Race and species

One of the many politically incorrect aspects of Darwinism is that races are the origin of species.  There is no objective way of distinguishing a large race difference from a small species difference, any more than one can distinguish a large hill from a small mountain.

To say that two closely related kinds are two races of the same species, or two distinct species is a fact about scientific terminology, not a fact about the external world.  As Lamarck argued, we draw sharp lines on a world that lacks sharp lines.  For any two kinds, an intermediate kind likely exists, or once existed.

Everyone agrees that if two kinds are not interfertile, that they will not have sex, or cannot have sex, or if they have sex but no offspring ensues, then that is truly two species, not two races of the same species.  But if we said that two kinds that can and will interbreed, given the opportunity, must belong to the same species, then we would be in a world with very few species.  We would not only say that dogs and wolves are the same species, which most people would think pretty reasonable, but that wolves and coyotes are the same species, which is a bit of a stretch, and that lions and tigers are the same species, which is just silly.

Such a standard is also unworkable, because there is very commonly a kind in the middle, such that kind A is interfertile with kind B, and kind B interfertile with kind C, but kind A is not interfertile with kind C, in which case we would like to call all three kinds different species, since we obviously have to call A and C different species.

That blacks are the same species as whites is not a fact about human kinds, but rather the fact that Darwin declined to draw an arbitrary line through the Sahara, not a fact about human kinds but a fact about scientific nomenclature.

We will first consider the arguments which may be advanced in favour of classing the races of man as distinct species, and then and then the arguments on the other side.

The inferior vitality of mulattoes is spokenof in a trustworthy work as a well-known phenomenon; and this, although a differentconsideration from their lessened fertility, may perhaps be advanced as a proof of thespecific distinctness of the parent races.

Now if we reflect on the weighty argumentsabove given, for raising the races of man to the dignity of species, and the insuperabledifficulties on the other side in defining them, it seems that the term “sub-species”might here be used with propriety. But from long habit the term “race” will perhapsalways be employed.

Through the means just specified, aidedperhaps by others as yet undiscovered, man has been raised to his present state. Butsince he attained to the rank of manhood, he has diverged into distinct races, or as theymay be more fitly called, sub-species. Some of these, such as the Negro and European, areso distinct that, if specimens had been brought to a naturalist without any furtherinformation, they would undoubtedly have been considered by him as good and true species

Our naturalist would then perhaps turn t geographical distribution, and he would probabldeclare that those forms must be distinc species, which differ not only in appearance, butare fitted for hot, as well as damp or dry countries, and for the Artic regions. He mightappeal to the fact that no species in the group next to man–namely, the Quadrumana, can resist low temperature, or any considerable change of climate; and that the species which come nearestto man have never been reared to maturity, even under the temperate climate of Europe. He wouldbe deeply impressed with the fact, first noticed by Agassiz (7. ‘Diversity of Origin of the HumanRaces,’ in the ‘Christian Examiner,’ July 1850.), that the different races of man are distributed over the world in the same zoological provinces, as those inhabited by undoubtedly distinctspecies and genera of mammals. This is manifestly the case with the Australian, Mongolian, andNegro races of man; in a less well-marked manner with the Hottentots; but plainly with the Papuansand Malays, who are separated, as Mr. Wallace has shewn, by nearly the same line which divides thegreat Malayan and Australian zoological provinces. The Aborigines of America rangethroughout the Continent; and this at first appears opposed to the above rule, for most ofthe productions of the Southern and Northern halves differ widely: yet some few living forms,as the opossum, range from the one into the other, as did formerly some of the giganticEdentata. The Esquimaux, like other Arctic animals, extend round the whole polar regions. Itshould be observed that the amount of difference between the mammals of the several zoologicalprovinces does not correspond with the degree of separation between the latter; so that it canhardly be considered as an anomaly that the Negro differs more, and the American much less from theother races of man, than do the mammals of the African and American continents from the mammalsof the other provinces. Man, it may be added, does not appear to have aboriginally inhabitedany oceanic island; and in this respect, he resembles the other members of his class.

