring a real good go first. Theresa Knott | The otter sank 13:30, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Trolls make statements that are hard to ignore. If you read some of the comments hayden has made, some pretty harsh stuff. He hasn't been blocked for nothing. See all the complaints from several independent editors at Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/Hayden5650 Muntuwandi 13:36, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

I know. It takes effort to ignore a troll. You could help each other out here. If you see someone reply, go to their talk page and ask them to remove it. I am willing to remove all statements by blocked users from this page and am willing to block sockpuppets. But I can't be here all the time, so in the meantime don't reply. If we all stick to this strategy then the sock cannot distrupt the page. Reply to each other, don't reply to him. I've told him if he wishes to talk he can do so on his talk page, not here. Let's give it a go first. I#m off out now. I'll check this page when i get back. Theresa Knott | The otter sank 13:43, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree 100% with Theresa knott. Muntuwandi, I know it is hard ... but trolls really only have as much influence in this wikiworld as we care to give them. The winds blow, the tides ebb and flow, and everytime, people are left with trash to pick up and throw away. Don't give it a second thought. it is just trash to be thrown away. Slrubenstein | Talk 14:50, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Anthropological classification of living whites (Carleton Coon's system)

The proposed classification of living whites and near-whites, which is shown on the top of the chart, may be listed in more detailed form as follows:

A. LARGE-HEADED PALAEOLITHIC SURVIVORS

(1) Brünn: (Crô-Magnon, to some extent) found in solution with Borreby, Nordic, and other elements, mostly in Scandinavia and the British Isles, also in North Africa and Canary Islands. May appear in comparatively pure form among individuals although nowhere as a total population.

(2) Borreby: Large-headed brachycephals of Ofnet-Afalou type, the unreduced brachycephalic strain in Crô-Magnon; found in solution in peripheral regions of northwestern Europe, and as a major population element in most of northern and central Germany, and in Belgium. Like the Brünn race, with which it is often associated, it occurs also in North Africa and the Canary Islands.

B. PURE AND MIXED PALAEOLITHIC AND MESOLITHIC SURVIVORS OF MODERATE HEAD SIZE56

(3) Alpine: A reduced and somewhat foetalized survivor of the Upper Palaeolithic population in Late Pleistocene France, highly brachycephalized; seems to represent in a large measure the bearer of the brachycephalic factor in Crô-Magnon. Close approximations to this type appear also in the Balkans and in the highlands of western and central Asia, suggesting that its ancestral prototype was widespread in Late Pleistocene times. In modern races it sometimes appears in a relatively pure form, sometimes as an element in mixed brachycephalic populations of multiple origin. It may have served in both Pleistocene and modern times as a bearer of the tendency toward brachycephalization into various population.

(4) Ladogan: I propose to give this name to the descendants of the mesocephalic and brachycephalic forest-dwelling population of northern Europe east of the Baltic in Kammkeramik times. This type is a blend of a partly mongoloid brachycephalic element with a mesocephalic form of general Upper Palaeolithic aspect; these elements are seen in crania from Lake Ladoga and Salis Roje. (See Chapter IV, section 13, pp. 125-126.) Corded and/or Danubian elements are inextricably blended here, although the mongoloid and Upper Palaeolithic elements seem at present more important. In its present form this composite type shows two numerous variants:

(a) Neo-Danubian: Strongly mixed with the old Danubian, and to a lesser extent other elements, to form the common peasant type of eastern Europe, with many local variants.

(b) East Baltic: Strongly mixed with Corded, Iron Age Nordic, and western Palaeolithic survivors to form the predominant population of much of Finland and the Baltic States.

(5) Lappish: A stunted, highly brachycephalized, largely brunet relative of the Ladogan, originally living to the east of the Ladogan type area, in the Urals and western Siberia. Has probably assimilated some evolved mongoloid, but owes its partly mongoloid appearance more to the retention of an early intermediate evolutionary condition. In modern times much mixed with Ladogan and Nordic.

C. PURE AND MIXED UNBRACHYCEPHALIZED MEDITERRANEAN DERIVATIVES

(6) Mediterraneans: Within this general class, which still retains much of its original racial unity, the following sub-classes may at present be distinguished:

(a) Mediterranean Proper: Short-statured, dolicho- and mesocephalic form found in Spain, Portugal, the western Mediterranean islands, and to some extent in North Africa, southern Italy, and other Mediterranean borderlands. Its purest present-day racial nucleus is without doubt Arabia. Most of the Cappadocian, isolated in the skeletal material, seems to have been absorbed into the western Mediterranean variety after its early Metal Age migration, while that which remained in Asia Minor became assimilated into the Dinaric and Armenoid. It still appears, however, among individuals in its original form, and is particularly common among Oriental Jews.

(b) Atlanto-Mediterranean: The tall, straight-nosed Mediterranean, not mesocephalic, as Deniker erroneously stated, but strongly dolichocephalic. Today this race forms the principal element in the population of North Africa, and is strong in Iraq, Palestine, parts of Arabia, and the eastern Balkans; in solution with varying degrees of negroid it is also the principal race in the whole of East Africa. In Europe it is a minority element in the Iberian Peninsula, Italy, and the British Isles.

(c) Irano-Afghan: The long-faced, high-headed, hook-nosed type, usually of tall stature, which forms the principal element in the population of Iran, Afghanistan, and the Turkoman country, and which is also present in Palestine, parts of Arabia, and North Africa. It is probably related to the old Corded type of the Neolithic and Bronze Age.

(7) Nordics: The basic Nordic is the Corded-Danubian blend of the Aunjetitz and of the Early Iron Age in central Europe. This type includes some Bell Beaker Dinaric absorbed in early Metal Age times. Although Danubian and Corded types may appear as individuals, they may nowhere be isolated as populations. The most important living Nordic varieties are:

(a) Keltic Iron Age Type: The Keltic sub-type, mesocephalic and low-vaulted, with a prominent nose. Commonest in the British Isles where in places it forms the principal element in the population. Also a major element in Flanders and the Frankish country in southwestern Germany.

(b) Anglo-Saxon Type: The old Germanic Reihengräber type, a heavy-boned, rather high-headed Nordic variety, most prevalent in northern Germany and England.

(c) Trondelagen Type: A hybrid type of Nordic with Corded and Brünn elements, frequent in the central coastal provinces of Norway, north of the Dovre Mountains; the principal form in Iceland, and among the Frisians, and common in the British Isles. The Anglo-Saxon type lies between it and the true Nordic.

(d) Osterdal Type: The original Hallstatt Nordic, smaller-headed and finer boned than (b) or (c); occurs in many populations as individuals, typical only in Sweden and in the eastern valleys of Norway.

D. BRACHYCEPHALIZED MEDITERRANEAN DERIVATIVES, PROBABLY MIXED

(8) Dinarics: A tall, brachycephalic type of intermediate pigmentation, usually planoccipital, and showing the facial and nasal prominence of Near Eastern peoples. The basic population of the whole Dinaric-Alpine highlands from Switzerland to Epirus, also in the Carpathians and Caucasus, as well as Syria and Asia Minor. Apparently a brachycephalized blend in which Atlanto-Mediterranean and Cappadocian strains are important, with Alpine acting as the brachycephalizing agent in mixture. Borreby and Corded elements, also Nordic, appear to be involved in some regions.

(9) Armenoids: A similar brachycephalic composite type, with the same head form as the Dinaric, but a larger face and nose. The pigmentation is almost entirely brunet, the pilous development of beard and body abundant, the nose high rooted, convex, and the tip depressed, especially in advanced age. The difference between the Armenoid and the Dinaric is that here it is the Irano-Afghan race which furnishes the Mediterranean element, brachycephalized by Alpine mixture.

(10) Noric: A blond, planoccipital brachycephal frequently encountered in South Germany and elsewhere in central Europe. This is apparently an Iron Age Nordic brachycephalized by Dinaric mixture and seems in most respects to take the form of a blond Dinaric variant. Both Deniker and Czekanowski have recognized this type, and it is a standard race, under various names, in most Russian studies. The name Noric was gived it by Lebzelter. A brachycephalized Neo-Danubian, common in Jugoslavia, is a parallel or variant form.

Coon: The Races of Europe, (Chapter VIII, section 6)

This is the best definition physical anthropologists can give of white people and should be included to the article. The current definitions are completely inadequate and reeks of OR/bad science. MoritzB 15:12, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

MoritzB is misrepresenting anthropology. Carleton S. Coon was a museologist who did some notable research in the 1930s and 1940s. At the tie, his general writings on race were considered marginal within mainstream anthropology; today, they are beyond the fringe. The above may be what MortizB thinks is the best definition a physical anthropologist could give, but virtually no physical anthropologist today (or even any anthropologist) would agree. The general consensus among anthropologists is that biological variation among humans is best studied in terms of populations, not races, and best understood clinally, not in terms of racial differences, and that racial identity as such is best understood as a cultural phenomena. Slrubenstein | Talk 15:42, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

The work that Coon did that is still cited by anthropologists was the product of rigorous research that is fully consistent with the mainsteam view of phenotypic variation - Coon's early research showev phenotypic diversity that defied simple classification (today we know that it is because populations in one part of the world have ancestors from different parts of the world) and that some so-called racial characteristics (e.g. a broad nose among people living in the arctic) reflects an adaptation to the local environment (cold air is wamed up sufficiently before it reaches the lungs) - this work by Coon is still used by anthropologists. However, his general writing on race from the post-war era, especially in the 1960s whe Coon was a segregationist in a politically divided America, simply has not status among anthropologists. Slrubenstein | Talk 15:48, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Very, very few physical anthropologists today use the word race – but if you want to know "the best physical anthropologists have to offer," here it is

In a general way, major races correspond to continents, simply because separation of some kind is necessary if human populations are to develop and maintain genetic differences. But it is an error to interpret this too literally. There are no definite lines on our map to indicate boundaries between races. In many areas there are transitional zones where we find populations that clearly show genetic affinities to more than one race. In other areas the transition may be more abrupt, with peoples who consider themselves different – and who choose to remain so – living close together yet remaining genetically distinct …. The origins of the names attaches to various races, large and small, are not consistent. The names we use for the major races end in oid, meaning like. In these instances a term that originally applied to a smaller group has been exended to have a larger meaning. Because it was once believed that the Caucases mountain region in southern Russia was the point of origin, are at least the area of purist manifestation, of the race sometimes called white, the word Caucasoid, that is Caucasian-like, came to be applied to a major racial category.

The author goes on to say that the term Caucasoid is more useful than White or European because it leaves room to include people who do not live in Europe or who are not very white.

I wonder how many people knew why scientists switched from "Caucasian" and "Negro" to "Caucasoid" and "negroid?" It is because these classifications are fuzzy – the boundaries are blurry and permeable (and when the boundaries are strong they are usually so for social rather than biological reason – e.g. people chose not to interbreed or even create strong barriers to interbreeding) and the members of any one group are similar, not the same. Moreover, I want to point out that even though this author uses the word race, in order to explain genetic variation she still relies on the concept of population (actually using the word) and refers to (though not by name) clinal variation. This is a good example of why virtually all physical anthropologists simply dropped the word race as a way of understanding and explaining biological variation in favor of the more precise "population." Slrubenstein | Talk 16:05, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

A final point concerning the above quote: note that the author prefers caucasoid over white not because one sounds more scientific than the other, or is less offensive, but because they mean different things. Whereas for the author "caucasoid" refers to a "race" (and I insist: what she means by race is not what Carleton Coon means by race, for her race is a heuristic device with fuzzy boundaries, not a clearly-bounded or defined class within a taxonomy), "white" cannot. So there really is no accepted physical anthropological definition of a white race. I am sure that, like cultural anthropologists, she would agree that the list of books I provided above, by anthropologists but also by historians, geographers, and political scientists, reflect the best research on "white people." Slrubenstein | Talk 16:20, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Alice Brues talked about major races (Caucasian, Negroid, Mongoloid, Australoid), not about European races (Nordic, Mediterranean, Dinaric, Alpine, East-Baltic). The quote is irrelevant.

Carleton Coon offers an insight to the rather perplexing question of what kind Caucasians can be called white. The "whiteness" of European and non-European Caucasians should be in the focus of this article as there are e.g. American court precedents regarding this question.

MoritzB 16:45, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

You did not introduce the topic of European races, but "white races" - and the Brues quote explains why physical anthropologists who use race do not use the term "white race." In any event, you were making a claim about physical anthropology - I introduced the Brues quote to give people a more accurate picture of work by physical anthropologists. The fact remains that if a physical anthropologist wants to study biological variation among Europeans, s/he will distinguish between populations, not race, and look at clinal variation. If an anthropologist wants to study races, s/he will use the tools of cultural anthropology, not physical anthropology, as race is a social construction. You may reject this view, but it is the view held by most anthropologists including physical anthropologists. I just don't want to see them misrepresented. Slrubenstein | Talk 16:56, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

What exactly is your point as Coon uses the term "Caucasoid" in the same fashion as Brues? Coon classifies e.g. the Somalis as Caucasoid.

Brues and Coon are both saying that the terms "white" and "Caucasian" mean different things.

The term "Caucasian" race was coined by Blumenbach in the 19th century. The use of that term instead of the word "white" doesn't have anything to do with scientific developments in the 20th century.

