Talk:Race and genetics: Difference between revisions

	Human Genetic History (inactive)
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Seems to provide little in correlating the relationship ,if any, between Race & Behavior. Granted Linnaeus has had a profound impacted in his field, and science as a whole. In this case though, i don't know if his opinions necessarily belong because they might give the impression that this is all that could be said on the subject.Archcog 16:45, 7 October 2007 (UTC)archcog 12:40PM, October, 07,2007.[reply]

To me the article's section on nature v nurture does on good job of pointing out factors that influence human behavior. So it now seems to me the section on race and behavior might be redundant. Maybe a merger of the 2 sections?Archcog 16:45, 7 October 2007 (UTC)archcog 12:40PM, October, 07,2007.[reply]

See Talk:White_American#Admixture_section_is_a_can_of_worms Savignac 08:49, 6 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

As I was reading this article, and being irresistably drawn to edit some of the less than clear sentences, I came to this section, which is very different in the published version from the version one gets when one tries to edit it. After footnote indicator [10], the published page has the sentence beginning "When scientist (sic, you see why I am editing!) began studying global mitochondrial DNA ..." The edit page includes several paragraphs which seem to be left out of the published page, as follows:

Block quote

Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza and Anthony Edwards would then incorporate these techniques into the field of population genetics. Using computer based statistical analysis to average across the several blood group systems, they were able to produce a phylogenetic relationship of the various populations around the worldCite error: A <ref> tag is missing the closing </ref> (see the help page). When scientist began studying global mitochondrial DNA sequences they identified 33 mitochondrial DNA clans, 13 were from Africa. Though Africa had only 12% of the worlds population it had 40% of the maternal clans. As a rule of thumb for any species the region of greatest diversity is usually the region of origin.

Studies using Mitochondrial DNA have found that all humans today are descended from one woman, named Mitochondrial Eve, who may have lived in Africa some 150,000 years ago. Since Mitochondrial Eve 7500 generations have passed, and since the first split between Africans and non Africans, 2500 generations have passed. This would explain why human genetic diversity is relatively low compared to species that have existed for much longer.

end of block quote

This seems to be informative stuff, and to accurately convey information from The Human Genome Project, although it does need improvements of style. However, I can't seem to work on it -- changes I make don't appear in the published page.

I will sign my name, because I'm having trouble logging in, even though I do have an account. Janice Vian 161.184.44.10 (talk) 02:39, 19 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

A similar thing just happened in this talk page, in that three paragraphs of the five paragraph block quote I tried to place here, did not appear. jvian@telusplanet.net 161.184.44.10 (talk) 02:54, 19 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Try opening an account. Muntuwandi (talk) 03:07, 19 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

As I was reading this article, I noticed a statement that went against my prior ideas. "People from the Indian subcontinent are classified as Caucasian but some have dark skin."

I personally can tell you that People Frome the Indian Subcontinent are NOT classified as Caucasians. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kabir Singh 2 (talk • contribs) 15:02, 21 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I wanted to explain why I added a few tags to the first sections of the article. First, much of the material in those sections isn't cited, therefore citations need to be aded for those affirmations. Second, two statements seem to be particularly dubious: one of which seems to insinuate that anthropologists, especially physical anthropologists, believe in the reality of biological races of man, and that this opinion is better than the opinion of sociologists. A survey conducted in 1999 (results found in Lieberman: How "Caucasoids" Got Such Big Crania and Why They Shrank[1]) says exactly the contrary: about 80% of anthropologists now disbelieve the reality of races. Then, there is this statement that there are societies that "live in the stone age even today in the 21st century). I would daresay that with today's pervasive technology, this affirmation is patently false, even for very small groups in the remotest parts of the world. I wanted to generate some discussion on these before I went and corrected these statements myself.--Ramdrake (talk) 12:11, 23 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm a bit concerned that this article has strayed far away from a discussion of genetics. Dbachman noted a little while ago that about half this article discusses "Race" in a general sense and has little to do with genetics.[2] I can't help but agree with him. Muntuwandi significantly changed this article in the Summer, and looking at the two versions the current version is very much poorer. This article seems to have become a proxy article for discussing "Race" in general. I suggest we go back to focussing on genetics, there is no place in this article for speculation about "Race and intelligence" or "Race and behaviour", to pick two section at random. This article should be about "Race and genetics". Take a look at the pre Muntuwandi version here, it concentrates on genetics and "Race" and human variation, not on concepts like "ethnocentricism". Dbachman thinks this has become a coatrack article, and I can't help but think he is spot on. Let's get it back to the subject at hand shall we. I suggest we start by working on the pre-Muntuwandi article, his changes were massive and were done at a time when Wikipedia is always slow, during the Summer. I value his contributions, but he has strayed very far from the subject of this article, and has removed a great deal of valuable cited material. Alun (talk) 05:24, 24 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I still think that it is quite difficult to completely separate other aspects of race such as intelligence and behavior from genetics. Much of the motivation in this field has been to find not only genes that account for differences in physical appearance or anatomy but also whether there are any genes that account for differences in intelligence or behavior. Without these issues, there would be no motivation to study alleged "racial differences".Muntuwandi (talk) 03:51, 25 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