In determining whether the supposed varieties ofthe same kind of domestic animal should be ranked as such, or as specifically distinct, that is,whether any of them are descended from distinct wild species, every naturalist would lay muchstress on the fact of their external parasites being specifically distinct. All the more stresswould be laid on this fact, as it would be an exceptional one; for I am informed by Mr. Dennythat the most different kinds of dogs, fowls, and pigeons, in England, are infested by the same species of Pediculi or lice. Now Mr. A. Murray has carefully examined the Pediculi collected indifferent countries from the different races of man (8. ‘Transactions of the Royal Society ofEdinburgh,’ vol. xxii, 1861, p. 567.); and he finds that they differ, not only in colour, butin the structure of their claws and limbs. In every case in which many specimens were obtained the differences were constant. The surgeon of a whaling ship in the Pacific assured me that whenthe Pediculi, with which some Sandwich Islanders on board swarmed, strayed on to the bodies of theEnglish sailors, they died in the course of three or four days. These Pediculi were darkercoloured, and appeared different from those proper to the natives of Chiloe in South America,of which he gave me specimens. These, again, appeared larger and much softer than Europeanlice. Mr. Murray procured four kinds from Africa, namely, from the Negroes of the Eastern andWestern coasts, from the Hottentots and Kaffirs; two kinds from the natives of Australia; two from North and two from South America. In these latter cases it may be presumed that the Pediculi camefrom natives inhabiting different districts. With insects slight structural differences, ifconstant, are generally esteemed of specific value: and the fact of the races of man beinginfested by parasites, which appear to be specifically distinct, might fairly be urged asan argument that the races themselves ought to be classed as distinct species.

All spotted owls are obviously the same race and same species.  Californian spotted owls are no more a species than Californian blondes are a species.

Spotted owls differ from barred owls no more that whites differ from east Asians and, as with whites and east Asians, are connected by a cline.  The environmentalists want to exterminate the cline, to make spotted owls and barred owls conform to a plausible species definition.

Similarly coyotes and wolves.  The American government  exterminated the cline for political reasons.  Coyotes are pigmy wolves, and can freely interbreed with large wolves, and are fully interfertile.

Whites and East asians are fully interfertile.

Whites and blacks are interfertile, but *not* fully interfertile.

Whites and Australian mainland aboriginals are interfertile.  We don’t know if they are fully interfertile, because by the time Australia was settled, it had already become politically incorrect to study such matters.

Whites and Tasmanian aboriginals were not interfertile.  Tasmania was initially colonized by white males, and initially had zero single white women.  Very large numbers of Tasmanian aboriginal women were purchased or captured by lonely white males.   A fertile age Tasmanian woman cost about the same as a good dog. Not one mixed race child ensued.  Sex with white people was a substantial part of the reason that Tasmanian aboriginals became extinct.

[Correction some mixed race children did ensue. James Bonwick was there, and wrote a book about it “The lost Tasmanian race.” He tells us it was rare for half caste children to be born “even under the most favorable circumstances”, indicating dramatically reduced, but non zero, fertility]

All existing people who claim Tasmanian aboriginal ancestry and can plausibly trace it to someone who looks plausibly nonwhite (a very small subset of those who claim Tasmanian aboriginal ancestry), trace it back to one woman who is obviously (from her photograph and the date at which she had children) a mainland aboriginal who came over with the white colonists after the Tasmanian aboriginals became extinct.  If Truganini was the last Tasmanian aboriginal, and she was certainly the last person who looked Tasmanian, the Tasmanian aboriginals became extinct without the birth of a single mixed race child, despite massive fornication.

That Tasmanian aboriginals were the same species as ourselves is not a fact about scientific nomenclature, but a lie.  And, if they cannot be classed as the same species, then if we apply to humans the same standards as we apply to other groups of kinds, we also have to categorize kinds that are comparably different as different species.

 

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52 Responses to “Race and species”

  1. Brit says:

    Apparently the fertility rate for white/asian couples is about half that of white/white or asian/asian.

    • peppermint says:

      is that TFR, or miscarriage : live birth rate? If the latter, how did you get that data?

      • Brit says:

        He said that certain mixed race couples need fertility treatment because it is such a problem, so he would have been referring to the chance of conceiving from sex. Seemed to know what he was talking about, but did not provide a source. I don’t know where to find data to check it. It’s not really something fertility clinics would publish.

