This whole thread is people making mountains out of molehills. People can "choose" their "race" in Delaware because that's what people do everywhere else too. Every time you have to fill in your ethnicity in a form or anything like that, you're basically "choosing".

And know why that exists? Because this is not as simple as some people think.

A great example would be Mariah Carey. Many people say she's black. She has black, white, Hispanic and native american descent. But I grew up in Brazil, and if I had to "choose a race" for her, I'd undoubtedly say she's white.

You can't force someone to fill in a form based on someone else's perspective, so the only plausible way to do it is to let each person fill in according to his or her own perception. Yes, if you get individual cases it might seem crazy (for example, it would be non-sensical for Justin Bieber to say that he's black), but when do you draw the line? It would be unethical to have a skin tone chart à la Family Guy saying "this skin tone is too black for the person to identify as white" or something like that.

By the way, it's scary how people from many countries, including the United States, separate white and black people so emphatically and clearly. Having grown up in Brazil, a country studied for its ethnic and cultural diversity and miscegenation, it's weird to think of such things as "black neighborhoods" or "white culture". Yes, racism is a thing in Brazil, but it's much less trivialized.

"OK, so if bats have evolved legs instead of wings, then birds have evolved legs instead of wings, too, correct?  After all, they evolved their so-called wings from legs as well.  "

yeah if you want, knock yourself out

"What exactly are your "strict groups" defining?  What is being separated and delineated?  "

well when i use the word "elephant" you understand that i'm not referring to a fish right?

why would that be?

"Although there are certainly populations that have been separated morphologically, genetically, reproduction-wise, etc., it is important to remember that they are all part of a continuum connected in the past via common ancestry."

which is irrelevant to my argument, so... i don't see why you keep bringing this up

"  So the elephant doesn't swim with the fish, but perhaps the hippopotamus's great-to-the-millionth grandfather and the whale's were the same creature."

so what?

"Where do you draw the line on the continuum?  "

again... when i use the word elephant you understand quite clearly that i'm not referring to a fish

why is that?

"Or do you just mean that because of the built-up differences over time, you are fine with the human-oriented groupings?"

how did we now start talking about human groupings from his claim about there being no clear divisions between animals?

"Where is the line between red and yellow?  "

lol i never figured that you'd just double down and actually try to back up his nonsensical argument, i must say you've surprised me

clarify this for me how is the colour spectrum between red and yellow relevant to a discussion about animal divisions?

1.  So what is the point of calling penguin flippers "evolved wings" when they are really just "evolved legs"?  Sure, penguin flippers used to be wings.  They used to be a lot of things.  They're not actually wings anymore. 

3.  I thought the analogy was pretty fucking clear but let me try to spell it out further. 

Presume that the elephant and the fish have a common ancestor.  Since the process of evolution depends on the gradual accumulation of small changes over a large number of generations, if we go back and back in time the elephant's ancestors eventually start to look a little bit more like the fish's ancestors.  Eventually you get to the common ancestor and they are the same population of creature. 

The question for you is, if there are strict natural groupings dividing all creatures including creatures that lived in the past, where do you draw the line between elephants and fish and elephant-ancestors and fish-ancestors when there is a continuum of infinitesimally different, almost identical, creatures connecting them? 

P.S.  "there is a continuum of infinitesimally different, almost identical, creatures" color spectrum analogy "there is a continuum of infinitesimally different, almost identical, colors"

Just shaking the dust off. 

"Sure, penguin flippers used to be wings.  They used to be a lot of things.  They're not actually wings anymore.  "

didn't you just agree with me that they are adapted wings?

" Since the process of evolution depends on the gradual accumulation of small changes over a large number of generations, if we go back and back in time the elephant's ancestors eventually start to look a little bit more like the fish's ancestors."

which is not relevant to discussions about the animals in the present day... so what's your point?

" I thought the analogy was pretty fucking clear"

the fact that they have a common ancestor millions of years ago is completely irrelevant to the fact that here in the present day we can tell that there is a clear division between the two groups of animals

"where do you draw the line between elephants and fish and elephant-ancestors and fish-ancestors when there is a continuum of infinitesimally different, almost identical, creatures connecting them?"

i expected better to be honest

1.  I agreed that they adapted FROM wings INTO flippers.  They are not, in their present state of evolution, wings.  I don't see why we shouldn't either call them legs (by your logic, since the wings were just evolved legs) or flippers (by my logic, since they used to be wings, and used to be legs before that, but now are more properly called flippers). 

