Truth Costs

Thomas Nagel, professor of philosophy at New York University, one of America’s leading institutions, candidly wrote, "I want atheism to be true. And I’m made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers. It isn’t that I don’t believe in God and naturally hope that I’m right in my beliefs, it’s that I hope there is no God. I don’t want there to be a God. I don’t want the universe to be like that."¹

Aldous Huxley is even more candid in exposing that his personal biases - even more than the evidence - influenced his rejection of God. In Ends and Means, he writes, "I wanted to believe the Darwinian idea. I chose to believe it not because I think there was enormous evidence for it, nor because I believed it had the full authority to give interpretation to my origins, but I chose to believe it because it delivered me from trying to find meaning and freed me to my own erotic passions."²

Huxley, an intelligent and erudite thinker, did not embrace evolution because of the evidence.  Nor did he reject God for the lack of it.  Rather, he wanted to rid himself of the burden of trying to find meaning. He wanted no sexual restrictions.  In other words, he did not want to pay the cost associated with belief in God. For Huxley, disbelief was not a matter of the mind, but a matter of the heart and will.

~Abdu Murray, What Truth Costs

Nagel and Huxley, how much like these two are we in our leanings?  Do we choose our worldview and personal convictions from knowledge or from preference?  Or from fear of the implications?  Troublesome questions on every side of the issue.

“Until the heart is open, the ears remain closed.”

________________________________________________________________________________

¹ Thomas Nagel, The Last Word (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 130, emphasis added. Interestingly, Nagel has recently released a book in which he concedes to some degree the credibility of the evidence for a non-material cause of the universe. See Thomas Nagel, Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012).
² Aldous Huxley, Ends and Means (London: Chatt & Windus, 1946), 310.

Water, no ice

"The findings are striking," NOAA's Kathryn Sullivan, acting administrator, says. "Our planet as a whole is becoming a warmer place."

Scientists are reluctant to point directly to the cause of the changes in our climate, but the annual reports are typically used by the federal government to prepare for the future, and in June president Obama used his climate address to direct government agencies to begin planning for decades of warming atmosphere and rising seas.

Go to the NOAA dashboard for updated information

The biggest changes in the climate in 2012 were in the Arctic and in Greenland. According to the report, the Arctic warmed at about twice the rate of lower latitudes. By June 2012, snow cover had fallen to its lowest levels since the record began. By September 2012, sea-ice cover had retreated to its lowest levels since the beginning of satellite records, falling to 1.32 million square miles.

That was, the report noted, 18% lower than the previous low set in 2007, and 54% lower than the mark for 1980.

The changes were widespread on land as well with record warm permafrost temperatures in Alaska and in the Canadian Arctic. In July last year, Greenland experienced surface melting on 97% of the ice sheet. The record-breaking events indicate an era of "new normal" for the climate, the researchers said.

"The record or near-records being reported from year to year in the Arctic are no longer anomalies or exceptions," said Jackie Richter-Menge, a civil engineer with the US army corps of engineers. "Really they have become the rule for us, for the norm that we see in the Arctic and that we expect to see for the foreseeable future."

The Arctic ice sheet has shrunk so much that National Geographic is having to make what it calls “drastic” changes to its atlas.

That ice melt was also a major cause of sea-level rise, the report found. Global sea levels rose to record highs last year, after being depressed during the first half of 2011 because of the effects of La Niña. The average global sea level last year was 1.4 inches above the 1993-2010 average.
"Over the past seven years or so, it appears that the ice melt is contributing more than twice as much to the global sea level rise compared with warming waters," said Jessica Blunden, a climatologist at NOAA's national climatic data center.


And for those persistent naysayers regarding climate change, just put the ice back and we'll call it even.

(Did we cause the warming trend with our use of fossil fuels?  The cause of warming is a continuing question, but the fact that it is happening appears to be rather well established.)

Your Choice?

Bars of soap along with other common products;
corn meal, rice, salt, sugar, oil, pasta ...

