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<blockquote data-quote="TexasAngel" data-source="post: 3033433" data-attributes="member: 99969">There is more to it that phenotype groupings though, these can only really be associated with different ethnicities. Surely cultural (local, national and religious) and social conditioning are responsible for a greater degree of diversity than ethnicity. With increased population movement I don&#039;t believe that the old assumptions which tie ethnic groups to particular cultural traditions are as valid as they once were. Also I would contend that phenotypic groupings are not obvious. Any grouping is just an abstraction of the continuous nature of human diversity and, as such, is subject to the arbitrary constraints placed on the grouping procedure by the observer.I&#039;m not saying that it isn&#039;t possible to divide people up into different races by applying some membership or clustering criteria to either pheno- or genotypes. I am saying that the process is ultimately pointless as it is difficult to ascribe any other properties (traditions, behaviours or otherwise) to those groups with any degree of accuracy.Of course as others have pointed out we are genetically programmed to perform just such groupings on a sub-conscious level but this doesn&#039;t mean we have to bow to these stereotypes on a conscious level or to rationalise them with statistics or pseudo-science (see The Bell Curve).I&#039;m not arguing against diversity either, its great, it makes life interesting. I just don&#039;t see the need to classify it.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="TexasAngel, post: 3033433, member: 99969"] There is more to it that phenotype groupings though, these can only really be associated with different ethnicities. Surely cultural (local, national and religious) and social conditioning are responsible for a greater degree of diversity than ethnicity. With increased population movement I don't believe that the old assumptions which tie ethnic groups to particular cultural traditions are as valid as they once were. Also I would contend that phenotypic groupings are not obvious. Any grouping is just an abstraction of the continuous nature of human diversity and, as such, is subject to the arbitrary constraints placed on the grouping procedure by the observer. I'm not saying that it isn't possible to divide people up into different races by applying some membership or clustering criteria to either pheno- or genotypes. I am saying that the process is ultimately pointless as it is difficult to ascribe any other properties (traditions, behaviours or otherwise) to those groups with any degree of accuracy. Of course as others have pointed out we are genetically programmed to perform just such groupings on a sub-conscious level but this doesn't mean we have to bow to these stereotypes on a conscious level or to rationalise them with statistics or pseudo-science (see The Bell Curve). I'm not arguing against diversity either, its great, it makes life interesting. I just don't see the need to classify it. [/QUOTE]

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