Read John Baker's 1974 work Race which describes European variation in racial terms. Besides, the method of cultural anthropology likely leads to an even narrower definition of the white race. And Coon offers the best possible scientific characterization of the physical features which are "culturally" associated with white people. MoritzB 17:22, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Genetic research does not currently support any of Coons conclusions as far as I know. Furthermore these are not taxonomic classifications, though it is claimed at the start of this section that these are "proposed classification of living whites and near-whites", there is no taxonomic classification of the species Homo sapiens on the subspecific level due to the fact that there is no major biological differentiation within the human global population. In biology subspecies equates to "race", so from a biological point of view there are no races/subspecies. So when we talk about classification we certainly are not talking about taxonomy. There is some confusion in use of terminology in the study of human variation because there are several different academic disciplines involved, all of which use the same nomenclatre with with different meanings. I can only make reference to use of this nomenclature from the point of view of biology. Besides didn't Franz Boas do a lot of work measuring the crania of American immigrants and show that cranial shape is a product of environment rather than genetic aetiology? I read this in Jonathan Marks book "What it means to be 98% chimpanzee". I see no reason to dispute it. I'll defer to anyone who has a better knowledge of this than I do. Alun 17:10, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

The racial taxonomy of Europeans is not based on genetics. The physical types like Nordid or East-Baltid are adaptations to certain environment and life style. The genetic affinities of European peoples reflect ancient population migrations and are different. MoritzB 17:25, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Moritz, all scientists post Mendel and the modern synthesis understand that phenotyipic adaptations to an environment that are common to a population over time are linked to genetics. Alun, Yes, Boas's work has stood the test of time and was just the tip of the iceberg of research that shows how even the most clearly heritable (although Boas did not use the word - this was before the rediscovery of Mendel's work and the development of the modern synthesis and population genetics) of human traits are environmentally plastic, which quickly led to the abandonment of "race" as a meaningful concept by evolutionary scientists and population geneticists as well as anthropologists more generally. Slrubenstein | Talk 17:31, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

All these voluminous claims that populations are not genetically distinct in some way, that genetics isn't the primary component of appearance, and such, are conjecture and not actually supported by any particular science. They are just conclusions in support of a political agenda. These are meaningless assertions based either on trivial facts or complete conjecture. Also part of the tactic here is to introduce excessive amounts of this material to make it look scientific. All this hinges on the fact that there are not discrete boundaries to ethnic groups. However we all know that different ethnic groups have different appearances and that this is inherited genetically. The fact that there may be some "cline" between groups is just a diversion from the fact the people we call white have different alleles than the people we don't call white. The details of the inheritance of these traits are sometimes mendelian and sometimes polygenic but almost everything that makes a person what he is comes from his parents. This is just a simple fact. All this other nonsense is lies piled up to hide that fact, or make it sound like the reasonable position is that race doesn't matter. -- fourdee ᛇᚹᛟ 17:20, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

A small piece of free advice, bub - the more you talk about these things the more your ignorance of science shows. It isn't politics, it is science, and you just don't understand it. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia for the masses, but why not write about things you actually do understand? Slrubenstein | Talk 17:31, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

I do understand it, amusingly a bit better than Alun who parrots silly things he is probably used to saying in his communist indoctrination lectures and who repeats a lot of simple conjecture. It's nonsense to try to imply that genetics isn't the reason for appearance and ethnicity. It's just a stupid lie nobody believes and there is no kind of science that says it's true. -- fourdee ᛇᚹᛟ 17:46, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Please refrain from making personal attacks. There are several erroneous statements in your posts above regarding Y chromosomes and how they are transmitted from generation to generation. Furthermore you seem to think that because there are three dominant haplotypes in the European gene pool, that this indicates that this gene pool is predominantly descended from only three men. This is a major misunderstanding, though it is a common one. You have systematically failed to produce any sources whatsoever to support your posts, even unreliable sources even though I have repeatedly asked you to. You have resorted to making more and more comments about me rather than the subject at hand. This is merely an ad hominem response. There is no reason for you to make personal remarks about me. Again your remarks are incorrect, I am certainly not a communist, but I don't think that is really the point, you think you can discredit me by impuning my politics. Alun 18:36, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Your extinction theory is just conjecture and doesn't make mathematical sense. Of course little is inherited on the Y chromosome and it does not determine outward appearance. That's why I and R1a and R1b have such similar facial structure on the whole - this genetic material is shared between them despite the fact that their origin in divergent steps from the original eurasian people is not as closely matched. The halpogroups are just a part of explaining why these people look a certain way and other people look so foreign or different. The real story is in the set of alleles related to appearance (and behavior etc.) that is common among various ethnic groups and super-ethnic groups. White is a genetic ethnic group with boundaries that the reasonable observer will notice. -- fourdee ᛇᚹᛟ 22:29, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Yup, sillier and sillier...

You shouldn't talk so arrogantly, mr. Rubenstein. You don't seem to understand that although some ethnic Germans who belong to the Mediterranean race resemble Italians more than other Germans they are still likely genetically closer to other Germans. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:European_population_substructure.png Franz Boas's work has been discredited. Cf. "A reassessment of human cranial plasticity: Boas revisited" by Corey S. Sparks and Richard L. Jantz MoritzB 17:50, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

That's Dr., not Mr., thank you very much, although SR is fine. Sparks and Jantz's study itself was discredited, and I assure you. A team of physical anthropologists and statisticians, using techniques unknown in Boas's time, re-analyzed his data and discovered that there was an even stronger basis for his conclusions than Boas himself claimed [23]. His work has more than stood the test of time. And you misunderstand genetics, and of course the point of this whole discussion. Your ethnic Germans who resemble Italians share some genes with Italians, and others with Germans. (In any event, you are of course mixing up the issue. I did not say that your ethnic Germans are entirely genetically unrelated to Germans - that would only make sense if you believe in racial purity and think that races are clearly bounded, which, as I have stated several times, is not the case. All i said is that phenotypic adaptations to the environment are linked to genes. I think only creationists would reject that claim. You aren't even disagreeing with me, you are just changing the subject) Slrubenstein | Talk 18:03, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

The genes responsible for physical appearance are only a small part of the human genome. Thus, a German person who resembles Italians physically is still likely otherwise genetically typically German. Thus, I find your response you gave to my simple assertion that "the racial taxonomy of Europeans is not based on genetics" bafflingly ignorant. Indeed, "all scientists post Mendel and the modern synthesis understand that phenotyipic adaptations to an environment that are common to a population over time are linked to genetics." What is your point? It should be obvious that "white" is a term describing phenotype and the best source for the phenotype of Europeans is Coon, IMHO. MoritzB 18:51, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree with you entirely that race is not genetic. I merely pointed out that physical adaptations have a genetic basis. It was you who brouht up the issue of physical adaptations, and i was responding to that one point. Again, instead of accepting that I am right about this, you change the subject. As to "The best source for the phenotype of Europeans" being Coon as i have already acknowledged, i agree that that is your opinion. Slrubenstein | Talk 19:10, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Physical adaptations do have a genetic basis. Every thinking person is aware of that. I never even remotely suggested that physical adaptations are not linked to genetics. There is no disagreement between us in this question. You are simply making a strawman argument. MoritzB 19:20, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

"physical types like Nordid or East-Baltid are adaptations to certain environment and life style." Slrubenstein | Talk 19:27, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

True. Light skin color is also an adaptation to certain environment. It also a genetically determined attribute (to a degree) like membership in the Nordic or East-Baltid type. Your point? MoritzB 19:33, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

"The genetic affinities of European peoples reflect ancient population migrations and are different." My point is small and simple and it is this: "Not entirely different, then." Slrubenstein | Talk 19:37, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Very true. Carleton Coon agreed.

MoritzB 19:48, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

@MoritzB: "The genes responsible for physical appearance are only a small part of the human genome. Thus, a German person who resembles Italians physically is still likely otherwise genetically typically German." This comment seems to assume non random assortment. Or are you arguing that these people look like Italians due to environmental selection, even though they are genetically more similar to German people? What is the difference between German people and Italian people? Indeed what has political geography got to do with it? I can see no reason why a modern political boundary would act as a barrier to gene flow in pre modern times. Besides what is the evidence that the so called differences between these people are the result of environmental selection? If one wants to posit that a particular phenotype is produced by selection rather than by random variation, then one needs to have a robust model. For example it is true that blue eye colour is common in the north of Europe, but no one knows why. We can theorise that this is due to environmental selection, but it's not good enough to claim that just because blue eyes are common in the north of Europe this must be due to environmental selection. I've noticed in the popular press that it is common to assume that when variation is noted they always attribute it to "evolution" (itself plain daft, evolution is not the same as natural selection). But variation exists due to all sorts of things, founder effects, genetic drift etc. Not all differences are due to selection. Besides if you look at my map based on Bauchet's European data it is apparent that northern Italians fall into the same genetic "cluster" as Germans (Image:Bauchet European clusters.png), but that southern Italians do not. So actually northern Italians may be more like Germans that they are to southern Italians. Most geneticists seem to think this is due to demic diffusion of middle eastern farmers into Europe during the European neolithic and not due to selection. If I've missed your point then I appologise. I'm not looking for a confrontation, just an understanding of this point of view. All the best. Alun 19:45, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, there are differences between Northern Italians and Southern Italians and I realize now that the Italians were a bad example. Frenchmen and Spaniards would maybe be a better one.

Differences in spoken language and the geographical area the populations inhabit have meant that the gene pools have remained relatively isolated. There were genetic differences in the founder populations which is the main cause of the genetic differences in modern European populations. There has been some gene flow, though. Some Frenchmen (Mediterranid) now possess the physical features of the Spanish (Mediterranid) individuals who entered the French (largely Alpine) gene pool because of random recombination. 99% of their other genetic features are still typically French (a mixed population with low Mediterranid presence) and they do belong to the French genetic cluster. Correlations between physical type and genetics are difficult to find in modern Europeans because even the founder populations of many European nations were mixed. MoritzB 20:14, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

One thing that Coon did that was smart is, he did not identify his types with polities (for reasons Alun makes clear). I wonder why, after you promoted Coon's terms, you have suddenly dropped them to focus on identifying races with countries (France, Ital, Germany, Spains). Surely, Coon's categories such as Alpine, Medierreanean Proper, and Atlkanto -mediterranean cross these political boundaries. Slrubenstein | Talk 21:44, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

I am saying that a French Mediterranid person is likely genetically closer to a French Alpine person than an Italian Mediterranid. Last post edited to reflect this though the language is now choppy.MoritzB 22:06, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

But is this what Coon said? And, how do we know - what is the data? Slrubenstein | Talk 22:21, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

To my knowledge, no anthropologist has ever denied this. Coon's classification system wasn't derived of population genetics as you know. And even Hans Günther pointed out that even a physically perfect Nordid person might have any kind of mental racial genetic characteristics present in the German population.

I already posted the data which showed that Europeans tend to form genetic clusters according to nationality, not according to races.

MoritzB 22:51, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Wow. I've been away less than 24 hours and whole chapters of conversation have been written already. I won't comment much (don't have the time right now), but I can't help but notice that Fourdee's and MoritzB's allegations are strangely unsupported by evidence (except for some controversial science from 75 years ago which is now totally discredited). Furthermore, I'd just like to ask, for the record: this whole discussion about alleged European races strikes me as deviating from topic, namely the content of the article on "White people". Taking outdated, fringe viewpoints and personal POVs unsupported by the current body of science strikes me as unproductive. Fringe views (such as Coon's) are just that, and deserve little if any mention in the article (except for historical reasons) as these have long since been discredited. So, my question, I guess, with all due respect to all editors, is: why beat a dead horse? I think there was the beginning of a consensus around some sort of summary/disambi format for this page, and i think the most productive use of time for the editors might be to bring that back into focus rather than foray into loon --err, "Coon"-- territory. --Ramdrake 23:15, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

The fringe views here are the assertions that genetics don't determine appearance, that the most important alleles about a person's appearance (and perhaps ethnic, cultural, behavioral etc. values) aren't passed down in families and ethnic groups, that there are not readily identifiable genetic differences between ethnic groups and in particular between people we call whites, by varying definitions, and people we don't consider white - those are the fring views without any support other than a few "doctors" and "scientists" who specialize in mis-paraphrasing material or working from equally biased and POV-laden sources that mix conjecture, hypotheticals and a social agenda with science. -- fourdee ᛇᚹᛟ 23:33, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

You're of course entitled to your POV, but to my knowledge, what you're calling fringe is actually mainstream, and what you seem to regard as "the truth" is actually a vanishingly small fringe view. I would invite you to present modern verifiable, reliable sources (peer-reviewed preferably) that back your claim or elase you may find yourself not being too widely believed, as per WP:REDFLAG.--Ramdrake 23:42, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

It is your exceptional opinion that Coon's views are exceptional. I invite you to provide a better physical description of white people than Coon's anthropological definition, Ramdrake. Coon talks about white racial types, not only indigenous European racial types.

MoritzB 23:57, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't think it is exceptional to think that Coons theories are no longer accepted. Indeed when Coon wrote his most famous work in the 60s his ideas were already little more than fringe. Coon is not cited by geneticists and molecular anthropologists except as an example of someone who was dead wrong (see the book I mention above by Jonathan Marks and Spencer Wells as just two example of this. It seems to me that there are several issues with the way you have presented you position, could you clarify them for me please. I just want to say that I am not "challenging" you, I am not particularly au fait with the work of Coon or with physical anthropology so I'm only asking because I do not fully understand what you are saying. I'll list these in point form. Alun 07:00, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

• At one point above you state that these classifications are not based on genetic differentiation between these groups, but rather physical appearance. So I assume that you mean that individuals that fit into one of these "physical types" do so because of the way they look and not because they form reproductive populations. You claim this is due to environment. I'd like to know what you mean, are you saying that these are heritable traits, or are you saying they are aquired traits. I mean is the environment acting on the population via selection, or is the environment acting upon the individual to produce similar physical types? This is not clear from your comments. If you are saying (as I think you are) that these "racial types" of Coon do not represent genetically differentiated groups, then the classification has no basis in evolution, and these would not be considered legitimate classifications from a biological point of view. Biological classification tries to identify populations based on evolutionary relationships. Therefore if this sort of information is included in the article it should be made clear that these do not represent evolutionarily distinct groups.Alun 07:00, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

The traits which are the basis of racial classification in Coon's system are heritable traits which have granted a fitness advantage in a specific environment. They are genetically differentiated, evolutionarily distinct groups.

MoritzB 11:37, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

This can't be true, if they were evolutionarily distinct then they would be separate species. At best it is microevolutionary adaptation. This is localised adaptation due to selection, this would not make them evolutionarily distinct. Besides I am sceptical, the level of differentiation is tiny between adjacent populations. I know of no credible geneticist or anthropologist that would either make this claim or state that Coon's classification is relevant today. Alun 17:53, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

No, the term "evolutionary distinct" does not imply that "then they would be separate species". See this paper for an example of the use of the term: http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1046/j.1365-294X.2003.01774.x?cookieSet=1&journalCode=mec

MoritzB 20:51, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

This paper doesn't really support your claim. This paper finds that several populations of these birds are genetically very close. I suspect these researchers were expecting to find some large amount of genetic divergence, but came up with none. They state "However, genetic similarity between recently diverged taxa can also be due to retained ancestral polymorphism and result in misleadingly high estimates of gene flow and a lack of phylogenetic distinctiveness.". Indeed if you read the paper they spend most of their time in the discussion trying to rubbish their own results because these results don't comply with their preconception that this population is a subspecies. Now this is an admirable thing to do, possibly they need to identify it as a subspecies because they want to get some sort of protection for it, they claim it needs protectin. But the genetics do not support their claim. Furthermore these researchers claim that there is a very low level of migration between these population groups. This observation is important in population genetics. In population genetics the concept of a population is theoretical. Usually populations are assumed to be panmitic groups, that is each member of the population has an equal chance of reproducing with each other member of the group. This is why population geneticists discuss populations and not races. A population can be defined quite easily. If a population is considered this way we can model the genetics of the population. When pamnixia does not occur in a group of organisms we can model the rate of migration between these groups. The more migration the less genetically distinct the groups will become over time. We can measure the level of differentiation between populations by methods such as F_ST. This paper claims low levels of migration, but when they do a genetic analysis they find very low levels of differentiation between the populations. This low level would not normally be considered good enough to distinguish these populations as subspecies. The authors of the paper then go on the say that this similarity is due to a relatively recent divergence between the two groups. Indeed if this is true then these groups could indeed be considered subspecies based not on their level of genetic divergence, but on the hypothesis that they form a distinct lineage. The problem with this paper with regards to humans in Europe is that I do not think there is any evidence that humans in Europe form distinct lineages, they are contiguous, not only is the level of differentiation very small in Europe, but in Europe humans have always migrated between groups and there has always been gene flow between groups, much mtDNA work supports this conclusion. The other problem is that, although you claim that the differences between Coon's so called European races are due to selection and isolation there appears to be little evidence for this. It is a valid theory, but I do not think that you will be able to find reliable sources to support it that are more recent than Coon's own work, which is quite antiquated by now. Indeed the differences between the so called races can just as easily be described in terms of natural geographic variation. Likewise the differences between northern and southern Europeans are more likely to be explained by neolithic migration these days rather than adaptation to environment. I don't think you are wrong, and I think you have made some interesting points, but I think that it would be a mistake to include these classifications, I don't think many modern anthropologists think these sorts of classifications have any credibility. I do have one suggestion for you though, why don't you create an article about these classifications. An article discussing Coon's classifications would be a very good idea, and possibly you could include it in the "see also" section of this article. What do you think? Alun 07:04, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

