Willravel

Yes, but Jinn there currently are no subspecies of humans besides us, Homo sapiens sapiens. I'm Homo sapiens sapiens, asians are Homo sapiens sapiens, black people are Homo sapiens sapiens, and even Jewish people are Homo sapiens sapiens. There are no other subspecies of Homo sapiens currently alive. The last subspecies of Homo sapiens, Homo sapiens idaltu, evolved into us, Homo sapiens sapiens.

Leto

lucky them. eh?

Halx

The problem is that I get it all the time. Its quite old. By the way, I think I stated that I'm annoyed, not offended.

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Jinn

I know you value peer-reviewed research nearly as much as I do, so here we go; I won't paste the whole thing:

Genome Biology | Full text | Categorization of humans in biomedical research: genes, race and disease

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Willravel

I understand that there are different ethnicities which are characterized not only by ancestry, but also phenotype (even occasionally genotype, as some races are more or less prone to get certain diseases), but there are no subspecies of Homo sapiens other than Homo sapiens sapiens, which includes humans of all ethnicities.

Jinn

Look at the listing of subspecies in my previous post:

http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/general...ml#post2510400

Those are CURRENT subspecies of humans (homo sapiens sapiens). What you seem to be (pedantically) arguing is that without a Linnean classification like homo sapiens sapiens, the subspecies must not exist. This is categorically false, and there hundreds of species which still defy Linnean classification, particularly in entomology.

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Willravel

If it doesn't have an official place on the taxonomic rank as subspecies, it's not a subspecies.

Criteria for subspecies:
Subspecies - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

There's nothing pedantic about that. It's quite clear.

levite

As I understand it, Jinn-- and clearly you are the scientist among us, so I am happy to take your correction-- the subspecies that you are referencing are, as will has pointed out, phenotypes, and not genotypes. Please correct me if I am wrong, but if the subspecies in question were variations in genotype, would there not be more radical divergence between the subspecies than the minor alterations in skin tone, body fat distribution, hairiness, and so forth which characterize the various types you cite?

In any case, whatever the nomenclature, I believe the point remains essentially the same. Which is to say, "race" is not the proper term for the Jewish people, but rather, ethnoreligious culture.

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Jinn

What of anything you quoted actually supports your assertion that it needs a Linnean rank to be considered a subspecies? Because your quote sure as hell doesn't. "Subspecies" is not even in the Linnean classification system. It ends at species. Why would you expect a subspecies to have a Linnean name? They have a taxonomic rank (again, in my post on the previous page), but it doesn't follow your (pedantic) assertion that it must follow the same Linnean syntax - Homo sapiens sapiens.

Subspecies classification in (in humans and otherwise) is not always phenotypic. Very few species have been entirely sequenced; in cases where the entire genotypic relationship cannot be established, the phenotypic differences can be used for subspecies classification by "sampling accuracy", described above (Post #46). As it notes, although some phenotypic overlap is "expected" due to the non-discrete nature of subspecies, it can still be classified as "different" with 100% (or 75%) certainty. It'd be lax to forgo classification entirely until an entire species' genome can be mapped, especially considering that it could take decades upon decades to do so. In lieu of (precise) genome taxonomy, phenotypic taxonomy offers great value - particularly in cases where infectious diseases show 'preference' for one subspecies over another, or pharmaceuticals which are effective in one subspecies but not another.

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Rekna

This whole subspecies conversation is irrelevant if you look at the definition of race in common language. Race does not have to be a sub-species. In a scientific definition it may but not in common language. When the average person on the street refers to race they are not referring to a subspecies and instead are referring to a category that describes ones ancestry.
-----Added 20/8/2008 at 06 : 35 : 24-----
From merriam-webster

Main Entry:
race
Function:
noun
Etymology:
Middle French, generation, from Old Italian razza
Date:
1580

1: a breeding stock of animals
2 a: a family, tribe, people, or nation belonging to the same stock b: a class or kind of people unified by shared interests, habits, or characteristics
3 a: an actually or potentially interbreeding group within a species; also : a taxonomic category (as a subspecies) representing such a group b: breed c: a category of humankind that shares certain distinctive physical traits
4obsolete : inherited temperament or disposition
5: distinctive flavor, taste, or strength

2a is the common definition that people refer to when talking about race.

