How can I give a sound argument described here concerning racism?

1. Differences in groups of people aren’t just genetic. Other influences include, diet, circumstances, culture, and education.

2. You wrote “The only reason different ethnic groups appear different is because they adapted to the environment.” but that’s an overstatement. Mutations happen randomly, and though there may be some tendency for conditions to favor certain traits over others, there are also just drifting trends that aren’t because of any adaptation or selection reasons.

3. Yes diet does affect height. Yes height can be both an advantage and a disadvantage. It’s different. There are also genetic influences. All these things are true, and I don’t see what argument is to be had about it.

4. Pygmies have their advantages. If the world were all pygmies, we wouldn’t be worried about terrorist attacks, global climate change, pollution, habitat destruction, extinction of species, GMO pollution, NSA spying, nor corrupt banks and corporations trying to own the world.

5. Just because there are differences, doesn’t mean that he or popular conceptions are correct about what they are.

6. One massive error is thinking that our concept of race is an accurate description of genetic or cultural or other kinds of traits. There are plenty of sub-groups, cross-groups, and above all every person is unique, and there are plenty of counter-examples to any trend. It sounds like this person may be overstating trends in an effort to prove a way of thinking that also overstates and misrepresents the actual relationships that the examples he chooses seem to show.

I’d recommend trying to remove the argumentation aspect from it. Try to have a rule that anyone who tries to say they’re right and the other person is wrong is automatically off-base and loses a point. Stick to objective facts and statistics.

Race is construct based historically on nothing more than superficial appearance shared by all members of that “race” without any large variaten except for the occasional freak mutation.
Meaning skin colour and eye shape and overall facial structure. Dark skin is the only trait that all black people have in common. Same with asians, and white people crackers.
If you are going to argue in favour of race, and you define “race” as a collection of distinct features, then every member has to have every of those traits, and those traits have to be exclusive to that race, and not occur in another race.
Body height is not one of those. There are tall and small people all over the place.
Same with running speed or penis size. Not all black people are fast and have large cocks, and being fast runners and having huge schlongs is not exclusive to black people.

Ask your friend to define “race”. All humans are homosapiens. There is no sub-species. It is as simple as that.

Everything else boils down to geographical, national, genetic, gender, and/or cultural.

I know enough people I dislike. Why should I dislike someone before I get to know them.

Okay so I was looking back at some stuff to recall his arguments and he had an example that he would bet on a Savannah tribesman rather than someone from the forest of South America, like the Amazon, in a footrace. He says the former is more adapted to running so clearly the latter would have a disadvantage and most likely lose.

This is because at one point I may have made the error in saying that all humans have the same capacity for speed, in the sense that no one so far can go past the theoretical 40mph limit, but I don’t think i conveyed that well. But this was to argue against why Usain Bolt as a black man is the fastest person alive and why it’s not a white guy or anyone else. I stuck to the environmental aspect because he grew up poor and didn’t do a lot of sitting around like the sedentery life of most white people, and he just so happened to enter the olympics. For all we know, someone out there runs faster than him and isn’t black but just hasn’t had the chance to display his skill. Although there is a genetic factor playing into it too. This was the part where I kind of lost myself because the argument was derailing into other topics I wasn’t fully prepared for and didn’t think thoroughly.

He claims to not be racist but people have called him racist for saying that certain races have pros and cons (such as height) but not one single group is overall superior.

I’m having trouble illustrating how yes there are observable physical differences between ethnic groups but that this doesn’t equate one being genetically superior in that aspect. I was thinking of making the argument that if you had all able-bodied humans race at the same time you wouldn’t make an effective conclusion between race and speed. I don’t know if that makes sense or if you can see where I’m going with that. I’m tired. My brain is fried.

I’m also considering saying that pros and cons with these phenotypes (such as height) are moot when talking about Homo sapiens because the big trait we all share is the mental capacity. We’re not like giraffes where the short ones die out and the tall ones live. So people may dub him racist because they think he’s trying to say one group is better at survival than another.