At the store, we've got plenty of choices for bathing products. They're all one or another variety of soap, usually with stuff added.  They're almost all necessary, of course.

For comparison, note the blue bars in the photo (right).

That's soap in Africa and perhaps for much of the world. The large bar is cut off in chunks and used for laundry, for bathing, for hair washing, and pretty much everything along that line.  It's not bad, really.  It's used in school and home and at the river where they do laundry and dishes, and it works fine.  

So how much does our culture shape us?  We know you have to have at least five kinds of soap, and you can't dry clothes without using a softener sheet, and men and women can't use the same deodorant.  True?  OK, five kinds of soap: bath, hair, dish, laundry, and nice smelling stuff for shaving.  And they all use similar ingredients with stuff added for this or that reason; perhaps mostly for smell.

Do we maybe over-do it a bit?  The proliferation of stuff in our lives is in some measure force-fed to us by a profit-driven marketplace and social acquiescence.  Much if not most of it all isn't worth the time and effort, much less the money.

You can choose, despite the social and marketplace pressures.  You can strive to have everything and lots of it, like your culture insists, or you could choose ... to live simply, and leave some room in your budget thanks to the absence of excess.  Then you could do things with your kids or help others or put your kids through school without going into debt, perhaps.  Or travel.  Thoughts?

Just an aside, the cost of the bathing products (top, left) would pay for the products and school uniforms (top, right) plus tuition and fees for a semester, around $45 or so.  Feel like joining the assistance effort?  It's tax deductible!

And on a fun note, I took some kids with me on a trip to a little grocery store for momma.  One pre-teen discovered the nice smelling bath soap (Dial or Dove or something like that); she figured it was really special, so she excitedly asked if I could buy a bar for the kids to use.  Of course.

What matters now?

What matters most?

Lots of time gets expended on less important things. Life tends to consume whatever time is available.

Today, there are people near and far that can and perhaps should be the joy of our lives.  

(The phone rings; it's Walter from Kenya!  He calls to say hello and thanks because we send him a little money each month. He's a polio survivor, lives in a wheelchair, and visited me when I was injured and bedridden in Kenya. He lives in absolute simplicity. He's never asked for anything, and he's taught me more about character and love than most folks in my life. His speech is difficult because of the polio, but we talk regularly and laugh a lot, and he prays for us every day.  He's a treasure.)

All you need is love

Despite our light-hearted use of the phrase, the concept is ancient and apparently true.  Love is all you need.

A group of Harvard researchers, on a mission to uncover the true roots of life fulfillment, conducted a 75-year study that reached the same conclusion.

The Harvard Grant Study, led by psychiatrist George Vaillant, followed the life trajectories of 268 male students in order to answer life’s universal questions of growth, development, value and purpose. Vaillant considers the most meaningful finding of the study to be that a happy life revolves around loving relationships. 

Vaillant explains that there are two pillars of happiness: "One is love. The other is finding a way of coping with life that does not push love away."

It's worth noting, the study results describe mature love, genuine commitment, and the associated sacrifices of meaningful relationship between friends, family, and beyond.  

There are so many important things in life; success, income, shelter, security, health, food, education, a place in community, justice,  ....  But love leads them all, and if it's missing, they don't make up the difference.

Earlier work, see here.

Inequality by the Numbers

(Two societies compared)
Curious what differences you might see between the two?  

In 'A' vs 'B', we find:

• The cost of living is higher, crime rate is lower.  
• Taxes are higher, life expectancy is longer.  
• Student/teacher ratios are lower, health is better.  
• Utilities cost less, shoes cost more. 
• Health care system works, children are more likely to be in school when they should be.
• Percent of population in prison is one-tenth of ours.
• A house costs more, the poverty rate is 80% lower.
• Potatoes and apples cost less.

Would I want to live there?  No, but just for reasons of preference.  They're good folks, I'm sure, but their winters are cold, and all my roots are here anyway.

