Fetus your point has been made very clear and your position is appreciated . The emphasis then simply lies on what you consider relevant or not with such practices , not weither there is logical validity for them .
My last point to you would be that it is not individual relevancy that comes out of such practices , but it lies fields dealing with collectives .
paulsamuel :
i have not seen the data for the Somali tribe(s?), but our contention is that there is no genetic data that would group all somali's exclusive of everyone else. i could be wrong about this, but this is the way its explained by pop.gen.
Im not gonna give you data obviously there has been no such research , if you would be familliar with these peoples you would see the physical differences between them as a peoples and other surrounding ethnic groups .
My question to you is what relevance would it have for you if I give you their traits ? How would this have meaning in our conversation , other than simply the premis that they are there ?
If you wish to research these peoples anthropologically be my guest and I will assist , we have all facilities . However for this discussion me doing all that efford isnt really of any use , or value . You then would have to accept as a premis that they have distinct & specific traits that makes them as a group different from the other groups .
This is simply anthropological data , however the biological link is there when these traits we anthropologically describe have genetic resemblence , as is necesarry for them to have since the traits have been passed on from parents to children .
the genetic markers that can ID someone according to skin color cannot subsequently say anything about their movements (presumably you mean historical migratory patterns) nor can they be used for historical or anthropological purposes
They dont need to say anything of their movement , the identifaid thrait shows their movement within anthropological research . And that is exactly where the value is .
For instance . Lets take that infamouse "Jew-nose" our noble friend monkey came up with .
Be it that it has little to do with Judaism , it is a specific formation of a nose , and there are many peoples who share such . However you can see that it shows a certain movement of peoples as you find where such types of noses can be found moset , which is within the Slavic-Turkic ethnic groups . Obviously after somany years of mixing it spread since it can easily be taken along when the selection for genes takes place and can go everywhere , however it has somwhere its origin and that origin can be traced back and relevant data for their migration/mixing can be unfolded .
Now the point then would be , do we have such genetic information , or rather is it possible to obtain such genetical information ? Obviously it is , since it is a trait passed on within a peoples from parents to children .
So if we can ID it , this would be a way you can use it in anthropologically and historically .
the reason is, as i have stated twice before, is because there are many more genetic differences between individuals within a population than between individuals among populations. don't take our word for it. there are many sources in the literature. see:
Its not that i dont believe your reason , I understand your reason . However your reason is simply not valid . Why ? Because race does not deal with all genes , just those relevant for the definition we are giving race .
Your argument goes like . Racial resemblance isnt real , because 25.000 genes who have nothing to do with anything race stands for , can differ more than it does with other who do not have our racial commonness .
If you believe I simply misunderstand your argument and should read that person you mentioned could you then show me a link , I have looked around but all I could find dealt with very primitive & laughable understandings of race (white/yellow/red/black) &
some research on Ashkenazim Jewry (who are not a distinct race) .
So......