J'avais aussi trouvé le même texte sous une autre adresse (
http://experts.about.com/e/r/ra/Race.htm ).
J'ai trouvé aussi qu'il faisait une bonne synthèse de nos points de vue divergents. En tout cas, nous y retrouvons bien de nos arguments. Par contre, je n'ai pas retenu le même extrait que toi. Je suis descendu plus bas dans le corps du texte où ils font une critique plus approfondie de la valeur scientifique des arguments de chacun des camps.
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Discussions of race are complicated because race research has taken place on at least two scales (global and national) and from the point of view of different research aims. Evolutionary scientists are typically interested in humanity as a whole; and taxonomic racial classifications are often either unhelpful to, or refuted by, studies that focus on the question of global human diversity. Policy-makers and applied professions (such as law-enforcement or medicine), however, are typically concerned only with genetic variation at the national or sub-national scale, and find taxonomic racial categories useful.
These distinctions of research aims and scale can be seen by the example of three major research papers published since 2002: Rosenberg et al. (2002), Serre & Pääbo (2004), and Tang et al. (2005). Both Rosenberg et al. and Serre & Pääbo study global genetic variation, but they arrive at different conclusions. Serre & Pääbo attribute their differing conclusions to experimental design. While Rosenberg et al. studied individuals from populations across the globe without respect to geography, Serre & Pääbo sampled individuals with respect to geography. By sampling individuals from major populations on each continent, Rosenberg et al. find evidence for genetic "clusters" (i.e., races). In contrast, Serre & Pääbo find that with respect to geography human genetic variation is continuous and "clinal". The research interest of Rosenberg et al. is medicine (i.e., epidemiology), whereas the research interest of Serre & Pääbo is human evolution. Tang et al. studied genetic variation within the United States with an interest in whether race/ethnicity or geography is of greater importance to epidemiological research. In contrast to Serre & Pääbo, Tang et al. find that race/ethnicity is of greater importance within the United States. Further recent research correlating self-identified race with population genetic structure echoed the conculsions in Tang. Indeed, the contrasting conclusions between global and national levels of analysis were predicted by Serre & Pääbo:
:It is worth noting that the colonization history of the United States has resulted in a "sampling" of the human population made up largely of people from western Europe, western Africa, and Southeast Asia. Thus, studies in which individuals from Europe, sub-Saharan Africa, and Southeast Asia are used... might be an adequate description of the major components of the U.S. population.
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Nous retrouvons également dans ce texte le seul critère biologique rigoureux qui permette d'établir si une espèce se divise en races ( Polytypique ) ou si elle est composée d'une seule race ( Monotypique ):
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A monotypic species has no races, or rather one race comprising the whole species. Monotypic species can occur in several ways:
(...)
* The variation between individuals is noticeable and follows a pattern, but there are no clear dividing lines between separate groups: they fade imperceptibly into one another. Such clinal </e/c/cl/cline.htm> variation always indicates substantial gene flow </e/g/ge/gene_flow.htm> between the apparently separate groups that make up the population(s). Populations that have a steady, substantial gene flow between them are likely to represent a monotypic species even when a fair degree of genetic variation is obvious.
(...)
A polytypic species has two or more races (or, in current parlance, two or more sub-types). These are separate groups that are clearly distinct from one another and do not generally interbreed (although there may be a relatively narrow hybridization zone), but which would interbreed freely if given the chance to do so. Note that groups which would not interbreed freely, even if brought together such that they had the opportunity to do so, are not races: they are separate species.
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Il y a également de nombreuses références à des textes qui constituent des prises de position officielles de communautés savantes. On trouve notamment la prise de position officielle du Board de American Anthropological Association (
http://www.aaanet.org/stmts/racepp.htm)
The following statement was adopted by the Executive Board of the American Anthropological Association, acting on a draft prepared by a committee of representative American anthropologists. It does not reflect a consensus of all members of the AAA, as individuals vary in their approaches to the study of "race." We believe that it represents generally the contemporary thinking and scholarly positions of a majority of anthropologists.
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Evidence from the analysis of genetics (e.g., DNA) indicates that most physical variation, about 94%, lies within so-called racial groups. Conventional geographic "racial" groupings differ from one another only in about 6% of their genes. This means that there is greater variation within "racial" groups than between them. In neighboring populations there is much overlapping of genes and their phenotypic (physical) expressions. Throughout history whenever different groups have come into contact, they have interbred. The continued sharing of genetic materials has maintained all of humankind as a single species.
Physical variations in any given trait tend to occur gradually rather than abruptly over geographic areas. And because physical traits are inherited independently of one another, knowing the range of one trait does not predict the presence of others. For example, skin color varies largely from light in the temperate areas in the north to dark in the tropical areas in the south; its intensity is not related to nose shape or hair texture. Dark skin may be associated with frizzy or kinky hair or curly or wavy or straight hair, all of which are found among different indigenous peoples in tropical regions. These facts render any attempt to establish lines of division among biological populations both arbitrary and subjective.
(...)
The paper above was adopted by the AAA Executive Board on May 17, 1998, as an official statement of AAA's position on "race."
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CQFD
Tu dis finalement
"Moi, j'appelle un chat un chat, même quand ses contours sont flous. "
Moi j'appelle une cline une cline et un clade un clade et le flou ne m'empêche pas de les distinguer.
« Dans les temps de tromperie universelle, dire la vérité devient un acte révolutionnaire. » George Orwell
