Funny Events of the "Woke" world

[Dwarvenhobble]

Uhh, not to interrupt , but is an anthropologist saying "hey, we should stop using phrenology" a good thing? You know, because phrenology is bullshit?

Uncloaking a Lost Cause: Decolonizing ancestry estimation in the United States

Special Issue: Race reconciled II: Interpreting and communicating biological variation and race in 2021 Confederate monument in Bedford County, VA used as an analogy for the use of a similarly racist...

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

Well based on the papers out there it's based on regression algorithms and population data and jaw bone variations along with skull features

Determination of Race from the Skeleton through Forensic Anthropological Methods - PubMed

Metric and morphological techniques employed by forensic anthropologists for determination of race are reviewed. Included are several studies which examine cranial morphological techniques such as presence of the oval window of the inner ear, which occurs more frequently in Whites than in Native...

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

You could probably also throw in mineral analysis as some areas minerals end up in the bones.

 

[Agema]

Uhh, not to interrupt , but is an anthropologist saying "hey, we should stop using phrenology" a good thing? You know, because phrenology is bullshit?

To be fair, they're not describing phrenology.

Phrenology was a pseudoscience that attributed various aspects of cognition to various parts of the brain - all of which were totally made up (and some things that thoughts were ascribed to were not even part of the brain). Then as a further extension, that a person's cognitive capability could be deduced by the shape of their skull, as if in some way the skull was formed by the brain exerting its power such that the skull would enlargen over the bits of the brain that were the most impressive. Phrenology is thus distinct from the argument that forms of gross physical anatomy are heritable.

Vikings is colonial phrasing anyhow, it's Vikangs.

If you're the sort of credulous fool who believes anything they read on the internet, maybe.

 

[tstorm823]

Uhh, not to interrupt , but is an anthropologist saying "hey, we should stop using phrenology" a good thing? You know, because phrenology is bullshit?

Uncloaking a Lost Cause: Decolonizing ancestry estimation in the United States

Special Issue: Race reconciled II: Interpreting and communicating biological variation and race in 2021 Confederate monument in Bedford County, VA used as an analogy for the use of a similarly racist...

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

Uncloaking a Lost Cause: Decolonizing ancestry estimation in the United States

Special Issue: Race reconciled II: Interpreting and communicating biological variation and race in 2021 Confederate monument in Bedford County, VA used as an analogy for the use of a similarly racist...

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

That is the page they are pulling from, you are correct. Does not mention phrenology (that my search found, feel free to check me, on my phone atm). Does actually state their method was critical race theory and their goal is to abolish all ancestry estimation because it perpetuates the biological race concept.

I read down further than I intended, and holy crap. They acknowledge that modern forensic methods for identifying race from a skull are successful in identifying global human variations that correspond with socially recognize racial categories, but insist race is a purely social concept in need of deconstruction, and then end with the old "and if you don't like our analysis, you're actually racist".

Like, next time someone pulls the "CRT is just a law school thing", you can look back at this, where university anthropologists decided based in CRT that race needed to be removed from anthropology.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

To be fair, they're not describing phrenology.

Phrenology was a pseudoscience that attributed various aspects of cognition to various parts of the brain - all of which were totally made up (and some things that thoughts were ascribed to were not even part of the brain). Then as a further extension, that a person's cognitive capability could be deduced by the shape of their skull, as if in some way the skull was formed by the brain exerting its power such that the skull would enlargen over the bits of the brain that were the most impressive. Phrenology is thus distinct from the argument that forms of gross physical anatomy are heritable.

I disagree: they're absolutely discussing race science, of which phrenology is an consequence of. It's the equivalent of astronomers looking at its foundational astrology and going "okay, have we actually done the work to root out all of the false assumptions we brought forward?"

I'd argue that "how many assumptions are we using come from that old bullshit and how much is fact?" is a worthwhile argument to have.

Uncloaking a Lost Cause: Decolonizing ancestry estimation in the United States

Special Issue: Race reconciled II: Interpreting and communicating biological variation and race in 2021 Confederate monument in Bedford County, VA used as an analogy for the use of a similarly racist...

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

That is the page they are pulling from.

Yes, I know, that's why I linked to it.

Does not mention phrenology (that my search found, feel free to check me, on my phone atm). Does actually state their method was critical race theory and their goal is to abolish all ancestry estimation because it perpetuates the biological race concept.

