Re: [tied] The indo european "race"

>From: Piotr Gasiorowski <piotr.gasiorowski@...>
>
>05-08-03 00:41, Exu Yangi wrote:
>
> > A-hem...at the risk of being politically incorrect, I am afraid that
>what we
> > often believe we know is wrong. Or are you really saying you can't tell
>a
> > Watusi from a Chinese? (Not an adhominem, I really want to know).
> >
> > If you say you can, then you know that races exist.
> >
> > If you say you can't, then I can understand you saying races do not
>exist.
>
>Nobody can deny the existence of such differences. In different
>populations different morphological features are prevalent.

And that (cladistics) is what is usually meant by race. AFAIK, no one has
ever attempted to say that any specific genetic phenotype is a race.

>Note however
>that different features, e.g. blood groups vs. pigmentation, have
>different distributions and divide us in quite different ways. People
>have traditionally (and arbitrarily) been obsessed with _conspicuous_
>features, such as skin colour, straight/curled hair, etc., ignoring a
>host of "hidden" characters that may be of more fundamental importance
>from the point of view of human biology.

The key word here is "traditionally" and "conspicuous". Fundamental
importance has never bothered those who think that if you don't look like
them, you must be ... ummm ... primitive.

>I hope it's quite clear that
>the idea of "pure" or "original" races is absurd. Everyone on on this
>planet is a "mixture" of anthropologically relevant traits, which
>doesn't mean that their distribution is uniform.

Well, we had to start somewhere. I doubt that "pure" can be applied to
anything these days, however. We are a mixed lot, with more genetic
diversity and a cheetah, but not much. I am not sure what pure people means,
anyway. 100% people is what? How can you have 60% people (clonging aside).

>Nevertheless, as a species, we're surprisingly homogeneous, almost like
>the cheetah. They say there's more genetic diversity in a single tribe
>of chimps that in the global population of humans.

I assume you mean genetically, which is true.

> >>PS: do you know something about the hair colour of indo-europeans? in
> >>the contrary to what I have said previously, many characters in latin
> >>and greek litterature are blond!
> >>
> >
> > Yes, their hair was colored. Probably black,brown, blond, and red in
>some
> > persons. Also, there may have been persons with total lack of pigment in
> > their hair.
>
>And there were some who had no head hair at all.

Those were the ones with kids...

>Piotr

Exu

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