We don't have to completely separate them, but the point is that this article is about "race and genetics", so it should concentrate on how genetics has been used in anthropology, human biology and human classification. The "genetics of intelligence" has got nothing to do with the "genetics of race", discussion of "intelligence" is a question for psychology and not "genetics" or "race", the link between cognitive ability and genetics is completely opaque and seems to be irrelevant to any discussion about "race". The "genetics of behaviour" is again irrelevant, no one knows how much behaviour is learned or how much is inherited, but when I was a genetics undergraduate, many years ago, most geneticists were sceptical that any great proportion of behaviour was genetic in humans, our bahaviour is far too complex to be very much based on genetics, we are rational organisms after all, and so any bahaviour based on reasoning is learned. Even if one wanted to accept that some behaviour is genetic, then how is this relevant to "race"? The point is this, an article about "Race and genetics" should concentrate on what genetics can tell us about race, and not on what genetics can tell us about "intelligence" (nothing) or behaviour (nothing). This article is not about the "motivation for studying racial differences", it is about "race and genetics". Mostly research into genetics doesn't support any subspecific classification of the human species, usually this is explained by the fact that we are all too similar. This is what we should be discussing, what are the observable differences between human populations, are there discrete genetic populations, if so are they equivalent to "races", what is their distribution? What are the bondaries between these groups? Is the distribution of variation clinal? If so does the discontinuous sampling of this variation lead to a false impression of discontinuity? What do geneticists and molecular anthropologists tell us about human genetic variation and it's distribution? This article was far from good before the summer, but it was more detailed and there was greater depth. Many of the changes you introduced were good, and I would like to keep them, while also re-introducing many of the important things you removed. On the other hand there are quite a lot of sections that you included that I really do think are irrelevant, and are possibly pov-forks from other articles. We should work to bring the best of both versions together, while abandoning the worst sections. I'll have a think about what I want to keep and let you know. I'm sure we can work together to make this a better article. All the best. Alun (talk) 08:16, 27 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

We have this article about "race and genetics" and another about Human genetic variation. I am increasingly under the impression that we need only the article about human genetic variation. In that article we should have a general discussion of how human genetic variation is distributed, whether it is distributed into discrete packages we can call "races" is part of the scope of an article that discusses this variation, so I think this article called #race and genetics" is generally redundant. The article could then discuss:

• Within-between group variation (F_ST).
• Founder effects and genetic drift.
• Selection.
• Clustering analyses.
• Dilution effects seen as populations get further from Africa.
• Haplotypes.
• Molecular lineages.
• other stuff I have forgotten.

Any thoughts? Alun (talk) 11:14, 9 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

--Why not just go for it? --RebekahThorn (talk) 13:27, 20 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Geneticists have found the ancestor from whom all variations in hair and eye colour came from. This single individual lived somewhere on the northwest coast of the Black Sea some 8,000 years ago. Prior to this mutation everyone had similar eye and hair colour. As it has no genetic advantage it is still unknown how the mutation spread. The research is to be published in the journal "Human Genetics" soon. Wayne (talk) 08:43, 2 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

