Other harm done by "racial" categories

[Doug Morris]

Apparently the racial categories they ask us to check boxes for are used for other purposes than identity politics and the original purpose of monitoring for ongoing discrimination.  An article in the current Scientific American discusses how lumping health care data using the broad category of Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander can cost lives.  I have not read it yet but intend to.

"Defogging Data" by Jyoti Madhusoodanan, November, p. S21.  (The strange page number is due to the article being in a special report, "Innovations in Solutions for Health Equity".)

 

[Harrison Danneskjold]

9 hours ago, Doug Morris said:

Apparently the racial categories they ask us to check boxes for are used for other purposes than identity politics and the original purpose of monitoring for ongoing discrimination.  An article in the current Scientific American discusses how lumping health care data using the broad category of Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander can cost lives.  I have not read it yet but intend to.

"Defogging Data" by Jyoti Madhusoodanan, November, p. S21.  (The strange page number is due to the article being in a special report, "Innovations in Solutions for Health Equity".)

Every time I see one of those I declare myself a disabled, black veteran lesbian in a wheelchair, simply because the government has no goddamn reason to know any of that.

 

Also it gives my employer certain tax breaks for having hired a disabled, black veteran lesbian in a wheelchair, which is always nice.  I get to start out on day one at any given job knowing that I've already saved the company some amount of money, simply by lying.

[Jon Letendre]

Me too. In many gov't databases, I am Eskimo. Sometimes with three PhDs.

[DavidOdden]

9 hours ago, Harrison Danneskjold said:

Every time I see one of those I declare myself a disabled, black veteran lesbian in a wheelchair, simply because the government has no goddamn reason to know any of that.

 

Also it gives my employer certain tax breaks for having hired a disabled, black veteran lesbian in a wheelchair, which is always nice.  I get to start out on day one at any given job knowing that I've already saved the company some amount of money, simply by lying.

There is a rational basis for gathering race data in the context of health care, since the only thing that “race” correlates a bith with is genetic stuff, and many health problems are genetically correlated. E.g. sickle cell anemia is extremely rare among genetic Scandinavians, colorblindness and Dupuytrens contracture are highly correlated with Scandinavianity. Hyper-coarse classifications are a bit better than just ignoring genetic differences (also behavioral causes stemming from national origin which is a huge vector for different cultural practices). Medical professionals will gather such information to get a tiny clue as to whether there are physical reasons to treat patients one way vs. another. They also ask questions about the health of your family, for the same reason – not so that they have something to talk about at the coffee break. You can lie on the forms if you want, it will have negligible effect on the science unless enough people decide it would be cool to lie about your closest race category, which undermines the genetic component of medical treatment. Some people have a woke attitude towards such questions and are outraged that race is even considered. A more enlightened objection is that the bizarre practice of copying Federal classifications is too crude and should be systematically replaced with Y chromosome haplogroups.

Because racial discrimination is prohibited in employment by federal law, collection of employee-offered information is part of their program of law enforcement. The attack should not be on the fact that the government asks the question about race, it should be on the fact that there is such a law in the first place. The Work Opportunity Tax Credit is available w.r.t. to “any of the following”, so it would suffice to claim to be a veteran – disabled, black and lesbian are not on the list of WOTC criteria, whereas “being a welfare recipient”, “living in a poor area” and “ex-con” are on the list. However, let me warn you that lying to the federal government is a felony (for which Martha Stewart did time). As far as the law is concerned, lying to an employer who passes that lie on to the feds is the same as lying directly to a federal agent, ask Esmail Yermian about that.

Refusal to answer is always an option, and is the only moral choice.

 

[Jon Letendre]

The only moral choice for the fearful who prioritize their safety over resistance to tyranny.

[Jon Letendre]

Try to imitate the woke less, Harrison. And instead, be more enlightened.

[Harrison Danneskjold]

On 11/5/2024 at 9:54 AM, DavidOdden said:

However, let me warn you that lying to the federal government is a felony (for which Martha Stewart did time). As far as the law is concerned, lying to an employer who passes that lie on to the feds is the same as lying directly to a federal agent, ask Esmail Yermian about that.

Oh.  Shoot.

On 11/5/2024 at 11:30 AM, Jon Letendre said:

Try to imitate the woke less, Harrison. And instead, be more enlightened.

