[Taxacom] Race and taxonomy

[Pierre Deleporte]

Why not 'population'?

'subspecies' can be as connoted as race to me
(interpretable as 'not exactly the same species'...)
while 'human population' could appear more neutral / descriptive
(another extremely vague term anayway)




Quoting Thomas Lammers <lammers at uwosh.edu>:

> Dick:
>
> I'm a Mayrian when it comes to these things, too, but I think you   
> are waging an unwinnable "tomato is a fruit" debate.  As WE define   
> "race" you are correct.   As the average person defines it, well,   
> that's another matter.  You really are dealing with homonyms here;   
> the word race doesn't mean the same thing to you as it does to them,  
>  just as "fruit" doesn't mean the same thing to a structural  
> botanist  as it does to a green grocer.
>
> You can argue this case from as purely an innocent academic   
> perspective as you want, but there are forces afoot who will have no  
>  qualms about painting you as a fascist bigot and reactionary   
> hatemonger.  There may even be those who feel the needthreaten you   
> with personal violence if they learn that you believe "race has a   
> biological basis."
>
> We probably should just abandon the term as too semantically loaded   
> for general use and replace it with subspecies or prole or jordanon   
> or somesuch.
>
> ---- Original Message -----
> From: Richard Jensen <rjensen at saintmarys.edu>
>
>> I have become involved in an interesting discussion on my
>> campus.  One
>> of our faculty proposed a new course that included, in its
>> statement of
>> intent, the following clause:  "...race has no biological
>> basis."  I
>> took exception to this
>
>
> Thomas G. Lammers, Ph.D.
>
> Associate Professor and Curator of the Herbarium
> Department of Biology and Microbiology
> University of Wisconsin Oshkosh
>
> http://www.uwosh.edu/departments/biology/Lammers.htm
> http://www.kewbooks.com/asps/ShowDetails.asp?id=615
>
>
>
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>



-- 
Pierre Deleporte
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