Race science, phrenology, same diff. Section three has the definition for phrenology without calling it out by it's pseudoscientific name

I read down further than I intended,

You didn't intend to read The whole thing? Why?

and holy crap. They acknowledge that modern forensic methods for identifying race from a skull are successful in identifying global human variations that correspond with socially recognize racial categories, but insist race is a purely social concept in need of deconstruction, and then end with the old "and if you don't like our analysis, you're actually racist".

Not shockingly, actually reading the third section has the authors saying "sometimes our assumptions pan out, kinda, long as you accept guesses that mostly kinda work". And that's not science.

Like, next time someone pulls the "CRT is just a law school thing", you can look back at this, where university anthropologists decided based in CRT that race needed to be removed from anthropology.

They're actually arguing that, as university anthropologists, the only race is "human" and that we shouldn't be perpetuating the idea that, say, black people are a distinctly different race than white people, etc. Which is correct, by the way. Race, in that way, needs to be removed from anthropology because it inaccurate.

 

[tstorm823]

They're actually arguing that, as university anthropologists, the only race is "human" and that we shouldn't be perpetuating the idea that, say, black people are a distinctly different race than white people, etc. Which is correct, by the way. Race, in that way, needs to be removed from anthropology because it inaccurate.

So a concept of race that anthropologists don't use is the justification for eliminating all ancestry estimation? That sure makes sense!

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

So a concept of race that anthropologists don't use is the justification for eliminating all ancestry estimation? That sure makes sense!

Given that they don't actually have hard proof for 75%-80% of the "ancestry estimation" they do? And that the stuff they do have proof on isn't as cut and dry as "this means black race and this means white race"? I'd hope that makes sense.

Thought you said you read it?

 

[tstorm823]

Given that they don't actually have hard proof for 75%-80% of the "ancestry estimation" they do? And that the stuff they do have proof on isn't as cut and dry as "this means black race and this means white race"? I'd hope that makes sense.

They don't have "hard proof" for 100% of ancestry "estimation", but that is not the point they are making. The thing they believe to be lacking is published heritability data, which are estimates of how much of a trait is explained by genetics and how much is explained by environment or behavior. That does not mean the statistical correlation isn't well established, only that it can be further broken down And if you want to increase confidence in your conclusion, using 17 factors is better than just the most analyzed 5.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

They don't have "hard proof" for 100% of ancestry "estimation", but that is not the point they are making. The thing they believe to be lacking is published heritability data, which are estimates of how much of a trait is explained by genetics and how much is explained by environment or behavior. That does not mean the statistical correlation isn't well established, only that it can be further broken down And if you want to increase confidence in your conclusion, using 17 factors is better than just the most analyzed 5.

Which makes it astrology, yeah. Based on assumptions from ye ol' race "science" and a much more segregated society. Why the fuck would I have increased confidence in a 17 point factor instead of a 5 point factor when 12 of those points came from phrenologists who're just rolling with shit?

 

[tstorm823]

Which makes it astrology, yeah. Based on assumptions from ye ol' race "science" and a much more segregated society. Why the fuck would I have increased confidence in a 17 point factor instead of a 5 point factor when 12 of those points came from phrenologists who're just rolling with shit?

Because they aren't from phrenologists. They are from modern measurements showing statistically significant correlations.

I don't know exact things, so imma make up something up. Imagine there is some dimension in the skull that is extra small in Irish people, such that in a significant data pool, 95% of skulls with a certain size of that dimension have Irish ancestry. A forensic anthropologist might use that as a single data point to an educated guess at the skeletons ancestry. The paper is saying that of the 17 measurements that the authors themselves accept correlate effectively to global human variations associated with race, only 5 have thorough published data studying what percentage of those well evidenced correlations are explained by genetics alone. That does not mean the evidence for the correlations is lacking in any way.

 

[Buyetyen]

I don't know exact things, so imma make up something up.

I just wanted to highlight this, free of context. No particular reason.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

Because they aren't from phrenologists. They are from modern measurements showing statistically significant correlations.

I don't know exact things, so imma make up something up. Imagine there is some dimension in the skull that is extra small in Irish people, such that in a significant data pool, 95% of skulls with a certain size of that dimension have Irish ancestry. A forensic anthropologist might use that as a single data point to an educated guess at the skeletons ancestry. The paper is saying that of the 17 measurements that the authors themselves accept correlate effectively to global human variations associated with race, only 5 have thorough published data studying what percentage of those well evidenced correlations are explained by genetics alone. That does not mean the evidence for the correlations is lacking in any way.

Why are you making shit up? Is it because most of the "hard" data currently available comes from race scientists and phrenologists, which might taint the data with unfounded assumptions? Which we wouldn't know about because actual study into this stuff is lacking?