When do I imitate the woke?

[Doug Morris]

I have gotten the article read.  It emphasizes the need for cultural distinctions within the broad Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) category, although it also mentions genetics.

For some time data was just aggregated under the AANHPI category.  Government was a big driver of this.  Another problem was that disaggregating data could result in small sample sizes, which created problems with patient confidentiality in addition to being bad for doing statistics.  Another problem was "stereotyping of Asian Americans as a 'model minority,' a category in which everyone is assumed to be well educated, financially secure and generally healthy."

But this is changing.  "In recent years disaggregating AANHPI data has helped health-care professionals improve hepatitis B vaccination rates, reduce the devastation that has been caused by COVID and wildfires among Hawaiian communities, and identify better diet strategies to help South Asian communities reduce their risk of heart disease."

 

[tadmjones]

How does proper cultural or genetic identification and modeling help any group in any wildfire aftermath? 
 Scientific American has had a rough to of it of late. 
https://www.cnn.com/2024/11/15/media/scientific-american-editor-resignation/index.html

I don’t think I’d trust anything published in a scientific magazine whose editorial staff felt the need to endorse a political candidate. 
Apparently last year they published an article whose conclusion was that inequities between male a female athletes was not due to biological differences but biases and blah blah blah.

 

[Doug Morris]

9 minutes ago, tadmjones said:

How does proper cultural or genetic identification and modeling help any group in any wildfire aftermath? 

Breaking down data helped identify which community needed what in response to the COVID pandemic.  The same approach helped customize care after the Maui wildfires.

13 minutes ago, tadmjones said:

I don’t think I’d trust anything published in a scientific magazine whose editorial staff felt the need to endorse a political candidate. 

In evaluating any information source, whether it's Scientific American or Fox News, it is important to distinguish opinion pieces from reporting.

20 minutes ago, tadmjones said:

Apparently last year they published an article whose conclusion was that inequities between male a female athletes was not due to biological differences but biases and blah blah blah.

Can you provide any information to help identify this article, such as the month it was published or the title or author?

 

[Doug Morris]

1 hour ago, tadmjones said:

Apparently last year they published an article whose conclusion was that inequities between male a female athletes was not due to biological differences but biases and blah blah blah.

You may be talking about the November, 2023 article "Woman the Hunter" which debunked the long fashionable notion that men evolved to hunt and women evolved to gather.  Among the points in the article:

Women are physiologically better suited than men to endurance efforts such a running marathons.

Women did a lot of hunting in prehistoric times.

Estrogen plays a critical role in athletic performance.

Females are more regularly dominating ultraendurance events such as the more than 260-mile Montane Spine foot race through England and Scotland, the 21-mile swim across the English Channel, and the 4,300-mile Trans Am cycling race across the U.S.

As an example of bias in how the sexes are treated in sports, men are not permitted to act as pacesetters in many woman's events because of the belief that they will make the women "artificially faster," as though women were not actually doing the running themselves.

Modern humans have low sexual size dimorphism compared with the other great apes.  The same goes for human ancestors spanning the last two million years, suggesting that the social structure of humans changed from that of our chimpanzee-like ancestors.

The skeletons of Neandertal females and males show the same patterns of wear and tear.  This suggests that they were doing the same things.

There is a period in which the evidence indicates that men were more likely than women to throw spears.  But it is also the period when people invented the bow and arrow, hunting nets, and fishing hooks.  Also, in this period men and women were buried with the same kinds of grave goods.

Thanks to analyses of Y chromosome DNA and mitochondrial DNA, we now know of three Neandertal groups that engaged in patrilocality - wherein males were more likely to stay in the group they were born into and females moved to other groups - although we do not know how widespread this practice was. 

In modern times, among the Agta people of the Phillippines, women hunt while menstruating, pregnant, and breastfeeding, and they have the same hunting success as men.

79 percent of the 63 modern foraging societies with clear descriptions of their hunting strategies feature women hunters.  The women participate in hunting regardless of their childbearing status.

It was the arrival some 10,000 years ago of agriculture, with its intensive investment in land, population growth, and resultant clumped resources, that led to rigid gendered roles and economic inequality.

