simple poll for the Atheists

pacquiao

would love to see what you think

Dinner

In what sense? Genetically? Socially? Mentally? What?

I'm sure there are some minor genetic differences, I remember reading sometime about how some races are more prone to some medical conditions that others. But there's no major difference that I can see.

pacquiao

It's up to you really.

smk89

Genetically: Alot considering one gene is the difference between a diseases and health, but were all still share 50% of our genes with bananas (arguably more in some people).
Socially and mentally, I don't know I haven't got to know many other races well but from the ones I have seen alot of diversity.

saa

Anything you perceive to be different are so miniscule they are of no relevance, especially not to say vast in any way possible!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIYT9nQUpoY

Doctor DooM

Well, I think really everyone on the planet is formally part of the same "race" as there's no sub species of human recognised, so I'd say no right now.

If you were to use skin colour as a basis I'd still say no as I'm pretty sure you could find individuals of different skin colour who behave the same but few which run through every individual of the type.

Same goes for nationality.

yawha

To the extent that it's possible to have an opinion on: no.

In terms of general, objective differences, of course. There is a pretty vast range of different skin colours and physical features. I'm sure that some genes can generally be correlated with skin colour too, although nothing is absolute.

Certainly not to the extent that people can be classified as lesser or better than others though.

aidan24326

Modern molecular genetic snalysis apparently shows that human evolution went through a bottleneck* some tens of thousands of years ago, meaning that there's less genetic diversity now than there otherwise might have been.

*near-extinction event

pacquiao

Most people voted there are no vast differences so let me ask you this.
Why do you criticize Christians and Muslims for not believing in evolution?

Dr. Loon

pacquiao wrote: »

Most people voted there are no vast differences so let me ask you this.
Why do you criticize Christians and Muslims for not believing in evolution?

Ya what now? I don't get your angle. To answer your question. Evolution is a fact. Not believing in facts is very silly.

saa

and heres another Atheist talking about the concept of race, why does this always fall on the atheist's shoulders to go against those who apply value to race through differentiation.
Trolling me thinks but hey I've enjoyed going through these videos again

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7eW27m9bio

pacquiao

Dr. Loon wrote: »

Ya what now? I don't get your angle. To answer your question. Evolution is a fact. Not believing in facts is very silly.

If evolution is fact. How can you say there are no vast differences between races?

psychward

There are always differences between individuals regardless of race. How is this relevant to ones chosen philosophical outlook ?

Define ''vast'' so I know what to vote about and define ''race'' so I know who to compare with whom and then I can vote on the poll .

AlmightyCushion

pacquiao wrote: »

If evolution is fact. How can you say there are no vast differences between races?

Because each race is made up of billions of people. All or most in that race may share some characteristics that define that race (for example skin colour) but there are tonnes of other characteristics that differentiate those people from others both in their race and outside of their race. For example if you take balck people and white people as separate races. The thing that differentiates the two is skin colour. That's it, there are no other vast differences that separate these two races. But the people that make up these races can be fat, skinny, smart, stupid, athletic, lazy, bald, hairy, short, tall etc. etc. So the vast differences come from the differences in the individuals not the race the individuals belong too.

strobe

pacquiao wrote: »

Most people voted there are no vast differences so let me ask you this.
Why do you criticize Christians and Muslims for not believing in evolution?

pacquiao wrote: »

If evolution is fact. How can you say there are no vast differences between races?

lol. Oh sweet Jesus... that's where you were trying to go with this?

Man... just, no like. No. I had such high hopes.

I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and presume that you are currently riddled with intoxicants, due to the fact that it is in the small hours of Saturday night and you took a few tries to do a proper poll. But if I am mistaken. If you decided to go all 'this will be a stupidly blunt way to deny evolution' whilst sober and in full control of all your faculties... Well, no man. Just no.

There is a 'boo evolution' guy on here that flies by the moniker of 'JC'. He's basically famous round these parts. If he was reading your gimpy attempt at this it would pain him... physically pain him, with it's clumsiness.

No man, just no. Stick to the boxing and Filipino politics.