• You state several times that French people are similar to other French people and German people are similar to other German people etc. Then you state that this is because gene flow is restricted between these populations in part due to linguistic and geographic considerations. I do not think this holds up to scrutiny. For example Germany and Italy are very modern inventions, before 1871 Germany did not exist, German people are linguistically heterogeneous, many German dialects are mutually incomprehensible, and are really distinct languages. The unification of Germany was a political process, the identification of German people as a single ethnic group was a political process, the creation of the German nation was a political process. Germans do not appear to form anything like a genetically discrete population. Likewise Italy was created in 1870, Italy did not exist as an entity before this time. The geographical entity we call France did not exist as a single nation or ethnic group in the middle ages. France at this time was very small, and many of the regions that are now part of France were independent or autonomous, with distinct languages and cultures. Indeed in the south of France the region of Languedoc is so called because that was where they spoke the "language of oc" (Languedoc means the language of oc), see Occitan language. The Albigensian crusade was used as a pretext by the then King of France to subjugate this independent region and bring it under French rule, there being a prevalence of the so called "heresy" of Catharism in the region, which the Roman Church wanted to exterminate. Indeed the list can go on, Normandy and Brittany are other examples, especially Brittany. England is another example, it was not unified until 937 AD by Athelstan after the Battle of Brunanburh (prior to this England did not exist, it was the Kingdoms of Wessex, Northumbria, East Anglia, Mercia and Kent, see Heptarchy for more), the unification of England was a political-religious process, it was really Christian English Kingdoms uniting to combat the pagan Danish threat posed by the likes of Guthrum the Old. So the argument that Germans, French and English form discrete biological entities due to linguistic boundaries does not really hold water, there were a great deal more languages in Europe in the past, and for the greater part of human occupation of the European subcontinent humans lived in small regional tribes that were linguistically diverse, their identity would be tribal, and they were likely to view all other tribes as "foreign". There is not a great deal of evidence that this produced discrete lineages in these populations, there appears to have been a great deal of genetic mixing.Alun 07:00, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

See Seldin's image of European population substructure: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:European_population_substructure.png

MoritzB 11:20, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Seen it. It is their principal components plot. It does not support your claim, all the nations are mixed up. There are only differences between north ans south Europeans. Their clustering analysis appears on my map on this page. Seldin makes no claim that his data support Coon. Alun 17:53, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

• You claim that French people are still 99% similar to each other. This would mean that there is a 10 fold greater degree of diversity within the French population than there is in the rest of humanity combined. Humans have about a 99.9% genetic identity as a global population, so I don't see how French people can have a 99% identity to each other. Of this 0.1% variation that is seen in the human population about 85% is distributed within populations and about 15% is distributed between populations, of the 15% that is seen between populations about 7% is distributed between the major continental groups and about 8% is between groups in the same geographical region. It is this 8% that would produce the genetic diversity seen between European populations. One would expect the majority of this 8% to be due to isolation by distance, that is we would expect most of it to be between populations that are not contiguous.Alun 07:00, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

You misunderstood. I referred to the amount of variation between e.g. Alpine and Mediterranean racial groups (possibly 1%) vs. the amount of variation between French and Spanish groups (possibly 99%).

MoritzB 11:20, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

The amount ov variation cannot be that big, see my comment above, my comment still holds true. Alun 17:53, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

File:Seldin geography.png

Seldin's clustering analysis. He produces three clusters that clearly cross national boundaries.

Bauchet's data, again the clusters do not really conform to national identity, the differences are at the perifery of Europe, Iberia and Finland, where we would expect to find the greatest degree of differentiation.

What on Earth are you talking about? What is the real amount of genetic variation between groups of people classified to different races in Coon's system then in your opinion?

MoritzB 20:51, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

• You claim above that you have posted data that show that "Europeans tend to form genetic clusters according to nationality". I assume you are refering to the Seldin paper, but these data show no such thing. Seldin's data are sampled by state of origin, not by geography. This is a problem because it simply designates someone as "French" or "Italian" or "German", we do not know what geographical location these people come from within the state. His labels merely reflect the sampling strategy. Besides his data do not support your claim, if you take a closer look you will have to conclude that on the whole his clusters cross national boundaries, indeed they are well mixed up. I produced geographical plots of Seldin's work just as I did for Bauchet's work that I linked to above. When Seldin's data are displayed on a map they do not really support the proposition that "Europeans tend to form clusters according to nationality", just as Bauchet's even greater resolution (five clusters instead of three, due to the use of far more loci) fails to support such a conclusion. Alun 07:00, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

See the another image. I don't really understand what you are trying to say. Are you saying that people tend to cluster genetically according to Coon's racial groups or do you disagree (like I). What is the disagreement? I could readily accept if the European genetic clusters are found in particular geographic corners of Europe which would lend further support to Coon's classification system.

MoritzB 11:20, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

The other image shows that different nations all mixed up. It does not support your claim, this is their principal components plot. Their clustering analysis also does not support your claim. I am saying that the distribution of variation is not distributed by nationality. Seldin and Bauchet d not make this claim, and their data do not support it. The clustering analyses also do not support the groups you have claimed exist. Alun 17:53, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

It is easily observed that the national clusters are partly distinct although they overlap to some degree.

MoritzB 20:51, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

I think it is time to put this conversation to rest. Coon is at best at the outermost fringe of anthropology and virtully no one refers to him anymore for reasons I explained at the beginning of this discussion; Aln has already gone far beyond what should be necessary to explain why his claims do not have any meaning in light of current research in population or molecular genetics. Let's drop it and move on. Slrubenstein | Talk 21:18, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Even if his racial classification isn't accepted widely today this certainly doesn't mean that Coon's data does not describe the physical appearance of white people accurately. The descriptions of the physical appearance of white people (light skin, no epicanthic folds) are inaccurate and inadequate. Some whites (especially children) do have epicanthic folds and some light-skinned people with no epicanthic folds are not white. This Danish politician is an example of a white person who has an epicanthic fold: http://www.folketinget.dk/BILLEDER/FOTO/vclhfr.jpg

Coon is definitely the best source for the physical appearance of white people. Nobody thinks that genetic tests should determine whether a given person is white. Physical appearance usually determines it.

MoritzB 00:33, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

What? That image you linked to does not support your statement. He does not have the epicanthic fold, from my POV (you may be mistaken because he is older, and his eyelids have drooped (from the outside). He does not have a epicanthic fold). You seem to not understand what the "epicanthic [sic]" fold is. "Physical appearance usually determines it".... by whom? Whose view can be NPOV, when viewing someone by "physical appearance" alone? Everyone has a POV, but this does not mean it should be in the articles. I read somewhere, where someone believes that Angelina Jolie is not white? WTH does that mean? From my POV she is indeed white. - Jeeny ^Talk 01:31, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

There are different types of epicanthic folds: http://img148.imageshack.us/my.php?image=eyefoldsil5.jpg

Earnest Hooton writes: “A third variety of the eye fold is the external epicanthus, which I call the “Nordic fold”. This begins somewhere about the middle of the upper lid and crosses the external corner of the eye, obscuring it and the free edge of the outer portion of the upper lid. ...“The distribution of the outer epicanthus or “Nordic” fold is not accurately known, since its existence has been recognized only recently. It does seem to occur oftenest in the narrow-faced, flat-cheeked Nordics with deeply recessed eyes.”

MoritzB 02:10, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

I see you are again, using outdated material to support your claims. By your standard....that would mean most older people have the "Nordic fold" no matter their race. I bet that man in the image you linked to did not always have that eye shape. - Jeeny ^Talk 02:15, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

No, East Asians don't have "Nordic folds".

MoritzB 03:27, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

LOL, yes they do. They have both, especially in old age. If you got out more you would know this. That's the problem, you use outdated sources to argue your edits. Do you know others, personally, of different cultures and races? - Jeeny ^Talk 03:37, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes.MoritzB 04:02, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Y chromosomes again

I really think it is not as complex as all this. I'm just tossing this out there because it is the understanding I am working with right now: We see that R1a and b are the dominant male lineages in the heart of europe, and it doesn't really make sense that there was so much extinction of other male lines that this does not represent a real population group. We see a group labeled I which occurs all around the fringes of R1a and R1b, and (in modern populations at least) is mixed with them. While I and R1 don't have the same origins, they have been next to each other for some time and presumably interbreeding. They are fundamentally similar in basic facial features, although some metrics like cephalic index vary, even within subpopulations that should probably be classified together genetically. The facial features, body shape, etc. result from the exchange between R1a, R1b and I, a sort of market of genetic material which has made the white race. Some people of course have different lineages but still share this genetic material due to proximity, but it's clear what the core population responsible is. Does this mean no other lineages contributed to the pool of european alleles? Of course not - these are just the core groups we can make some generalizations about. -- fourdee ᛇᚹᛟ 09:52, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

The point is that they are not "core groups" - thy are similarities in alleles that our technology and perhaps certain facts of nature enable us to identify, but ths does not make them any more "core" than all the other alleles that are ignored. Therefore, we have to be very careful about how we generalize from them. Molecular geneticists make it clear that their own generalizations from this research do not support the existence of biological races and ethnic groups. For a Wikipedian to generalize beyond that violates NOR. Of course you are free to do it, but do it on your blog, not in an encyclopedia article. Slrubenstein | Talk 11:10, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Population geneticists like Cavalli-Sforza make it perfectly clear that their reluctance to use the word race is based on political considerations and the historical connotations attached to the word. They don't use the word "race" but they do use the concept of race.

MoritzB 11:27, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't think this is true at all. Population geneticists don't use the concept of race because they know that the human population does not show the level of differentiation that is required classify our species subspecifically. Usually an F_ST of 25-30% is required (that is that 30% of genetic diversity is between populations) to classify on the subspecific level (see Templeton 1998). Humans show a level of differentiation that is 7-10% between continental groups and 7-10% within continental groups. We are just too similar to be classified into subspecies. Biologists and anthropologists give very good scientific reasons for the lack of classification, many biologists reject the concept of subspecific classification altogether, because it is so arbitrary for all organisms. It's all very well to believe that we are not classified due to political correctness, but this belief is unfounded, the fact is that human variation defies classification. There are extremely good biological reasons for this which are never addressed by people who want to claim it's due to political correctness. This is just sloppy in my opinion, it is the easy way out because it does not address the issue at hand, it just changes the subject. In effect they are saying "I know race exists because I believe it, anyone who disagrees does it because they are politically correct." Alun 11:39, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

The main reason for rejecting the concept of biological race today is the same one it was when Charles Darwin rejected the concept in the 19th century. "The impact of social construction theory in anthropology or sociology did not begin or end with Richard Lewontin in 1972. Charles Darwin raised similar issues in The Descent of Man (1871). He pointed out the difficulty inherent in human racial classification, showing that naturalists had failed to agree upon the most important taxonomic characters. Thus, the racial schemes of his time varied from 2-63 named races."[24]

other sources that provide good biological reasons for the non existence of race that has got nothing to do with "political" considerations.

• Race and Genetics
• Human genetic variation and health: new assessment approaches based on ethnogenetic layering
• Natur Genetics Supplement
• Changing the paradigm from 'race' to human genome variation
• What we do and don't know about 'race', 'ethnicity', genetics and health at the dawn of the genome era
• Conceptualizing human variation
• Implications of biogeography of human populations for 'race' and medicine
• Genetic variation, classification and 'race'
• The Use of Racial, Ethnic, and Ancestral Categories in Human Genetics Research
• Race, ancestry, and genes: implications for defining disease risk.
• Human Races: A Genetic and Evolutionary Perspective

It's got nothing to do with politics and everything to do with biolgy. Alun 18:15, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

fourdee "it doesn't really make sense that there was so much extinction of other male lines". What criteria do you use to define "make sense" and "so much extinction"? How can one determine the level of extinction when the Y chromosomes are extinct? mtDNA suffers from the same problem of genetic drift that Y chromosomes do because they are matrilineally inherited, though mtDNA does not appear to be so susceptible to drift. This observation is usually explained by the differential roles of men and women in society, that is men were much more likely to die before having reproduced than women and successful men may had a greater opportunity to reproduce than unsuccessful men, leading to a sparcity of haplotypes. I will draw your attention to some mtDNA work done on ancient human remains. In this work it was found that mtDNA that is usually associated with neolithic farmers (ie mtDNA from haplogroups common in the Near East) was far more common in Europe during the neolithic than it is today. If this holds true for mtDNA then it holds even more true for Y chromosomes. Here's the abstract of the article where she more or less says what I have been saying about this.

The model of European genetic ancestry has recently shifted away from the Neolithic diffusion model towards an emphasis on autochthonous Paleolithic origins. However, this new paradigm utilizes genetic reconstructions based primarily on contemporary populations and, furthermore, is often promoted without regard to the findings of ancient DNA studies. These ancient DNA studies indicate that contemporary European ancestry is not a living fossil of the Paleolithic maternal deme; rather, demographic events during the Neolithic and post-Neolithic periods appear to have had substantial impact on the European genetic record. In addition, evolutionary processes, including genetic drift, adaptive selection and disease susceptibility, may have altered the patterns of maternal lineage frequency and distribution in existing populations. As a result, the genetic history of Europe has undergone significant transformation over time, resulting in genetic discontinuity between modern-day Europeans and their ancient maternal forbearers.[25]

fourdee "While I and R1 don't have the same origins, they have been next to each other for some time and presumably interbreeding." This statement is so odd I really don't know what to make of it. Firstly how can chromosomes interbreed. Organisms reproduce, chromosomes cannot reproduce with each other. Furthermore because the Y chromosome is only carried by men it is impossible for two people carrying a Y chromosome to produce offspring because they would both be men. This statement is so confused that it is difficult to understand what point it is trying to make.

fourdee "While I and R1 don't have the same origins...They are fundamentally similar in basic facial features". Likewise Y chromosomes do not have facial features, what is more Y chromosomes do not encode many genes and don't encode genes for facial features. Y chromosomes have only a few genes, the most important of which is the sex determining region (SRY) that makes men men, men are genetically modified women, people lacking a Y chromosome will always have a female form (for example X0 Turner Syndrome), while people with multiple X chromosomes who additionally have a Y chromosome will always have a male form (see Klinefelter's syndrome).

fourdee: "The facial features, body shape, etc. result from the exchange between R1a, R1b and I, a sort of market of genetic material which has made the white race." Y chromosomes do not exchange material. Y chromosomes are passed from father to son, there is only recombination with the X chromosome at the ends of the Y chromosome, the vast majority of the Y chromosome does not recombine. Y chromosome research into population genetics only looks at the non-recombining Y (NRY) because recombining parts of the chromosome are not useful, they cannot be used to infer lineages. Because the NRY is transmitted from father to son without recombination the only differences that arise are copying mistakes by the enzyme DNA polymerase. Sometimes this enzyme makes a mistake when it is copying, a singlr mistake is called a single nucleotide polymorphism. It is these single nucleotide polymorphisms that define the haplogroups we produce. The common ancestor for I and R haplogroups is a haplogroup called Haplogroup F (Y-DNA), this haplogroup has four subgroups, one of which, Haplogroup K (Y-DNA) is ancestral to the R haplogroup and one of which, Haplogroup IJ (Y-DNA) is ancestral to the I haplogroup. Haplogroup R diverged more recently from all sub groups of haplogroup K than it did from haplogroup F, likewise haplogroup I diverged more recently from all subgroups of IJ than it did from haplogroup F. I have included the tree here, it is quite obvious that I and R are not closely related haplogroups.

fourdee: "these are just the core groups we can make some generalizations about" No, this is not supported by any science. These are just the commonest haplogroups that have survived to the present. We are not our ancestors, there is evidence to suggest that European origins are diverse, and that there was significant demic diffusion into Europe during the neolithic, although there is no consensus. I suggest you look at the maps from Bauchet and Seldin above. You might also care to have a look at Estimating the Impact of Prehistoric Admixture on the Genome of Europeans and for a different point of view The effect of the Neolithic expansion on European molecular diversity. But the real point is that it is not correct to claim that only three men contributed predominantly to the modern European gene pool. It is not correct to claim that Y chromosomes have any significance for "race" and it is not correct to claim that Y chromosomes carry genes responsible for body build or facial structure.

fourdee you keep making claims without providing evidence to support these claims. This is not a chat room, what you seem to stating is your own opinion. You cannot include your own opinion in the article. If you can provide evidence from reliable sources that Y chromosomes lineages have not gone extinct then please do, but just saying "it doesn't make sense" is not an informed argument, you need to verify this by producing a reliable source that claims it doesn't make sense. Researcher in the field of mtDNA and Y chromosome research tell us that it does indeed make sense, can you find evidence that some of these researchers dispute this? You have also resorted to making personal comments about me when I have provided evidence that you are misunderstanding the science. I tend to think that when people need to resort to ad hominem comments then they have lost the argument. I suggest, with as much good faith as I can muster, that making the same claims over and over again does not make them any more legitimate than they were the first time you made them, unless you go and find some evidence to support your claims. I'm not asking much here, and I have repeatedly asked you to do this. All the best. Alun 11:29, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

File:E3b1.jpg

The distribution of haplogroup E3b1 according to Semino et al. 2004. This illustrates the spread of African Y chromosomes (male lineage) into Europe.

