Yes, Humanscale 123, from WW2 US military standards, is all about the Caucasian male size and reach envelopes - for aviation cockpit jobs. The fact that Caucasian standards can be developed speaks for itself ... it's different from Mongoloid. I haven't searched it, but I wouldn't be surprised if there were similar Japanese (Mongoloid) standards. It wouldn't surprise me if Japanese and Chinese Mongoloid race data was similar in terms of bone shape, size, and density.
OK so the Humanscale is not the at all relevant here. And no, you can't collect averages for a single group and then conclude that everybody else is a different race. That's not how it works. People can be different size and shape without being different race, and you'd have to have the data, not just assume it must exist somewhere anyway.
Trusting that Amazon is an expert in the stuff that is published is horse sh.it. Amazon is about money, not facts.
Would you trust the author of the book to know what it's intended for?
http://global.humanscale.com/form_function/nielsdiffrient.cfm
Diffrients designs focused on human factors through a deep understanding of how people live, work and interact with their environments. He co-authored a three-volume publication called Humanscale, which outlines human factors and design principles. Of similar tomes, he said, Reference books on human factors (ergonomics) are thick, dense and filled with jargon, as though the authors had forgotten to apply the objectives of the subject to their own work. My publication Humanscale reversed that.
Diffrient was devoted to designs that were simple and effortless to use. Through minimizing complexity in his designs, Diffrient was able to make his products sustainable by using less material and parts. Diffrient consistently considered the environmental impact of his products, stating, The key to sustainability is efficiency. A design should use less material and energy for the most useful result ... No amount of recycling will equal using less in the first place.
He didn't seem to think he was proving that races exist.
What has been explained several times?
That biologically a species may be split into races if and when there are distinct populations that don't interbreed for long stretches of time but if there's constant genetic interchange between various groups the level of homogeneity within the group and the level of differences between the groups won't rise above the threshold that biologists consider a race. This hasn't happened with humans.
Let's look at what over-the-counter DNA ancestry gets the average US citizen, and what exactly does this have to do with anthropological race classifications?
Well why did you bring it up if you don't think it's relevant?
Throughout this discussion, I've want to bring up the point about purebred dogs. Is each breed a different race? By all appearances, it seems that each distinct breed is a different species (is that the right word?). When those purebreds have mixed breed puppies, the puppies do not represent a new purebred, and the purebreds do not cease to exist.
It seems there is some misunderstanding about some fundamental biological concepts going on here. If the different breeds of dog are capable of having fertile mixed breed puppies, they're the same species by definition.
If you stop mating them selectively and let purebred dogs run wild and mate with neighborhood dogs and travel the world to mate with foreign dogs from different breeds, in a few generations you will have a wild mixture, a bit like humans.
Perhaps this is a better example than the 3 does not mean that 1, and 2, are invalid.
IF there were different races of humans, a few mixed offspring wouldn't yet mean that the races stop to exist. However, there are no races, human genetic diversity is not sufficient and consistent enough to divide us into distinct races.
Speaking of skin colour, are people with black skin now caucasians ... or whatever ... because skin colour no longer matters? What exactly is the statement here?
This right here is where the problem lies for most people I think... We're getting hung up on skin color because skin color is the most visible trait and skin color means such a lot in the social arena in many societies.
However, biologically skin color is just one feature among a gazillion and if you used some other factor you would get a different grouping altogether. Choosing to divide people into races on the basis of their skin color is an arbitrary social decision that has no scientific basis. There are black people in Africa who are genetically more different from each other than they're from Europeans.
Can we agree that someone can be 60% British and not enough information when it comes to race?
We can agree that somebody can be 60% British and not enough information when it comes to skin color. Biologically speaking, races don't exist regardless of what his or her genetic make up is.
DNA ancestry that has very little to do with anthropology or race classification.
Over - the - Counter DNA genealogy is great. People can first pay for access to the link (via ancestry.com), and then they can learn how to request over-the-counter by-the-mail DNA spit sample materials.
From the DNA results provided in the news, I don't see any relevance to the discussion about anthropological race classifications.
http://calgary.ctvnews.ca/video?playlistId=1.2440984
Isn't it nice to know that relatives lived in Britain and blah blah blah bull.**** that this is somehow related to race.
... over-the-counter wool-over-the-eyes stuff, eh.
Is this another money making scan where over-the-counter DNA ancestry companied attempt to dictate that race classifications never existed?
JMO I don't think so. Scientists were saying so before over-the-counter DNA ancestry companies were ever founded.
Let me see if I understand correctly.
Black skin is a sociopolitical, cultural phenomena, and white people can be black if they feel like it. Similarly, black people can be white if they feel like it. When it comes down to identification of remains, who needs standards such as anthropological classifications?
Did I miss anything?
No, the color of skin is a biological feature and choosing to want to be black or white doesn't change anyone's skin. However, getting hung up on people's skin color is a sociopolitical, cultural phenomenon.
When it comes to identification of remains, skilled investigators can be quite adept in figuring out hints of ancestry and guessing which nonscientific labels would have been applied to the person.
