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Left Coast

This Is Water
Staff member
Premium Member
I'm permanently awestruck by convergent evolution. @shunyadragon knows my dilemma. :oops:

...I mean the odds of two different species becoming so similar in appearance must be 1 in 50 google. Yet we see it all the time. And there's not enough time in the universe for it to happen twice or 5 times on planet earth. But it does. With "flight", it's like 7 times, *completely* unrelated.

View attachment 35982 View attachment 35983

Clearly there is enough time, or it wouldn't have happened. :shrug: Also not sure how you calculated those odds. But this is also a complete change of subject from the whole, "all humans can be categorized as caucasoid, negroid, and mongoloid" thing.
 

oldbadger

Skanky Old Mongrel!
I'm mixed race and I'm 100% against race mixing/interracial relationships.

OK..... so you don't approve of mixed race relationships. And you are mixed race.

Can I ask: Do you have low self-esteem, social isolation, with poor family dynamics. Do you have high stress, do you drink and smoke too much? Because if you don't then your list is falling apart already, yeah?

Now I don't mind what you approve or disapprove of so long as you don't try and interfere with other folks decisions, but I first became aware of these kind of bigotries when I first dated my wife.... her whole family was more bigoted than anything you're ever likely to be accused of and all the family children were banned from associating with any races or nationalities other than white English. Sadly for her parents my wife's siblings all had a deep sense of attraction for black men and women and as a result all relationships have been kept secret and childless. Now in their late 70's my wife's parents think it was totally unfair of fate that they should never have had any grandchildren from their four children. Of course, they never deserved any.

You are entitled to your opinions, but be warned..... most Western Countries now have legislation that makes it an offence to interfere with, victimise, harass, exclude or in any way obstruct other people regardless of their religions, creeds, nationalities, colour, age, gender, sexuality, sexual orientation, marital status etc........

.......... best to keep such thoughts to yourself, I'd say.
 

Revoltingest

Pragmatic Libertarian
Premium Member
I'm permanently awestruck by convergent evolution. @shunyadragon knows my dilemma. :oops:

...I mean the odds of two different species becoming so similar in appearance must be 1 in 50 google. Yet we see it all the time. And there's not enough time in the universe for it to happen twice or 5 times on planet earth. But it does. With "flight", it's like 7 times, *completely* unrelated.

View attachment 35982 View attachment 35983
RF Rule #11.7.....
When claiming a quantified probability, one must show one's calculations.
This requirement is designed to prevent self-serving guesses from masquerading as fact.

Don't blame me. I don't make the rules.
(OK....sometimes I do.)
 

Cooky

Veteran Member
RF Rule #11.7.....
When claiming a quantified probability, one must show one's calculations.
This requirement is designed to prevent self-serving guesses from masquerading as fact.

Don't blame me. I don't make the rules.
(OK....sometimes I do.)

My scientific prediction, and yes this is a gift, if anyone can prove it, is that not only does our DNA randomly mutate where some mutations become useful, but our bodies also communicate to our DNA, somehow, and our DNA can actually recieve signals, and can mutate according to our needs.

Of course, the trick is to prove this. And if one can, he will be more famous than Charles Darwin.

...But think about it. Think about a bee mutating out a few cell's that would later be a wing. Now imagine the odds of a few more cells mutating there, and having that passed on, only to occur over and over, for no reason, and with no benefit until the complete wing is developed. Now imagine 7 different species doing this completely separate and independently from one another.

The odds have to be 500,000 google to 1.
 

Revoltingest

Pragmatic Libertarian
Premium Member
My scientific prediction, and yes this is a gift, is that it only does our DNA randomly mutate where some mutations become useful, but we also communicate to our DNA, and our DNA can actually recieve signals, and can mutate according to our needs.

Of course, the trick is to prove this. And if one can, he will be more famous than Charles Darwin.

...But think about it. Think about a bee mutating out a few cell's that would later be a wing. Now imagine the odds of a few more cells mutating there, and having that passed on, only to occur over and over, for no reason, and with no benefit until the complete wing is developed. Now imagine 7 different species doing this completely separate and independently from one another.

The odds have to be 500,000 google to 1.
You provide a quantitative answer,
but without any quantitative premises.
And then there's the analysis part.

Example....
For any given body part, eg, the eye, one must consider the
useful intermediate structures between skin & evolution of the eye
eg, infrared sensing pits of snakes. This would yield different
probabilities from assuming emergence of the eye directly from skin.

Ref....
Evolution of the eye - Wikipedia
 

SkepticThinker

Veteran Member
All politicians are sinners.

All people are.

the biggest difference is that the sins of politicians get exploded on social media and those who disagree with them politically use them to attack...as if they weren't just as, or more guilty than, their political opponents.

I have no respect for a group that supports...and holds up for sainthood, practically, a PROVEN sexual predator, rapist and liar whose wife in her quest for power did things far more illegal than their target.