Muntuwandi 12:17, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Alun is still lecturing on things that are common knowledge and that nobody has misstated. How many times do I need to say that obviously traits are not inherited directly on the Y chromosome? Or that an individual's haplogroups don't directly indicate his features? Alun is adept at misconstruing and misrepresenting very fundamental facts about genetics and trying to work them into implying there is not a genetic difference between the people we call white and the people we don't (or people we call English and people we call Welsh), which is so obviously absurd I doubt even he believes it. It's obvious, given user boxes and "personal" talk page comments, that Alun is deeply disturbed by not only racial awareness and the notion of race, but ethnic awareness and any concepts of genetic difference. Much of the material that is pivotal to his position, if you look closely, is actually conjecture (what is possible or could've happened, what admixture is mathematically feasible in the most ideal scenario, etc.) but ignores the most basically obvious facts which are that people in Europe who are natives of the regions with the markedly dominant haplogroup distributions (R1b celt, R1a slav, I nordic) also have markedly unique appearance. Of course those groups don't form a strict boundary of whiteness as their traits have spread to and come from surrounding populations, and they are not absolutely pure groups by any measure. But we all know what they look like and that what a person looks like is mainly due to their ethnic group.

It's kind of difficult to assume any degree of honesty, expertise or neutrality on the part of Alun given his obvious personal opinions he has stated many times, and emotional investment in the topic, since the raw conjecture that he states is "science" so closely matches these heart-felt personal beliefs and has little or nothing to do with the scientific-looking material he cites so prolificly. If forced into a corner he and others will admit that obviously there are genetic differences between people. The typical strategy here of overloading an article with more material questioning the topic than about the topic is quite effective. However the material is largely nonsense, or hinges on straw men like whether a group is absolutely distinct or would be classified as a monophyletic clade or subspecies in biology. These are not the important categorizations for humans - we look at people much more specifically, and primarily at traits related to appearance (alleles, not "phenotypes" for the most part, another red herring on their part). -- fourdee ᛇᚹᛟ 18:17, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Given that Alun has given sources for his "raw conjecture", while your arguments are characterised by a paucity thereof, it becomes harder and harder to take this seriously. Let me ask a direct question: are your intentions here to produce an article that presents all points of view that are supported by reliable sources, or is to ensure that the article specifically presents what you believe to be "correct"? Or something else entirely, and if so, what? SamBC(talk) 18:23, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Don't tell me what or how to edit, why don't you insert some material if you want. At this point the problem is that POV-pushers like Alun, AlanD?, slr, all these guys try to insert material that is actually a statement like "could possibly have as much as so and so % admixture" - that is not reliable information for an encyclopedia article without a lot more analysis of how they came up with that. Also phrasing of the article introduction to make it sound like race is a stupid idea, genetic difference between groups is not factual or scientific, or other nonsense lies which are not actually science or probably even cited, they are just things that experts in lying like these people say under the guise of science when it is nonsense. I don't need to edit by adding material or challenging material or any particular way. -- fourdee ᛇᚹᛟ 01:49, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Also you are taking these people at their word in paraphrasing scientific articles. From what I have seen I question the competence of Alun to paraphrase any published material that he may have some kind of personal interest in. Same goes for the rest of that crowd. I think they should just use direct quotes and not insert any paraphrased material at all. -- fourdee ᛇᚹᛟ 01:59, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

fourdee: "I think they should just use direct quotes". I have provided direct quotes above, if you care to read them, one is from the paper "We Are Not Our Ancestors: Evidence for Discontinuity between Prehistoric and Modern Europeans" by Ellen Levy-Coffman, there is also a link to the article. I posted this quote because you claimed that "doesn't really make sense that there was so much extinction of other male lines". Whether it makes sense to you personally or not is not the point. Genetic drift is a well known phenomenon for both Y chromosome and mtDNA haplogroups. You have resorted to attacking me and my motives, I think this is a mistake, it just makes you appear desperate. I also quote other scientists above: 'As Keita et al. state in their 2004 paper Conceptualising human variation "Y-chromosome and mitochondrial DNA genealogies are especially interesting because they demonstrate the lack of concordance of lineages with morphology"[26], by that they mean that Y chromosome haplogroups do not show any correlation with so called racial types'. Again a quote and a link to a reliable source. I have provided several sources and you have claimed that I am misrepresenting them. If you believe this then all you need to do is read the sources yourself and point out my mistakes. I do not need to misrepresent these sources, neither would I deliberately do so. You have claimed that I have a "political" agenda, but provide no evidence for this either, apart from a link to my user page as it used to be, but this is not evidence of me having distorted or misrepresented the science it merely gives some information about me that I chose to put there. Furthermore I have repeatedly asked you to provide reliable sources for the claims you have made, the fact that I have encouraged you to produce evidence that contradicts what I am saying shows that I am open to the the possibility that other explanations for these data may exist. Science works by observation, experimentation and theory building. We are not talking about "facts" here (as you have pointed out), but our best models or theories that explain the observed phenomena. There is always debate within scientific communities. I have tried to present the general scientific theories regarding Y chromosome genetics and heredity as they are given by the reliable sources I have read. I have also asked you to present any reliable sources that provide an opposing point of view. I do not have a problem with you doing this, I would like you to do this. If you want to make the same claims in the article that you have made on this talk page then it is absolutely necessary for you to do this. I do not care what you think of me, I do not care what anyone else thinks of me, I only care that we present any scientific work in a fair and balanced way. Alun 06:21, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

fourdee has been insisting on these haplogroups for a long time, archive 57. Haplogroups are non concordant with physical appearance. In fact the y chromosome is almost redundant since women can do without it, whereas men cannot do without having one X chromosome. In Brazil for example half the self identified white population has non white haplogroups and half the non-white population has white haplogroups.

[27] ,Race_and_genetics#Recent_studies Muntuwandi 06:44, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Alun you commie hypocrite, you wrote, "Y-chromosome and mitochondrial DNA genealogies are especially interesting because they demonstrate the lack of concordance of lineages with morphology" which proves what I have been saying all along. The quote itself SAYS "genealogies!" Don't you even understand English? A "genealogy" is "ge·ne·al·o·gy (jē′nē-ŏlə-jē, -ăl-, jĕn′ē-) n. pl. ge·ne·al·o·gies 1. A record or table of the descent of a person, family, or group from an ancestor or ancestors; a family tree. 2. Direct descent from an ancestor; lineage or pedigree. 3. The study or investigation of ancestry and family histories. so it is VERY clear that they are talking about groups of people related by decent from a common ancester and guess what, that is RACE. Your own quote says that these DNA geneologies are interesting, can't you even read, yet you keep saying that they mean nothing at all which just shows how ignorant you are. No wonder you are so ignorant you spend all your time with your anarchist communist friends reading Three steps forward two steps back probably I am sure. And can't you read what you wrote, there is a lack of concordance between geneaology and morphology which is what MoritzB has been saying all along which proves that Carleton Coon is still the most important physical anthropologist writing about White races. You know you just keep spinning your liberal propaganda when it is obviously you do not know anything about genetics or even science. I on the other hand spend hours citing at a cafe with my other really smart buddies smoking and talking about people who were real experts on race (and some of you out there know exactly who I mean) so don't tell me I don't know what I am talking about when I talk about this stuff all the time. Next time you want to argue a point maybe you should read a dictionary first. Pfft! Slrubenstein | Talk 09:41, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

I believe this las comment was NOT made by Slrubenstein! It contradicts all of his previous posted positions!Slrubenstein, have you bee kidnaped? The Ogre 12:31, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

This needs looking into. Slrubenstein must be contacted! The Ogre 12:43, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

LOL, I think it's meant to be satire. It's an ironic combination of KarenAER and Fourdee's arguments. Pretty much dead on, it's funny SLR. - Jeeny ^Talk 12:50, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Slrubenstein! Next time gives some hints and not just Pfft! The Ogre 12:54, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Hints! Do I have to spell everything out? You are being just like my mother! How DARE you accuse me of not being me! You know, I bet you are all sockpuppets. In fact, I bet aside from a handful of sane people everyone at Wikipedia is a sockpuppet. In fact, you can't even be sockpuppets ... Everybody knows that races are real, and that White people are White people, that is just common sense. And since everyone knows, and you are everyone, you know it too. So you can't even be disagreeing with me! All this moronic wasted talk is just your disagreeing with yourself, because you (not you, the other you) know I am right! So stop interfering with this article. The introduction should simply begin with a definition of "white" and then a definition of "people." Stop wasting tme with fringe views. Pfft! Do i have to repeat myself, are you that incapable of understanding me? Pfft - pfft!!! Slrubenstein | Talk 12:59, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Well I am left wing scum. I'll be first against the wall when the revolution comes! No wait, that can't be right, I'll be part of the revolution. That makes more sense. Alun 13:00, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Time for a smoke break

Yes! But the Revolution will eventually devore us... The Ogre 13:07, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

LMAO! Good imitation, SLR. Pfft! - Jeeny ^Talk 13:03, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

I was thinking more like this revolution ;) Alun 13:11, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Ah! A Romantic...! The Ogre 13:14, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Then check this one! Of course afterwards we were vanquished by the inexorability of common life (versus the deadly virtues of the exalted kind...)...! The Ogre 13:17, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

File:Menino.gif The Ogre 13:19, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

I LOVED the commie hypocrit part. I laughed even before I saw who wrote it. - Jeeny ^Talk 13:27, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Me, it was the typo in the original version that read "citing at a cafe with your friends". I had this mental picture of people at a smoky cafe, smoking pipe and exchanging quotes on Marx and Lenin and/or on Darwin and Dawkins (50s-style). That was hilarious!--Ramdrake 13:30, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

That made me laugh too. The typos made it even more funny! LMAO! I still have tears. Oh, I love this place. :) - Jeeny ^Talk 13:35, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Well... we pratically live here! The Ogre 13:37, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

I can't but wonder: what does it mean when someone who deliberately writes something nonsensical unwittingly fools many other regular editors into thinking that the contribution may have been made by another regular editor, because it sounds so much like that last editor?--Ramdrake 13:42, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Hey guys! Watcha all been up to? Hmmmm ... maybe it is time to get back to work? Slrubenstein | Talk 13:49, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

LOL, I'm sharp as a bowling ball. It was a fun break. - Jeeny ^Talk 14:00, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Race and genetic reality

"We have analyzed genetic data for 326 microsatellite markers that were typed uniformly in a large multiethnic population-based sample of individuals as part of a study of the genetics of hypertension (Family Blood Pressure Program). Subjects identified themselves as belonging to one of four major racial/ethnic groups (white, African American, East Asian, and Hispanic) and were recruited from 15 different geographic locales within the United States and Taiwan. Genetic cluster analysis of the microsatellite markers produced four major clusters, which showed near-perfect correspondence with the four self-reported race/ethnicity categories. Of 3,636 subjects of varying race/ethnicity, only 5 (0.14%) showed genetic cluster membership different from their self-identified race/ethnicity. On the other hand, we detected only modest genetic differentiation between different current geographic locales within each race/ethnicity group. Thus, ancient geographic ancestry, which is highly correlated with self-identified race/ethnicity—as opposed to current residence—is the major determinant of genetic structure in the U.S. population. Implications of this genetic structure for case-control association studies are discussed." Genetic Structure, Self-Identified Race/Ethnicity, and Confounding in Case-Control Association Studies Hua Tang,1 Tom Quertermous,2 Beatriz Rodriguez,4 Sharon L. R. Kardia,5 Xiaofeng Zhu,6 Andrew Brown,7 James S. Pankow,8 Michael A. Province,9 Steven C. Hunt,10 Eric Boerwinkle,11 Nicholas J. Schork,12 and Neil J. Risch3,13 http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1196372 —Preceding unsigned comment added by MoritzB (talk • contribs) 06:53, August 27, 2007 (UTC)

I know this paper very well. I have read it several times. Do you have any particular point? Clustering analyses no more "prove" race than Coon's work of 70 odd years ago does. No one disputes that there is variation in the human global population. The point is not that variation exists, nor is it that this variation is not geographically distributed. The problem is that the variation is non concordant. Tang's paper takes several groups with distinct backgrounds and shows they are different. It would be absurd to claim there are no genetic differences between say Africans and Europeans. The problem is that there are no discrete boundaries. Kittles and Weiss have a nice comment on this sort of study, they stste

Isolation by distance can be portrayed in more realistic, continuous map-based fashion than tree-diagrams provide, which helps clarify why classification is so difficult (Figure 2) (Figure 3). The Big Few races can seem real in samples of size N (Norway, Nigeria, Nippon, Navajo). That is, if one examines only the geographic extremes, differences appear large because they can be seen in comparisons between graphic and tree-like presentations of the same data in Figure 3A,B. In that sense it is sometimes said that there are only four or five major patterns of variation. But if we look at geographically closer or intermediate populations, differences diminish roughly proportionately (Figure 3C) (176). Even our view of the Big Few might change were it not for our curious convenience of overlooking places such as India. Who are those pesky billion? One race? A mix of the other already-sampled races? A multiplicity of races, as has often been suggested?[28]

As I said earlier, the objections to the concept of race that biologists have today are the same as they were when Darwin objected, the human population changes gradually over geographic distance, so any bondaries between so called races are artificial and arbitrary. This consideration cannot be addressed by simplistic classifications. Alun 07:21, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

The point is that the vast majority of mankind belongs to some of the distinct racial genetic clusters. The size of the "intermediate" populations is small.