Just no...

Daftendirekt

Why would evolution lead you to expect there to be vast differences between races?

Even the obvious physical differences aren't even close to being 'vast'...

RebelBOK

Daftendirekt wrote: »

Why would evolution lead you to expect there to be vast differences between races?


Was asking myself the exact same question!

fisgon

This poll is a pathetic set-up. It's clearly designed to provide 'ammunition' for some spurious argument against evolution, which doesn't hold any water at all. Give me a break. The next time this guy wants to put up a poll I think the mods need to get involved.

This is a troll poll.

Doctor DooM

To be fair to the OP, sometimes I read a post here that makes me wonder if evolution ever happened too.

Arcus Arrow

pacquiao wrote: »

If evolution is fact. How can you say there are no vast differences between races?

......between species you mean. Buy a book, look at the pictures. The Magic of Reality is on sale in Easons for €20.00.

ShooterSF

You know I had a pretty longish reply planned out in my head last night but then thought feck it and went back to watching classic simpsons. So proud of that decision I had to share it.

MagicMarker

pacquiao wrote: »

If evolution is fact. How can you say there are no vast differences between races?

Ellis Dee

I fail to see what atheism has to do with it , but there are obviously considerable differences between people of different nationalities, ethnicities, language backgrounds, and so on. However, and this is one of the first things drummed into the head of anyone who studies anthropology at university, there is actually only one human race.:)

Doctor DooM

Ellis Dee wrote: »

I fail to see what atheism has to do with it , but there are obviously considerable differences between people of different nationalities, ethnicities, language backgrounds, and so on. However, and this is one of the first things drummed into the head of anyone who studies anthropology at university, there is actually only one human race.:)

It's nothing to do with atheism at all, it's just a rather bad creationist argument and they usually have trouble accepting evolution/ the start of the universe/abiogenesis/atheism are different things to everyone but them.

pacquiao

You can cry troll all you like , that is what i expected from some of you. I'm far from a troll,bail out of the discussion that's fine.
Personally I'm non religious and i believe in evolution. After looking at the results of the poll i have to say I'm a bit confused.
I didn't expect there to be a massive number of people denying evolution and it's effects on the various races of people. Take the Chinese for example. If i'm allowed to generalise, they are on average smaller than Europeans. Why is that?

Daftendirekt wrote:

Why would evolution lead you to expect there to be vast differences between races?

Even the obvious physical differences aren't even close to being 'vast'...

Well if you deny there is vast differences, then you are not an atheist at all. That's the whole point of this poll and thread. I wanted to see how many people are calling themselves atheists. In case someone asks I know you can believe in evolution and not be an atheist.Anyway I just feel there has been an explosion of people calling themselves atheists without thinking it through.

GLaDOS

The differences between white people and black people are nearly indistinguishable when compared compared to the differences between humans and lizards, bacteria and ferns.

Our DNA is still close enough to produce healthy offspring capable of reproduction, the differences are superficial really.

kylith

I don't think there are many differences between races of people. Whether it's an atheist nuclear physicist living in Manhattan or an animist goatherd in a village in Africa people are essentially the same. Everyone wants enough food to eat, somewhere safe to live, to be happy, to have healthy children, and for tomorrow to be pretty much the same as today.

Ellis Dee

pacquiao wrote: »

Take the Chinese for example. If i'm allowed to generalise, they are on average smaller than Europeans. Why is that?

Go to any stately home in England and look at the suits of armour on display. They are only a few centuries old - the blink of an eye in terms of evolution - but few men taller than 5' 3" would fit into one. It is only in the past couple of centuries, with greatly improved diets, that people in this part of the world have grown taller. I suppose the same will happen in China if their economic growth continues and their diet becomes richer.

MagicMarker

pacquiao wrote: »

Personally I'm non religious and i believe in evolution. After looking at the results of the poll i have to say I'm a bit confused. I didn't expect there to be a massive number of people denying evolution and it's effects on the various races of people. Take the Chinese for example. If i'm allowed to generalise, they are on average smaller than Europeans. Why is that?

