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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 167.244.212.246 (talk) at 17:42, 14 December 2022 (→Quayshawn Spencer). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Quayshawn Spencer

I feel that this edit put extremely WP:UNDUE weight on Spencer. Now, he absolutely is a scholar in the field, and we could notionally cite him for a sentence or so... but a lot of his work is fairly recently-published and not, as far as I know, particularly widely-accepted. At the end of the day he's one associate professor who has published a few papers - we'd need more reason to think he's significant to devote entire massive sections to him or to frame whole areas of the topic around his structuring and rebuttals. A Google News search finds almost no coverage of him; a Google Scholar search finds a few dozen citations to his papers, at most. I mean, I may be overlooking something, but nothing I could find on him implies that he's someone we should be devoting a huge section of the article to right now - and he himself describes his own views as radical (ie. not yet widely accepted in the field.) --Aquillion (talk) 18:53, 28 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Widely-accepted by whom? Von Clown (talk) 10:34, 3 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
By the rest of the academic establishment; we can mention his views, but by constantly including his response to every single point on the topic, we give the impression that he's a major figure in the field, which he absolutely is not. --Aquillion (talk) 18:28, 3 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Again, we shouldn't rely so heavily on one relatively obscure source; we already cite him several times (and I'm happy to cite him once or twice; I left several citations to him in place), but at the moment the entire "Objections to Racial Naturalism" section is written with his response to almost every point made, which gives the impression that he is a towering figure in the field whose opinions define the entire debate. That's WP:UNDUE. One sentence mentioning his views is fine. --Aquillion (talk) 15:22, 6 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not always against relatively minor figures being heavily used for articles, but there has to be evidence in reliable sources that their views are being taken up by the discipline and these sources may contain counterarguments that need to be cited to avoid WP:UNDUE. Recent works by relatively minor figures are problematic since the necessary supporting reliable sources probably don't exist. I haven't looked at Spencer's work but what Aquillion says does reek of WP:UNDUE. — Charles Stewart (talk) 07:55, 20 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Spencer is relatively well-known among philosophers writing about the metaphysics and philosophy of science of race. One thing that I think is challenging about this topic is that the question of whether races are real is a metaphysical one, albeit one that's informed by science, analogous to debates about whether other classification schemata are real and what the nature is. (E.g., are species real? Are species kinds or particulars? Etc.) I think it's worth not giving philosophical conceptions of race too much weight in an article on race and genetics, including Spencer's, but I also think one thing that's vexing about this topic is that scientific views that often reflect a mere sociological consensus about what is ultimately biologically real are given too much weight in these debates generally (e.g., the AAPA's statement).167.244.212.246 (talk) 17:42, 14 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Questioning "genetically identical"

humans are NOT 99.9% genetically identical. That was the first finding of Venter's Human Genome Project in 2001. He teste again 3 years later and foud it was "7x as great" and as little as 99% the same. Wikpedia's other article on 'Human Genetic Variation' therefore has it much more correct as an "average of 99.5%" similar. No excuse for the lack of knowledge that exists on this page. This is THEED most common boner in human genetic articles. (comment by 2601:581:4300:5b20:e80d:db79:3858:9fa8 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) added to article instead of talk page; removed from article and moved to talk page) Schazjmd (talk) 14:03, 31 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Archaic admixture and differences to racial groups and DNA

I recently added some text relating to the difference in DNA pertaining to racial groups - relating to archaic admixture. As it has been removed, I am opening up a talk section to discuss it.The sources [1] [2] [3] [4] clearly discuss racial groupings, referring to Europeans, Africans, and Asians (and Melanesians within the Asian groupings)....and their difference in DNA that resulted from humans interbreeding with non homo sapiens hominids in the period when they all existed. Asian and Europeans have Neanderthal DNA and Africans do not (or have a lot less), while Denisovan DNA is present in Asian people, but not Europeans or Africans. The research states that some Melanesians have up to 6% Denisovan DNA.