Whites can be defined as a genetically distinct population group in America. In Europe there are more border-line cases but their number is still small.

MoritzB 14:57, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

No, the point is that we do not know what the clusters are. The greatest part of genetic variation is at the local level, therefore the greatest diversity is at the local level. Our tools are blunt, so we get a blunt picture of the world. Had the sampling strategy been by geography then our picture would be very different. The number of clusters we get depend largely on which loci we choose to include, where we sample our populations and what sort of statistical analysis was done. The people who wrote the computer programme "STRUCTURE" state that it partitions individuals into clusters on an ad hoc basis and that results obtained from the programme should be used as a guide. Furthermore in a test of the programme conducted using idealised population genetic data that were themselves generated using a different computer programme (which should make the job easier for structure because these data are much easier to collate than the "real life" data obtained from sampling real populations) STRUCTURE consistently underestimated the number of populations that were known to exist. See the paper What is a population? An empirical evaluation of some genetic methods for identifying the number of gene pools and their degree of connectivity. There are no fundamental genetic discontinuities in genetic variation between human groups, we see a pattern of isolation by distance. You can believe what you like, you claim that the vast majority of humans belong to distinct clusters, but how do you know this? Who has stated this? How many clusters are there? Do they represent true populations? I do not think these questions have been answered. There's a good quote from Ossorio and Duster on just this subject

Assumptions about natural, essential boundaries among races are contradicted by the findings that allele frequency comparisons among human populations rarely show discontinuities that map onto racial boundaries (Marks, 2002; Molnar, 1998). Anthropologists long ago discovered that humans’ physical traits vary gradually, with groups that are close geographic neighbors being more similar than groups that are geographically separated. This pattern of variation, known as clinal variation, is also observed for many alleles that vary from one human group to another. Another observation is that traits or alleles that vary from one group to another do not vary at the same rate. This pattern is referred to as nonconcordant variation. Because the variation of physical traits is clinal and nonconcordant, anthropologists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries discovered that the more traits and the more human groups they measured, the fewer discrete differences they observed among races and the more categories they had to create to classify human beings. The number of races observed expanded to the 30s and 50s, and eventually anthropologists concluded that there were no discrete races (Marks, 2002). Twentieth and 21st century biomedical researchers have discovered this same feature when evaluating human variation at the level of alleles and allele frequencies. Nature has not created four or five distinct, nonoverlapping genetic groups of people.[29]

You can believe what you like, but your argument seems generally to be based on your own opinion. I can provide several sources that all support what Ossorio and Duster say and what Kittles and Weiss say, most of the articles in the Nature Genetics supplement I link to above also say the same thing. Even if you are correct about most groups belonging to clusters this does not either support the existence of only 5 or 6 clusters (as opposed to say 63 in the case of the time of Darwin) and neither does it address the problem of a lack of discrete boundaries between these clusters. So essentially it is an arbitrary distinction. Alun 17:34, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

That is incorrect, the three race model basically fails to properly account for at least 20% of the worlds population. In other words many people do not have a race. The indian subcontinent with over 1.3 billion people is an intermeadiate population between Europe, south east asia, east asia and oceania. What race are people in the Indian subcontinent?. Muntuwandi 15:02, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

So for the benefit of 1/5 (according to you) of people who don't happen to have an identity like what we think of as "race", we should pretend that there is no such thing as race? Pretend that there are not other populations with remarkably unique traits and identities? Why is that? -- fourdee ᛇᚹᛟ 15:32, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

We are getting off-topic. This article is on White people. There is a body of scholarly literature on White people. We should be working at incorporating that material into the article. Slrubenstein | Talk 15:36, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

The article by Tang et. al. is about the genetics of self-identified "white" people.

MoritzB 15:44, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

I am disputing the Moritz's contention that the size of intermediate populations are small, when in actual fact they are considerable. Are Arabs black or white, Are Native Americans mongoloid, caucasoid, or neither, or their own race. What about the inuit or the saami. Malaysians or Indonesians, the Ainu or polynesians. What race are they?. Muntuwandi 15:42, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

The Arabs and Saami are obviously Caucasian. Native Americans are mongoloid. They are not real intermediate populations like Tuaregs.

MoritzB 15:44, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

But they are black arabs, all over north sudan, somalia. 35% of yemenites are afro arab. The saami have some "mongoloid" afinities. And so do Native Americans have "caucasoid" affinities. see Kennewick man. Muntuwandi 15:51, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Some "black arabs" in North Africa are of mixed Caucasian and black ancestry. They are a mixed population.

MoritzB 16:29, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

That makes them an intermediate population. Muntuwandi 16:48, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, a small one.

MoritzB 16:52, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

The whole Northeast Africa shows intermediate properties between Africa and eurasia, so does Sudan, chad, and the berber/tuaregs. Egyptians too are intermediate in gene frequencies between Africa and Eurasia. The same with the Saudis and the Yemenis. Surely they are not a small population. Muntuwandi 16:58, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

No, it doesn't. Only small amounts of admixture are measured.

MoritzB 03:17, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

This is getting ridiculous. As Alun put it, "It would be absurd to claim there are no genetic differences between say Africans and Europeans. The problem is that there are no discrete boundaries" - and the quote from Kittles and Weiss makes the point quite clear. MoritzB does not understand or care about the science, and Muntuwandi, while consistently correct, is nevertheless just basically repeating the same point over and over. Let's move on. Slrubenstein | Talk 17:06, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

No, Muntuwandi is simply absurdly exaggerating the amount of admixture.

MoritzB 03:17, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

The genetics section

An editor has inserted false material / original research to the article and attributes his opinions to Cavalli-Sforza who certainly does not even talk about "race mixing". The version endorsed by Muntuwandi is POV-pushing nonsense and completely misrepresents Cavalli-Sforza's position taking quotes out of context.

I have rewritten the section but unfortunately Muntuwandi is so proud of his own edits that he keeps making reverts.

I summarized Cavalli-Sforza's findings after reading the paper:

"According to the study all non-African populations are more closely related to each other than to Africans. Europeans are most closely related to East Asians and least related to Africans. As the genetic distance from Africa to Europe (16.6) is shorter than the genetic distance from Africa to East Asia (20.6) Cavalli-Sforza proposes that both Asian and African populations contributed to the settlement of Europe which began 40 000 years ago. The overall contributions from Asia and Africa were estimated to be around two-thirds and one-third, respectively. Europe has a genetic variation in general about three times less than that of other continents." MoritzB 06:03, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Non of the material is false, and what you have rewritten is not accurate. All non-african populations are least related to Africans because they are all descended from one of several fragmented African populations 55,000 years ago. However Europeans are the most closely related to Africans of all non-african populations. Muntuwandi 06:08, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Also we have to take into consideration that bottlenecks happen. Where people were isolated over a period of time and interbreed, therefore distributing the mutated gene that produced white skin. - Jeeny ^Talk 06:26, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Everybody has the liberty to read the article and compare the versions: http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/94/15/7719

Would you please point out what in my version is inaccurate?

An example: Why are Europeans more related to Africans than other non-African populations. Cavalli-Sforza answers:

One reasonable hypothesis is that the genetic distance between Asia and Africa is shorter than that between Africa and the other continents in Table 1 because both Africans and Asians contributed to the settlement of Europe, which began about 40,000 years ago. It seems very reasonable to assume that both continents nearest to Europe contributed to its settlement, even if perhaps at different times and maybe repeatedly. It is reassuring that the analysis of other markers also consistently gives the same results in this case. Moreover, a specific evolutionary model tested, i.e., that Europe is formed by contributions from Asia and Africa, fits the distance matrix perfectly (6). In this simplified model, the migrations postulated to have populated Europe are estimated to have occurred at an early date (30,000 years ago), but it is impossible to distinguish, on the basis of these data, this model from that of several migrations at different times. The overall contributions from Asia and Africa were estimated to be around two-thirds and one-third, respectively. Simulations have shown (7) that this hypothesis explains quite well the discrepancy between trees obtained by maximum likelihood and neighbor joining.

Thus, the gene flow happened before modern races hadn't even evolved.

Muntuwandi's version filled with POV and misrepresentation:

"According to the study all non African populations are more closely related to each other than to Africans. This is consistent with the view that all non-Africans are descended from a single population that lived in Africa. What is interesting is the two most genetically divergent groups are those that are defined as Black, that is Africans and Oceanians with a genetic distance of 24.7. (So the similarities between blacks are interesting in the article about white people)

Cavalli contends that if evolution of the races had proceeded independently without race mixing then the minimum genetic distance to Africa should at least be 24.7 as with Australia. (Cavalli does not talk about the evolution of races or race mixing)

The most striking discovery is that the shortest genetic distance from Africa is to Europe at 16.6. (Cavalli-Sforza does not call it his most "striking discovery" in the article)

This is counterintuitive since blacks and whites have the most divergent skin colors. (Does Cavalli-Sforza talk about skin color,no. OR and POV)

Cavalli contends that the only reason for this short distance is significant gene exchange between Africa and Europe. (Cavalli really says that Africans were in a role in founding the original population of Europe 30000-40000 years ago)

And the irrelevant "quotes" he inserted aren't even in the article.

MoritzB 06:31, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Besides there's plenty of evidence that people identifying as White in the USA have quite a lot of African admixture. Those people who identify as White tend to "look white" and are accepted as White. Those people who tend to look less white tend to be identified as African American. But here is at least one paper that shows that some White Americans have a greater degree of African ancestors than European ancestors, conversely some African Americans have a greater degree of European ancestry than African ancestry. So these people are put into their respective groups based on what they look like, and not on their ancestry. The work was done by Shriver. Here's an essay discussing the work, he uses a lot of Shriver's diagrams and there is a cite to Shriver's work at the foot of the essay. Alun 06:33, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Me me me!! I'm one of "those people". :) - Jeeny ^Talk 06:42, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

According to Shriver's study the average black admixture among whites is only 0.7 percent. That's the equivalent of having, among your 128 great etc. grandparents, 127 whites and one black. It appears that 70 percent of whites have no African ancestors at all. Among the 30 percent who do, the black admixture is around 2.3 percent, which would be like having about three black ancestors out of those 128.

According to the study the whites are actually pretty white. That kind of small admixture has no impact on phenotype.

MoritzB 06:40, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

If you read the article it is plain that there is selection at work. People who are identified as White are done so on the basis of phenotype, clearly the more White one looks, the more average European ancestry one has, but this is not always the case. The point is not the average extent of so called admixture, this is a red herring. The pint is that genes for skin colour have been selected against and other African genes have not. This means that even though the average is small, it does not mean that there are not a lot of White Americans with significant African ancestry. The study makes it clear that many White Americans have more African ancestry than many African Americans, and conversely that many African Americans have more European ancestry than many White Americans. Indeed a significant number of African Americans clearly have a greater than 50% European Ancestry, but because they "look Black" they are part of the African American group. Besides we have not even addressed the question of native American ancestry in the White American population, which is much more significant. To quote "averages" is to miss the point and change the subject. You seem to be very adept at ignoring the facts that do not sit with your personal opinion, or trying to change the discussion. Let's stick to the point I was trying to make. Alun 06:57, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

The study makes it clear that many White Americans have more African ancestry than many African Americans, and conversely that many African Americans have more European ancestry than many White Americans. That is simply not true. Please provide a quote of the study which "makes it clear". Also, to illustrate your claim please name a socially identified White American who has more African ancestry than many socially identified African-Americans.

MoritzB 07:10, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

So you haven't actually read the article or looked at the diagrams there that clearly show this. I have linked to the essay, this is my source. It presents graphical data that confirm this, and these graphs are the same ones published by Shriver. If you refuse to read the source then you do not have the right to dispute what I claim. "About one-third of White Americans are of between two and twenty percent recent African genetic admixture, as measured by the ancestry-informative markers in their DNA.19 This comes to about 74 million Americans. " and "As in the Shriver study of skin tone, some so-called “White” Americans have over twenty percent African genetic admixture and some so-called “Black” Americans have little or none. Indeed, other studies have found that approximately 5.5 percent of members of the U.S. Black community have no detectable African genetic admixture."[30] Alun 08:11, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Shriver's study was methodologically flawed and Shriver himself has retracted his claims. Shriver now says that only about 10 percent of European-American population has some African ancestry. Shriver was interviewed by Nicholas Wade. See: "For Sale: A DNA Test to Measure Racial Mix" by Nicholas Wade, New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/01/health/genetics/01RACE.html?ex=1188446400&en=55b928e33c2dfa94&ei=5070 To my knowledge Shriver has no study to confirm even that result, though. MoritzB 12:29, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Your claim that Shriver's study was methodologically flawed and that he has retracted this paper is not made in the NYTimes article you link to. All it says is that there are probably more than "five races" and that human population structure is more complex that any simplistic classification into five groups. Can you link to the article where Shriver actually makes this claim? I'd be interested to read it. Thanks. Alun 13:31, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

File:E3b1.jpg

The distribution of haplogroup E3b1 according to Semino et al. 2004. This illustrates the spread of African Y chromosomes (male lineage) into Europe. The subbranch E3b1 is present at high frequencies among the Greeks, Albanians, and South Italians (up to 25%), but its percentage gradually falls below 10% in the Carpathian basin and Iberia, and is negligible in other parts of Europe

Moritz, all non african populations are descended from Africans. So yes the original founders of Europe came from Africa. At present it is believed they arrived from west asia, though a few propose the followed the nile into the levant and finally into Asia. What is relevant in this case is that had evolution of the original African immigrants proceeded independently, then we would expect that the genetic distance would at least be that equal to australia that is 24.7 . However there were several secondary migrations from Africa into Europe and vice versa. For example that of Haplogroup E3b (Y-DNA) entered Europe during the spread of Neolithic farming, which is quite recent. Muntuwandi 06:47, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

I know. What is your point? The current version sucks as it misattributes your opinions to Cavalli-Sforza. It has to be rewritten because of the errors I pointed out.

MoritzB 06:55, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

This is cavalli's quote: In order to examine the problem of the constancy of evolutionary rates, we can look at the distances between Africa and the other continents: 24.7 with Oceania, 20.6 with Asia, 16.6 with Europe, and 22.6 with America. It is clear that the shortest distance is between Africa and Europe, followed by that between Africa and Asia. If the rate of evolution were truly constant, the four values would be identical (within the limits of statistical error due to small sample size)

The distance from Europe is anomalously low. North Africa is populated with Caucasoid people like Europeans, but we have made sure to eliminate these populations and are restricting ourselves to Sub-Saharan Africa. The simplest explanation is that substantial exchange has taken place between nearby continents.Genes peoples and languages page 52 Muntuwandi 07:10, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, and this is clarified by Cavalli-Sforza in the paper: As the genetic distance from Africa to Europe (16.6) is shorter than the genetic distance from Africa to East Asia (20.6) Cavalli-Sforza proposes that both Asian and African populations contributed to the settlement of Europe which began 40 000 years ago. The overall contributions from Asia and Africa were estimated to be around two-thirds and one-third, respectively.