How are people denying evolution?

Chinese people are smaller on average because of differences in diet.

pacquiao wrote: »

Well if you deny there is vast differences, then you are not an atheist at all. That's the whole point of this poll and thread. I wanted to see how many people are calling themselves atheists. There has been an explosion pardon the pun of people calling themselves atheists without thinking it through.

You need to define ''vast differences'', you're poll is completely ambiguous. To you one race being shorter on average than another is a ''vast difference'', obviously not everyone agrees.

kylith

pacquiao wrote: »

Personally I'm non religious and i believe in evolution. After looking at the results of the poll i have to say I'm a bit confused.
I didn't expect there to be a massive number of people denying evolution and it's effects on the various races of people. Take the Chinese for example. If i'm allowed to generalise, they are on average smaller than Europeans. Why is that?

If that's the kind of thing you're talking about it's like saying that a brick wall isn't a brick wall because it's had a coat of paint put on. The differences between Europeans, Africans and Asians in species terms are miniscule; no more than the evolutionary equivelant of a coat of paint.

My cousin is quite small, does that mean that there are vast evolutionary differences between me and her? No. My mother has darker hair than me, are we evolutionarily dissimilar? Like hell we are.

Well if you deny there is vast differences, then you are not an atheist at all. That's the whole point of this poll and thread. I wanted to see how many people are calling themselves atheists. In case someone asks I know you can believe in evolution and not be an atheist.Anyway I just feel there has been an explosion of people calling themselves atheists without thinking it through.

Being an atheist has nothing to do with your beliefs on evolution. Atheism is about not believing in gods. It's perfectly possible to be an atheist and believe that humans sprung fully formed from flowers, for example.

Saying that someone isn't an atheist because they recognise that, barring minor differences in height or colour, humans are all the bloody same is one of the stupidest things I've ever come across.

If there were genetic gulfs then my Chinese friend wouldn't have been able to conceive a child with his Irish girlfriend, which they did, or that the child would have genetic problems due to the parents being genetically incompatable, which it didn't.

pacquiao

MagicMarker wrote: »

How are people denying evolution?

Chinese people are smaller on average because of differences in diet.

You need to define ''vast differences'', you're poll is completely ambiguous. To you one race being shorter on average than another is a ''vast difference'', obviously not everyone agrees.

Have you ever heard of the the pygmies? There average height is around 4 foot 10 inches. Would you not call that a vast difference compared to the average person living in say Holland.

MagicMarker

pacquiao wrote: »

Have you ever heard of the the pygmies? There average height is around 4 foot 10 inches. Would you not call that a vast difference compared to the average person living in say Holland.

Errr.. no.

GLaDOS

pacquiao wrote: »

Would you not call that a vast difference compared to the average person living in say Holland.

It's a difference, much like different coloured hair or skin. It's not like a tail or gills. I'm not overly familiar with the pygmys, but I'd guess they've been isolated for a significant amount of time, allowing for their unique characteristics.

kylith

pacquiao wrote: »

Have you ever heard of the the pygmies? There average height is around 4 foot 10 inches. Would you not call that a vast difference compared to the average person living in say Holland.

Nope. We can interbreed with them, therefore any genetic differences are negligable. Incidentally go to The Ladies Lounge and ask for a headcount of Irish women who are around 5' tall, there's an awful lot of them.

Honestly, you sound like you're trying to use evolution and genetics to excuse racism.

Turtwig

I know the OP only asked for atheist responses on this one, but I do feel agnostics should have a say too.

Firstly, I would like to point out that the biology forum would have been a lot more suitable. The majority demographic here is software, IT, programming and the like. So, asking us questions about evolution does seem a little odd.

The most obvious thing to consider is that in terms of evolution scales humans are only around for a minute or so. It seems a little bizarre to expect large amount of racial diversity when up until the last 500,000 years there was probably no more than 10,000 homosapiens around. And, within that single minute every single "race" has become intermingled so much as to ensure genetic diversity that no single race could possible end up being another species. Suppose it were different though. Suppose Africa and Europe were kept isolated for millions and millions of years then odds are you'd probably have two separate species on each continent. (Or one or both might be extinct.)

pacquiao

MagicMarker wrote: »

Errr.. no.