Willravel

I'm using zoological taxonomy, which includes things like subfamily, tribe, and subspecies. Since Linnean rank doesn't use subspecies, but you continued to insist on using the term, I gave it the appropriate classification context.

You'll have to either stop using the term "subspecies" or you'll have to accept zoological taxonomy, the system which I was using in the discussion. No matter what, though, there are no subspecies of humans, so you were incorrect when you used that term. The funny part was when you tried to change over to "subrace" and hope no one noticed.

levite

Yes, I think this is likely the more relevant line of inquiry when it comes to terminology, since I find it unlikely that the average person in the street will be as versed in the finer points of bioscience terminology as is Jinn (or maybe will...what do I know?).

That said, I believe that what is in question here is the misapplication of what Webster's appears to define in #3, which usage I believe likely stems from the tendency of 19th-Century racialist scientists to use the term for meaning #3, when previously it had been applied in meaning #2-- an archaic usage that was falling out of parlance at that time.

Technically, according to definition #2, "race" could be applied to the Jewish people; but it ought not to be so applied, since this usage is archaic and outdated, and by today's standards of common usage is incorrect.

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Absence, because it doth remove
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Strange Famous

My mum is Jewish, your mum is Jewish - we are both Jewish.

In both the most liberal and the most conservative strands of judaism this is true - and what your religion is doesnt matter at all.

There is no such thing as "race" full stop - but rules are rules. If you dont like being Jewish why dont you just not tell anyone? You can choose your own self image, but you cannot choose the labels that apply to you.

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Sion

So, whats the difference between a Jew, an Israeli, a Hebrew, a Zionist, a Levite and an Israelite?

bah...it's too confusing. I think that no one but oneself should have the right, implicitly or explicitly, to define a person's "identity".

Hal says he's not a Jew. Therefore, he is NOT a Jew. End of discussion.

Me? I'm an American. I was born in America, of American citizens born in America. I have an Italian last name, though no actual Italian "blood". Ancestrally, I come from English and Irish peoples, and I have an Irish first name and an English middle name. I guess that'd make me ethnically an Irengtalian. Or it would if I gave half a ratshit about such things.

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Strange Famous

I dont think anyone wholly decides their own identity... we just all try and shape what the world gives us.

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dlish

the last person that said there was no jewish race...tried to eliminate the entire race from the face of the earth

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LoganSnake

I'm sure he wasn't the last, just the only one with the power to do so.

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roachboy

i dont have an ax to grind in this thread and had decided before to stay out of it because i think race is a dubious at best category--nation too for that matter---both are products of the 18th century zeal for putting things in boxes and arranging those boxes into trees and then comparing them--this tree is better because its my tree, but that one...

but this:

is entirely wrong if it refers to hitler. nothing about hitler's politics even start to make sense without the most idiotic possible conception of race. and the tree thing and the comparative tree thing. it was because there *was* to his mind a jewish race that he felt justified in initially marginalizing and brutalizing and later trying to exterminate the jewish people. in fact, you'd think that after a nimrod of that magnitude was able to do that much damage based on the category "race" that folk would maybe wonder more, and more deeply, if there isn't something basically fucked up with the idea of race.

at this point, curiously enough, it'd be easy to wax nietzschean about these boxes/classifications more generally, what they organize, what they say, what folk imagine them to say: that we can arrange the world by type means that we know where in our own grid to put things, where they "go"--but that doesn't mean, outside the confines of a pretty superficial loop, that we know what these things *are*---i can't think of a different parallel (this one's a little stupid) but it's like imagining that you know what a coffeemaker is and does because you know that it goes in a cupboard.