How interesting. Presumably we are talking about genetic drift in that case. Of course they cannot have found the ancestor though, this "individual" (if it was a single person) must be long dead, but presumably they can attempt to trace their origin and approximate age using standard genetic dating estimates? Does sound like a cool article though, will keep an eye out for it. Where did you get this information? Do you know the name of the upcoming article? All the best. Alun (talk) 17:50, 2 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• I also read about this article to be published in the Human Genetics journal: News article about it here. Epf (talk) 18:00, 2 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I got the info from an article in my local newspaper which wasn't online which is why I gave no link. It was much more detailed than that MSN article (i'm at a loss as to why MSN only mentions eyes). For example the mutant OCA2 switch is apparently also responsible for hair colours other than brown (blonde, red, brunette etc). And most significantly is responsible for olive and fair skin tones. Significant as it makes skin colour even less relevant to race if it is only 8,000 years old. The study will make a good addition to this article when it comes out. Wayne (talk) 18:17, 2 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I just wanted to say this and many other science articles here are very badly written. Many of the statements in this article and some other race-related articles are not even sentences. Wikipedia needs more editors concerned with prose style. 129.15.107.106 (talk) 03:39, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The article is really terrible. A total mess. Centrum99 (talk) 01:55, 19 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

i agree with the editors that placed the coatrack tag on this article; very little of it is actually related to race and genetics. i have cut the worst-offending sections out, but there is still much work to be done. Calliopejen1 (talk) 22:04, 10 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The article should probably be redirected to Human genetic variation. That areticle needs quite a lot of work, but should be a good starting point to discuss how genetic variation is distributed within the human species. There is quite a lot of information in the Race (classification of human beings) article that could be used for the human genetic variation article. On the one hand, some geneticists do use the term "race" when they discuss human genetic variation, but it should be born in mind that their use of this term is disputed by a great many other geneticists and by molecular anthropologists. It should also be born in mind that many genticists who do use the word "race" do not use it in the sense of classification so much as in the sense of genetic variation as it can be measured. Take for example Armand Leroi, he uses the term "race", but an examination of his use of the word indicates that there could be any number of "races", even hundreds or thousands, because he acknowledges that a "race", as some geneticists use the term, is really only an acknowledgement of the fact of diversity. Indeed he is using the term much as Theodosius Dobzhansky proposed, to identify any genetically distinct population. Leroy states

Yet there is nothing very fundamental about the concept of the major continental races; they're just the easiest way to divide things up. Study enough genes in enough people and one could sort the world's population into 10, 100, perhaps 1,000 groups, each located somewhere on the map. This has not yet been done with any precision, but it will be. Soon it may be possible to identify your ancestors not merely as African or European, but Ibo or Yoruba, perhaps even Celt or Castilian, or all of the above.[3]

But this is clearly not support for the concept of fundamental or universal "types" of humans, as "race" is so often portrayed, it is simply using the term "race" to describe human genetic variation. Alan Goodman, a biological anthropologist calls Leroy a de facto believer. He states that there are the true believers

On one end stand scientific “true believers” who treat races as natural entities. The primary difference between this position and racial typologists of the early 19th century is that 21st century scientists assert that evolution, rather than god, created “races.” These racial “true believers” include evolutionary anthropologists Vince Sarich (Sarich and Miele, 2004) and psychologist J. P. Rushton (1995), now the president of the Pioneer Fund...On the other end of the spectrum are the “de facto believers,” an otherwise respectable group of scientists that encompasses Leroi. What separates this group from the true believers is that they understand races as statistical approximations rather than natural types, asserting race as a de facto stand-in for the messy patterns of human biological variation. Sally Satel (2002), for example, the author of a prior New York Times piece titled “I am a Racially Profiling Doctor,” concurs that humans do not vary much genetically and race is a crude approximation of this human variation. She goes on to say that race might not be necessary in a near future of individualized genetic analysis. According to the “de facto believers” of race, we are merely passing through an awkward adolescent phase in which we still need to racialize human variation.[4]

Many editors with a POV to push will deliberately attempt to conflate these two distinct positions, by claiming that a specific scientists (such as Leroy for example) has stated that "race" is real, but they will attempt to hide the fact that what people like Leroy, and indeed Neil Risch or Noah Rosenberg are doing is not discussing historical concepts of "race". For example Rosenberg never uses the term "race" in his science, and discusses only population structure, but many editors have still attempted to use his work to push a racialist pov, which of course amounts at best to a synthesis.