The point of it all is to note differences and improvements that might be made.  Problems can have good solutions, perhaps more than are currently on the table in our painfully partisan discussions.  Civilizations grow and change, hopefully for the better.

Life & Conflict

A large part in letting go of fear-based behavior and personal insecurity is accepting that conflict just happens; it's normal and inevitable when there's more than one perspective involved.

NON-SOLUTIONS:  Making everybody happy. Getting through meetings without tension. Negotiating a path with no hard questions and harder answers.  Appeasement and acquiescence without thoughtful consideration of broad issues.  And at the other end of the spectrum of non-solutions we find escalation, the power play, the tantrum, and the riot act.  All are common fear-based traits in business, in relationships, and in life. Each degrades the relational context leaving worsening unresolved problems.

Conflict at work (or anywhere) is not necessarily a bad thing if you move through it productively. Work on mutual understanding (not to be mistaken with mutual agreement) of each other’s positions and recognize that even if you don't agree with someone, it typically does not mean that the relationship is in jeopardy. Accept that in conflict, the way forward is achievable, even enhanced rather than derailed. Instead of shutting it all down by avoidance, accommodation, or pointless compromise, we can profitably disagree, question, and understand.

Here’s the thing - there’s no getting around the fact that life is a full-contact sport, and if you cannot get through conflict in a healthy, productive fashion then you're life is lessened, possibly crippled. Effectively dealing with conflict is perhaps the most valuable relational skill that anyone might possess.

Marriage has the potential to be more volatile than most relationships.  Those who choose to tackle issues together rather than attack each other are likely to discover shared goals, clear values, and a pathway they can walk together.

Interestingly, most relationships including business, community, and teenagers, they all work the same way.

It took a village

It is not easy to make our way through our children's early years, but we just have to hold on until they go to school, and then the worst is over; others will step up to raising our children for us.

Then we unthinkingly relinquish the shaping or our children's mind and character to others, and we presume they'll teach the same things we would if we had the time.

Reality is otherwise, and parents are the primary fortress against a broad range of formative influences (deliberate attacks) from those who don't share our values.

• A consumerist economy will teach that having more is better, that yet just a little more will make them happy.
• A fashion-based segment will teach them that they're not attractive unless they're up to date.
• A sexually bent media segment will teach them that moral choices need not be carefully considered.
• A class-based segment will teach them that some people are superior to others based on status and wealth.
• Middle-school and high-school will teach them a narrow version of relationship skills.  They'll have little awareness of relationship outside their age group and none for cross-generational relationships.

There are so many good things about modern culture; it is a disappointing downturn to note that it serves only a portion of the people somewhat well.  Like many good ideas, it's an 80% solution that unintentionally negates a healthy and balanced perspective.  And it disenfranchises a portion of the population as well.

A broadly expansive education was once our goal.  Science, sociology, philosophy, history, math, music, and the arts; all were part of a 'well-rounded' education.  Today's thinking is career focused, however, and the push is toward marketable skill development at the expense of a healthy worldview.

It takes a village to raise a child. Hillary Clinton wrote the book whose title is attributed to an African proverb. While debate and criticism swirled around the book and author, numerous proverbs from different cultures across Africa have been noted that convey similar sentiments in different ways. In Lunyoro there is a proverb whose literal translation is 'A child does not grow up only in a single home.' In Kihaya there is a saying which translates as 'A child belongs not to one parent or home.' In Kijita there is a proverb teaching that regardless of a child's biological parents its upbringing belongs to the community.

Such thinking serves well in a community where values are shared and goals are common among the members.  You could trust another parent to tell your child the same thing you would.  Such is not the venue in which we raise our children today. Homeschooling is an emerging choice of parents who see problems in the public school agenda. And children no longer run free; it's not a safe world for them like it was fifty years ago. Why is that?  My daughter used to disappear early Saturday mornings with a dozen of her friends.  She'd come home by sunset with stories of adventures and play.  But that was in Japan, not here.

