Poll: Is Not Dating a Certain Race Racist?

[kingthrall]

Who cares about racism or sexism? I don't I don't encourage it but you cant help to wonder these people meet people with similar tastes, is that not the purpose of diversity. You cant have one side of the coin without the other.

 

[The Wooster]

Considering "black" describes a ton of different women from all across the spectrum, I'd perhaps call it close minded, but it's not racism in the general meaning of the word.

 

[runic knight]

-big snip-

I'll just do a reply to the lot here, and unfortunately most of it seems to be you repeating a point against something I was not arguing directly, as well as reaching for motive, again. There is a ton to sort through and I don't think breaking it down into point by point again and again seems to be working. So instead a smaller reply.

First, your every post is merely you repeating the same insistence of things. There is no biological factor that influences attraction to race. I get it, I understand. You've not proved it, merely repeated it. I get that race is a social construct, though you miss that is NOT what I am arguing here. I agree it is a social construct. I have repeatedly explained how my thoughts on attraction itself work in relation to race. I have explained that my thought here is that attraction to physical traits has biological influences. I've compared this to homosexuality to demonstrate that sexual desire is related to biology in that way, and further supported it by mentioning universal body language that highlights features as a way to demonstrate interest (which because of the universal nature, and the countless examples within other animal species) suggest a more biological root in those cases. So we now have orientation as well as physical behavior that highlights physical traits that can be tied to biology. With me so far?

Now, I have readily explained my stance here in relation to traits, not race, traits. Then explained how traits could relate to races because of how they are a social construct. That you keep arguing biology to race directly sort of shows I am not reaching you on that detail or you are jumping the gun because arguing traits eventually gets to race. But don't, it is bad form to argue the implications of my stance as a problem with the stance itself, which is what you keep doing. Because of 3 failed attempts thus far, I will just be blunt to express this point this 4th time.

Biology affects attraction to physical traits = yes
Biology affects attraction to race on basis of race = no

I am aware race is a social construct. I, in fact, use this as part of my case, because the way races are determined are by physical traits (hair and skin color, eye shape, etc) more so then geographic origin even.

So, the majority of your complaints about race themselves are utterly worthless here. Race is unrelated until we determine the relation of biology to physical traits first.

Is there some hormonal or biological guidance to or against a race itself? I don't know, I can't get you to talk to me on some hormonal or biological guidance to or against basic physical traits first in order to go beyond that. After all, since I am arguing something I don't know concretely against something you don't know concretely, then trying to find common ground in what data we have and can agree on seems a good place to start. So, do you agree or disagree that biology can influence attraction to physical traits? I have mentioned universal body language of attraction that highlights physical features, which in turn suggests that if such features are being highlighted, the notice of them would be biologically influenced (as supported by why the body language itself is hard wired in). I could also mention simple face/mood recognition within humans to reveal an innate biological ability to express and understand others of our race, so much so that people will mistake similar expressions for the wrong intent in other animals. Hell I could talk about the habit of drive to want to protect "cute" things because of their relation to maternal/paternal instinct and the big eye, softness and oversized heads traits are identified.



you know what. I'm just going to go one step at a time because you spend far too much of my presuming motive and arguing a stance that I am not actually making then you do actually addressing anything. Instead, I want you to read above and repeat to me what my stance is. I want you to demonstrate that you understand what I am trying to say and are not just going to, again, jump three steps and dismiss the conclusion because you didn't bother to see the steps there.

 

[runic knight]

I have explained that my thought here is that attraction to physical traits has biological influences. I've compared this to homosexuality to demonstrate that sexual desire is related to biology in that way,

That's not the way science works. You don't get to just declare two things operate the same way when one is totally supported under science and for the other there is not a shred of scientific evidence supporting it. If you want to claim that your attraction to certain features is in your biology, you need to put forward a claim of what exactly in your biology is causing that. Otherwise, you're just in denial and making excuses.

and further supported it by mentioning universal body language that highlights features as a way to demonstrate interest (which because of the universal nature, and the countless examples within other animal species) suggest a more biological root in those cases.

That wasn't really support. That was, "well, I think I read this one thing this one time." You need to be much more specific.

With me so far?

Nope. Not buying it. You need to support your claim with science, not half-remembered magazine articles.