Personally I think that this version of the article is better, but it could still do with a lot of work to make it more coherent and readable. On the other hand I tend to think that a redirect to the Human genetic variation article would be the best course for this article. The debate about the geographic distribution of human genetic variation and it's implications more properly belongs there. Alun (talk) 07:11, 15 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The two references below show that the previous estimate of 0.1% human genetic variation and 99.9% similarity was too low (as shown in this section[5]). There is at least 0.5% human genetic variation and about 99.5% similarity: [6] [7]
The information in the article needs to be updated to reflect this new information. --Fat Cigar (talk) 12:26, 31 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

More sources: [8][9][10] --Fat Cigar (talk) 02:23, 1 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It is really quite arbitrary how genetic variation is measured. There are various ways to measure it, and all give different estimates because all are giving measures of different things. It's not a question of what is the "correct" figure, that's a meaningless idea, and it's not a question of a new estimate being "better" than any previous estimate, it's a question of the utility of these measurements. For example the o.1% estimate is meaningless on it's own, where it becomes handy is when we use it to compare similar estimates from other large mammalian species, then we can compare the nucleotide diversity (the 0.1% estimate) from humans with that of other species, and it allows us to compare how genetically homogeneous our species is compared to other species. Usually such comparisons show that human diversity is low compared to other species. It would be inappropriate to claim that genetic diversity is higher in humans at the nucleotide level than was previously thought, because it would be wrong. If one were to compare the nucleotide diversity of a different species with the "new" estimate for variation within the human species, then that would be an incorrect comparison. These issues need to be taken into account. Obviously we know a great deal more about the human genome than we do for most other mammals, we can only compare the diversity at the CNV level in humans with the same measurement in other species. While what you are saying is correct, please be aware that when an article is discussing comparisons of nucleotide diversity between species one should not use the "new" estimate of diversity for the human species, or we would be comparing apples and oranges, it would also clearly represent original research. Thanks for taking this into consideration. Alun (talk) 17:10, 2 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have attempted to make the section more accurate. --Fat Cigar 18:45, 2 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

OK, nice work. Alun (talk) 19:01, 2 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

"Usually such comparisons show that human diversity is low compared to other species." It is a lie. And you know it very well, Mr. Liar, although you may suppress this fact in your subconsciousness. 89.235.19.212 (talk) 09:17, 7 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The table lists four classifications Europe, East Asia, Oceania, and America. I'm just wondering where does the western part of Asia fit into these classifications. If it is being grouped under Europe then it should be labeled as such, or was such a massive population group omitted altogether? (MJDTed (talk) 22:56, 18 October 2008 (UTC))[reply]

Since genetic variation is continuous, populations such as those of western asia will likely fall somewhere in between East Asia and Europe. I would assume it was the intent of the study to use populations that are separated by large geographic distances. Shambalala (talk) 01:12, 19 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Then it should be made clear, otherwise it's misleading. For instance in the section it infers from the table that Europeans are genetically closest to Africans when logically one would assume that Arabic populations by proximity will be genetically closest, assuming there is a genetic continuum. It also says that the contributions to Europe are 2/3rds from Asia, are we still to referring to East Asia here? The table as it is in my opinion without further explanation is overly simplistic.(MJDTed (talk) 09:17, 19 October 2008 (UTC))[reply]

Admixed populations were omitted for the sake of simplicity. Otherwise the analysis would too complicated for the typical reader.Shambalala (talk) 02:17, 20 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have noticed a highly suspicious trend in race and genetics related articles to try and hide and delete the fact that the Asian influence is significant in some parts of Northern Europe, especially in parts of Scandinavia and the Baltic. Look how Y-Chromosome genetic markers from Asia are very common in some parts of Northern Europe.

See: http://www.scs.uiuc.edu/~mcdonald/WorldHaplogroupsMaps.pdf

In fact, this is the main reason why Finns cluster a bit apart from other Europeans (and of course this fact should not be exaggerated either) in recent autosomal studies. See:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/13/science/13visual.html?_r=3&ref=science&oref=slogin&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

As said, these facts should not be exaggerated, but it is a fact that the largest non-Caucasian element in Europe is in some parts of Northern Europe, the Baltic and Eastern Europe, due to the Asian influence.