After some decades of two working parents, families are faced with the choice of relegating the raising of their children to others, or scaling back financially, and thoughtfully doing what needs to be done.  Character formation is not accidental; it's done directly and pointedly by the agencies that have access to a child's thinking.

On a side note ....

My daughter and I share a background in sociology; we wondered who would raise healthier children - the families where she taught elementary school in the inner city, or my African friends in a safe but poor country. Some of her kids had lost family members to street violence, they knew the drug trade, street violence, and prostitution was the available employment for some of their mothers.  There was no safe place for children to roam unattended. Gangs were a survival mechanism. 

My African kids, by comparison, saw little or no violence, they were safe wherever they went, they were cross-generationally connected, and everyone watched out for them.  And they were poor. But the values and goals of their community were good, and so were the kids.  

On the whole, my third-world kids are more likely to grow up intellectually and emotionally well formed and comfortably adapted to society.  They are more likely to be nobly motivated, ethically clear, and capable contributors to the community.  Interesting.

Some of our African friends at their elementary school ...

1=1

Prove it.  Find an occasion in life where equality plays out fully and truthfully.

This young fellow in the photo, for example.  He's well educated, multilingual, well mannered, bright, and possessed of an impressive work ethic.  He earns around $180 per month to support his household, serving folks who make perhaps fifty or a hundred times as much.  With less effort.

The difference between him and the folks he serves is opportunity and oppression.  The world has relegated him and his country to a lesser role in industry, business, government, and equality.

If they're not

interchangeable,

they're not equal.

One equals one only if the two elements are interchangeable.  If they're not interchangeable, the two are not actually equal.

Globalization will make some inroads in such things; some helpful, perhaps.  We'll see.  Meanwhile, are there not things we might do individually to make a difference?

Did you know you can sponsor a young person's college education for less than the cost of a nice television?

"It's our pleasure to serve you," each attendant says to their clientele.  They mean it. 
A secure job that pays reliably is rare. The norm for household income is
$80 to $180 per month, but only if you can find work.
This is a resort in the Dominican Republic,
but it could be almost anywhere.

From an ancient historical view, when Jesus suggested we consider the poor, the disenfranchised, he wasn't suggesting we feel sorry for them; he perhaps was pointing to the injustice inherent in a stratified understanding of humanity.  It's just not right.  When he washed the disciple's feet, he wasn't demonstrating how to be gentle and nice.  It was a practical illustration of how the Father values each and every one, an equality as yet not clearly understood.

These pictured here are equal in potential for intellectual capacity, nobility, virtue, ethical clarity, and value in community.  True?  Can we prove it from our own life choices?  Jesus made a big deal about caring for the poor. He sees us all as pretty much the same, and he knows how screwed up we'll be if we just walk by on the other side of the road.

By the way, the young fellow pictured at the top of the page ... he's just short of the world's median income;
half of humanity lives in much more difficult circumstances than he.

Fractured Families - - Future Costs

A practical, non-religious look at children and families...

Parents deeply hope their children will have a good beginning so they can grow up, well equipped for life and unencumbered by malformed thinking and behavior.

A 'good beginning' of stable household, good schools and churches, health, food, safe streets ...  all such things contribute to a realm in which children can develop the character and skills with which to pursue a productive life.

Attempts to define a child's 'good beginning' have proven inadequate, particularly when it comes to family.  A child can have a good life when living with relatives other than his parents.  Or, a child living with his own parents may not get a good beginning.  A useful definition will have to be functional.

Unlike many creatures, children can't grow up unassisted; they need a social niche in which are addressed the two issues of (1) basic biological needs like food and shelter, and (2)  physical, intellectual, and emotional development and capabilities needed to succeed in years to come.  That niche has traditionally been the family, with variations from culture to culture.  Not, however, the modern family trends we see in the western world today.