Wiki has a good peice about them.
Pygmy men are mostly no taller than 4 foot 10 inches.
The Pygmies are considered to be the largest group of mobile hunter–gatherers of Africa. They dwell in equatorial rainforests and are characterized by their short mean stature.

Moreover, most Pygmy-like groups around the world dwell in tropical forests, and hence are likely to have iodine-deficient diets. The possibility that independent adaptations to an iodine-deficient diet might therefore have contributed to the convergent evolution of the short stature phenotype in Pygmy-like groups around the world deserves further investigation.

MagicMarker

pacquiao wrote: »

Wiki has a good peice about them.
Pygmy men are mostly no taller than 4 foot 10 inches.
The Pygmies are considered to be the largest group of mobile hunter–gatherers of Africa. They dwell in equatorial rainforests and are characterized by their short mean stature.

Moreover, most Pygmy-like groups around the world dwell in tropical forests, and hence are likely to have iodine-deficient diets. The possibility that independent adaptations to an iodine-deficient diet might therefore have contributed to the convergent evolution of the short stature phenotype in Pygmy-like groups around the world deserves further investigation.

Yeah, still no.

corktina

what a ridiculous thread...Not as ridiculous as Atheism and Agnosticism being listed under Religion & Spirituality though.

Zombrex

pacquiao wrote: »

Wiki has a good peice about them.
Pygmy men are mostly no taller than 4 foot 10 inches.
The Pygmies are considered to be the largest group of mobile hunter–gatherers of Africa. They dwell in equatorial rainforests and are characterized by their short mean stature.

Moreover, most Pygmy-like groups around the world dwell in tropical forests, and hence are likely to have iodine-deficient diets. The possibility that independent adaptations to an iodine-deficient diet might therefore have contributed to the convergent evolution of the short stature phenotype in Pygmy-like groups around the world deserves further investigation.

You are making the classic mistake of taking only one phenotype, one that humans tend to notice like skin colour or height, and focusing on that.

In reality two people in Holland may be more genetically different than a Dutch person and a Pygmy, if you look at their entire genetic code.

The truth is that while there are differences between humans there is not enough difference to separate humans into races based on genetics.

The current theory for why this is is that approx. 70,000 years ago some event or events (scientists argue whether it as a single catastrophic event or a longer series of events) reduced the population of humans down to there were only 15,000 humans, that we have all descended from. There hasn't been enough time to evolve distinct sub-species of humans (or "races") from this tiny population.

pacquiao

Malty_T wrote: »

I know the OP only asked for atheist responses on this one, but I do feel agnostics should have a say too.

Firstly, I would like to point out that the biology forum would have been a lot more suitable. The majority demographic here is software, IT, programming and the like. So, asking us questions about evolution does seem a little odd.

The most obvious thing to consider is that in terms of evolution scales humans are only around for a minute or so. It seems a little bizarre to expect large amount of racial diversity when up until the last 500,000 years there was probably no more than 10,000 homosapiens around. And, within that single minute every single "race" has become intermingled so much as to ensure genetic diversity that no single race could possible end up being another species. Suppose it were different though. Suppose Africa and Europe were kept isolated for millions and millions of years then odds are you'd probably have two separate species on each continent. (Or one or both might be extinct.)

I posted this is the correct forum. Changes happen far faster than what you are suggesting.People in this forum are trying to come across as rational and enlightened.

Sarky

I'm waiting for a train home and only have a little phone battery left. Can this thread please stay open until I can get to a proper computer? There's so much I need to rant about...

The Mad Hatter

That you, Nck Griffin?

pacquiao

Zombrex wrote: »

You are making the classic mistake of taking only one phenotype, one that humans tend to notice like skin colour or height, and focusing on that.

In reality two people in Holland may be more genetically different than a Dutch person and a Pygmy, if you look at their entire genetic code.

The truth is that while there are differences between humans there is not enough difference to separate humans into races based on genetics.