    • jim says:

      Pure white plus pure east Asian couples have a low conception rate plus a high rate of failure in the first few days of pregnancy.

      But white and asian fertility is still way better than first generation mulatto fertility.

  2. NeoColonial says:

    I came across this obituary today from 1914 regarding a half-caste Tasmanian.

    http://www.jstor.org/stable/2788809?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

  3. Exfernal says:

    Re: Aryans. Languages and genetics spread differently. Examine Hungary of today: genetically, it’s majority Slavic, yet the language decidedly isn’t Slavic. Heh, I am typing English words while having no kinship with Anglo-Saxons at all.

  4. Al says:

    The “interbreeding criterion” for the definition of species is for the uninitiated. For decades, ivory-tower scholars have used other criteria, such as the “evolutionary species concept”, considered to be the gold standard, though difficult to demonstrate in practice, especially when we’re talking about fossil species. (There are several others as well.)

    You can see it defined in the abstract to this 1977 paper:

    http://sysbio.oxfordjournals.org/content/27/1/17

    When I was taught it in class, over (ahem) a decade ago, I spoke to the instructor afterwards (he was a specialist in fish biology): “Wait, if we use this criterion, won’t that mean that human races are more properly called species? After all, the lineages did begin to differentiate, even if the process was later stopped”.

    He answered, almost in a whisper, with a conspiratorial grin: “Yes, of course, that’s a direct consequence of the concept, but you know how it would be misunderstood if we said it out loud. So take care you don’t and keep the lesson to yourself”.

    • jim says:

      Fish biologists get away with this stuff. Mammalian biologists are more furtive.

      Analogously, linguists drew the obvious conclusion, that Aryans had conquered most of the world during the late stone age and early bronze age, while archaeologists stubbornly resisted the evidence in front of their faces.

      If you want to study speciation, and don’t want to have a team of large black pol sci students to pay a visit to your office toting baseball bats, study speciation in three spined sticklebacks.

      • Adolf the anti-White says:

        This is the most neoreactionary sentence I’ve ever read.

        >If you want to study speciation, and don’t want to have a team of large black pol sci students to pay a visit to your office toting baseball bats, study speciation in three spined sticklebacks.

  5. Dave says:

    “Whites and East asians are fully interfertile.”

    The example of Elliot Rodger suggests otherwise…

  6. Andrea Ostrov Letania says:

    “Everyone agrees that if two kinds are not interfertile, that they will not have sex, or cannot have sex, or if they have sex but no offspring ensues, then that is truly two species, not two races of the same species.”

    ???

  7. Alan J. Perrick says:

    If anything, we can call ourselves sub-species and demand not to be wiped off the face of the earth into a mongrelised and experimental genetic soup.

    A.J.P.

    • Lars Grobian says:

      The human race has a discouraging record when it comes to extending that courtesy to disfavored subspecies’. Relying on the generosity of the victors has always been the international symbol for “exterminate our male line”.

  8. spandrell says:

    It boggles the mind that Australian aborigines are closer to us than black Africans, but that’s how it is.

    How are blacks and whites not fully interfertile? South America begs to differ.

    • Red says:

      Haiti is kind of ground zero for this theory. Mulattoes reproduced in smaller numbers despite being smarter and more successful than the average negro of Haiti.

      • a boy and his dog says:

        Couldn’t you just as correctly say *due* to being smarter and more successful? After all just look at white or Asian fertility vs Africa.

      • spandrell says:

        Oh come on. Just cross the border and it’s the other way around.

        The problem of Haiti was a typical ruling class effect. Upper classes are always too snobbish to be fertile. It’s not a biological problem.

        Look at Brazil. 100+ million mulattoes of any color, very few full blooded blacks.

  9. Talmid HaSepher says:

    I second what Lars said. Where can we find more information about black/white interfertility? A few quick Google searches pulled up nothing of interest.

    • jim says:

      The hammer came down shortly after Charles Darwin published.