"One reasonable hypothesis is that the genetic distance between Asia and Africa is shorter than that between Africa and the other continents in Table 1 because both Africans and Asians contributed to the settlement of Europe, which began about 40,000 years ago. It seems very reasonable to assume that both continents nearest to Europe contributed to its settlement, even if perhaps at different times and maybe repeatedly. It is reassuring that the analysis of other markers also consistently gives the same results in this case. Moreover, a specific evolutionary model tested, i.e., that Europe is formed by contributions from Asia and Africa, fits the distance matrix perfectly (6). In this simplified model, the migrations postulated to have populated Europe are estimated to have occurred at an early date (30,000 years ago), but it is impossible to distinguish, on the basis of these data, this model from that of several migrations at different times. The overall contributions from Asia and Africa were estimated to be around two-thirds and one-third, respectively. Simulations have shown (7) that this hypothesis explains quite well the discrepancy between trees obtained by maximum likelihood and neighbor joining." http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/94/15/7719

So you are just taking a quote out of context and claim that Cavalli-Sforza talks about "race mixing".

MoritzB 07:22, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

The problem is you are just reading the pnas article. That article is an excerpt from the book. The book has the full details. What is well established is that there have been several migrations between Europe and Africa during the paleolithic and the Neolithic. It is not rocket science that europeans are closely related to africans because they are right next door to each other. If you put aside skin color there will be many similarities beneath the skin. You can see that haplogroup E3b originated in Africa but is found at moderate frequencies in various parts of Europe for example.

yes europeans and africans do have genetic differences. But as Jeeny mentioned Europeans probably went through a population bottleneck that altered gene frequencies significantly, possibly giving rise to light skin. When you look at other traits there are many similarities. For example the tallest people in the world are the Nilotic tribes of Africa, the second tallest are Northern Europeans. This could be simply a result of African Admixture in Europe. Muntuwandi 07:37, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

That would imply that the study and the book it is based on are in logical contradiction which is untrue. And Northern Europeans aren't tall because of their "African admixture", lol.

MoritzB 07:47, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

It is very possible that Northern Europeans are tall because of "African Admixture".climate can skulpt bodies too. Muntuwandi 07:54, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

It is not because Northern Europeans have no measured Sub-Saharan DNA admixture. MoritzB 11:42, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

The fact that no "admixture" has been measured does not preclude any contribution of Africans from European ancestry. Africans have been recorded as having lived in Great Britain since the Roman times, and we don't know what the extent of African presence was, we just know they were there at that time.[31] Alun 11:59, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

The conversation is becoming utterly silly. The idea that Europeans became tall bacause of 'African admixture' is preposterous. Northern Europeans are on average taller than other Europeans. Obviously these are less likely to be mixed with Africans than southern Europeans. Of course there has been some contribution from 'Africans', but that would be almost exclusively North Africans, possibly from trade links with Phoenician colonies and from north African Roman troops. Still, their contribution is likely to be very tiny and is totally unrelated to the arguments about paleolithic migrations/contributions. What is the point of adding such absurd 'facts'? Paul B 12:20, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

These facts may seem absurd to you right now but in future studies may just reveal them to be so. I think there is a little misunderstanding regarding admixture. The ancestry informative markers used to determine admixture are based on polymorphisms that are known to be divergent between the populations. for example a gene found in 98% of blacks and only found in 1% of whites can be used to give a rough estimate of admixture of a multiracial population or individual. A gene that is found at 50% among whites and 50% among blacks would not be a good candidate for an admixture estimate. But the problem is that gene could have entered either one population at a time much earlier via admixture and spread quickly. There would be no way of telling that such a gene entered the population through admixture. Consequently the lack of admixture only refers to more recent mixing. In the past admixture could have taken place. An ancestors tale by Richard Dawkins for example states that every one alive 2000 years ago regardless of their race is an ancestor of everyone alive today [32]. With regard to height once again if two populations share a similar characteristic, it could arise by three mechanisms

• convergence
• Admixture
• Common origin

So it is either that Northern Europeans either converged on height, but seeing that other populations did not converge on height as well and that evolution favors shorter bodies in colder climates, it is highly possible that Northern Europeans gained their height through African Admixture in the past. Muntuwandi 13:06, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

This is pure speculative fantasy and OR. I see no evidence at all here, just smokescreens of wishful thinking. Paul B 14:00, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree with PaulB. It is now most important to revert the article back to the version I suggested. There has been enough criticism of the current version which reports Cavalli-Sforza's findings falsely.

MoritzB 12:35, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

This push by Alun, ramdrake, muntuwandi and slr is completely absurd. Any genetics section in this article should be primarily focused on alleles and lineages strongly associated with the core groups we call white, not arguments about where the distributions of those lineages and alleles end. Alun is focusing on very minor issues that nobody denies or misunderstands, and is using false conclusions (his and own and by intermediary parties), misphrasings and cherry picking to give the impression that there is no genetic or scientific basis for the differences we observe between populations. We all know that there is a genetic difference between the groups that appear to be different. Whether we would be better served by looking at "ethnic" groups, "racial" groups, haplogroups, or allele clusters is completely outside the topic of this article. "Science" isn't objective either. The decision on what makes a subspecies is something man created, not nature. Fine - humans groups don't look like subspecies. Our terms for these classes of people are "ethnic" or "racial" groups and maybe today these terms should be revised in light of analysis of population history, genetic lineage and dominant lineages, and clusters of alleles important to sexual selection. This is a worthwhile topic but is largely tangental to this article. -- fourdee ᛇᚹᛟ 12:56, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

"Any genetics section in this article should be primarily focused on alleles and lineages strongly associated with the core groups we call white, not arguments about where the distributions of those lineages and alleles end." This is the core of the problem. NPOV forbids us from adding in our own views. Wh we call white is absolutely irrelevant to this article. What reliable verifiable sources call white is. And those sources have to be accurately represented. And you and MoritzB consistently misrepresent them. Slrubenstein | Talk 14:29, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

"maybe today these terms should be revised in light of analysis of population history, genetic lineage and dominant lineages, and clusters of alleles important to sexual selection." says Fourdee. Now this is a fascinating proposal to the world. Given that existing categories aren't genetic lineages, we should redefine them until they are.

However, as SLR suggests, it's not a proposal for Wikipedia. If Fourdee's definition conflicts with those embraced by the Confederacy, the U.S. gov't as it decided whether people could be naturalized, the enforcers of "white" and "colored" bathrooms, the South African government etc., I would have to suggest that their definitions are notable, and his perhaps is not. And while the idea that whiteness is a genetic group is not WP:Fringe, just mistaken according to the scientific consensus, this particular definition of white people almost certainly is. It has a place, perhaps, in a discussion of Nordicist racial beliefs. --Carwil 16:52, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

The confederacy didn't know about haplogroups. They meant a population that can be pretty clearly identified in those terms though. Or by alleles. Or both. -- fourdee ᛇᚹᛟ 17:00, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

STOP THE PRESSES! Hold Everything! ohmygod! Fourdee, you have a time-travelling mind-reading machine? Can I borrow it, pleeeeaaase??!? I want to know what Hitler was thinking just before he killed himself. (I actually have a pretty good idea but as you know, Wikipedia is all about verifiability!) Slrubenstein | Talk 18:08, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

A proposal

This is not an article on genetics, so lets stop debating genetics. This is an article on White people, so lets start discussing the literature on White people. Yes, there is a real body of literatur ethat is explicitly about "white people" so there will be no doubt about appropriateness of sources or NOR, these works direcly address the subject of this artilce. Let's see who has read the, or divide up the readings, and discuss how to improve the article:

Perhaps the single most important reader

• Critical White Studies: Looking Behind the Mirror edited by Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic;

Both are law professors and it is published by Temple University Press, so it is quite reputable. As an edited volume it contains essays by a plethora of authors and thus represents a wide range if views - helpful for complying with NPOV, and all in one easy source. I think this is generally considered the best collection of diverse essays. But to help you guys out some more, here are some other books directly relevant to this article:

• Allen, Theodore The Invention of the White Race
• Babb, Valerie. Whiteness Visible: The Meaning of Whiteness in American Literature and Culture (Valerie Babb is a professor of English at the University of Georgia)
• Bonnett, Alastair. White Identities: Historical and International Perspectives (Alistair onnet is a Reader of Geography in the University of Newcastle-upon-Thyne)
• Brodkin, Karen. How Jews Became White Folks: and What that says about Race in America (Karen Brodkin is a professor of Anthropology at UCLA)
• Dyer, Richard. White (Richard Dyer used to be in Media Studies at the University of Warwick)
• Hale, Grace Elizabeth. Making Whiteness: The Culture of Segregation in the South, 1890-1940 (Elizabeth Hale a professor of History at U. Virginia (and her book is very well-regarded, often assigned in college classes))
• Haney-Lopez, Ian. White by Law: The Legal Construction of Race (Ian Haney Lopez is a professor of Law at UC Berkeley)
• Hill, Mike, ed. Whiteness: A Critical Reader (Michale Hill is a professor of Social Policy at U. of Brighton)
• Hollinger, David. Post-Ethnic America (David Hollinger is a professor of History at UC Berkeley)
• Ignatiev, Noel. How the Irish Became White (Ignatiev is a professor of Critical Studies at the Massachussetts College of Art and a Fellow at Harvard university; this book is one of the foundational texts in Whiteness studies and is very widely cited)
• Jacobson, Matthew Frye. Whiteness of a Different Color: European Immigrants and the Alchemy of Race (Matthew Frye Jacobson is Chair of the American Studies Program at Yale)
• Kincheloe, Joe, ed. White Reign: Deploying Whiteness in America (Joe Kincheloe is a professor of Education at McGill (and there is a Wikipedia article about him!))
• Lipsitz, George. The Possessive Investment in Whiteness: How White People Profit from Identity Politics (George Lipsitz is a professor of Black Studies at UC Santa Barbara)
• McCarthy, Cameron and Warren Crichlow, eds. Race, Identity, and Representation in Education (Warren Crichlow is a professor of education at York University)
• Morrison, Toni. Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination
• Thomas, K. Nakayama, Judith N. Martin (editors): Whiteness: The Communication of Social Identity (Thomas Nakayama and Judith Martin are professors of Communication at Arizona State U)
• O'Donnell, James and Christine Clark, eds. Becoming and Unbecoming White: Owning and Disowning a Racial Identity (James O'Donnell is an associate professor of Education at New Mexico State U.)
• Omi, Michael and Howard Winant. Racial Formation in the United States from the 1960s to the 1980s (Michale Omi is an associate professor of ethnic studies at UC Berkeley; Howard Winant is a Professor of Sociology at UC Santa Barbara)
• Rasmussen, Birgit Brander, et al., eds., The Making and Unmaking of Whiteness (Birgit Brander Rasmussen is a professor of Chicano Studies at U. Wisconsin-Madison)
• Roediger, David. The Wages of Whiteness: Race and the Making of the American Working Class (David R. Roediger is a professor of History at U. Illinois Champaigne-Urbana (his book is another classic, it is assigned in LOTS of college courses),
• Rogin, Michael Paul. Black Face, White Noise: Jewish Immigrants in the Melting Pot (Michale Paul Rogin passed away but was a professor of Political Science at UC Berkeley)
• Saxton, Alexander. The Rise and Fall of the White Republic: Class Politics and Mass Culture in Nineteenth-Century America (Alexander Saxton is a professor of History at UCLA)

This is only a partial sampling of the amount written by scholars on the concept of "White people" - there is much more than the very length of the list reveals just how inadequate this article is, how much it is leaving out. Now, some of the above books are absolue classics. But for more cutting-edge research, your best bet is journals (it takes less time to write and publish a journal article than to write and publish a book, so rejecnt journal articles are more likely to be "state of the art." Of course, journal articles are also shorter which is a mixed blessing: obviously, they take less time to read, but they are much more focused. Still, good articles review the literature and thus provide handy summaries of the range of views. They can also provide great little case-studies that illustrate specific aspects of the concept "White people."

• American Anthropologist (Hartigan's article in 1997 is a god starting point)
• American Ethnologist
• Cultural Anthropology
• Current Anthropology
• American Journal of Sociology
• American Sociological Review
• British Journal of Sociology
• Journal of Historical Sociology
• Comparative Studies in Society and History
• Critical Inquiry
• Representations
• Public Culture

Any major library will have subscriptions to at least a few of these journals. In hard-copies, one could look at the index at the back of any given volume; if one has J-Stor or another electronic version of the journal once can do a boolean search. It woul dnot take long to search for "Whiteness," "White+Race" and "White+Ethnicity." You will not come up with an overhwlming number of articles, but what you do come up with will represent the best scholarship (these are all top-ranked peer-reviewed journals; the authors of the articles did all the complex hard work, we just need to benefit from their labor). You will also come up with book reviews and if the review is positive, it is probably worth reading the book. In the end, you will know a lot more about White people (which presumably is what you want, if this article interests you) and you will be able to improve this article by ensuring it complies with NPOV and by ensuring that you are not violating NOR. Like I said (I think!) above - good luck! No article in Wikipedia is ever perfect - after all, by its very Wiki nature, all articles are perpetual works in progress. But obviously this article can be much, much better. That's pretty exciting! Slrubenstein | Talk 21:43, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree. This is not an article on genetics, and genetics doesn't have any place in it. Some editors erroneously believe that genetics support their case for the existence of a group of people they call "White" existing as a biologically defined entity. The problem is that biologists do not make this claim and the evidence does not support this claim, so they are resorting to original research and misrepresentation of the research to try and build a case. fourdee is the best example, he keeps making unfounded claims for Y chromosome haplogroups, but he admits right at the start that this is his opinion and has not produced a shred of evidence to support his spurious claims. We need to move on and stop discussing genetics. Genetics does not support the concept of a genetically identifiable "White people", this is evident from the paucity of evidence provided by it's proponents. I am also a bit fed up with the fourdee continually impuning my motives, it is at best an an example of not assuming good faith and at worst it represents a personal attack. This smacks of a lack of a real argument. commie scum 05:36, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

You are still misrepresenting what biologists have actually found, and intentionally misleading people about which aspects of biology are based in objective fact and which are based in arbitrary standard. You know quite well that "subspecies" and even "species" are vague categories created by mankind to usefully label like groups of organisms. You persitently try to apply the term subspecies to ethnic group or race when it does not have the same standards. You also know every well that alleles related to appearance (at least) and dominant haplogroups vary between populations and are substantially associated with ethnic groups. As to impugning your motivations, when the extremist political views you publish on your user page match the deceptions and misinformation you try to pack into articles under the guise of "scientific fact", this is just calling a spade a spade. -- fourdee ᛇᚹᛟ 05:57, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