After all, since I am arguing something I don't know concretely against something you don't know concretely, then trying to find common ground in what data we have and can agree on seems a good place to start.

That's not the way science works either. When you make a claim and I don't believe it, the solution isn't to meet in the middle. The solution is for you to back up your claim. Where in your biology is your attraction to traits located apart from your brain? What is the mechanism that carries it?

So, do you agree or disagree that biology can influence attraction to physical traits?

Apart from sexual orientation, 100% disagree. There is no evidence to support that claim.

I have mentioned universal body language of attraction that highlights physical features,

Body language isn't universal. It's learned as a part of culture. That's why often people brought up in American culture and people brought up in Japanese culture demonstrate different body language when they go on dates.

I find it odd that I am now having to prove something when I was the one calling into question the absolute claim of "biology does not affect attraction". Odd how that happened. I mean the whole point of my counter arguments here were and always have been simply possible alternatives rather then concrete claims. After all, you yourself agreed that you have not proved that claim at all, nor done anything to prove it for the person I was originally arguing. Instead you do what you have every time: Insist it is not the case, which is dandy, except when you then keep telling me to prove my complaints, and then try to explain how peer review and the rest work utterly ignoring that A. I was raising possible alternatives and essentially asking "hey, why not if this is the case" and B. the direct topic in question doesn't have any papers on it that I can find.

But what the hell, let build an entire argument that supports what could be turned into an experiment to be tested just for the sake of my post of "I disagree with your absolute, unproven statement"

First, lets set up that recognition of physical traits exists as a biological effect. Not just of the features, but of the features in an interpretive way. Facial expressions which is a measure of body language.
http://www.apa.org/science/about/psa/2011/05/facial-expressions.aspx
Sorry if it is not the studies mention directly, but an overview but I don't care that much and just googled it to find something related to what I read before since I don't recall the actual paper I sorted through last time.

Still, would you agree that the universal nature of facial expressions supported by the study is a sign that our biology can affect behaviors in responses to emotion and make us more aware of physical features that reveal such emotions? Or would the universal facial expressions still be learned?

There is also the mention of biologically driven appeal of "cuteness"
http://pss.sagepub.com/content/20/2/149.short

That hormones have been shown to make women more aware of "cuteness" and factors that work to define "cuteness" in relation to babies and a case for why that would be. A biological function that affects what we find appealing in regards to "Cuteness" to promote the desire for child rearing.

So between the two a case could be started that our biology can both notice and understand physical traits and relate those to emotional response. Thus because our bodies already demonstrate both recognition of physical traits and features, and underlying emotions connected to them and a biological receptiveness to some features more then others in regards to child rearing, we can make a working hypothesis that what drives attraction to physical traits (or lack there of) may also have biological component encouraging the attraction. And this would not be unexpected, given that such things occur in the rest of the animal kingdom. And it would be evolutionarily supported as explained here.
The Adapted Mind : Evolutionary Psychology and the Generation of Culture

The link is giving me crap, just google it yourself. It touches on how women with psychological tendencies to look for mates with certain qualities would be a beneficial trait evolutionarily, and would be more likely to occur.



eh... This isn't worth the effort actually. I'm now trying to set up the start of a paper in order to argue with someone who took 4 tries before they stopped misrepresenting what I was trying to say, and even then I am not sure they understand the distinction. I give, you win. Attraction is completely socially learned and biology has no influence what so ever in affecting what traits individuals would find attractive, up to and including the same traits we use to define races.

 

[runic knight]

-snip-

Well, I can at least be happy that you understood what I was trying to accomplish, even if not the how of it.
I suppose the largest issues here is how little I can find about what drives attraction from the biological process into the psychological and then into the societal, which upon looking back over through things, was what I was trying to set up there. Looking for some biological examples of noticing traits to support the idea that noticing traits could affect attraction and from there to the societal concept of race itself. Far to long a gap for proven science, and I think that on top of the idea it was all merely meant to be an alternative possibility rather then an outright claim of the contrary started to bug me.

So I guess I will just leave the discussion here for now. Have a good one yourself.

 

[Headbiter]

This actually got to 15 pages? How is it hard to grasp that other races of people have generally different features that you may or may not be attracted to?

Apparantly as hard as it is for Gohan to dodge.


Wow, that was obscure. ^^