I'm not the biggest fan of our current president, but he's done a better job than his predecessor, by quite a bit, and I can't see a single person in the other party I agree with politically.

Ergo...vote for the sinner who does what you want, politically, because you just ain't gonna get an anointed saint. Sorry.
Did you not just describe Trump? :shrug:
 

SkepticThinker

Veteran Member
The more smartened up analysis considers both heredity AND environmental differences.
I fairly and honestly think ethnicity and genetics is a factor in skills and attributes when studied over a population. It just 'is what it is' in my objective appraisal. And I would call the denial of any differences socially motivated pseudoscience .
What is your belief based on? What specific attributes are you referring to?
 

George-ananda

Advaita Vedanta, Theosophy, Spiritualism
Premium Member
What is your belief based on?
My lifetime of honest non-biased observation and consideration of all the facts and arguments I have heard.
What specific attributes are you referring to?
About all of our physical and mental capabilities and attributes are influenced by our genetics. They can not be broken down to a clear-cut list as everything is blended into making the person what they are.
 

Terrywoodenpic

Oldest Heretic
All the Europeans started out as blue eyed dark skinned and we all came out of Africa.
However all peoples have at one time or another bred with other Species. Such as with Neanderthals . Who were distant cousins on the tree of life. Over time we have evolved as to colour and other attributes to better suit our environment.
This change continues and inevitable.
There are no better or best races there are only people adjusting to their environment.
In almost ever way blood mixing is good for a species and the result always adds vigour, and helps to widen the gene pool.

Preferring people of a specific appearance Is a normal learning experience and is reinforced the less contact you have with other races at a social level.

Unfortunately racism thought totally unjustifiable. It is also tribal in nature. In the Same way as any other group opinion is.
 

columbus

yawn <ignore> yawn
The more smartened up analysis considers both heredity AND environmental differences.
Smart analysis also uses something resembling objective analysis.
If heredity is .5% of outcome, and environment 99.5% of outcome, then heredity isn't very important. It's still a factor, just an unimportant factor.

That's the way I see race. It exists, but is extremely superficial and morally unimportant. What happens to a person, due to their race, is the overwhelmingly dominant factor. That's the important moral issue.
More to the point, do the choices you make tend to result in a good world for everyone? A level playing field, with a solid safety net underneath everyone?
If not, your behavior and world view isn't particularly moral.
Tom
 

George-ananda

Advaita Vedanta, Theosophy, Spiritualism
Premium Member
Smart analysis also uses something resembling objective analysis.
If heredity is .5% of outcome, and environment 99.5% of outcome, then heredity isn't very important. It's still a factor, just an unimportant factor.
I am thinking it is much closer to 50/50 than .5/99.5.

That's the way I see race. It exists, but is extremely superficial and morally unimportant. What happens to a person, due to their race, is the overwhelmingly dominant factor. That's the important moral issue.
More to the point, do the choices you make tend to result in a good world for everyone? A level playing field, with a solid safety net underneath everyone?
If not, your behavior and world view isn't particularly moral.
Tom
My spiritual life and morality are my most important thing so I support brotherly love of all. So what really if no two people or ethnic groups are exactly the same.
 

dianaiad

Well-Known Member
Did you not just describe Trump? :shrug:

Nope.

Trump is a loud mouthed boor, and not even close to the smooth politician we've been used to dealing with, but he is not a 'sexual predator,' Predators force.

The only evidence we have of him as a rapist is that he doesn't. He's a jerk and a womanizer, but he understands and complies with the word 'no.' He may not respect it or the woman, but he complies.

Clinton, however, did not. He was impeached for lying to congress...he said he did NOT 'have sex with that woman' when he did. She was an intern, he was Potus. He was sued...and he paid up...for raping someone. He was not removed from office, but he was disbarred.

And all the Democrats supported him anyway.
 

George-ananda

Advaita Vedanta, Theosophy, Spiritualism
Premium Member
Based on what?
My lifetime of honest non-biased observation and consideration of all the facts and arguments I have heard.
I also remember when you asserted that an internet pic of a human shaped cloud was 60% likely to be the guardian angel of the poster.
I remain unimpressed with your statistical analysis.
We can revisit that one but let's not.
 

SkepticThinker

Veteran Member
My lifetime of honest non-biased observation and consideration of all the facts and arguments I have heard.
How about the science? Specifically, the science I referenced.

"A landmark 2002 study by Stanford scientists examined the question of human diversity by looking at the distribution across seven major geographical regions of 4,000 alleles. Alleles are the different “flavors” of a gene. For instance, all humans have the same genes that code for hair: the different alleles are why hair comes in all types of colors and textures.

In the Stanford study, over 92% of alleles were found in two or more regions, and almost half of the alleles studied were present in all seven major geographical regions. The observation that the vast majority of the alleles were shared over multiple regions, or even throughout the entire world, points to the fundamental similarity of all people around the world—an idea that has been supported by many other studies (Figure 1B).