    • Red says:

      Fascinating. I’ve got 2 half black/half white friends who’s been having unprotected sex mostly with white women for the last 20 years. I’ve always wondered why there was never any off spring from these relationships. One of them has had several girlfriends who had spontaneous abortions much to his relief. Another white guy I grew up with has been just as promiscuous and has 9 kids with 4 different mothers. I’ve met plenty of white women knocked up by black men, but thinking back on it, most of the men were pretty dark skinned.

      • Talmid HaSepher says:

        I found an old book that said that white woman plus black man wasn’t very fertile. Or rather, their children aren’t fertile. I recall they found white woman plus black man produced the most uninhibited, sexy prostitutes back when the slave breeding farms were still going on in Barbados. Perhaps it is the children of white women plus black men that are infertile? Infertile more with each other than if they are “back crossed” with either parent race.

        What Red says appears to contradict what I read from 150 years ago; what is the truth?

        • Adolf the anti-White says:

          I would not trust either Red’s anecdotes or some old book of folk tales.

        • Red says:

          It’s just my observation of a couple of data points. A full visual study wouldn’t be hard to do.

      • Ron says:

        American black men are not completely African. It is well known that they are ironically also partially the descendants of the masters that owned their ancestors.

  10. Adolf the anti-White says:

    >One of the many politically incorrect aspects of Darwinism
    The other thing I realized, is that almost any origin myth (or story, or whatever) is going to be politically incorrect.

    Prior to Darwin, the scientific consensus was creationist. They developed theological explanations of racial differences (“the curse of Ham”, and similar), because they observed racial differences. Darwin believed in racial differences for the same reason.

    Leftist theology depends on murky origin stories. IQ cannot have anything to do with biology.

    For creationism, the leftist must pretend that Ham was never cursed, or that the Tower of Babel never happened. Because if those are true, then God cursed a race, and wants the races to remain separate. The God that hated the Tower of Babel must hate the UN, and multiculturalism.

    For evolution, the leftist must pretend that Darwinian selection stops at the neck.

    • Adolf the anti-White says:

      Any specific origin story will be politically incorrect, so the leftist tends to hate origin stories. And act like they’re murky and useless.

      • peppermint says:

        TV, and college classrooms, is better at having some guys arguing about what it means than having one guy giving a lecture on how it happened. That’s why God gave us the Internet.

  11. Lars Grobian says:

    ‘Whites and [African?] blacks are interfertile, but *not* fully interfertile.’

    I wasn’t aware of that. Where could I go for confirmation?

    Also, I suppose that if men will f*** sheep, they’ll do the same with Tasmamians, but still… It’s hard to imagine why.

    Truganini, in the most common portrait, looked remarkably like Jimmy Carter. I’m sure he’d be humbly honored to resemble such a superior being.

  12. Adolf the anti-White says:

    >Not one mixed race child ensued. Sex with white people was a substantial part of the reason that Tasmanian aboriginals became extinct.
    Link? Wikipedia says otherwise.

    You also missed a point. It’s not just interbreeding, it’s the capacity to breed and develop fertile offspring. Horses and Donkeys can interbreed, but the result, a mule, is not fertile.

    >the term “sub-species” might here be used with propriety. But from long habit the term “race” will perhaps always be employed.
    Perhaps we should start referring to “the White subspecies” and “the Black subspecies”. It might avoid the leftist engineering of the word “race”.

    • peppermint says:

      keep in mind that Wikipedia is run by teenage Jew pedophiles.

      anyway, no discussion of this is complete without a picture: http://i.imgur.com/XXT4i.jpg

      Where do the Tasmanians fit?

      Well, two pictures: http://i.imgur.com/U3612LJ.jpg

    • jim says:

      Wikipedia says “many modern day Aboriginal Tasmanians trace their descent from the 19th century sealer communities of Bass Strait.”

      If true, they would have nineteenth century evidence.

      No one can prove a negative – but there is a mighty suspicious absence of positives.

      Anyone who claims descent from Tasmanian aboriginals, and has actual evidence of nonwhite ancestry, has evidence of descent from Fanny Cochrane Smith, who is obviously not the same species as Truganini. The ones claiming descent from the real Tasmanians just wave their hands vaguely. They look 100% white.