2.  "i expected better to be honest"
I'm afraid I can't really say the same.  But I was hoping you would surprise me. 

I will make one more attempt to see if you are trolling by dumbing the logic down to an elementary school level that any minimally intelligent person who is not willfully ignorant and/or flat out lying should be able to follow.  You don't strike me as a clinically retarded person so here we go: 
a.  I grant your point that in the present day there is no living continuum of creatures leading gradualistically from elephants to fish. 
b.  You seem to have granted my point that when considering both the present and the past, including the very distant past, there has been a living continuum of creatures leading gradualistically from elephants to fish (via a common ancestor in the past).  If you do not grant this point then you should have fucking said something a long time ago, but feel free to correct your error now. 
c.  Since there is a continuum of creatures, each infinitesimally different from the next, connecting elephants to fish, where you see the natural, strict group distinctions separating one creature from another infinitesimally different one, separating mother from child even?  The fact that they are differentiable today does not mean that there is not a connection between them in the past, and the separation was never sudden by human standards.  If it appears that way to you I maintain that it is an illusion courtesy of the blurring hand of millions of years. 

I dumbed down the logic but I still used big-people words, so let me know if you need help with the vocabulary. 

Another analogy:  Where do you draw the line between the atmosphere and outer space?  The sky doesn't have a clean-cut ceiling.  The International Space Station experiences orbital decay because although it is outside what most people think of as the atmosphere there is still a very small amount of air even that high up.  Not enough to cause short term problems, so they just deal with it instead of pushing the whole thing to a much higher orbit. 

"I agreed that they adapted FROM wings INTO flippers."

so they are adapted wings?

"I grant your point that in the present day there is no living continuum of creatures leading gradualistically from elephants to fish. "

that wasn't my point, which was that fish and elephants having a common ancestor is not at all relevant, since we are talking about present time

do you understand the concepts past, present and future? linear time?

" You seem to have granted my point that when considering both the present and the past, including the very distant past, there has been a living continuum of creatures leading gradualistically from elephants to fish"

what? are you now claiming that elephants evolved into fish?

" Since there is a continuum of creatures, each infinitesimally different from the next, connecting elephants to fish, where you see the natural, strict group distinctions separating one creature from another infinitesimally different one, separating mother from child even?  "

we do so with the concept called "present time"

do you understand what present time means?

when we consider your height for example, you grew over time to your current height

does the fact that you gradually over time increased in height have any relevance to what your current height is?

if someone said "well i'm on a height continuum from a foot at birth to 6 feet now so i guess i can't really answer what my height is" that would be stupid right?... well that's your argument in a nutshell

"The fact that they are differentiable today"

thanks for conceding my point 

"I dumbed down the logic"

what logic? you just conceded my point above

i mean i only really bothered with this convo from the start to see how far you'd twist yourself just to have an argument and its been amusing

"Where do you draw the line between the atmosphere and outer space?"

the boundary occurs where atmospheric pressure reaches zero... that's why we call it "space" to begin with

0.  I now believe you are intentionally trolling, but I'll play this out a little while longer.  Please pay attention to the numbers since they changed. 

1.  No, your term "adapted wings" is pointless.  It means nothing more than "they don't have wings, but their ancestors did". 

2.  Yes, I do. 

3.  No, that isn't even remotely close to what I am arguing.  You aren't even in the ballpark of describing the concept.  Go back and reread carefully, and take note of the parts you fail to understand.  Let me know what parts are beyond your comprehension. 

4.  Okay, so someone was 1 foot tall at birth and they are 6 feet tall now.  I think it would be fair to say that you were short when you were 1 foot tall, and let's say 6 feet tall counts as "tall".  Do you think it would be possible to identify the exact moment they stopped being "short" and began being "tall"?  I.e., 17 years 3 months 23 days old?  Or is there a fuzzy area?  Would you say these are just groups humans use to help categorize the world around them and "short" and "tall" are not "natural strict groups"

5.  You're welcome, but that's not the only claim you've made. 

6.  So, for example, you would say that the International Space Station is not in space? 

"I now believe you are intentionally trolling, but I'll play this out a little while longer."