now obviously these orderings are points of departure for accumulating and organizing other more information and so it doesn't seem reasonable to oppose taxonomy---but even so, it seems stupid to forget how superificial they are, how much a point of departure they are and nothing else--not a whole lot explanatory follows from them, all the more as you deal with increasing levels of complexity in living systems.

so you could say that judiasm as a social system has developed a matrilineal way of marking itself as distinct from other groups and thereby maintaining a sense of continuity or coherence over time. what does shifting to the category of "race" do in this case, beyond taking a convention and jamming it into some bizarre-o notion of essence? so many of the most basic categories the west had cooked up to order the social world are about fantasies of self-enclosure and self-referentiality--race, culture---and they aren't even useful descriptively. they do considerable damage ideologically, they have deeply problematic histories---but like sf says, they're floating about in the bigger world and there's not much in the way of end-arounds to be taken.

but that doesn't make the categories like race any less stupid.

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Baraka_Guru

The only way I have been able to get over my own identity crisis is by understanding this view of yours, roachboy. And that of nation, for that matter.

My crisis both hit a pinnacle and was somewhat resolved in my university years. Much of this is because I attended a large and highly multicultural campus while studying cultural theory and contemporary literature.

I still have a lot of work to do. I should stop living under my rock, hiding away from the reality of my existence: It has very little to do with the fact that I'm a lower-middle-class Caucasian in what used to be referred to as the New World. I am not a ghost.

The Jewish identity is so far steeped in this idea of race and nation that I fear how I look in contrast.

What am I?

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jorgelito

Nations and race are two very different things. Race I agree is a ridiculous outdated concept that is dying out. Nations are another matter completely.

The Jews chose matrilineal classification as a means of self-preservation. In the days before DNA testing, it was the only real way to guarantee lineage. You can't prove the father but you can prove the mother.

What are you? Does it matter? You are what you are. You can choose to self-identify according to phenotype, religion, nationality, culture, or whatever. I think people who have identity crises are "victims" of societal constructs and prisoner's of what society wants them to be, not what you want to be.

I had the same problem for a long time until I broke free. People are stupid. It's up to you to educate them.

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new man

It is obvious that Halx is a crypto-jew.

Crypto-Judaism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

guy44

Jew = a very confusing concept, incorporating religion, ethnicity, and culture, as others have written above far better than I ever could

Hebrew and Levite = generally considered synonyms for "Jew"

Israelite = formerly used most commonly like "Hebrew" or "Levite" as another word for "Jew". Now that the country of Israel exists, with a mostly Jewish population, it's most commonly used to refer its citizens (although, obviously, the term "Israeli" is more common). This one has more or less fallen out of everyday usage

Zionist = someone who supports the (formerly establishment) existence of a Jewish state, usually as a matter of Jewish pride/self-governance/religious belief. It's more a political position than anything else. Many Jews are not Zionists, and many non-Jews are.

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JustJess

I think you're making a big deal out of a simple thing. Many people, including myself, are just curious and interested in our various heritages. You have Jewish blood, and Portuguese blood. I have Irish, Russian, Lithuanian, French, and Native American blood... I like knowing these parts of my heritage. I like having that history. Your mother being Jewish is another piece of your history. "Jewish" describes both a religion and a heritage. Your mom being Jewish means that you are of Jewish descent, like I'm of Irish descent.

There are trends in phenotypes for many nationalities, and many ethnicities. Irish tend to have a lot of fair skin, and red hair, and freckles, and blue and green eyes. Not all Irish people, but it's so common that people tell me I "look" Irish. It doesn't offend me. Even though my particular phenotype happens to be from the French side of my family. Why do I care? It's just an interesting topic of discussion. So identifying your heritage informs their perception of your phenotype, and your familial history. We're all mutts here, so it's neat to see how we came to be.

And another thing: from a medical perspective (and Katyanna, your post is sort of wrong in this aspect)... there are damn sure certain medical trends in different ethnic groups. Jews have the gene for Tay-Sachs disease, so much so it's a common genetic test they get before having children. Black people tend to be the patients with sickle cell anemia. Hyperbilirubinemia is very common in male Asian infants. And you're trying to tell me being Jewish is not a ethnic group???