It is relevant to the article, but was removed. This is relatively recent research (last 10 or twenty years), but it seems to be accepted generally, and Wikipedia has substantive articles on it including archaic admixture, Interbreeding between archaic and modern humans and Denisovan. This is clearly relevant to this article, it's not particularly controversial, is supported by mainstream science and good quality RS, so I see no reason for it to be deleted from the article - thanks Deathlibrarian (talk) 11:33, 20 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Deathlibrarian:. The issue is not the reliability of the sources, but rather, as explained in my summary, that the sources do not discuss archaic admixture in various populations as relating to the concept of race, nor do they state that archaic admixture is what defines the various population historically classed as races. That is what makes the additions seem to be WP:OR. (Also, most inter-population genetic variation derives from local adaptations/mutations rather than simply archaic admixture, which also makes the addition a bit misleading). Skllagyook (talk) 12:16, 20 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for getting back to me Skllagyook, but I'm not quite sure how you can say the RS doesn't discuss racial groups, when as far as I can see, that is central to the article content. "Like all present-day people whose ancestry isn’t solely African, these early Eurasians carried Neanderthal DNA" - or "non-Africans can have between 1.5 to 2.1 per cent of their genome that originated from Neanderthal ancestry" isn't this discussion of racial groups? Deathlibrarian (talk) 12:20, 20 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
These sources do not talk about racial groupings. This is a creative misreading of their content based on the erroneous assumption that the concept of "populations" in modern human genetics can be equated with the generally abandoned concept of human "races" in an essentialist biological sense. This is WP:OR and also WP:PROFRINGE. –Austronesier (talk) 12:24, 20 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I don't understand - the articles clearly do talk about racial groups - how can you say the terms "Africans", "Europeans" and "Asians" in the context of ancient populations aren't racial groupings? The articles state clearly these different racial groupings have differing DNA. The articles discuss the populations of Eurasia (ie the racial groups tied geographically to the region) interbreeding with Neanderthals. Neanderthals were not in present in Africa, therefore, Africans (as a racial group) have inherited no (or very little) Neanderthal DNA. Similarly, Denisovans were not present in Europe or Africa, so they are not present in the DNA of Europeans or Africans. This all seems pretty obvious, and I am at a loss as to why anyone would think this is WP:fringe.Deathlibrarian (talk) 12:42, 20 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Please present us one citation from one of these sources which explicitly says that "Africans", "Europeans" and "Asians" are meant to be understood as "racial groups". Do you find any mention of the abandoned term "race"? The ingression of Neanderthal/Denisovan DNA in modern OOA populations is good science, but the presentation of these facts in a racial framework is WP:PROFRINGE, as it suggests that biological human races are a meaningful category in modern anthropology. But they aren't.
If you personally choose to read "Asians" etc. to refer to "racial groups", that's ok as being your own interpretation, but not acceptable when citing these sources for building encyclopedic content. An analogy: there are natural phenomena that still defy a scientific explanation. Religious people will be inclined to considers these phenomena miracles or "supranatural". Such beliefs are legitimate as personal choice; but in WP, we will refer to them as currently unexplained natural phenomena, not as miracles. –Austronesier (talk) 13:03, 20 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Can you explain to me why "Asians" "Africans" or Europeans.... wouldn't be referring to them as racial groups? Because in this context, it's discussing them intermingling with Neanderthals 50,000 years ago, when the populations were homogenous (so not a national grouping, a racial grouping). Let me explain it to you with my analogy. I'm a white European guy, so my racial grouping is European... so I have, according go these articles, some Neanderthal DNA. Because my ancestors interbred with Neanderthals in Europe some 50,000 years ago. Say, I go out with a girl from Kenya, she is (black) African by racial grouping. According to these articles, she has no(or little) Neanderthal DNA, because historically, there were no Neanderthals ever present in Africa.So we have two different racial groups, one with Neanderthal DNA, one without. Correct? Deathlibrarian (talk) 14:09, 20 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Correct within your chosen framework of racial groupings. But racial groupings are just a crude and arbitrary folk taxonomy based on visible phenotype without inherent scientific merit. This folk taxonomy is still very much alive for many people (especially in countries that have long history of segregational practice) and still very relevant to understand the consequences of the persistent application of this folk taxonomy in social interaction. But it is totally irrelevant for the discussion of the genetic history of humans post-OOA. Scientists who work in this field certainly do not contexualize their findings within that obsolete framework, which is why I have asked for citations from the sources discussed here that actually talk about "race". To be fair, rhetorically; obviously, there is no word about "race" to be found there. –Austronesier (talk) 14:44, 20 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure what standard you are applying here, I also don't know what "arbitrary folk taxonomy" or "humans post-OOA" are but by a standard dictionary definition, and every day usage, the average person would understand "Asians" "Africans" or "Europeans" (in the context of comparing them to each other, and interacting with neanderthals 50k years ago) as racial groups...and in the sense they are used in the articles.I think we may have debated this enough here, perhaps we should see if others have input, or otherwise leave it a while and seek outside input/RFC.Deathlibrarian (talk) 15:55, 20 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Deathlibrarian:I concur with the points made by User:Austronesier here. I should also point out that, according to the genetic research, there was a single admixture event with Neanderthals in the Middke East soon after the OOA migration that affected the common ancestors of all non-Africans (Europeans, East Asians, Native Americans, Australian Aboriginals, Melanesians, etc.). They did not each intermix with Neanderthaks separately (in a way that made a surviving genetic impact). (Not to mention that some groups of southeast Asian "Negritos" have Denisovan admixture while others do not.) This further illustrates that the presence of archaic DNA does not define or particularly correspond to "races" as traditionally understood. Skllagyook (talk) 16:37, 20 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Deathlibrarian: I agree that we each have made our points clear, so let's wait for more input here from other editors before actively seeking wider community input by means of an RfC or going to one the relevant WikiProjects or Noticeboards. My last comment on the subject for the moment is based on the Arbitration ruling in the header of this talk page:

Correct use of sources: [...] All interpretive claims, analyses, or synthetic claims about primary sources must be referenced to a secondary source, rather than to original analysis of the primary-source material by Wikipedia editors.

My contention is that your interpretation of the geography-based terms "Asians", "Africans" or "Europeans" as "racial groupings" is an interpretative claim and thus WP:OR since there is no direct mention of "race" and "racial groupings" in the sources; I understand that you argue that this is not an interpretation, but just applying a "standard dictionary definition", and therefore not WP:OR.

PS: what I meant by "arbitrary folk taxonomy": 1. "taxonomy": categorizing humans into racial groupings in a biological context is taxonomy; 2. "folk": this categorization is still popular in certain parts of the world, but widely rejected by modern anthropology (see Race (human categorization)); 3. "arbitrary": in spite of obvious phenotypic differences between people from different parts of the world, these differences form a continuum; any cut-off point for the sake of discrete categorization is arbitrary. –Austronesier (talk) 17:55, 20 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I think it would be good to come to a compromise position where this information is included, rather than it completely being blocked, as its clearly relevant (and probably of interest to the readers). Would you guys be happy about some sort of compromise about the wording? Just saves all the fuss of a RFC. Deathlibrarian (talk) 04:01, 7 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I'd like to suggest adding some compromise wording, for instance: "Studies indicate that different groups mentioned in the articles; that is "Asians", "Africans" or "Europeans", do have different DNA because of their ancient ancestors, ie Archaic admixture. Asian and Europeans for instance, have Neanderthal DNA and Africans do not (or have a lot less), while Denisovan DNA is present in Asian people, but not Europeans or Africans. The research states that some Melanesians have up to 6% Denisovan DNA." - I have removed the term race or racial grouping, and just used the terms used in the sources. I hope this is a good compromise, please let me know if you have an issue with it. Deathlibrarian (talk) 10:04, 9 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, I will leave it a few days, and if no one has any issues will update with this comment as a compromise. Thanks all. Deathlibrarian (talk) 00:17, 11 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Your proposal doesn't seem to address the main issues raised by myself and User:Austronesier. The topic of this page is "Race and genetics", and for reasons explained above, your proposal's relevance is unclear (neither the sources you want to use, nor your proposed wording explicitly concerns the concept of "race" (which is the topic of this article). (Also, as explained in my last reply, all of the various diverse non-African groups, or so-called "races", have/share Neanderthal admixture, not only Europeans and Asians, and Denisovan ancestry can be strongly discrepanct even between groups historically defined as of the same "race", like southeast Asian "Negritos"). And again, phrasing such as "do have different dna because of their different ancestors (aside from sounding unecyclopedic) misleadingly suggests that the main genetic differentiators of modern human populations (ethni-racial and continental groups) are different kinds/amounts of archaic dna (when in fact, much of the difference/divergence, such as it is, is due to divergences/splits and regional adaptations). Skllagyook (talk) 00:46, 11 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for responding. Trying to keep my response simple, I guess the issue here is, in everyday English usage, the terms "Asians", "Africans" or "Europeans" as mentioned in the article, would be interpreted as racial groupings. So the average person, reading those sources, would interpret them as discussing race. While we perhaps disagree on the detail, it would seem that we at least agree that the articles say that African racial groups have little/no Neanderthal DNA, Non Africans do, and some racial groups in Asia have Denisovian DNA and others don't. Would you at least agree to a compromise where a simple statement about this could be included? I'm happy to leave it at that if we could include something reflecting this at least. Deathlibrarian (talk) 02:57, 11 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Please re-read the earlier replies. Those groups may be understood as "racial groups" by the average person. But that is not the perspective of modern science, and the topic of this page relates to the concept of race, which your proposed sources and addition do not explicitly concern. Thus adding the proposed addition here would be WP:OR for the reasons explained previously. Differential archaic admixture in modern populations is already mentioned in several relevant articles here on Wikipedia. Skllagyook (talk) 03:06, 11 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
From my perspective, it's obvious we fundamentally disagree here. As already mentioned above, I would suggest what may be the view of the average wikipedia editor and the average person (and using standard dictionary definitions) the sources *do* explicitly concern race groupings. So no... that is not WP:OR to interpret them in that way. The sources are mainstream and all RS, and the concept of archaic admixture is accepted and featured elsewhere in Wikipedia.In any case, thanks for your input. I just thought we may be able to come up with some compromise which would head off a RFC, but I can see at this point the discussion has been going on since mid April and not heading anywhere, it's probably best to get some other comments involved. I'm happy to set up the RFC to get more input. Cheers. Deathlibrarian (talk) 03:17, 11 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Deathlibrarian: Sorry I haven't chimed in yet, but I haven't been very active here in past few days. Your compromise is a good step towards a more faithful representation of the sources (although it doesn't fully capture the complexity of Denisovan admixture). But since it does not make explicit reference to the concept of human races, it actually diminishes the relevance for inclusion in this page which is explicitly about the relation between genetics and the anthropological/sociological concept of human races.