It is, at least, pretty strange that this fact is being constantly ignored and deleted in race related article in Wiki, this article included. I hope this will no longer be the case and these data included. Only racist motivated reasons can be behind these facts, and as we all know, the Nordicist-Nazi-White Supremacist tradition, very active in Internet and who are very worried in trying to present themselves as very pure whites, even genetically speaking. They are especially unconfortable with the fact that Finns have among the highest percentage in Europe of blond hair and blue eyes, while they happen to have the highest percentage of Non-Caucasian genes. This maybe one of the reasons for their behaviour, since they may think it endangers their myths and propaganda. But I wonder about the majority of users here? Because I bet that most people who know something about genetics here know about this fact, but they are still happy with all these versions ignoring and hiding these data. Very suspicious, indeed. Jan. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.144.235.20 (talk) 18:59, 26 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Are you referring to haplogroup N when talking about Asians? I believe the Finns and the Saami have always been assaulted for being predominantly brachycephalic, one may view N as the source of the Baltid type (as opposed to Nordid). One has to say that there are two camps among the "racists": one places more emphasis on pigmentation (its proponents are usually Northern, Central, and Eastern European), and the other camp which stresses cranial measures, likening Nordids to Mediterranids (mostly Southern Europeans). Since pigmentation is generally more distinctive, and possibly because non-European haplogroups like J and E3b are more common among South Europeans than haplogroup N is among North-Eastern Europeans, the former enjoys better recognition worldwide. However, it is fruitless to assign such point of view to the Nazis, who actually used the Baltid sub-race as a reason to discriminate against Poles and Russians. "Nordicism" would really be a misnomer here, since they were, in fact, more aggressive towards Baltids than towards the swarthier Mediterranids or Dinarids. --Humanophage (talk) 17:07, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"Research published in July 2008 concludes that there is no race. A Scientific American article entitled "Traces of a Distant Past" by Gary Stix has the most interesting quote: "Genetic literacy will let a term like "Asian" or "Chinese" be replaced by more subtle classifications based on the differences in ancestral genetic makeup found in recent genome-wide scans, such as the distinction between China's southern and northern Han groups. "There is no race."Quintana-Murci says."

Who does take these clowns seriously? Their mystifications are being demolished by new and new clustering studies, and they repeat the opposite like blockheaded parrots. 89.235.19.212 (talk) 09:10, 7 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Since no source was given for that quote, I've removed it. If anyone wishes to put it back, they'll need to find a citation for it, and also demonstrate that it's notable enough to be included. --Captain Occam (talk) 00:02, 4 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Please, reply, why the file File:Bauchet European clusters.png is not desplayed? Is it possible to recover it? Thanks in advance, --Zara-arush (talk) 22:16, 5 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yet again, Cavalli-Sforza is being misquoted to say Europeans are simply a mixture of or originated as a mixture of East Asian and African populations. The actual statement is just that with one dataset Cavalli-Sforza used an artificial interpolation between Asian and African values winds up slightly less distant from European values than either the Asian or African starting points. This only means that there has been some diffusion of genes over time and that genetic distance very roughly correlates with geographic distance. It says nothing about origins. Please remove this statement from the article. --JWB (talk) 17:35, 12 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I notice that Muntuwandi has just removed this image from the article, with the explanation “image meant to push a POV”. No further explanation of this has been provided, so if he wishes for this image to be removed, he’ll need to be more specific on how it’s a violation of Wikipedia’s policies.

I’m not even sure how Wikipedia’s definition of Civil POV pushing can apply to a single image, since POV-pushing is something that occurs over many edits during a long period of time. I certainly haven’t been doing that to this article; my adding of this image to it (and a small change to the text) is the only time I’ve edited it during a period of several months.

The image is also quite relevant to the topic being discussed in the section where it was included. That section is describing Cavalli-Sforza’s study, and his study actually contains the diagram that this image is based on. Since Cavalli-Sforza apparently thinks this image is useful as an illustration of his data, I think it’s reasonable to assume that it can also be considered a useful illustration of his data by Wikipedia’s standards. The reason I’ve cited it to Jensen rather than Cavalli-Sforza is just because I own a copy of Jensen’s book The g Factor, while I don’t own a copy of Cavalli-Sforza’s original study, so if I were to cite this to Cavalli-Sforza directly I would be afraid of subtly misrepresenting him.