If separate racial or ethnic groups actually existed, we would expect to find “trademark” alleles and other genetic features that are characteristic of a single group but not present in any others. However, the 2002 Stanford study found that only 7.4% of over 4000 alleles were specific to one geographical region. Furthermore, even when region-specific alleles did appear, they only occurred in about 1% of the people from that region—hardly enough to be any kind of trademark. Thus, there is no evidence that the groups we commonly call “races” have distinct, unifying genetic identities. In fact, there is ample variation within races (Figure 1B).

Ultimately, there is so much ambiguity between the races, and so much variation within them, that two people of European descent may be more genetically similar to an Asian person than they are to each other (Figure 2).
......

The popular classifications of race are based chiefly on skin color, with other relevant features including height, eyes, and hair. Though these physical differences may appear, on a superficial level, to be very dramatic, they are determined by only a minute portion of the genome: we as a species have been estimated to share 99.9% of our DNA with each other. The few differences that do exist reflect differences in environments and external factors, not core biology.

Importantly, the evolution of skin color occurred independently, and did not influence other traits such as mental abilities and behavior. In fact, science has yet to find evidence that there are genetic differences in intelligence between populations. Ultimately, while there certainly are some biological differences between different populations, these differences are few and superficial. The traits that we do share are far more profound."

How Science and Genetics are Reshaping the Race Debate of the 21st Century - Science in the News


About all of our physical and mental capabilities and attributes are influenced by our genetics. They can not be broken down to a clear-cut list as everything is blended into making the person what they are.
I think you've just demonstrated that the genetic differences between "races" are basically negligible.
 

SkepticThinker

Veteran Member
Nope.

Trump is a loud mouthed boor, and not even close to the smooth politician we've been used to dealing with, but he is not a 'sexual predator,' Predators force.

The only evidence we have of him as a rapist is that he doesn't. He's a jerk and a womanizer, but he understands and complies with the word 'no.' He may not respect it or the woman, but he complies.

Clinton, however, did not. He was impeached for lying to congress...he said he did NOT 'have sex with that woman' when he did. She was an intern, he was Potus. He was sued...and he paid up...for raping someone. He was not removed from office, but he was disbarred.

And all the Democrats supported him anyway.
Trump is a sexual predator by his own admission. Oh, and then there are those 15+ women who corroborrated his own story.

Having consensual sex and then lying about it isn't rape. It's lying.
I'm much more concerned about both of their connections to Jeffrey Epstein's sex trafficking ring.
 

George-ananda

Advaita Vedanta, Theosophy, Spiritualism
Premium Member
How about the science? Specifically, the science I referenced.

"A landmark 2002 study by Stanford scientists examined the question of human diversity by looking at the distribution across seven major geographical regions of 4,000 alleles. Alleles are the different “flavors” of a gene. For instance, all humans have the same genes that code for hair: the different alleles are why hair comes in all types of colors and textures.

In the Stanford study, over 92% of alleles were found in two or more regions, and almost half of the alleles studied were present in all seven major geographical regions. The observation that the vast majority of the alleles were shared over multiple regions, or even throughout the entire world, points to the fundamental similarity of all people around the world—an idea that has been supported by many other studies (Figure 1B).

If separate racial or ethnic groups actually existed, we would expect to find “trademark” alleles and other genetic features that are characteristic of a single group but not present in any others. However, the 2002 Stanford study found that only 7.4% of over 4000 alleles were specific to one geographical region. Furthermore, even when region-specific alleles did appear, they only occurred in about 1% of the people from that region—hardly enough to be any kind of trademark. Thus, there is no evidence that the groups we commonly call “races” have distinct, unifying genetic identities. In fact, there is ample variation within races (Figure 1B).

Ultimately, there is so much ambiguity between the races, and so much variation within them, that two people of European descent may be more genetically similar to an Asian person than they are to each other (Figure 2).
......

The popular classifications of race are based chiefly on skin color, with other relevant features including height, eyes, and hair. Though these physical differences may appear, on a superficial level, to be very dramatic, they are determined by only a minute portion of the genome: we as a species have been estimated to share 99.9% of our DNA with each other. The few differences that do exist reflect differences in environments and external factors, not core biology.

Importantly, the evolution of skin color occurred independently, and did not influence other traits such as mental abilities and behavior. In fact, science has yet to find evidence that there are genetic differences in intelligence between populations. Ultimately, while there certainly are some biological differences between different populations, these differences are few and superficial. The traits that we do share are far more profound."

How Science and Genetics are Reshaping the Race Debate of the 21st Century - Science in the News



I think you've just demonstrated that the genetic differences between "races" are basically negligible.
I am aware that this is a controversial subject and that there are two sides. I do consider everything and use reason in judging what is most reasonable to believe. The non-existence of ethnic genetic differences is society's current accepted position but I believe these things get affected by culture and then we see only the science that backs this up. The other side gets society's dirty look and no one likes that (doesn't mean their points are not valid).
 
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