Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2024 August 6

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August 6

Trustworthy sources for learning about race and ethnicity

I am looking for good up-to-date learning resources on race and ethnicity. I came from an extraordinarily ill-informed household and have subsequently tried shutting out their conversation, undoubtedly I still carry poor views without knowing. I am at the point where I do not know the basics and just need some help getting this sorted out. Just looking for resources, film, sites. They can absolutely be "dumbed down."

I do not think external science is the right direction for this. It becomes off-topic at best and real uncomfortable at worst. I believe this relates more to social constructs, which I would love to have more of an understanding of. I have Darwin's On the Origin of Species on my shelf, having thumbed through that in relation to this topic was shocking. Lurid. It is obviously flawed, 1859 far too distant, and while it is great I know this is wrong, I cannot tell the specifics of the wrong except for gut feelings. I believe it would help to know more of what is right while knowing I can trust that source. Parameci (talk) 17:10, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

Does Darwin argue that there is more than one species of humans? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:05, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

No, in the 19th century, that was Polygenism, and was embraced by racists who disregarded both traditional religion and emerging evolutionary science, such as Louis Agassiz... AnonMoos (talk) 22:17, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia itself is not a reliable source, but our articles on race (human categorization), ethnicity, as well as human evolution, are pretty good starting points riddled with references to reliable sources. Matt Deres (talk) 18:23, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

Darwin says almost nothing about human beings in his "Origin of Species". He reserved that for The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex... AnonMoos (talk) 22:14, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

I'd like to hear what the OP found "shocking" and "lurid" about Origin of Species. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:17, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

Darwin also had no idea about genetics, so he imagined skin color mixing like paint. It would be best for OP not to start with Darwin but with what we presently know, perhaps with something accessible such as the Y-chromosomal Adam and Mitochondrial Eve articles. Abductive (reasoning) 08:59, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

Skin color rather DOES, at least, have the appearance of "mixing like paint": its inheritance pattern isn't like that of eye color and there's no single up/down gene for dark or light skin as with brown/blue eyes.

You are correct, of course, but a better example than skin color to get across what Darwin and his contemporaries thought, is blood: they believed that each offspring's boys was a blend of the two parents' blood. We still have much idiomatic language reflecting this, but they literally thought that was how it worked. 73.2.106.248 (talk) 20:23, 10 August 2024 (UTC)

There are people who believe that race is a concept that can be used to classify humans as belonging to specific races. These people also tend to believe that race is heritable. More precisely, they believe that a child inherits the race of its parents (if they belong to the same race). So they believe it is a biological trait. This belief was prevalent in the 19th century, but we know now that there is no scientific basis for splitting humanity into separate races. This pseudoscientific concept of race also underlies racism.

Ethnicity, on the other hand, is generally understood as being a cultural concept, involving language, customs and traditions, belief systems, folklore, and generally all that is culturally transmitted. It is also a fuzzy concept; someone can have multiple ethnicities. For example, someone can be German but at the same time also, more specifically, Swabian. Or someone can have been raised by Japanese parents while growing up in Norway, participating in both cultures and identifying as both Japanese and Norwegian.

Whatever sources you are consulting, it is good to keep in mind that race and ethnicity are very different concepts. Since it is not quite clear what it is you want to know "the basics" of, it is difficult to give a targeted advice on reliable learning resources. Don't hesitate to ask more specific questions here.  --Lambiam 10:54, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

Speculation: It seems possible that the OP has been socialised in an authoritarian, racist and creationist family. Finding a way out of the rigid dogma of eternal and absolute truths requires much courage and will trigger some existentialist fear when a person jumps into the cold water of chaotic free thinking.

This may come as a traumatic and frightening culture shock to those whose reality has been filtered by a secure and rigid dogma of divine law and order. Basically, the OP needs to learn how to think and how to decide without the "security net" of dictatorial Gods and authoritarian masters.

The OP should be highly respected for his / her courage. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 16:09, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

The question does have that vibe to it. It would be nice to hear some followup from the OP, but since they only edit once every month or two, I wouldn't count on it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:18, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

On the subject of Darwin, it's worth noting that he's important historically because he we the first person to come up with a generally plausible explanation of evolution and speciation, and laid the groundwork for future research. But science has progressed massively since then - all sorts of things that he was unaware of have since been discovered, all sorts of questions he raised have now been answered, and some of his explanations have been disproved. As such, reading Origin is more something one would do for understanding the history of his ideas, rather than to learn the current understanding of evolution. Iapetus (talk) 11:35, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

Obviously there was much that he didn't know, but he had a way of being right about multiple things based on (and sometimes going beyond) the evidence that was available to him. For example, the "modern evolutionary synthesis" of ca. the 1920s to 1950s largely rejected the importance of sexual selection, but since then its importance been increasingly recognized... AnonMoos (talk) 20:53, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

There is actually very little in On the Origin of Species that has been shown to be outright wrong, and if it is wrong, it is by omission of things Darwin did not know that we know now. The most obvious is the absence of Mendelian inheritance, which actually supports his theory way better than the somewhat muddled, not explicitly described, inheritance theory that seems to have been his mental model: a blending of traits, and in later editions some Lamarckian ideas. See also Heredity § Relation to theory of evolution, which incorrectly includes pangenesis (only adopted by Darwin years later and in another book}.  --Lambiam 09:12, 10 August 2024 (UTC)

Here's what P. B. Medawar said in 1973: AnonMoos (talk) 17:03, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

"Although it has been filled in and filled out, Darwin's theory remains substantially true and his own reputation has never been higher. All biologists except the very young who are in too much of a hurry for their own good read The Origin of Species, and all may still marvel at its closeness of reasoning, cogency, and (for those who go by style) its unmistakable air of authenticity."