There are racial differences as this Time magazine article points out. I do not see it in the article, but I remember reading somewhere that even a small rate of interbreeding between races will cancel out racial differences. It is only when groups live in isolation that there can be differences. There may be something to what your friend says, but keep in mind that this does not mean that, for example, every person of a certain race will run faster than everyone of another race. At most, it may mean that on average some isolated group of people will run faster than another isolated group. From both a practical and ethical perspective it is best to judge each person based on individual merits.

There are advantages to being tall or short, black or white, male or female, etc., etc., etc. It all depends on your point of view and your needs for the moment. Like tools in a tool chest. Nothing makes any of the differences more special or better than others.

Where does brains come into the picture? If your friend believes in evolution that he or she would have to concede that our intelligence has made, height, speed, physical power, and even breeding unimportant for our survival.
To me, the superior specimen has a superior mind and a good heart and wouldn’t entertain the idea that someone is lowly because of their genetics.

I think trying to argue one race is inferior or superior is the biggest problem. Many people have argued that and pretty much I think it’s garbage, and so do mainstream scientists.

There are genetic differences from one group to another. Black people are more likely to have sickle cell, Ashkenazi Jews more likely to carry Tay Sachs, people from the Mediterranean area more likely to have Thallessemia or pernicious anemia. Some groups are taller, some shorter. Maybe some tend to have more testosterone? I don’t know, I’m just throwing it out there.

Black people have a history in sports of running (it’s free to run) playing basketball (many communities supply the courts for free) and white people ski (expensive sport) and ice skate (another expensive sport). I think economics and opportunity are the biggest influence when we make generalizations about groups, not there race. I can’t imagine looking at a newborn and deciding anything about it based on race. Is that what he is saying?

Making general and sweeping statements about a group of people based on superficial observations is pretty much the definition of racism.

So people in your country aren’t all fish eating sailors?

Can you imagine?

I knew you’d take that in the way I meant. I’m not so sure about the mods.

I’m becoming more proud of the amount of moderated answers than my level of lurve. I wonder what number I’m up to now?

That’s an interesting answer. It fits the question. It’s kind of like racism, how do you track and account for either. You can’t see a number, but you know it’s there.

Racism is a bit like pornography in that way. It is sort of like…. I can’t really define it but I know it when I see it.

pornography

My auto spell on my phone is Norwegian. #Notracist

You may wish to consider this (from Daily Kos) :

Ever since Charles Murray’s racist nonsense “The Bell Curve” first posited that different races have different intelligence aptitudes (to the everlasting shame of The New Republic and its then Editor Andrew Sullivan, the book was treated as a serious work at the time), we have had to suffer too many “serious discussions” on this issue, and other related issues (Summers). Making racism respectable was Charles Murray’s goal, and for a while it succeededed. But, as the NYTimes Ed Board points out, race is not an easily described concept genetically:

t Pennsylvania State University, where about 90 students took complex genetic screening tests that compared their samples with those of four regional groups . . . [m]any of these students thought of themselves as “100 percent” white or black or something else, but only a tiny fraction of them, as it turned out, actually fell into that category. Most learned instead that they shared genetic markers with people of different skin colors.

What amazes me about this, as I was amazed by the remarks of Lawrence Summers, is that even if the racist nirvana could be achieved: that intelligence could even be reduced to a measurable concept, that it could be proven that there are genetic differences between the races and genders that lead to different intelligence aptitudes, etc. – does anyone seriously believe that that hypothetical factor is even worthy of mention as compared to the very real, very well documented societal prejudices that have plagued mankind since the beginning of history?
What value these genetic studies may have for understanding diseases et al I can’t say, but I am always skeptical when the science appears to be undertaken to discover whether there are innate differences in intelligence between races and genders.

That Penn State test is interesting. My family always claimed we’re Welsh and English. But some things run in the family that made wonder. On my last blood test I asked them to test for a gene. They initially told me I couldn’t be carrying it because I don’t have any Easter European heritage. I said humor me and just look at it. Sure enough, it’s there. So I’m not sure what else is in there.

That was supposed to be Eastern European.