For the reasons given above, I believe the removal of this image to be an erroneous edit, and am reinserting it. If you disagree, please justify your reasons for removing it here, and obtain a consensus for doing so. --Captain Occam (talk) 13:49, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Muntu, this image is stupid. It's from jensen apparently, who is clearly not a relible source for either "race" or "genetics" subjects. I'm also confused by his mixing of terms such as "indo-European" and "African". Africa is a continent, but "indo-European" is a language group. There are plenty of good cladograms from much more reliable sources than Jensen, for example here. This article should not be citing Jensen at all. When did he become an expert molecular anthropologist? Alun (talk) 06:05, 23 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If you would like to edit the article to use a better cladogram or cite more famous/respected scientists than Jensen, then go ahead. I agree that this would be an excellent idea. But, in the meantime, don't just remove material because it is not as good as it might be. Replace, don't remove. (If you can get permission to use a specific cladogram, just let us know. I (or some other editor) would be happy to show you how to insert a better image, if you haven't done that before. David.Kane (talk) 13:08, 23 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I believe Alun's point is that while Jensen may be respected as a psychologist, he is not an expert on either race nor genetics, so citing him in a non-expertise field isn't of encyclopaedic value. However, in the meantime, if you got reverted, I would suggest you keep discussing on the talk page and try to gather consensus there rather than start edit-warring by reintroducing material which other editors obviously oppose.--Ramdrake (talk) 15:00, 23 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I believe that we should keep an image that has been in the article for a longtime until a consensus to remove it is reached. So, I will add it back. Cladograms are, obviously, useful. Until we find a better one, we should keep the one we have. No one has argued that it is worse than nothing. David.Kane (talk) 15:33, 23 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia doesn't work this way, unfortunately. Look at it this way: so far, 3 editors at least have removed the image that you've kept reinserting. That should be a clue that the temporary consensus is now not to include the image. I would recommend that you respect this consensus for now and try to gather a new consensus on the talk page to include the image if you so wish. Edit-warring around the image will only get you blocked, and/or get the article protected, or both.--Ramdrake (talk) 15:44, 23 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If you seek to make a controversial change to a page, you must formally seek consensus. Having three editors that agree with you is not consensus. Feel free to make a formal motion on this topic, if you like. Note that this image is based on "The History and Geography of Human Genes" by L. Luca Cavalli-Sforza, Paolo Menozzi, & Alberto Piazza. I suspect that most editors will agree that these are experts on race and genetics and that an image based on their work belongs in this article. David.Kane (talk) 15:48, 23 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

To summarize, here is the original edit. As best I can tell, the image is accurately sourced to "The History and Geography of Human Genes" by L. Luca Cavalli-Sforza, Paolo Menozzi, & Alberto Piazza. (If anyone has information to the contrary, please share with us.) All agree that this image might be replaced by a more up-to-date cladogram if one were available. Until that happens, at least two editors want to keep it. (Three if you include the editor that added it.) Three editors have sought to delete it. Other opinions are welcome. As always, we operate by consensus but controversial change requires consensus. David.Kane (talk) 16:01, 23 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

To quote Wikipolicy: "the onus is on the editor seeking inclusion to gather consensus on the talk page". Not the other way around.--Ramdrake (talk) 16:42, 23 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There is nothing wrong with cladograms in general, however there is a problem with this particular cladogram. Firstly because it is sourced from Jensen, and secondly because the caption was somewhat misleading in giving the impression of the existence of clearly defined mutually exclusive genetic groups. In other words the image seemed to have been placed with the intention of demonstrating the existence of genetically discrete races, a position which has not been accepted by the majority of geneticists and anthropologists. There are several different cladograms that have been constructed, each depending on the genetic system used (blood groups, y-chromosome mtDNA etc) and the populations studied. There are also several different ways to group humans. There is this particular article, human genetic clustering which deals with some of grouping methods. Wapondaponda (talk) 18:19, 23 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Agree. There is a problem with David's claim. He states that the image is sourced to "the image is accurately sourced to "The History and Geography of Human Genes" by L. Luca Cavalli-Sforza, Paolo Menozzi, & Alberto Piazza", but the image file clearly states it's from Jensen. Furthermore David should know this as he was the one who uploaded the image. I'm sceptical of this image, for one thing it has Basques and Lapps (Sami) as Indo-Europeans, but neither of these groups speak Indo-European languages. Sami is an Uralic language, and Basques speak, well Basque, which is a language isolate. The other problem with this cladogram is that it's not very accurate and seems to have been designed to be misleading.

There are other problems with misleading statements in the text of the article, I cover them in the section below, but I'm particularly unhappy about claims of "genetically defined" populations. That means next to nothing of any substance. We should try to avoid apparently technical sounding phrases that are meaningless in the real world of genetics.