      We are talking about the nineteenth century, not the seventh century. If anyone was descended from Tasmanian aboriginals, there would be evidence, and they would be happy to show us the evidence.

      No one claiming descent from Tasmanian aboriginals has evidence of a specific identifiable ancestor perceived as non white, other than Fanny Cochrane Smith.

      [Correction: I find that there is evidence that some of the sealer women, an rather small proportion of them, had children. There is a suspicious lack of evidence that moderns claiming to aboriginal descent are descended from them.]

      • Stephen W says:

        Wikepedia introduces Fanny Cochrane Smith as a “Full blooded Tasmanian Aborigine” But her photo sure does not look like one. If Tasmanians where complete incapable of producing mixed breed children, then that makes them more speciated than Neanderthals. Which is remarkable. One explanation might be that the Neanderthal Sapien frontier lasted longer so the increasing the occurrence of low probability events. another explanation might be that the as the aborigines have evolved a very small brain volume the Tasmanians especially, the mixed raced baby heads where simply to large for their mothers killing them.

        I know mixed African children have poorer health than pure blooded whites or Blacks but so do Eurasians, American Blacks still have significant white ancestry.

        • jim says:

          That makes them more speciated than Neanderthals. Which is remarkable.

          Is it?

          Tasmanian skeletons disappeared from display in 1947 – and so did photos of Tasmanian skeletons.

          I did find an image of a Tasmanian skull. Seemed about as different from a human skull as a Neanderthal skull is – and with far smaller cranial capacity than a Neanderthal skull. Looks like two roughly equally distant species, with the Tasmanian being the more primitive species. On the other hand, Tasmanian technology was more advanced than Neanderthal, which would make them the more advanced species.

          • red says:

            How were the Tasmanians more advanced?

            • jim says:

              I just eyeballed their tools compared to Neanderthal tools. Their tools looked nicer. The Neanderthal tools look like bits of stone left over after making tools.

          • Red says:

            The roughness you’re seeing in Neanderthals tools is due to stone flaking techniques were stones are split and the stronger, sharper core of the stone is used instead of picking up random stones on the ground. Neanderthals also had a somewhat complex process for making glue out of Birch bark resin or bitumen that they used to attach the stone tools to spears, axe handles, and knives.

            On the other Tasmanians seemed to use only fired hardened wooden spear tips and stones they found laying around.

            http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/evolution/defy-stereotypes.html

            >Discoveries at Neanderthal sites in Syria and Romania show that, to obtain glue, they sometimes used natural deposits of bitumen or asphalt, in one case, fetched from over a dozen miles away. At the Syrian site, the bitumen had been heated up to make the thick liquid easier to apply.

            >At other sites, the Neanderthals subjected sticky substances to a much more elaborate process. Birch bark contains a tacky resin known as pitch that is impossible to extract simply by tapping into the tree, as with pinesap or maple syrup. Instead, the pitch must be separated from the bark by a process known as dry distillation. Chemists have discovered that distilling pitch from birch bark requires an oxygen-free environment and sustained temperatures of over 650° F.

        • Adolf the anti-White says:

          Geographically isolated populations are more likely to speciate. Tasmania is as geographically isolated as you could be, except for maybe Hawaii.

          • jim says:

            The Hawaiians however, were among the greatest sailors and navigators of the pre modern world. So Hawaii not isolated. So Tasmanians the most isolated hominids, and therefore likely to be the most speciated.

          • Adolf the anti-White says:

            Hawaii was settled 1200 years ago. Likely not enough time to speciate. New Zealand was settled 700 years ago, also not enough time to speciate.

            Yeah, Tasmania seems to be the most geographically isolated area humans settled for a long period of time.

        • jim says:

          I claimed that Tasmanians were completely incapable of producing mixed race children, but their is historical evidence that I was wrong.

          Mixed race children were rare, and seldom had children.

          James Bonwick was there, and wrote a book about it “The lost Tasmanian race.” By James Bonwick. He tells us it was rare for half caste children to be born “even under the most favorable circumstances”, indicating dramatically reduced, but non zero, fertility

          • Adolf the anti-White says:

            So then, do we have any examples of total non-interfertility?

