you were being sarcastic about what? you claiming that hitler was a capitalist?

To my post that you replied to in this thread.

with regards to race identification, it depends on the context

In the context of this thread topic, let's hear your solution.

penguins don't have wings? really? so what are those objects attached to their shoulders?

so am i to assume that like him you believe that animals cannot be sorted into groups?

"This cannot be a serious question ... can it? "

you find him claiming that animals cannot be sorted into groups to be a valid proposition?

Yeah, I was kinda hoping a mod would ask for people to steer the conversation back on track but it's kind of entertaining watch these people argue like they are polymats of the highest degree of genius in all these fields. Screw it, let them makes fools of themselves when it is so cringingly obvious they are consulting google before answering every reply.

They are not meaningless on paper which is the issue here, they may be meaningless socially and I totally agree on that but saying they are meaningless when gathering statistics is like saying blood type is meaningless. It has real world implications as many have mentioned above, medically and legally and as I said in my last post someone choosing to identify as another race because they feel that way instead of the reality of it ignores years of research and scientific progress. I'm no biologist, statistician or a frigging genius polymath as many in this thread seem to believe they are because they have google at hand but it doesn't take one to see how badly ignoring fact and reality can go wrong, not only for the students of Delaware but society as a whole. We are supposed to be progressing, not regressing and this seems to be no different than burning books in the same way civilizations have destroyed themselves before, albeit more subtle, especially when lumping this in with the general social view on most other things these days. You can't have fact and opinion coincide to your liking, it just doesn't work, it's either or.

1) "The issue is that between-group variation typically overlaps (which is something I said in my last post), leaving you with competing ranges of 70-120 vs 80-130. As such, the majority of the "difference" is virtually indistinguishable. "

its virtually indistinguishable only if you are ideologically controlled 

skin cancer for example overwhelmingly impacts white people over black people

is that because of social conditioning?

2) "Do you consider hypertension to be a natural social division? "

what?

do you not remember that this was the original question?

""since when have we divided humans based on susceptibility to high blood pressure? ""

i'm saying that hypertension is clearly a division based on susceptibility to high blood pressure, what is your response to that? 

3) "Because that is about the potential of being contagious."

huh? isn't the purpose of the vaccine to stop the disease regardless? so why would it matter?

4) "How is it like that in literally any way?"

attributes that go into the past, your example was high blood pressure, mine was interest in men

1) And a number of diseases are significantly more common among the Finnish than any other population. Does that mean the Finnish should be considered a different race? Fact is, the patterns in allele frequencies seen between what are commonly referred to as "races" are not significant enough to make that distinction. They are often of less intensity than variations which occur between populations within "races" and overall, distinct boundaries are not present to allow the differentiation of "races". For more of the more scientific aspect of this conversation, see this post: http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=8731357

2) I had assumed you would understand my point through the context of my post, but since you didn't, I rephrased it in a way which was more difficult to misunderstand. To rephrase again, characteristics like, say, blood type, lose their relevance outside of a very specific context. As such, outside of that context, you would not use blood type as a means of grouping. On the other hand, there are characteristics such as age, which have a broad context of applicability. As such, grouping based on these characteristics does not require any specific context. Race is not a characteristic which holds a broad context of relevance. There are a few select potential medical uses, however, those are often dwarfed by other characteristics such as family history, or overly broad and imprecise leading to, for example, common misdiagnoses among certain populations due to race based expectations. As such, they largely lack any reasonable relevance outside of some very niche medical applications, which are outside of the purview of these school systems. 

3) Again, this is largely irrelevant to the conversation, however, the reason why it matters when certain groups of people don't vaccinate their children is because of a concept called herd immunity. Basically it means that some groups within the population, such as those with weak immune systems, cannot receive vaccinations. As such, they rely on herd immunity which refers to the immunity of the group, which reduces potential exposure to disease. Totally off topic though, so I probably won't continue down this line of discussion in this thread (but feel free to open another thread if you want to discuss it in more depth). 

4) It still doesn't make any sense. Perhaps the confusion on this point will be resolved by something I said above. If not, you will have to lay out your logic in detail if you wish to continue discussing this strange comment. 

Compare the things penguins have to the things dolphins have.  Then sea turtles.  Now compare the things penguins have to the things ducks have.  Which is more different?  Or if you don't like the clear answer eyeballs can give then you can turn to expert opinion ... Do Penguins have Wings?  (Hint: flippers)

I don't think you'll find that he made the blanket assertion that there exist no groups into which animals can be sorted.  He's saying that there are a lot of everyday groupings that on close scientific examination actually have fuzzy gray areas for borders.  Additionally, he's saying that through "common descent", there is no sudden breakpoint where whales popped into existence where no such creature existed before; it was all gradual differences and thus Ancestor Species A and Descendant Species B is just a human distinction when the millions of generations are collectively just a relatively smooth transition.  There was never a female clearly of species A (not B) that gave birth to a baby clearly of species B (not A). 

None of the above has any resemblance to "elephants swimming with fish" which, if true, is meaningless to the discussion; and, if false, is also meaningless to the discussion. 

I ask you again:  what was the point of your question, "why don't elephants swim with fish in schools?"

1) "And a number of diseases are significantly more common among the Finnish than any other population."

yes which is one aspect of what makes a race, but like i amazingly had to explain to the other guy we take several factors into consideration when making these distinctions

we don't call a platypus a bird just because it lays eggs for example

i asked you before and you refused to answer me, but i'll ask again... are you claiming that black people and asian people are the same?

2) "Race is not a characteristic which holds a broad context of relevance."

well if you ignore the fact that it impacts all interactions between people, yeah i guess you could say that

let me ask you a question if a black guy robbed you and you were asked to describe the person would allow this silly ideology to stop you from using his race as an identifier?

", however, the reason why it matters when certain groups of people don't vaccinate their children is because of a concept called herd immunity. "

honestly i had never looked into that, so at least i've learned something here

" It still doesn't make any sense."

well i'll drop it, the more relevant parts of the conversation were addressed above anyway

1) Are Asian and Black people the same? No. Are Finnish people and French people the same? No. There is no biological reality of race. That does not mean variation does not exist across the species, it simply means that such variation is not in the form of distinct races, and as such, distinct races are not an accurate representation of that genetic diversity. There is a variety of allele frequencies across the population, however, genetic diversity within humanity exists in the form of a cline. This means that genetic diversity is a fairly continuous spectrum, not something that can neatly be divided up by any natural biological principle. Again, for more on this, look up the post that I linked which goes into detail about why "race" is not a biological classification. 

2) The broad importance of race is that of a social construct. That is largely what this conversation was about. Whether or not the importance of race is real or whether it is socially imposed. As for the hypothetical of being robbed by a black man, I would describe his physical characteristics, not use his race, as I don't know his race. Even still, not really sure what that hypothetical really has to do with my point.