Further more claims that "races" comprise of individuals who are always genetically more similar to each other than they are to people without the "race" need to be supported by exceptional sources because these are claims that have been repeatedly debunked by anthropologists, molecular anthropologists, molecular biologists and population geneticists again and again.

I suggest that if we must have a cladogram, then the most accurate on is something more similar to the one in the paper I link to above, it shows clearly that most variation occurs in Africa, that there are African groups are closer to non-African groups than they are to other African groups (giving the lie to the claim that Africans are always more similar to other Africans than they are to non-Africans), that genetic distances between African groups are often larger than those of all non-Africans from each other combined, and that all non-African groups are sub-groups of African groups.

My personal problem with cladograms is that they portray a false sense of isolation between the groups. Most often in biology cladograms are used to draw distinctions between groups of organisms at the specific scale or above. When used in that case the fact that no gene flow is indicated between groups is accurate. But to apply the same method to intra-specific and indeed intra-subspecific groups produces a false sense that these groups are discrete. Kittles and Weiss (2003) say it best when they say

Cavalli-Sforza and many other prominent authors have presented the analytic results in tree-like diagrams of relationships among populations (18, 120, 121, 145,167). Dendrograms are a visual convenience for presenting data, but it is easy to lapse into accepting the populations thus portrayed as taxonomic rather than merely statistical spatial spot-sampling units, and equating these population samples to colloquially defined races as if the latter have the same kind of biological reality. However, careful geneticists know that if we had more geographically comprehensive samples, human genetic variation is actually characterized by clines (spatial gradients) of allele frequency rather than categorical variation between populations, and the pattern varies among genes for the historic reasons of drift, selection, and demographic history (18). Even defined in the usual ways, races do not correspond to discrete, much less monomorphic, human types. Instead, the pattern of variation can generally be described as isolation by distance: Genetic differences between populations are roughly proportional to the geographic distance between them.

Although obviously one cannot take a rejectionist stance simply because cladograms are used so frequently in genetics texts. Alun (talk) 21:45, 23 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Would something like this image be any better? As can be seen from the web page where it's found, this is cited to Cavalli-Sforza directly, rather than to Jensen. I suppose something like this could be considered better than what the article had originally, although apart from who it's cited to, it's not very different.

As can be seen from the diagram that's cited directly to Cavalli-Sforza, the original diagram in his study shows this apparent isolation. The reason for this is because his study deliberately avoided admixed populations, and only examined people whose ancestors had lived in the same area prior to 1492. Obviously, this is going to result in populations appearing more clearly-defined than they actually are at present. But when we're describing Cavalli-Sforza's study (as we do in the current article), we shouldn't be deliberately omitting some of his results because they present a "false sense of isolation". What we should do is present his results, while also explaining the methods he used that caused his results to appear the way they did. --Captain Occam (talk) 13:32, 24 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I’ve just replaced the image with a better one. As far as I can tell, the only real problem with this image was that it was cited to Jensen, when it ought to be cited to Cavalli-Sforza directly, since (as I pointed out above) there isn’t any significant difference between Jensen’s image and the original one from Cavalli-Sforza.

In fact, the image in Jensen’s book appears to be an exact copy of the one from Cavalli-Sforza. The credits for the image in Jensen's book state, "Cavalli-Sforza, L.L., Menozzi, P. & Piazza, A,. The history and geography of human genes. Copyright © 1994 by Princeton University Press. Reprinted by permission of Princeton University Press." This image wouldn't state that it's a copyrighted portion of the original study, and was reprinted with the permission of the original study's publisher, if it weren't the same image.

I’ve also added a sentence to the paragraph introducing Cavalli-Sforza’s study, in order to better explain why Cavalli-Sforza’s results show a greater degree of isolation than actually exists between these populations in the present. Hopefully these changes will address most people’s concerns. --Captain Occam (talk) 14:13, 24 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I have broken the discussion up since the image above was making it hard to format correctly. talk claims "Furthermore David should know this as he was the one who uploaded the image." Untrue. Please get your facts straight. All that I have done is to protest the deletion of this image until something better is found to replace it. Assuming that Captain Occam is correct and this image is taken from a perfect copy of Cavalli-Sforza, then the fact that the editor who created it first found it in a book by Jensen is irrelevant. David.Kane (talk) 15:00, 24 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Even so, in this case I suppose it's better for it to be cited to Cavalli-Sforza directly rather than to Jensen, hence my having updated it. --Captain Occam (talk) 15:07, 24 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This is what is actually written in History and Geography of Human Genes regarding the image