The current theory for why this is is that approx. 70,000 years ago some event or events (scientists argue whether it as a single catastrophic event or a longer series of events) reduced the population of humans down to there were only 15,000 humans, that we have all descended from. There hasn't been enough time to evolve distinct sub-species of humans (or "races") from this tiny population.

You can say the same for 2 pygmy's.I'm talking in general.My meaning of the word race is a social construct,not a biological one. If i see a white person i call them white. I believe there to be vast differences between white and Pygmy's. That's a generalization. But it is correct isn't it?

MagicMarker

pacquiao wrote: »

You can say the same for 2 pygmy's.I'm talking in general.My meaning of the word race is a social construct,not a biological one. If i see a white person i call them white. I believe there to be vast differences between white and Pygmy's. That's a generalization. But it is correct isn't it?

If you're not talking about a biological construct then what has this got to do with evolution?

pacquiao

MagicMarker wrote: »

If you're not talking about a biological construct then what has this got to do with evolution?

I live in the present? Evolution has happened.

Duke Leonal Felmet

Race is a human construct.

Turtwig

pacquiao wrote: »

I live in the present? Evolution has happened.

Evolution is still happening today in humans.

robindch

pacquiao wrote: »

I believe there to be vast differences between white and Pygmy's. That's a generalization. But it is correct isn't it?

Yes, but the differences do not derive from "whites" and "pygmies" being from different "races". That kind of supremacist rubbish died out in most enlightened places years ago.

Just a friendly moderator-warning too:

You're currently walking a fine line between a glib pretense of free inquiry and an attempt to promote racism. The latter isn't going to work in this forum, and that's the one reason this thread is still open. If you overstep that line however, this thread will be shut down and you will be booted from this forum permanently.

Turtwig

robindch wrote: »

Yes, but the differences do not derive from "whites" and "pygmies" being from different "races". That kind of supremacist rubbish died out in most enlightened places years ago.

Just a friendly moderator-warning too:

You're currently walking a fine line between a glib pretense of free inquiry and an attempt to promote racism. The latter isn't going to work in this forum, and that's the one reason this thread is still open. If you overstep that line however, this thread will be shut down and you will be booted from this forum permanently.

I hope this isn't seen as questioning a mod, but I would very much like to see a microbiologist or neurobiologists takes on this whole issue before you shut this thread out. Please, please, please wait for Sarky or Improbable to provide a comprehensive debunking of these misconceptions. If, of course, they are willing.

pacquiao

Malty_T wrote: »

Evolution is still happening today in humans.

Of course it is. People are constantly changing.

Zombrex

pacquiao wrote: »

I'm talking in general.My meaning of the word race is a social construct,not a biological one.

Race was always meant to be taken as a biological construct.

pacquiao wrote: »

If i see a white person i call them white. I believe there to be vast differences between white and Pygmy's. That's a generalization. But it is correct isn't it?

Correct in what sense?

You subconsciously pick out particularly differences and ignore other ones based on your own internal biases, nothing to do with the two people you are comparing. As you say you classify based on skin colour. You probably don't classify on size of big toe.

Thus you will think a white person and a black person are different "races" even if they actually share far more characteristics than ones that separate them and are actually more similar than two white people.

Thus differences in race become arbitrary, it speaks more to what humans notice than to any actual differences between an African and a European or Asian.

So I'm not sure what you mean by "correct"

You and most humans certainly do this, but it has little if anything to do with whether there are actually differences between humans that can be used to classify humans into sub sets. And like I said race was always meant to be taken as a biological construct. By admitting that it is in fact only a social one you are effectively agreeing it has not meaning or mapping to reality.

Perhaps you should just come out and state your thesis rather than trying to dance around the point. A lot of people seem to think you are trying to push a racist agenda. I actually suspect that you are trying to show that atheists and evolutionists have to be racist as a natural extension of belief in evolution.

Either way your habit of posting ignorant posts that you seem to present some sort of "got-cha" and then ignoring the reasoned responses to the posts is becoming some what tiresome.