Also assuming that "Irish" is a race and not a nationality, which is the main fucking point of the study, you know, how we shouldn't fucking be doing shit like that because it just gives racists cover

 

[tstorm823]

Why are you making shit up? Is it because most of the "hard" data currently available comes from race scientists and phrenologists, which might taint the data with unfounded assumptions? Which we wouldn't know about because actual study into this stuff is lacking?

Also assuming that "Irish" is a race and not a nationality, which is the main fucking point of the study, you know, how we shouldn't fucking be doing shit like that because it just gives racists cover

I'm giving a hypothetical because I'm not a forensic anthropologist, and I don't know anything about skull geometry.

I'm not assuming "Irish" is a race. The term used by anthropologists, as stated within the paper, is "ancestry". They aren't trying to end the use of the word race in identifying skeletons, they are trying to end the use of ancestry because it's an overlapping concept.

 

[Dreiko]

Uncloaking a Lost Cause: Decolonizing ancestry estimation in the United States

Special Issue: Race reconciled II: Interpreting and communicating biological variation and race in 2021 Confederate monument in Bedford County, VA used as an analogy for the use of a similarly racist...

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

That is the page they are pulling from, you are correct. Does not mention phrenology (that my search found, feel free to check me, on my phone atm). Does actually state their method was critical race theory and their goal is to abolish all ancestry estimation because it perpetuates the biological race concept.

I read down further than I intended, and holy crap. They acknowledge that modern forensic methods for identifying race from a skull are successful in identifying global human variations that correspond with socially recognize racial categories, but insist race is a purely social concept in need of deconstruction, and then end with the old "and if you don't like our analysis, you're actually racist".

Like, next time someone pulls the "CRT is just a law school thing", you can look back at this, where university anthropologists decided based in CRT that race needed to be removed from anthropology.

Maybe they're lawyer anthrololpgists so they only learned it in law school but they're applying it in their cranial analysis too.

 

[Agema]

I disagree: they're absolutely discussing race science, of which phrenology is an consequence of.

No - phrenology is not a consequence of race science, it was adopted by race science. It was intended to be universal - for instance to be able to distinguish anyone's personality traits, intelligence, inclination to criminality, etc.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

Maybe they're lawyer anthrololpgists so they only learned it in law school but they're applying it in their cranial analysis too.

Forensic anthropologists work with cops. Using a law framework is probably a good idea

No - phrenology is not a consequence of race science, it was adopted by race science. It was intended to be universal - for instance to be able to distinguish anyone's personality traits, intelligence, inclination to criminality, etc.

It's also a pseudoscience that slotted immediately into racism, so who cares?

I'm giving a hypothetical because I'm not a forensic anthropologist, and I don't know anything about skull geometry.

I'm not assuming "Irish" is a race. The term used by anthropologists, as stated within the paper, is "ancestry". They aren't trying to end the use of the word race in identifying skeletons, they are trying to end the use of ancestry because it's an overlapping concept.

Neat. That's not how it's getting reported, now is it?

 

[Dwarvenhobble]

If you're the sort of credulous fool who believes anything they read on the internet, maybe.

The last bit is a standing joke online in some areas combined with the fact Kang the conqueror in Marvel is now a black guy rather than indeterminate or implied to be a white guy in some panels.

 

[Dwarvenhobble]

I disagree: they're absolutely discussing race science, of which phrenology is an consequence of. It's the equivalent of astronomers looking at its foundational astrology and going "okay, have we actually done the work to root out all of the false assumptions we brought forward?"

I'd argue that "how many assumptions are we using come from that old bullshit and how much is fact?" is a worthwhile argument to have.
Yes, I know, that's why I linked to it.
Race science, phrenology, same diff. Section three has the definition for phrenology without calling it out by it's pseudoscientific name
You didn't intend to read The whole thing? Why?
Not shockingly, actually reading the third section has the authors saying "sometimes our assumptions pan out, kinda, long as you accept guesses that mostly kinda work". And that's not science.

They're actually arguing that, as university anthropologists, the only race is "human" and that we shouldn't be perpetuating the idea that, say, black people are a distinctly different race than white people, etc. Which is correct, by the way. Race, in that way, needs to be removed from anthropology because it inaccurate.

Dude a 70% to 95% correct analysis method shows it works (Numbers based on previously linked research I posted)
If you're arguing 70% to 95% isn't good enough then we might as well scrap the vaccines too because turns out they're not good or effective enough either when that's about the level of their effectiveness too.