The nine clusters chosen differ in their genetic homogeneity, but we are interested in establishing history and not in generating a classification scheme. A criticism raised by Bateman et al. (1990a) on this point misses the difference between taxonomy and phylogenetic analysis. Even if we were interested in taxonomy, calibrating the homogeneity of clusters on the basis of genetic distance in a tree would still generate an arbitrary classification that would inevitably depend on the sample of populations chosen. Lest there be no misunderstanding, we (Cavalli-Sforza et al. 1988; Cavalli-Sforza and Piazza 1990), unlike others (Bateman et al. 1990a, b) do not give the clustering obtained in the tree of figures 2.3.2 and 2.3.3 any "racial" meaning for reasons discussed in the first chapter. Clusters were formed for reducing the complexity of the data and were given specific names in order to simplify the discussion

Consequently any use of this image that attaches a racial meaning to these groups contradicts what the authors of the image have stated about the image. The quote from Kittles and Weiss 2003 has summarized perfectly how dendograms can be misused to imply the existence of discrete races. Occam on his talk page and blog has stated that he believes that there is a "biological basis for the concept of race". While he is entitled to his own opinion, Wikipedia isn't the place for original research or POV pushing. Wapondaponda (talk) 19:41, 24 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Why does my personal opinion, which I’ve expressed outside of Wikipedia, have any relevance here? If I were to research your own personal opinion as expressed at your personal website, and found that I didn’t like it, would that make your contributions “POV pushing” even if you were following Wikipedia’s policy with them?

The reason why this chart belongs in the article is quite simple: the section of the article that included it is discussing Cavalli-Sforza’s study, and Cavalli-Sforza’s study contains this image. As I stated before, if Cavalli-Sforza considers this image a useful illustration of his data, then we have no justification to think otherwise. In its present state, the article does not claim that the clusters shown on the chart necessarily represent racial groups, and readers who reach their own conclusion about this are not engaging in original research unless they include those conclusions in the article.

Ramdrake and Alun’s concerns (that the image doesn’t accurately represent Cavalli-Sforza’s data, and that Jensen shouldn’t be considered a reliable source about genetics) have been addressed at this point, and the article and image has been changed to take their concerns into consideration. However, neither of them mentioned my personal motives as a valid reason for removing this image. Unless you or they can raise a problem with this image that isn’t based on bulverism, it belongs in the article for the reason given above. --Captain Occam (talk) 22:10, 24 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding this undo by me. Who says these groups are "genetically defined"? And what does "genetically defined" mean in this context? We're an encyclopaedia right? SO we shouldn't bandy about words or phrases that are opaque. I am actually a geneticist by profession and education and as far as I know a genetically defined population would be one where the whole genome of each member of the population would be known. It might also mean something like an inbred mouse strain like this, where we know that each member of the strain will certainly carry a specific copy of a specific allele, e.g. see Nude mouse. That is not the case here.

I've also just noticed that the sentence immediately prior to this claims

"This study found that the populations examined by Cavalli-Sforza were clustered into several larger groups, each of whose populations are genetically closer to one another than they are to any populations outside of the group."

Who says this? In fact clustering does not mean that each membe rof the group is alwasy closer to another member of the group genetically than to a member of another group. Clustering means that each member of a group is genetically closer to the typical genotype for this group than it is to the typical genotype of another group. Witherspoon et al. (2007) "Genetic similarities within and between populations" Genetics 176: 351–359 doi:10.1534/genetics.106.067355 explain how it is possible to accurately classify people into groups even when they can still be more genetically similar to someone outside of their group. This sort of bold claim requires a quote I think. If we're going to include it, then we also need to give Witherspoon's conclusions because they directly contradict this claim. I'm removing it for the time being. Alun (talk) 06:21, 23 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Alun, for some reason, your cladogram doesn't show. :^< --Ramdrake (talk) 23:27, 23 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sometimes .svg images take a while to display properly from the commons. I don't know why that is. Try clicking on the image, and then clicking on it again from it's description page. For me the image displays in my browser OK, just not embedded in Wikipedia. Usually this sorts itself out after a few hours. Alun (talk) 04:20, 24 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]