I think it is a pity that the very interesting topic of archaic admixture is "hidden" in a specialized page that not many will come across if not specifically looking for it, so linking to it on diverse pages is in principle a good idea (as e.g. in early human migrations); but it should have a strong link to the subject of the article where this topic is intended to be included, which I can't see for this page without doing OR; this is again the crucial point of disagreement between us.

That said, what about trying to get comments in the relevant WP Project talk pages first before proceeding to an RfC? At least WT:ETHNIC is quite active (unlike WT:HGH, which looks pretty dead). Cheers! –Austronesier (talk) 06:56, 11 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for that Austronesier - as you say, we have a fundamental disagreement, and it doesn't look like a compromise is forthcoming (unfortunately), we have given it a good try at talking it out. I normally go to RFC if it can't be worked out on the talk page, just brings in a good body of editors in my opinion.Deathlibrarian (talk) 09:03, 11 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

References

  1. ^ Callaway, Ewen (2021-04-07). "Oldest DNA from a Homo sapiens reveals surprisingly recent Neanderthal ancestry". Nature. 592 (7854): 339–339. doi:10.1038/d41586-021-00916-0.
  2. ^ #author.fullName}. "Just 1.5 to 7 per cent of the modern human genome is uniquely ours". New Scientist. Retrieved 2022-04-20. {{cite web}}: |last= has generic name (help)
  3. ^ "Neanderthal DNA in Modern Human Genomes Is Not Silent". The Scientist Magazine®. Retrieved 2022-04-20.
  4. ^ Reich, D.; Green, R. E.; Kircher, M.; et al. (2010). "Genetic history of an archaic hominin group from Denisova Cave in Siberia" (PDF). Nature. 468 (7327): 1053–60. Bibcode:2010Natur.468.1053R. doi:10.1038/nature09710. hdl:10230/25596. PMC 4306417. PMID 21179161. Archived from the original on 17 May 2020. Retrieved 29 July 2018.

Wiki Education assignment: Introduction to Policy Analysis - Summer Session22

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 1 August 2022 and 4 September 2022. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Sunsh1n3d011 (article contribs).

— Assignment last updated by Sunsh1n3d011 (talk) 07:03, 13 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

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