 

 

[tadmjones]

Bill Maher had a segment on his show Overtime where he was speaking with Neil Degrasse Tyson and he read from the article I was referencing, albeit I may have slightly paraphrased by going from memory. The point of the segment was to show how unscientific and foolish the statement is on its face. A Boy’s high school soccer team didn’t beat , or would not reasonably be expected to beat, the US National Women’s soccer team cuz societal biases or conditioning, boys are just bigger, stronger and faster than women on average.

Maybe grave goods are allocated to mating pairs so that common goods found in a household would be found in the last surviving member. Maybe dude gets killed on a mammoth hunt , mate dies and is buried with the inheritance.

A more apt comparison would be between Scientific American and the Lancet, not a science-centric journal and entertainment media.

The commies have throughly infiltrated academia in the west , there are a lot of critiques of this situation and especially in archeology and anthropology, you should look into it. And then try and discern which publications are sympathetic.

Scientific American is purportedly the longest running printed magazine in the science genre which suggests in is more of an entertainment entity than a ‘recognized’ academic journal.

More or less is a scale based on a standard, the standard being a dimorphism. Males can’t get pregnant Fox said so!

[Doug Morris]

17 hours ago, tadmjones said:

I don’t think I’d trust anything published in a scientific magazine whose editorial staff felt the need to endorse a political candidate. 

Scientific American isn't just concerned with pure science.  It s also concerned with applying science.  In a society such as we have now, with politics intruding all over the place, it is impossible to generally address applying science without also addressing politics.

17 hours ago, tadmjones said:

Apparently last year they published an article whose conclusion was that inequities between male a female athletes was not due to biological differences but biases and blah blah blah.

 

5 hours ago, tadmjones said:

Bill Maher had a segment on his show Overtime where he was speaking with Neil Degrasse Tyson and he read from the article I was referencing, albeit I may have slightly paraphrased by going from memory. The point of the segment was to show how unscientific and foolish the statement is on its face. A Boy’s high school soccer team didn’t beat , or would not reasonably be expected to beat, the US National Women’s soccer team cuz societal biases or conditioning, boys are just bigger, stronger and faster than women on average.

In context, it is clear that the quote refers to tests of endurance, not athletics in general.  The article makes clear the distinction that "Overall, females are metabolically better suited for endurance activities, whereas males excel at short, powerful burst-type activities."  Soccer requires a lot of short, powerful bursts.

5 hours ago, tadmjones said:

Maybe

Speculation.  Do you have any evidence?

5 hours ago, tadmjones said:

A more apt comparison would be between Scientific American and the Lancet, not a science-centric journal and entertainment media.

I was not making a comparison.  I was making a contrast, to emphasize the generality of the statement.

5 hours ago, tadmjones said:

Scientific American is purportedly the longest running printed magazine in the science genre which suggests in is more of an entertainment entity than a ‘recognized’ academic journal.

Scientific American's purpose is to bring each branch of science to a wider audience, not to serve as a journal for scientists in any particular field.

5 hours ago, tadmjones said:

Males can’t get pregnant

Males can't get pregnant.  But pregnant females can hunt successfully.

 

[Doug Morris]

Of the Agta or Aeta, Wikipedia says 'According to one study, "About 85% of Philippine Aeta women hunt, and they hunt the same quarry as men. Aeta women hunt in groups and with dogs, and have a 31% success rate as opposed to 17% for men. Their rates are even better when they combine forces with men: mixed hunting groups have a full 41% success rate among the Aeta."^[36]'

 

[tadmjones]

What kind of game?

[Doug Morris]

31 minutes ago, tadmjones said:

What kind of game?

If you are asking what the Agta or Aeta hunt, one of the references linked by Wikipedia says "Wild pig and deer are the usual hunted quarry, although seasonality affects game choice and availability."  

[tadmjones]

I saw a blog of someone who visited Agta communities as a photo journalist to experience an Agta hunt. Because of weather and other circumstances no deer or wild pig could be located, although they were able to arrange a monkey hunt the photo of the fruitless hunt shows the Agra coming out of the forest carrying carbines.

The blog also mentioned that they hunt octopus and lobster frequently.

