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How Should Human Subspecies Be Classified?; A discussion about human subspecies.
Topic Started: Apr 18 2016, 02:05 AM (4,106 Views)
Takeshi
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Autotrophic Organism
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How would classify the subspecies/races of Homo Sapiens? I would group Whites and West Asians together, under the Caucasoid race, despite small differences between them ( namely skin color). I would personally class Central Asians (such as Kazakhstanis), North Asians (such as the Yakut), North East Asians (such as the Han Chinese), and South East Asians (such as the Vietnamese) as one race, East Asians. I would also class Pacific Islanders, Ashkenazi Jews, Capoids, Congoids, Native Americans, Hispanics, Australoids, and the Inuit as unique subspecies. I am, however, unsure of how South Asians (such as Dravidians, the Sinhalese, and Andamanese people should be classified). What are your thoughts?
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Gyirin
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I think deviding Homo sapiens to subspecies would cause more racism.
Edited by Gyirin, Apr 18 2016, 02:14 AM.
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kuri
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Takeshi
Apr 18 2016, 02:05 AM
How would classify the subspecies/races of Homo Sapiens? I would group Whites and West Asians together, under the Caucasoid race, despite small differences between them ( namely skin color). I would personally class Central Asians (such as Kazakhstanis), North Asians (such as the Yakut), North East Asians (such as the Han Chinese), and South East Asians (such as the Vietnamese) as one race, East Asians. I would also class Pacific Islanders, Ashkenazi Jews, Capoids, Congoids, Native Americans, Hispanics, Australoids, and the Inuit as unique subspecies. I am, however, unsure of how South Asians (such as Dravidians, the Sinhalese, and Andamanese people should be classified). What are your thoughts?
i makes not sense to classify humans in subspecies or races.
There is no unique attribute to differentiate e.g. white from an african.

You are laughing? Only because of the skin color? Why not the blood group? Only an example, i can find more.
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Spartan
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Some groups like aborigines were long enough isolated to be considered a subspecies from a solely zoological point of view (although there are no hard criteria), but I don't think doing so would do anything good.
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Jinfengopteryx
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Given that Africa has more genetic diversity than the rest of the world together, your amount of African "races" is a bit low.
Anyway, I disagree with the applicability of the race concept to humans as a whole.
The variation within "races" is simply much greater than the one between them and there is no evidence of a dis-continuum that race theories would predict either:
http://www.pnas.org/content/94/9/4516.full.pdf
Edited by Jinfengopteryx, Apr 18 2016, 02:40 AM.
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Takeshi
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kuri
Apr 18 2016, 02:16 AM
Takeshi
Apr 18 2016, 02:05 AM
How would classify the subspecies/races of Homo Sapiens? I would group Whites and West Asians together, under the Caucasoid race, despite small differences between them ( namely skin color). I would personally class Central Asians (such as Kazakhstanis), North Asians (such as the Yakut), North East Asians (such as the Han Chinese), and South East Asians (such as the Vietnamese) as one race, East Asians. I would also class Pacific Islanders, Ashkenazi Jews, Capoids, Congoids, Native Americans, Hispanics, Australoids, and the Inuit as unique subspecies. I am, however, unsure of how South Asians (such as Dravidians, the Sinhalese, and Andamanese people should be classified). What are your thoughts?
i makes not sense to classify humans in subspecies or races.
There is no unique attribute to differentiate e.g. white from an african.

You are laughing? Only because of the skin color? Why not the blood group? Only an example, i can find more.

This topic isn't racist, but there are differences between the races. Skin color, ratio of slow-twitch muscle fibers to fast-twitch muscle fibers, the epicanthic fold present in some races, average height and weight, hair texture, eye color, and nose shape are some of these differences.
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Jinfengopteryx
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^A lot of these differences are either too small to warrant races (a tiny minority of our genes are responsible for our outward appearance) or pseudoscientific.
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Thalassophoneus
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The idea of making a thread about human subspecies came to my mind also. I think that in a purely biological context, humans are separated into subspecies if not even species. But an official separation of humanity could become material for racists.
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Jinfengopteryx
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Mantrid
Apr 18 2016, 02:56 AM
I think that in a purely biological context, humans are separated into subspecies if not even species.
What makes you think so? And how do you define these terms? There is no way humans can have multiple species under the conventional definition.
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Spartan
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Subspecies is debatable since it's not really defined and pretty arbitrary which is why I kinda dislike the concept in general. Different extant species of humans on the other side is just ridiculous.
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Jinfengopteryx
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A subspecies is usually defined as the sum of all populations of a certain species which are not geographically separated from each other. Under this definition, we could have considered aborigines as a separate subspecies some centuries ago, though the fact that humans can nowadays travel wherever they want makes the subspecies concept pretty inapplicable to us.
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Thalassophoneus
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Spartan
Apr 18 2016, 03:00 AM
Subspecies is debatable since it's not really defined and pretty arbitrary which is why I kinda dislike the concept in general. Different extant species of humans on the other side is just ridiculous.
After reading your comment a racist joke came in my mind but I don't know if I should say it. lol

Anyway, there seems to be quite much diversity among humans, both in terms of external appearance and in terms of anatomy, like black people have more fleshy lips or Asians show deficiency in dairy product digestion.
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Jinfengopteryx
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As I wrote before, the diversity within the so-called races is far greater than the diversity between them, we are talking of a difference of ~85% vs ~15%.
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Fist of the North Shrimp
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I could only a two way split: Pre-BantuA frican Pygmies and One encompassing everyone else.
And I cannot see why the OP would keep Ashkenazis apart from Caucasians.
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Spartan
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There is actually very little genetic diversity in humans compared to most other mammals. Cheetahs also have a very low genetic variation, you can transplant organs from one cheetah to any other on the planet without the cat's immune system attacking the alien organ. Yet they are divided into five subspecies.
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