Racial differences...

[A Nerd]

The difference between touch and eye sight is quite drastical though. One of the biggest is that unlike touch, anything you see looks different from a different angle. Sincce your brain has worked with this during your entire growth, you won't usually notice it. But it is somewhat of a problem for those who regain sight after being without it for a few decades.

It would seem like the sense that is most dominant and most heavily relied upon isn't necessarialy be the most accurate. Perhaps that's why blind people can sometimes 'amazingly' get around with such little effort. I was watching a documentary once where these bind fellows could get around, even ride bicycles and the like, by making clicking sounds remenicient to what bats do and had no effort moving about in real world environments! It was quite interesting.

"Johnny Got His Gun." Depressing, but brilliant flick

Thank you for the correction. One of my favorite movies!

[Ironside]

It would seem like the sense that is most dominant and most heavily relied upon isn't necessarialy be the most accurate. Perhaps that's why blind people can sometimes 'amazingly' get around with such little effort. I was watching a documentary once where these bind fellows could get around, even ride bicycles and the like, by making clicking sounds remenicient to what bats do and had no effort moving about in real world environments! It was quite interesting.

Those pictures you don't understand what they are showing, until you have a sudden realation and can now see it? That's the starting position for the whole world for eye sight. So it will go something like oh that "blur is a face" at the start. Can be worth mentioning that those returning eye sight surgeries are often causing (sometimes suecidal) depression for the patients. That blurry eye sight is still too dominant to go back and it can still cost you the confidence you had with your other senses, without giving you confidence with your eye sight.

[A Nerd]

Those pictures you don't understand what they are showing, until you have a sudden realation and can now see it? That's the starting position for the whole world for eye sight. So it will go something like oh that "blur is a face" at the start. Can be worth mentioning that those returning eye sight surgeries are often causing (sometimes suecidal) depression for the patients. That blurry eye sight is still too dominant to go back and it can still cost you the confidence you had with your other senses, without giving you confidence with your eye sight.

I can understand how much of a shock it must be. Considering whatever the world 'looked like' when the blind person couldn't see, then all of a sudden when sight is gained, everything could perhaps look very different for what they previously had perceived. It must be frightening and confusing, no wonder they get depressed and consider suicide. Like stepping in to a completly different world or time and not knowing how to handle such a drastic change. Also consider the potential fear of losing the intimacy they had with other senses, a certain protective and comforting relationship, that could be potentially be lost forever when dependency of sight is subconsiously learned. Like losing a parent or a passionate lover.

[Kadagar_AV]

Does racial differences exist?

I for one, can tell a huge difference between, say, a Bulldog and a Siberian Husky. Both when it comes to looks, of course, but also behavior. Reading newspapers and stuff, or magazines directed to dog/cat owners, the talk of race is everywhere.

But, if we talk about humans, talk about race is a no-no... "we are all one race, the human race!".

Is this really correct? I for one can see racial differences. Colour of skin, type of hair, shape of eyes... The list goes on. Is the fact that africans excel at long distance running only a cultural question?

Is it then so far fetched to assume that the difference doesn't stop at the physical attributes, but that there also exist cognitive differences? These cognitive differences might then of course depend on physical differences in the brain...

Isn't it time to lift the taboo around this, and study it some? We have whole other techniques now than last it was tried. Hey, the science might even be beneficial in many ways in the struggle to unlock and understand the human genome.



















Oooops, sorry for being off topic!

[A Nerd]

Sorry. I thought the thread was dead and could be put to sleep with some philosophy. :) I'll attempt to refrain in the future.

[Reenk Roink]

Does racial differences exist?

Short answer, yeah, most likely, but most likely not in the way you are speculating.

I for one, can tell a huge difference between, say, a Bulldog and a Siberian Husky. Both when it comes to looks, of course, but also behavior. Reading newspapers and stuff, or magazines directed to dog/cat owners, the talk of race is everywhere.

Yeah I can tell the difference between a white person, a black person, and an Asian person too.

But, if we talk about humans, talk about race is a no-no... "we are all one race, the human race!".

Yeah we say that because it is a nice thing to say accurate about our own status as human beings which is a pretty important foundation of a lot of our social and cultural frameworks. We also recognize different races and ethnicities of course, not a melting pot but a tossed salad.

Is this really correct? I for one can see racial differences. Colour of skin, type of hair, shape of eyes... The list goes on. Is the fact that africans excel at long distance running only a cultural question?

Pretty much, just like Canadians and hockey. Do you have evidence to the contrary of biological differences between African long distance runners and other long distance runners?

Is it then so far fetched to assume that the difference doesn't stop at the physical attributes, but that there also exist cognitive differences? These cognitive differences might then of course depend on physical differences in the brain...

Why should we assume that such cognitive differences between races are due to biology inherently when we haven't seen any evidence for that and rather we see that the differences in academic and intellectual achievement (which in itself isn't a great way to infer cognitive differences by the way) seem to disappear when certain environmental factors are different, most importantly economic factors but also some social issues?

This has been said repeatedly in this thread before but give us one reason why we should assume what you want us to? You're just rehashing your position, we already know what you feel Kadagar. But you gotta convince us.

Isn't it time to lift the taboo around this, and study it some? We have whole other techniques now than last it was tried. Hey, the science might even be beneficial in many ways in the struggle to unlock and understand the human genome.

How exactly would we understand the human genome by looking at race any better than we are doing now? What are you exactly purporting? That we try and test whether there are intellectual differences between races and then go ahead and conclude that this is biologically underpinned despite the vast amounts of evidence to the contrary that it IS environmentally influenced rather than biologically (the Asian American immigrant thing - race is held constant, environment is the variable). Somehow that will help us better understand the human genome?