            I would expect that Tasmanians and certain isolated African tribes might be totally non-interfertile, due to the massive genetic differences. But that test will never be done.

            Let’s try some other isolated areas of the globe.

            Maori of New Zealand can interbreed, apparently without major problems, and settled the area 700 years ago.

            Maldives were settled about 2,000 years ago. Hawaii 1300 years ago.

            Iceland was settled about 1200 years ago. Greenland has not been isolated from European and American natives.

            Galapagos islands were never settled. Nor were the Falklands. Or Antarctica.

            All else I can think of is Polynesia.

          • B says:

            Think ring species. Tierra Del Fuego natives should be non-interfertile with Khoisan.

            But this is kind of a dumb exercise. Certainly, there are breeds of dogs which are not interfertile-a Chihuahua and a Malamute, probably. Does this make them different species?

      • Adolf the anti-White says:

        >No one can prove a negative – but there is a mighty suspicious absence of positives.
        >Anyone who claims descent from Tasmanian aboriginals, and has actual evidence of nonwhite ancestry, has evidence of descent from Fanny Cochrane Smith

        Is there any article that claims these two things? The surprising lack of Tasmanians, and the remarkable lack of non-smith Tasmanians?

        I’m not asking for proof of a negative, but Wikipedia sounds like it mentions Tasmanian woman and their children with white sailors twice. Also, you think the sailors might have noticed their women never had babies, and written about it, which would be important evidence.

        >If true, they would have nineteenth century evidence.
        Wikipedia is run by people who often miss important things. And they’re not trying to respond to your claim that there are no descendants from the native Tasmanians.

        • jim says:

          Proving the absence of mixed race children is like proving the absence of flying saucer landings.

          In fact there is some evidence that the sealers had children, contrary to what I claimed, but the children did not have children, or did not survive. The great majority of the sealer women had no children, and the great majority of their children had no children.

          “By 1830 the North East group – once 500 strong – numbered 72 men, 6 women and no children. Each sealer had at least two women working for him. At first they were very cruelly treated. In time however, the community settled down. Sealers and Aboriginal women married and families grew up. The women’s traditional skills, first sealing and then muttonbirding, became the mainstay of a thriving community.”

          If, after thirty years, no children, not thriving.

          • Adolf the anti-White says:

            I’ve been reading Bonwick’s book. Some amusing passages:

            >The chastity of the dark races has been much, and most unjustly, impugned. We have incontrovertible evidence that many Blacks, especially among the Papuans, illustrate that virtue quite as much as the Hghter and more civilized peoples.
            Margaret Mead he was not.

            >The Tasmanian half-caste if permitted to see the light, seldom lived long in the tribe. The mother, to conceal her shame, or repenting of her act, would often prevent the birth by abortion; or, when unsuccessful, would destroy the infant upon its entrance into the world. If instinct led her to spare her child, the husband or brother might avenge the family wrongs by a fatal blow.

            The entire books is dripping with the White man’s burden.

            >One prominent exponent of their decline was the absence of children. From inquiry of the nine women at Oyster Cove, I learned that only two of them had ever had a child« One of the two had one child, and the other two children ; all had died many years ago. Upon my expressing my surprise, one said, with a burst of laughter, **”What good hab him piccaninny 1″ Another, with better taste remarked^ “What porl blackfellow, him aU die.”
            >But some, struck with the non-fertility of Australian and Tasmanian women, have supposed that some mysterious effect was produced by their intercourse with white men. Count Strzelecki advanced this theory respecting the dark’ skinned female : ” She loses the powers of conception, on a renewal of intercourse with a male of her own race, retaining only that of procreating with the white man.”

    • Alan J. Perrick says:

      Oh my, nice screenname. I definitely approve.

      “Adolph,” your learning curve will be a long one, I’m guessing. But, Lord knows, it’s good to get started sooner rather than later and not to procrastinate forever…

      Best regards,

      A.J.P.

      • Adolf the anti-White says:

        You’ve been rather hostile to be. I think on the basis of a few nasty comments I made about identification religion being overly simplistic.

        I’m wondering if my use of the word “Adolf” is seen as anti-racism?

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