Edited November 30, 2024 by tadmjones

[Doug Morris]

19 hours ago, tadmjones said:

I saw a blog of someone who visited Agta communities as a photo journalist to experience an Agta hunt. Because of weather and other circumstances no deer or wild pig could be located, although they were able to arrange a monkey hunt the photo of the fruitless hunt shows the Agra coming out of the forest carrying carbines.

The blog also mentioned that they hunt octopus and lobster frequently.

So what?

 

[Doug Morris]

I looked up the definition of inequity.  The definitions varied, but they all agreed that inequity is unfair and/or unjust.  Thus the quote tadmjones and Bill Maher are calling unscientific and foolish is saying that unfairness and/or injustice in the way male and female athletes are viewed and/or treated is the result not of inherent biological differences but of biases.  This is in no way unscientific or foolish.  If you want to deny that any unfairness or injustice exists, we can talk about that.  Otherwise the statement is almost true by definition.

 

[whYNOT]

On 11/29/2024 at 4:51 AM, tadmjones said:

How does proper cultural or genetic identification and modeling help any group in any wildfire aftermath? 
 Scientific American has had a rough to of it of late. 
https://www.cnn.com/2024/11/15/media/scientific-american-editor-resignation/index.html

I don’t think I’d trust anything published in a scientific magazine whose editorial staff felt the need to endorse a political candidate. 
Apparently last year they published an article whose conclusion was that inequities between male a female athletes was not due to biological differences but biases and blah blah blah.

 

If those inequities exist only in prejudiced minds, it's presumed the Olympic games will be next thrown open to both and "all genders", top female athletes and the top males competing in the same events, regardless. If she/they could qualify for entrance in the first place. For every event e.g. shooting, where a female could beat males, there are dozens in which the ladies will have little to no chance. Such anti-reality, woke garbage, and from that famed "science" journal. 

Edited December 1, 2024 by whYNOT

[tadmjones]

But intellectuals and academics!

[whYNOT]

The more I hear from them lately, the more I appreciate the solid, honest and sensible "man and woman in the street".

Edited December 1, 2024 by whYNOT

[tadmjones]

On 11/29/2024 at 8:10 PM, Doug Morris said:

Of the Agta or Aeta, Wikipedia says 'According to one study, "About 85% of Philippine Aeta women hunt, and they hunt the same quarry as men. Aeta women hunt in groups and with dogs, and have a 31% success rate as opposed to 17% for men. Their rates are even better when they combine forces with men: mixed hunting groups have a full 41% success rate among the Aeta."^[36]'

 

That one study gets a lot of play,lol. I keep seeing that one study referred to over and over again.

Edited December 1, 2024 by tadmjones

[tadmjones]

No hounding, don't feel the need to respond, just ad libro blanco humor.

 

For more white paper fun

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grievance_studies_affair

 

Edited December 1, 2024 by tadmjones

[Doug Morris]

9 hours ago, whYNOT said:

If those inequities exist only in prejudiced minds, it's presumed the Olympic games will be next thrown open to both and "all genders", top female athletes and the top males competing in the same events, regardless. If she/they could qualify for entrance in the first place. For every event e.g. shooting, where a female could beat males, there are dozens in which the ladies will have little to no chance. Such anti-reality, woke garbage, and from that famed "science" journal. 

 

On 11/29/2024 at 3:34 PM, Doug Morris said:

In context, it is clear that the quote refers to tests of endurance, not athletics in general.  The article makes clear the distinction that "Overall, females are metabolically better suited for endurance activities, whereas males excel at short, powerful burst-type activities."  Soccer requires a lot of short, powerful bursts.

 

On 11/30/2024 at 6:59 PM, Doug Morris said:

I looked up the definition of inequity.  The definitions varied, but they all agreed that inequity is unfair and/or unjust.  Thus the quote tadmjones and Bill Maher are calling unscientific and foolish is saying that unfairness and/or injustice in the way male and female athletes are viewed and/or treated is the result not of inherent biological differences but of biases.  This is in no way unscientific or foolish.  If you want to deny that any unfairness or injustice exists, we can talk about that.  Otherwise the statement is almost true by definition.

The point is not that there should be no sexual distinctions in sports.  No one is saying that.  The point is that bias does  exist and that it can cause distortions, including failure to recognize women's abilities and achievements in feats of endurance.

Maybe it would help if you read the whole thread.