/sci/ - Science & Math

>>9436692
I dislike the term "race", I think it makes more sense to say 'genetically similar populations' and then you would need to look at the distance between two populations for you to draw a conclusion as to how much genetics they share and whether the shared genetics relate to longevity, nutritional need and so on.

>>6715608
> like that since it's not a perfect binary category (like anything in the social sciences ever is) it has no meaning.
And that again. Just because you can define clusters differently and get different clusters depending on the methodology you use (and also the data, clusters from mitochondrial DNA are different than from normal DNA, etc) and can especially get more and more fine grained clusters (again, down to the level of villages) with sufficient data doesn't mean the clusters aren't clearly there and don't clearly seperate people into different groups and are not a obvious useful technique to learn about human ancestry, population structure and migration patterns.
Nobody ever uses this argument for anything they like, ever. Is cancer a meaningful concept? Like you say there's lung cancer and skin cancer, but clearly i can group them by cause instead location. Or how small-cell carcinoma is clearly completely different from non-small-cell lung carcinoma.
Or how Squamous-cell carcinoma skin cancer is clearly the same thing as Squamous-cell carcinoma lung cancer. Cancer isn't perfectly defined! Completely meaningless concept! I suddenly get different groupings if i ask different questions.