1) I have never applied the term subspecies to any' ethnic group. The term subspecies is a biological classification, ethnic groups are social-cultural constructs. I know the difference. Can you show any evidence that I have ever made this claim? 2) I have stated, supported by reliable sources that in biology the terms subspecies and race are near synonyms. These claims are supported, furthermore I have not claimed that these terms are always used in biology as synonyms. Your claim is without foundation, you provide no evidence that I have conflated ethnic group with subspecies. I have provided plenty of evidence that in biology subspecies and race are synonyms. Of course the terms subspecies and race are not synonymous in a non biological context. You are failing to differentiate between use of the term "race" in academic contexts (it means different things to a biologist compared to an anthropologist for example) or in general use by the public, which is undefined. Don't make accusations without evidence, don't accuse me of things I haven't done and don't make personal attacks. I am starting to get very fed up with this behaviour. Alun 06:17, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm not clear which part you are objecting to. You try to insert statements that imply there is no biological cause for apparent differences between populations (which as a geneticist you know is not true) through obfuscated wording and misconstrued findings. This campaign against race, ethnicity, nation and probably all forms of exclusive identity explicitly matches the ultra-left-extremist nihilist politics you espouse at times on your user page. You and others are certainly not-maximally-civil to me. I don't really see a problem here, we are working out what should be in the article and I am questioning both your sources and how you are phrasing or interpreting them. -- fourdee ᛇᚹᛟ 06:40, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Do you ever read my posts? I have never claimed that there are no biological differences between populations from different geographical regions. I have not intentionally been uncivil to you, and I have never accused you of acting in bad faith, both things you have done to me. You certainly are questioning my sources and how I have interpreted them, this is not the problem, the problem is that you have provided no evidence of either 1) sources that contradict my sources 2) evidence that I have misrepresented the sources I use. Making accusations against me and the sources I have used is all very well, but your accusations carry absolutely no weight unless you can back them up by using reliable sources yourself. Simply claiming that I my sources are wrong or that I am distorting them is not evidence, it is just your opinion. I have asked you repeatedly to support your claims with reliable sources, which you have failed to do. I have also asked you to point out in my sources where I have misrepresented them, which you have also failed to do. As far as I can see you have offered little more than your own personal opinion while also making ad hominen attacks against me. I have also pointed this out to you previously, but you still don't seem to be able to offer anything concrete to support your opinion. To be blunt you appear to be flogging a dead horse here. Alun 06:54, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

If you are ready to have this article reflect that there are biological differences between different populations, I think we are done arguing. Thanks. -- fourdee ᛇᚹᛟ 07:01, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

We are not going to have this article reflect the personal opinions that you have expressed on this talk page, because they are not supported by any reliable sources. You do not appear o understand the distinction between the concept of variation by geography and "race". These are not the same conceptually. commie scum 07:10, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Races are geographical. You do not appear to understand "negroes are not white" or "welsh are not english". -- fourdee ᛇᚹᛟ 07:44, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

OK, so all Americans belong to the same "race" then? So do all English people, even Black English people? Welsh people are not always English, I am Welsh and not English, but this has nothing to do with "race", and to claim it has is to show a breathtaking ignorance. commie scum 07:56, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm not following your logic. Above you imply that variation in alleles is described or caused only by geography (obviously false). So I accept that there is a component of this and say that doesn't change anything about "race". Then your retort is to attack the plausibility of your own idea that geography explains variation? When do we get to the part where you admit there are factual biological differences between groups of people. -- fourdee ᛇᚹᛟ 08:12, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

1) My response was sarcastic, I thought this was obvious. You claim "Races are geographical". Well the USA is a geographical region, therefore by your own statement all Americans belong to the same "race". This is clearly nonsense, so your comment is clearly nonsense.
2) Natural human genetic and physical variation is distributed by geography. This is a fact apparent even to very small children, people from different parts of the world tend to look a little different to each other, they also tend to be somewhat genetically different to each other. This is not disputed by anyone. The question is this, does human physical and genetic diversity allow the classification of the human species into a few discrete "races". The evidence from physical anthropology and genetics tend not to support the existence of a few races. The evidence, such as it is tends to support a nonconcordant distribution of diversity between human groups. For example Europeans may not be particularly like west Africans, but Europeans are much more like east Africans. This makes sense from the perspective of the RAO model of human dispersion throughout the globe. We would expect Europeans to be more like some African populations and less like others. A little bit nearer Europe again and we get to the Near East, where people are even more similar to Europeans. When we get to south east Europe we find Europeans that are similar to Near Eastern populations but who are also similar to northern Europeans, finally we get to north west Europe and these Europeans are somewhat different again. When we go to north east Europe we find that Europeans there are somewhat more like people from central and northern Asia, but are still most like Europeans, as we progress to central Asia we get people who look somewhat east Asian to the European eye, but who look somewhat European to the east Asian eye. This pattern of diversity does not support the existence of a few distinct "races". Rather it supports either a model of isolation by distance, with populations that are closer being more similar to each other and populations that are more distant being more different. Or it supports a small island model where there are populations of people with large amounts of gene flow between these populations. Isolation by distance would lead to a very gradual clinal change, a small island model would lead to a more clustering pattern. Actually we find both types of patterns when we look at human genetics. Probably this indicates that neither model is perfect. Human dispersal throughout the world is imperfectly understood, and the patterns of difference we see are very complex, no model that we currently have accurately reflects the sort of diversity that is observed.[see Long and Kittles 2003] This is a long post, but this is a complex subject. Current work tends to indicate that there are not a few large groups of human races, what diversity there is (and we are a very homogeneous population relative to other mammals) cannot be distributed neatly into five or six well defined groups. I have addressed this issue at least twice before on this talk page over the last few days. You asked me to provide direct quotes because you think I am lying for political reasons, I provided at least two direct quotes on this page that specifically address this problem. Human genetic and physical diversity is complicated, simplistic classifications do not represent good models for explaining this diversity. This problem has been noted since the time of Darwin, and was the main reason why Darwin rejected the concept of human classification into a few discrete "races". In 1864 Alfred Russell Wallace (co author with Darwin) wrote "...there are no races without transitions to others; that every race exhibits within itself variations of colour, of hair, of feature, and of form, to such a degree as to bridge over to a large extent the gap that separates it from other races. It is asserted that no race is homogeneous; that there is a tendency to vary....” Charles Darwin himself stated "all naturalists have learnt by dearly bought experience, how rash it is to attempt to define species by the aid of inconstant characters....[The characters of races] “graduate into each other, independently in many cases, as far as we can judge, of their having intercrossed.”[33]
3) The question is not what you personally believe is a "White person" and it is not what you claim most people believe is a "White person", it is not whether you believe that "races" are real. The question is that you do not appear to either understand this subject very well at all and that you do not seem to have any sources to support what you are saying. Indeed you seem to be more interested in 1) Having a general discussion about "race" rather than contributing constructively to the article and 2) Trolling on this talk page looking to have an argument. None of what you have said is supported, most of what you have said displays a certain ignorance in this subject, much of what you have said is personal opinion and not least, a great deal of what you have said appears to be little more than an expression of a personal antipathy towards me. This is the last time I will ask you, please stop making personal comments about my motives and politics. Alun 08:58, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Two points: Fourdee writes, "You know quite well that "subspecies" and even "species" are vague categories created by mankind to usefully label like groups of organisms." This is true, and these are categories created by scientists who strive to be precise. So it is even more true for categories like race and ethnicity which were not invented by scientists but are popular i.e. social constructions. Fourdee refers to "This campaign against race, ethnicity, nation ... " but there is no such campaign. In fact i actually listed a shole set of books specifically on Whites (as a race or ethnic group) and Alun agreed that this was a good direction to take the article in so at least he and I are most definitely not campaigning against race or ethnicity. Look, I just tried to make a constructive proposal. Can we keep on track? Slrubenstein | Talk 11:21, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

No Neo-Marxist POV is needed

The list of literature SIRubenstein posted represents the Neo-Marxist school of thought. There are legions of Marxist scholars who have written about almost every topic imaginable, including white people. See: Frankfurt school and Critical theory

However, it is not appropriate that articles which are not related to Marxism include the Marxist point of view. Historical materialism is today discredited with the exception of Communist countries like China.

Please add the material to whiteness studies if you wish, SI. MoritzB 14:39, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

This is not about political ideology, this is about scholarship. You think an encyclopedia is a soapbox for your ignorant prejudice. I think articles should reflect sound scholarship. The books I listed are used widely in university courses and are written by scholars at major universities and are published often by prestigious university presses. Should we ignore scholarship? Should we ignore work by astronomers in an article on the stars? Should we ignore work by physicists in an article on quantum mechanics? Should we ignore the work of geologists in an article on rocks? Yet you want to exclude work by anthropologists, sociologists, geographers, and historians in an article on human groups. That is just bizarre! Do you insist your car be built by someone who knows nothing about auto-mechanics? Do you want your airplane pilot to be ignorant of flying? Slrubenstein | Talk 14:58, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

The problem is the fringe nature of the scholarship because of discredited methods like historical materialism. Mainstream academics reject it. Your largely philosophical and sociological material explored the concept of "whiteness", not white people. These are distinct concepts which is illustrated by the example that although many of the scholars you mentioned are of white European ancestry they reject any white ethnic identity. Like I said add the information to whiteness studies.

Or should we talk about the anti-Germans in German people?

MoritzB 15:22, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

The books are written by mainstream scholars in mainstream disciplines at mainstream universities so obviously it is mainstream. It is you who are fringe, so of course you call anything mainstream fringe. Slrubenstein | Talk 15:37, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Then, provide verifiable evidence that these works are fringe, although considering their number and the diversity of the names attached to them, I would say it is doubtful that they are fringe as you purport.--Ramdrake 15:25, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

MoritzB, I see that you're indeed working hard to build consensus. :) --Ramdrake 15:13, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Those Marxist works simply aren't relevant in this article. They are offtopic.

The Marxist scholars have also written even more about the United States but their POV is not included to that article. Why should it be included to this article?

MoritzB 16:03, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Boo-hoo! I am scared of different ideas! Please make them go away! Slrubenstein | Talk 16:45, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

So MoritzB's position seems to be that only sources vetted by him should be allowed? Is this a rational interpretation of the NPOV policy? Accusations of political bias by certain people with an apparently racialist agenda are getting out of hand on this talk page. Indeed it seems to be the norm to accuse mainstream academia of being wrong, or fringe, and then attacking the editors who want to cite mainstream academic sources. This really does smack of desperation. commie scum 17:21, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Marxist sources should not be included to a topic which is not related to the ideology. I am not accusing the scholars of any political "bias". They are honest Communists who use the method of historical materialism in their analysis. However, their conclusions about "whiteness" are not relevant in this article about "white people". The Marxist view that the US government is a " an organization of class domination" is not relevant in the article about Federal government of the United States. Is that so hard to understand?

MoritzB 17:33, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

How are they Marxist? How is all of this anything except your personal opinion? Are you even attempting to be constructive? The Behnam 17:41, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

They are obviously Marxists because they do not agree with Moritz. Isn't it obvious? commie scum 17:43, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

No, they are (Neo-)Marxists because they use the methods of Frankfurt school and Critical theory. Read their work and see yourself.

MoritzB 18:05, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Even if they were Neo-Marxists, what does it change? This wide array of people are legitimate researchers at mainstream universities. There is nothing in what you wrote to indicate these are all fringe POVs, not a single source, let alone a reliable source.--Ramdrake 18:13, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Legitimate researchers in mainstream universities also say that the US government is "an organization of class domination." Is the fact relevant in the article about the US government? Why would the Marxist POV be relevant in this article?

MoritzB 19:45, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

~Boo-hooh! Stop bringing in views I do not like! NPOV is supposed to be about prohibiting any view that frightens me! I am scared by those big professors at Berkeley and UCLA and Yale and McGill! They think they know so much just because they have PhD.s and have jobs at major universities and spend their time researching topics and get published, those know-it-alls? What about me! Why should I have to go to school and study hard to get some stoopid degree? Make those people go away! i just want to see MY views in print! This is my article, you can't come here with your knowledge and stuff like that! go away! Slrubenstein | Talk 18:25, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

You fail at sarcasm. MoritzB 19:45, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Actually, that's some pretty good sarcasm there... . Freshacconci 16:04, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Sociology is not a field of study, it's a field of lies and propaganda. I think MoritzB has well described the philosophical and political bias of many of these "scholarly" sources which intend to do nothing other than attack the existing exclusive identity of white people. I think the reason behind this is, aside from victims of white guilt, generally to attack and steal from the privileged classes (whites) who may have access to better land, better resources, better genetic material and women, and in general an existence several magnitudes better than the rest of the world. They feel that such inequities are unfair, rather than a rightful result of competition and the evolutionary process. The goal here is to take what whites have.

I think we should definitely mention these nihilist-marxist-communist campaigns in the article, but properly phrased in light of the fact that most whites practice this exclusive identity, that there are clear genetic and familial/tribal reasons for this identity, and that the overwhelming majority of mainstream sources accept this as a relatively unambiguous and objective term. The factual findings of these "sociologists" may actually be quite relevant, but I think we can toss out of hand the blatant lies that imply there is no genetic or biological reason for apparent differences in population groups. No one with the least bit of shame or academic reputation would print lies like that so I think it's safe to say the worst of it comes from the paraphrasing Alun and SLR try to cram into articles, or mix with the scurilous "sociological" sources - sociology which is basically a codeword for "analyzing why some people have more than others, and the best way to take that from them" - whether it be land, resources, women, genetic material, or cultural identity. I can't believe these lying thieves are still around. -- fourdee ᛇᚹᛟ 18:42, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Fourdee's right! how DARE we let scholarship into this article! I've said it before and I ill say it again, those damn scholars think they know so much just because they have been trained to do research and spend their lives doing it! Wikipedia should not be tainted with research. WE know what we think, and what is important is that our views be expressed fully here! Slrubenstein | Talk 18:53, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, you are quite right: all science, scholarship and academia are just a bunch of lies. Only Fourdee's ideas are The Truth! Carry on! The Ogre 18:55, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Careful, people, please don't step in it! Pile of shit warning!--Marxist-nihilist 18:58, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Theologists are trained scholars as well - but may recite things that are complete mistruths or lies, depending on one's perspective. Sociology is much like theology, its assumptions on often completely nonfactual and reflect a significant bias. In the case of sociology, its assumptions reflect probably the only idea so bad that I would call it evil - they seek to attack and take from the best, strongest (etc.) people by describing their dominance as something other than natural. Again, the core motivation here is to take what whites have: land, resources, genetic material, women, cultural identity - take or destroy it. -- fourdee ᛇᚹᛟ 19:07, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Oh! Whites have women! So I suppose women can't be white, since they are owned by the likes of them... Fourde, you are just a biggot who believes his views of the world constitute reality, and has no capability to enter into a proper rational argument. You are the one that can be categorized as a biased defender of lies and propaganda. The Ogre 19:20, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, pity the women, owned by white men. This is getting more ludicrous by the minute.--Ramdrake 19:23, 29 August 2007 (UTC)\

Oops, you stepped in it. You better wipe your foot off on the curb. ewww, stinky. - Jeeny ^Talk 19:26, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

It's not my choice to focus on women, it is a favorite target of the parasitic thieves, for example the article (and its editors) Missing White Women Syndrome hints at the problem. And of course that was one of many things I listed that other groups covet: land, resources, genetic material, women, cultural identity. I view any person as "owned" by their ethnic group and that duty to ethnic group must come first and be absolute. It's funny to paint me as misogynist or viewing women as slaves when in fact I am extremely offended by those views. Your ethnic group is your family, and yes I think a white man has a right to a white wife - and vice versa. -- fourdee ᛇᚹᛟ 19:43, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

The ad hominem accusations that fourdee is a chauvinist are patently stupid.

MoritzB 20:13, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Anyway, this comment of mine should have concluded this discussion:

Legitimate researchers in mainstream universities also say that the US government is "an organization of class domination." Is the fact relevant in the article about the US government? Why should the Marxist POV be relevant in this article?

MoritzB 20:14, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm intrigued by the idea of a question ending a discussion, and I'm going to answer it. Just because a view is shared by marxists, or based on theories associated with marxists, does not make the view marxist. It's a sort of ad hominem in a way, a guilt by association. Adolf Hitler (or his administration) had a lot of very good ideas, and those ideas are no less good now just because they were associated with nazism. Being associated with marxism does not taint any idea as universally bad, even if one accepts the premise that marxism is inherently bad.