Especially when social fields how 30% correlation as proof of a phenomena and 50% and absolute proof of something lol.

We still forecast the weather and that's probably less accurate than the 70% to 95%.

Part of why they're mad and don't like it is it keeps debunking their bullshit and attempts at historical revisionism. These seem just like more idiots from "Indigenous Science" trying to push into a field again.

As for University etc. Look as much as I hate to be that guy who points out race does have an impact it really does due to stuff like Vitamin D production changes due to melanin and the more or less common presence of certain genetic things. There's a reason multiple times I've walked into a Doctors office and they looked at me, looked back at me file, look at me again and asked in a confused voice if I was the right person and then say "Oh I'm sorry reading your file I expected a black guy" because I have a genetic condition mostly seen in people from the Mediterranean because some-where in my past some of my ancestors were from there (the family tale goes it's from a pirate who got on well with the tribes there and retired to a private island marrying the daughter of a tribal chief when he did. )

Which makes it astrology, yeah. Based on assumptions from ye ol' race "science" and a much more segregated society. Why the fuck would I have increased confidence in a 17 point factor instead of a 5 point factor when 12 of those points came from phrenologists who're just rolling with shit?

Guess we better stop Covid-19 testing as that doesn't manage 100% accuracy either and therefore it's all just magic astrology in determining if a person has the virus lol

Also as was explained to you earlier Phrenology was associated with applying the idea of behaviour to skull shape far more than race. Even if racism placed into it.

 

[Gergar12]

I am not opposed to teaching race, but I am opposed to Robin DiAngelo who by the way is a corporate consultant who never defines what racism is, but is a grifter who wants your college to pay for HER diversity training as if there isn't diversity consultants and admin. And by the way, I support these diversity initiatives, I was a first-generation college student whose parents never went to high school, and I never would have gotten into my college without affirmative action, but it's not about me, America's elite needs to be diverse perspectives in order to be dynamic enough to fight climate change and challenge shithole governments.

But the idea that paying a corporate consultant money to do diversity training in each college, and calling white progressives the problem will solve this problem is insanity.

Ibrahim X Kendi on the other does define it and is miles ahead of her, but his idea of fighting is creating an unconstitutional agency that oversees whether every law or policy is racist is undoable. We can't even get Biden to agree to raise taxes on unrealized gains, let alone M4A, and Green New Deal Major, and Universal K-16 education.

And it's not working, there is a coalition-building in the fucking suburbs between Karens, baby Boomers, social conservatives, and etc. Between Asians, Whites, Hispanics, and so fore.

Social issues, social issues, social issues. Well, dems are losing on that too.

 

[Terminal Blue]

No - phrenology is not a consequence of race science, it was adopted by race science. It was intended to be universal - for instance to be able to distinguish anyone's personality traits, intelligence, inclination to criminality, etc.

So was race science though.

It's why you ended up with "research" showing how clearly the genitalia of white prostitutes resembled that of black women, or medical literature describing how masturbation would cause people to literally devolve into lesser forms of human life and pass their inferior traits onto their children. You could argue (and I would) that scientific racism actually necessitates some kind of intra-racial hierarchy to cover for its own bullshit. If you've decided that white people are the superior race, you then need some explanation for why aren't all the perfect supermen you're claiming they are. Every system of racism has had to produce such an explanation.

Race science, certainly at its high point, was a universal system for measuring human intelligence, inclination to criminality and general worth by reference to their physical features. That's not to say phrenology is the same thing as race science, but the two are so entangled as to be pretty inseparable in historical context. After all, until quite recently almost everyone believed in a scientific racial hierarchy. Not doing so was incredibly difficult, because it was simply part of how the world worked. I seriously doubt there were many phrenologists who did not accept the existence of a racial hierarchy as an indisputable truth of the world.

Scientific racism today is a little different to the scientific racism of history, because in order to survive racists have had to rationalize it and strip it of all the things which just sound stupid and comical to a modern audience. One way of rationalizing racism is by playing down the idea of intra-racial differences and positing it as purely a comparison between racial groups. Of course, let's be real, scientific racists today still believe in the theory of hereditary degeneracy. They still believe that there are superior and inferior people within racial groups who have different racial characteristics despite technically being the same "race". They need to, because otherwise the theory doesn't work. Race is not actually a real thing, it has no scientific basis. To give it a scientific basis, you need to talk about things which are real instead of talking about race, and then pretend that one actually equals the other.

 

[tstorm823]

Neat. That's not how it's getting reported, now is it?

Do you mean that's not how the paper is being reported, or do you mean that's not how the details of found human remains get reported?