Re: [huml-comment] Article On Race

[Rex Brooks <rexb@starbourne.com>]

Title: Re: [huml-comment] Article On Race

I thought I would reply to this today since I can't really allow myself to get into my next project in depth with our meeting today scheduled for a mere 3.5 hours away. Once I get started it is rarely less than 5 and usually more than 6 hours before I come up for air.

So I will start with a relevant quote from the article that sums up the gist for me:

'"There is wide agreement among anthropologists and human geneticists that, from a biological standpoint, human races do not exist," Sergio Pena and colleagues at the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais in Brazil and the University of Porto in Portugal wrote in their report, published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"Yet races do exist as social constructs," they said.'

Here here! If I were a cultural anthropologist, I would be chomping at the bit to get involved in making a language to sort through the legacy of misinformation and miscommunication amongst the extended clan groups which have grown into odd collection of communities which identify themselves as races. The current political snafoobar of the inestimable Southern Anachronism Trent Lott would certainly provide a wealth of samples from which to draw. Isn't appropriate that perhaps his strongest supporters are those who would keep him right where he is, while they sharpen their knives for the feast of '04?

The Human species itself is not as well differentiated genetically from our primate and mammallian cousins as our forebearers wanted to think.

I think HumanML has great potential as a area where growth opportunities will abound in our near future, just is disentangling the race myth alone. Translation services ought to be pretty marketable.

At 12:44 PM -0600 12/17/02, Bullard, Claude L (Len) wrote:

> http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/science/12/17/genes.race.reut/index.html
>  
> Our conclusions match those of this research.  
> Race is a social construct, therefore,
> the term if used, would be declared in a secondary
> which derives properties from
> the primary categories.
>  
> len
> >

Ciao,

Rex

-- 

Rex Brooks
Starbourne Communications Design
1361-A Addison, Berkeley, CA 94702 *510-849-2309
http://www.starbourne.com * rexb@starbourne.com