Well, frankly... you're just wrong. I understand that you don't identify with the religion (I don't identify with the Catholic, Jewish, or Mormon pieces of my family either). But to deny your genetic history seems silly to someone like me... I just love to have the information. It's not about boxing people in, but understanding how we all came to exist. It's pretty amazing, all the random connections that resulted in you and I. It's just appreciating our past and how it informs our present. That's all.

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levite

A very fine response. I might wish to expand and clarify it just a bit.

Jew: A member of the ethnoreligious culture sometimes called the People or Children of Israel. Someone whose mother was a Jew, or who has themselves undergone conversion to Judaism.

Hebrew: The very first name of the ancestors of the Jews, and currently the name of the universal Jewish language. Hebrew is the accepted translation for the name "Ivri," a word which means "The One Who Crosses Over," and is mythopoeically associated with the patriarch Abraham, who crossed the Euphrates on his way from Mesopotamia to Canaan. However, many scholars now think that the name may also have been given because the Hebrews were originally a wandering, bedouin people, who partially conquered and partially colonized ancient Canaan. It may also, some speculate that it may be self-given, in reference to the more metaphorical "crossing over" from polytheism to monolatry (as distinct from monotheism, a later Israelite innovation), which the Hebrews seem to have originated in that part of the world.

Levite: A Jew who counts his or her descent from the tribe of Levi. The tribe of Levi was the priestly tribe, divided into two groups: Kohanim (priests), who were in charge of the sacrificial cult, its higher rituals, and the sanctioned divination, during the times of the ancient Temples in Jerusalem and the Tabernacle before; and regular Levites, who were assistants to the Kohanim, and were also in charge of the poetic and musical liturgy of public worship rites at the Temples and Tabernacle. Levitical and Kohanic descent is reckoned patrilinealy, in contrast to holisitic Jewish identity, which is matrilineal. Today, Levites and Kohanim are generally the only Jews who retain knowledge of their tribal descent.

Israelite: A member of the ancient Twelve Tribes of Israel, who all mythopoeically counted descent from the patriarch Jacob, called Israel (Yisra'el, meaning "He Who Wrestles with God"). This term is generally employed to describe the ancestors of the Jews, during the time of their residency in the lands of Israel and Judea, from about 1300 BCE to the beginning of the Rabbinic period, around the turn of the Common Era. Academically, "Israelite" is used to describe these people to differentiate them from "Jews," a term used to describe those who followed the teachings of the Rabbis of the Talmud-- the tradition that has become modern Judaism. "Israelite" is used because it indicates differences in their practical worship and theology from what is accepted in Rabbinic Judaism. In a non-academic sense, Israelite was sometimes used as a synonym for "Jew" from the end of the eighteenth to the beginning of the twentieth centuries, when "Jews" were considered low-class by Western society, but "Israelite" was somehow thought a classier term for wealthier, Enlightened Jews. The term Israelite is not the same as the word Israeli, which simply means a citizen of the State of Israel.

Zionist: Originally, one who supported the creation of a Jewish national entity. Currently, one who supports the continued safe existence of the State of Israel. There are and have been many different kinds of Zionists, who have had sometimes vastly different agendas in supporting the creation and existence of a Jewish State. These ranged from atheist socialists who sought a purely cultural equality in the Western World, to religious fundamentalists who believed a Jewish national entity was the first step toward the coming of the Messiah; and there were many other agendas filling out the spectrum between those two. Historically, the only idea generally shared by most Zionists was that a Jewish national entity was necessary for the continued safety of the Jewish people in an otherwise unsafe world. Zionism is a purely political concept, and is not linked inextricably to Judaism.

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Dull sublunary lovers love,
Whose soul is sense, cannot admit
Absence, because it doth remove
That thing which elemented it.

(From "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning" by John Donne)