"No, your term "adapted wings" is pointless."

so why did you agree that they have adapted wings yourself multiple times?

"what? are you now claiming that elephants evolved into fish?"

"No, that isn't even remotely close to what I am arguing."

"there has been a living continuum of creatures leading gradualistically from elephants to fish"

uh... ok, if you say so

"  Do you think it would be possible to identify the exact moment they stopped being "short" and began being "tall""

is irrelevant to their current height which is 6 feet... wtf

do you not understand that present time is a different concept to a time range? you seem to be incapable of differentiating the two

"but that's not the only claim you've made." 

i've only really made two points... and so far you've conceded both multiple times...

" So, for example, you would say that the International Space Station is not in space? "

are you having difficulty with the concept of atmospheric pressure now? all it is referring to is the measure of the magnitude of the force of air pressing on an object at a particular altitude

the magnitude of this force reduces the further away from the earth's surface an object gets until eventually it falls to zero ( i think i'm wrong here its probably near zero ) at a certain distance away from the earth's surface

what does any of this have to do with the ISS?

0.  Not sure why you quoted me without comment ... are you admitting it? 

1.  At the time I was underestimating your stupidity. 
"your term "adapted wings" is pointless."
BECAUSE
"what is the point of calling penguin flippers "evolved wings" when they are really just "evolved legs"?"

ANALOGY It's like you saying "I'm a grown up eleven year old."  Sure, you used to be eleven.  You used to be a lot of ages.  What's the point? 

CONCLUSION If you entire argument is that penguins, which currently do not have actual wings, evolved from a species that in the past did have actual wings, then I agree with your claim. 

But I don't see why you insist on using "evolved wings" to describe what penguins are swimming through the ocean with instead of a term that describes the sort of limb they CURRENTLY have instead of what they USED to have.  Are you the one who has trouble with differentiating past and present? 

3.  I see now that I will have to literally draw you a picture. 
"there has been a living continuum of creatures leading gradualistically from elephants to fish (via a common ancestor in the past)"*

                          common ancestor
                  _--'''                                '''--_
elephants                                                fish

4.  In order for you to claim that what I am saying is wrong, then you have to dispute this actual argument, not its relevance.  In order for your argument about strict natural groups that are clearly differentiable from one another with no gray area in between to hold up, in my opinion you have to explain how to differentiate between the natural groups that creatues of the past would fall into, not just creatures of the present.  However, if you want to just talk about strict artificial groups that humans can identify in presently living creatures to help us understand the world we live in, then you don't have to worry about creatures of the past. 

5.  I don't even understand what your "evolved wings" claim IS, so how could I concede it?  I conceded that they were "evolved wings" in the sense that the flippers they currently have "evolved" FROM "wings", but I don't know if that is what you mean by the term you insist on using. 

And your "two claims" aren't including disputing the claims of others. 

6.  "( i think i'm wrong here its probably near zero )"  Yeah you better fucking believe you're wrong, since I already explained this to you.  The ISS loses altitude due to the "near zero" part.  So if the atmosphere goes up until there is NO Earth air left whatsoever, then the ISS is not in space.  But if the ISS is in space, and there is Earth air in space, then you have not yet come up with a "natural, strict" differentiation of the atmosphere versus outer space.  Humans use a certain atmospheric pressure at the cutoff point, but this is clearly an artificial distinction made for convenience; the line is drawn between black and white in the middle of a gray area. 

*7.  "what? are you now claiming that elephants evolved into fish?"
"No, that isn't even remotely close to what I am arguing."
"there has been a living continuum of creatures leading gradualistically from elephants to fish"
uh... ok, if you say so
"there has been a living continuum of creatures leading gradualistically from elephants to fish (via a common ancestor in the past)"

Oh.  Deliberately cutting off the quote midsentence because that was literally the only possible way for you to twist my words in such a way to allow even the appearance of being able to misunderstand me.  Well, now I know for a fact that you are either trolling me or have been driven literally insane by your biases.