Also, if there are reliable, respectable sources that say that about the US system of government, then there should be a place for that in related articles. SamBC(talk) 01:00, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

No. I know what is an association fallacy. Statements like "the US government is an organization of class domination." and "Whiteness is a social construct invented by the dominanting class as an instrument in class warfare" are Marxist conclusions. "Jews are not white and should be killed" is a National Socialist conclusion. They are not merely ideas associated with Marxism or National Socialism. The philosophy of any political movements is offtopic in this article.

MoritzB 16:49, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

re are at least

- In what way is this discusion going to help improve the article? Slrubenstein | Talk 20:16, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

It helped us define what kind of material should and should not be in the article.MoritzB 20:20, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Please

This has really gotten out of hand. The mudslinging needs to stop, if you want to come to a compromise. Can you please discuss this issue like the civilized people you are? If not, I would recommend taking this to formal mediation, as informal discussion/mediation is not working very well. Thank you. Neranei (talk) 21:35, 29 August 2007 (UTC) Slrubenstein suggested that I take a poll of the participants to see if anyone has had their mind changed by this discussion, and if so, where? Thanks, Neranei (talk) 23:12, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Just to be sure: from exactly which point forward? Not wanting to belabor the point, just to give an exact answer.--Ramdrake 23:34, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

From item 1 on this page, which was the last time all the players summarized their positions - and there has been LOTS of discussion since then. Has it done any good? Let's compare our positions now to our positions then (first section on this talk page as it currently stands) Slrubenstein | Talk

Since Neranei's last resquest on August 23:

• my position has not changed Slrubenstein | Talk 23:39, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
• Mine neither, except that I would be ready to accept some enlarged disambig/summary article, whereas I was originally leaning more towards a straight disambig page.--Ramdrake 23:44, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
• I stand by the compromise I suggested in my summary. If my view has changed at all, it is as to whether this compromise is likely to happen without more formal mediation or other bashing together of heads (metaphorically speaking). SamBC(talk) 00:56, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
• I agree with Slrubenstein. The Ogre 01:57, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
• Comment - I didn't make a statement, so really can't note a 'change of opinion', but I would like to note that I think that due to recent events, the remaining editors (with the possible exception of MoritzB) are fully capable of working together without mediation. The Behnam 03:54, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

  I agree fully - but I would say with the definite exception, and that is a big exception. Slrubenstein | Talk 10:02, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

• If we have five or six people who all agree to a sort of disambig page, and a single editor who wants to turn this page into a poster for white supremacy and a Carlton Coon appreciation page, then do we have a consensus for a disambig page? What sort of ratio is a consensus? I'd say we already have unanimity-1, which is one way consensus consensus can be achieved. Alun 18:43, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

WP:CON is vague on this, but a strong supermajority ought to be considered as a consensus. I believe I've seen numbers anywhere from 60-80% so 4 out of 5 or 5 out of 6 would qualify.--Ramdrake 18:46, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. MoritzB is clearly a POV-pusher and has never demonstrated any desire or willingness to compromise or collaborate - after many kbs of discussion he has shown no interest in the views of others, and has never responded to any critique of his claims (save to repeat himself or make ad hominem remarks); I think his view at this point can be disregarded Slrubenstein | Talk 20:14, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

He has a right to disagree with consensus, and his views should be noted; however, this shouldn't prevent us from declaring consensus and acting on it.--Ramdrake 20:16, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

• I am a new participant to this discussion and think that the article must be focused on physical anthropology. I oppose all attempts to include (Neo-Marxist) philosophical interpretations to the article as they actually belong to the article about whiteness studies. The strong presence of self-identified Communists and Socialists in this discussion makes polls an irrelevant method in seeking consensus or neutral point of view.MoritzB 20:27, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Indeed, the only logical course of action is to adopt the MoritzB's-word-is-law method of decision making! SamBC(talk) 21:00, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
    • Consensus is based on arguments presented. MoritzB 21:29, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, I'm going to put forth an idea. As the majority of you can agree on one thing, and, if I'm not mistaken, MoritzB is in the minority here. As Phral, Karen, and Fourdee are all indef-blocked, I think that as the majority of you agree with one position, you should go from that opinion. Neranei (talk) 22:58, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

I'd like to ask SamBC to restate and detail the important points he'd like to see in the article in addition to the disambig part of it, see if we can have further consensus on the matter.--Ramdrake 23:34, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

To be honest, the current version (as I've just edited) is about the best I seem to be able to articulate it. The page should be organised based on the contexts in which the term is used (the first level-2 header could probably be lost), with each one linking to one or more more specific articles and giving a basic summary of the contexts in which this is used and a précis of that usage/definition. I'd flesh out more of the subsections but I don't personally have the knowledge, nor the time to do the research. At the moment, I'm not even confident enough about the divisions between the given uses. SamBC(talk) 12:02, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

• I'd like someone to volunteer to flesh out the proposed outline Talk:White people/Compromise version, when we have something like a proposed version of this we can then discuss the pros and cons of various points of view. Clearly MoritzB's opinion regarding physical anthropology is outdated and spurious, I don't think physical anthropologists would use the term "White person" in any academic/professional context in the modern world, even if they have used it in thepast. I think that slr has already pointed out that even Coon didn't use this term. One only has to see the AAPA's Statement on Biological Aspects of Race (e.g. "These old racial categories were based on externally visible traits, primarily skin color, features of the face, and the shape and size of the head and body, and the underlying skeleton. They were often imbued with nonbiological attributes, based on social constructions of race.") to see that MoritzB's suggestion is about 50 years out of date. Therefore most of MoritzB's suggestions would make more sense in an article discussing either Carlton Coons classification system, which can deal with Coon's system in a specific historical context, or in an article about the history of physical anthropology/genetics in the early-mid 20th century, which could also deal with the close association of genetics/physical anthropology with the strong eugenics movement in the USA at this time. Indeed Jonathan Marks has some nice debate about this in his book "what it means t be 98% chimpanzee", which we could include. Alun 07:32, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

• Changing my opinion. Because everybody else thought that it would be a bad idea to cite Coon let's not cite him. However, my point about the Neo-Marxist philosophy still stands. Please put the Marxist opinions to whiteness studies. MoritzB 08:04, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
  • You don't seem to have refuted the assertion that it's not a neo-marxist point of view. Actually, you seem to use marxist and neo-marxist interchangeably, which is slightly confusing. However, just because it's a view that is characteristic of marxism (and I have no idea if it is or not), that doesn't mean that neo-marxism is a characteristic of the view. It's been shown to be a major academic view with a plethora of sources. Philosophies that share the view are irrelevant. SamBC(talk) 11:47, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
    • To my knowledge, nobody has even claimed that those books are not Neo-Marxist. It is a simple fact. It is also a fact that Marxism and Neo-Marxism are major academical points of view. However, the Marxist views are offtopic.13:10, 31 August 2007 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by MoritzB (talk • contribs)
      • In my experience, describing anything to do with politics or philosophy (such as identification of things as marxist, nationalist, or most any -ist) as "simple fact" is usually a bad idea; very little in these areas is either "simple" or unambiguous "fact". In any case, you miss the key point of my question. How does a view being associated with one 'school of thought' mean that any expression of it must be inextricably linked to that school of thought, and even if that assertion is accepted, why does it being (neo-)marxist mean it's off-topic? SamBC(talk) 13:16, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
        • Because the Marxist studies follow a certain method which produces Marxist conclusions. "Whiteness is a social construct invented by the dominanting class as an instrument in class warfare" is an example of a Marxist conclusion which does not belong to the article.

Marxist studies are offtopic because this article is non-political. Dozens of reputable sources state that "the United States is an imperialist country". Yet that information is not added to the article about United States because such political/philosophical statements simply don't belong to the scope of the article. Other articles are the place for such criticism. In this case the right article is whiteness studies. MoritzB 14:05, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

You are the only one who keeps claiming that these studies are "Marxist" rather than simply academic studies by reputable anthropologists, and you have provided no evidence for this assertion besides your own personal opinion. No one here has said that "Whiteness is a social construct invented by the dominanting class as an instrument in class warfare" except you, and you haven't even claimed that this is either a conclusion of one of this "Marxist studies" or cited it to one. You keep mentioning the USA being "imperialist" is a Marxist point of view, so what has this got to do with "White people"? You say that Marxism is besides the point, so how is your opinion about Marxism and US imperialism relevant to "White people"? You claim above that "To my knowledge, nobody has even claimed that those books are not Neo-Marxist." But why should they make such a claim? There is no evidence that you have provided that they actually are Marxist. Maybe if you actually produced a shred of evidence for your repeated unsupported assertions someone would think they were important enough to rebut. Writing "Marxist lies" every time you post a comment hardly amounts to a considered response, and to be honest smacks of desperation. Bolshevik boy 18:18, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Rubenstein especially recommended: "Critical White Studies: Looking Behind the Mirror edited by Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic". As the name indicates the book is based on critical theory which is Neo-Marxist. Noel Ignatiev and other Marxist scholars who have contributed to the book are hardly mainstream. Ignatiev has been criticised for advocating a genocide, for instance.MoritzB 18:53, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

So your whole argument is based on the fact that a single book that was recommended, is based on "critical theory", which apparently has the core concepts "(1) That critical social theory should be directed at the totality of society in its historical specificity (i.e. how it came to be configured at a specific point in time), and (2) That Critical Theory should improve understanding of society by integrating all the major social sciences, including economics, sociology, history, political science, anthropology, and psychology." Obviously you have some problem with studies that are "directed at the totality of society" and that "should improve understanding of society". Why am I not surprised? The point is this, if it is a reliable source then it does not matter one way or the other. Besides this book has not been used as a source for this article, and if it is you are perfectly within your rights to give any other point of view or criticism, as per WP:NPOV Alun 19:18, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

(ec) Marvellous, a combination of both ad hominem and guilt by association! Just to point out, MoritzB, the article that you link to (critical theory) indicates that it is 'no longer' inextricably linked to Marxism: "In the late 1960s Jürgen Habermas of the Frankfurt School, redefined critical theory in a way that freed it from a direct tie to Marxism or the prior work of the Frankfurt School." If these are the whole core of your arguments, then the best I can do in assuming good faith is to assume that you're sincerely misguided and haven't actually read the articles you're linking to. However, if this continues I think it will be fair to regard your behaviour as trolling, at which point I advise people to do their best to ignore you and avoid feeding the troll. SamBC(talk) 19:31, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

The mediator made a suggestion yesterday, I do not see why we don't follow it. Slrubenstein | Talk 19:34, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Wrong. I have a problem with Marxist studies: [34]. Do you realize that although there are dozens of reliable sources which say that "the United States is an imperialist country" you can't add that sentence to the article about the United States. The Frankfurt School agrees unanimously that the United States is an imperialist country. Please test your arguments in that article and maybe you will realize that you are wrong.MoritzB 19:36, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Saying "wrong" is not an argument. Saying that some reliable sources state "the United States is an imperialist country" is not an argument (and is irrelevant). Saying you have a problem with some sources is not an argument. Your personal opinion does not come into this. If a source is used that you disagree with there is absolutely nothing you can do about it unless you can show it is not a reliable source. You are entitled to disagree with the methodology of the work, you are not entitled to dismiss the work as irrelevant just because you don't like it. Indeed if someone were to use a reliable source to claim that the USA is an "imperialist" country in the article about the USA, then it would be a perfectly reasonable thing to do, of course if there was a consensus that this work should not be included, then Wikipedia works by consensus. This is not about your problems with any sources (which haven't actually been used, by the way) this is about the use of reliable sources. You can huff and puff as much as you like, but you personally do not decide what constitutes a reliable source here. You have singularly failed to make any sort of convincing case, as seen by the number of editors who agree with you, which currently seems to be a grand total of one (including you). You could attempt to change peoples opinion by making a case, instead of patronising them by just stating they are "Wrong". anarchist Al 20:59, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

(outdent) I've been watching this for days and I am really surprised at the tolerance shown to soapboxers here. Wikipedia is not a soapbox what your issues with "neo-marxism" or critical theory are MoritzB - this is not the place for them, wikipedia is not a forum. This behaviour is tendentious and could be considered disruptive. You are being advised to stop this and reacquaint your self with the 5 pillars of wikipedia--Cailil ^talk 20:58, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

He is an ignorant troll and they are just feeding him. The problem is not toleramce, it is actually a willingeness to encourage a troll. We would all be better off simply to ignore him. Wikipedia would be better for it. Slrubenstein | Talk 21:15, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't think that anyone is keeping up the discussion because they want to "feed the troll", I don't think people want to have a discussion that's never ending, and I resent the implication that it's wilful. It's probably just an overextension of assuming good faith. Otherwise, I agree. SamBC(talk) 21:49, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree, there's been so much antagonism that I think people want to make the effort to assume good faith. But it does feel a bit like flogging a dead horse after a while. Alun 22:06, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Please see proposal at the bottom of the page. Please can we all contribute to that and then act on concensusAlanD 22:23, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

A gallery added

Because the article had no pictures I have now added a gallery. I took it from European people. MoritzB 00:08, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm guessing that you are just new to this particular issue, as the use of gallery was much debated and finally removed - I am kind of annoyed that the issue has to break out again. The article has pictures, but these are source-based illustrations of actual content, not a completely arbitrary selection of pictures chosen based upon original judgments and other exercises best left for expert researchers. POV and OR issues aside, the gallery was also noted for its stylistic inappropriateness in the article. In fact, it should probably be removed from European people on the same grounds, as the same arbitrary/OR and stylistic issues apply.

Honestly, I don't remember you editing this page back then, so I can understand if you were not aware of the incredible amount of discussion (and attempted discussion) using WP:IMAGE & other relevant policies/guidelines that resulted in the decision to remove the gallery. I hope that you can understand and respect this decision as well. Regards, The Behnam 04:03, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

The gallery concept sort of died when it looked like this would become a disambiguation page. That did not happen, so a gallery is still appropriate; however, the European gallery is too narrow, since "white people" can be construed as a broader category than "European people". --Kevin Murray 12:56, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, I wouldn't give up the concept of a disambig (expanded disambig) for dead. Could we have another show of hands now to see if anyone objects strongly?--Ramdrake 13:19, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

I still support this, but then people are proposing that the "European people" location become a disambiguation page. I don't specifically oppose that either; however, I think that we should come to a consensus on where the information will be, before we start the redirects. I'm sure that it will be easy to develop consensus. --Kevin Murray 15:44, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

You're right that having both of these articles as disambig makes very little sense indeed. But, where could we centralize a discussion on the what to do with both articles? And are people ready to discuss both, or would they feel it would only complicate matters? Suggestions are welcome!--Ramdrake 15:47, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Suggestions have been "European demographics" "Ethnic europeans" and others. I favor the latter. I think that demography is more pertinent to existiting populations, where ethnicity is related to the historical evolution (my POV). --Kevin Murray 15:52, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

I propose two galleries. European people should be in one gallery and non-European "white" people in another gallery. Cf. Black people. We can add people like Zinedine Zidane and Ralph Nader to the second gallery. It is crucial that there are reliable sources which state that they are white.MoritzB 16:35, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

I suggest taht we table this discussion until we determine whether this will be an article or a disambiguation signpost. --Kevin Murray 16:38, 30 August 2007 (UTC)