From: Hal Finney (hal@finney.org)
Date: Thu Sep 26 2002 - 00:44:03 MDT
Damien B wrote, summarizing his exchange with Rafal:
> I sad `race' is a category historically projected upon people with immense
> internal variation but sharing certain trivial common features due to
> ancestry, this original projection being malignly or ignorantly motivated.
>
> You said no, it's a useful set of distinctions, because for example you
> know that some people with certain ancestral histories have a greater than
> usual chance of carrying the mtDNA mutation 13513A or the mutations that
> produce juvenile myoclonic epilepsy, and as a doctor this fact can guide
> your diagnosis and treatment.
I think there was some miscommunication here, which can be observed by
reading the whole thread at
http://www.extropy.org/bbs/index.php?board=61;action=display;threadid=53247.
My understanding of Rafal's reply was not that he said that "[race is]
a useful set of distinctions." Rather, I think he meant that he had not
been referring to race at all in his earlier mention of group membership
which had prompted Damien's original comment. He had been talking about
other kinds of groups, for example people who have certain alleles that
could put them at risk for various deficiencies.
Rafal said that this kind of group membership is a useful and necessary
set of distinctions, both medically today and as we look forward to
future enhancements. But I think Damien is mistaken to infer that Rafal
was endorsing the usefulness of traditionally defined racial boundaries.
The miscommunication then got worse as Damien asked where in The Bell
Curve they had talked about these kinds of group definitions, which
confused Rafal. Damien was being sarcastic but I don't think Rafal
understood that.
I can see why Damien was pursuing this line; as he points out, the thread
is about the book. But if you look back at Rafal's original message
that started the thread, he drew a distinction between his comments on
the book and what he called his manifesto, a personal statement about
the goal of letting everyone benefit from improved cognitive capacity.
It was in the latter portion that he made the comments about groups which
spun off the thread. So he was not saying anything specific about The
Bell Curve in this part of his message.
That's how it looks to me, anyway.
Hal
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sat Nov 02 2002 - 09:17:17 MST