Increases in family dissolution (divorce, separation, abandonment), absent fathers and single mothers, marriage avoidance, and non-traditional marriage all parallel increases in poverty, crime, and incarceration.  True?

Family originated in the distant past, parents and children plus aunts, uncles, grandparents, cousins ... family was the first micro-community.  It provided stability, protection, affection, affirmation, instruction, and a share of what was available for all.  While the 'nuclear family' is considered by many to be the critical element, the extended family often rounds out the 'functional definition' we're looking for when it comes to a child's good beginning. Family fills in where the need is.

So, what happens when the extended family bails out or the nuclear family dissolves?
Marriage and family are, among many things, a small economy and community.  Viewed as such, their dissolution has significant economic consequences for the scattered members.

Numerous studies from groups leaning both left and right suggest that increasing numbers of children born out of wedlock, high divorce rates and looser family structures are contributing to rising poverty rates, especially among minorities and the under-educated. One result: an ever greater impact on society and resources.

The 2010 Census reported that for the first time in our history, married couples make up less than half of all households. The traditional family with a mom, dad, and children at home now constitute less than 20 percent of American households, down from 43 percent in 1950.

At the same time, the number of children born out of wedlock has exploded. In the mid-1960s, only 6 percent of children were born to unmarried parents. Some 40 percent of all children are born to unmarried parents today; in the African American community, the figure is above 70 percent and for Hispanics, the total is 50 percent.

According to the Heritage Institute, 2008 Census data indicates the poverty rate for single parents with children was 36.5 percent compared to 6.4 percent for married couples. They conclude, “Being raised in a married family reduced a child’s probability of living in poverty by about 80 percent.”

According to a study released last fall by the Brookings Institute, the rise in children born out of wedlock is “assuring the persistence of poverty, wasting human potential, and raising government spending.”  In the study of single-parent households, the Brookings researchers wrote that “the most important conclusion … is that these families play a central role in boosting the nation’s poverty rate and that they and their children contribute disproportionately (to other social costs).”

A U.S. study shows that fractured families, divorce, and unwed childbearing cost taxpayers at the least $112 billion per year, some $70 billion is in direct federal outlays, the balance borne at the state and federal level. The study conclusions are based on evidence that single-parent households have a higher propensity towards poverty, increasing the need for food stamps and Medicaid. The study notes that young people raised by single parents are more likely to get into trouble, more likely to develop drug problems or end up in jail. 

A study in the U.K. reached similar conclusions.

Could the trend be reversed?  Is a healthy extended family really that centrally important?

Note:  My daughter and I share a background in sociology; we wondered who would raise healthier children - the families where she taught elementary school in the inner city, or my African friends in a safe but poor country. Some of her kids had lost family members to street violence, they knew the drug trade, street violence, and prostitution was the available employment for some of their mothers. Most were from single-parent households. There was no safe place for children to roam unattended. Gangs were a survival mechanism. 

My African kids, by comparison, saw little or no violence, they were safe wherever they went, they were cross-generationally connected, and everyone watched out for them.  And they were poor. But the values and goals of their community were good, and so were the kids.  

On the whole, my third-world kids are perhaps more likely to grow up intellectually and emotionally well formed and comfortably adapted to society.  They are more likely to be nobly motivated, ethically clear, and capable contributors to the community.  

From the U.S. National Institutes of Health's National Library of Medicine (NIH/NLM):

Merlin

When you're looking for extraordinary depth of character, the NFL doesn't immediately come to mind as a producer of such.  From the Los Angeles Rams, though, there have been some exceptional men.

Merlin Olsen was an impressive fellow.  A Pro Football Hall of Fame member, he had a reputation for being a good hearted fellow on and off the field.  Rosey Grier spoke well of him, having become close friends during their years together, and he wept when Olsen died.  "I loved that man," he said. "I really loved him."

Olsen, along with Rosey Grier, Deacon Jones, and Lamar Lundy were the Los Angeles Rams "Fearsome Foursome" who dominated the league for fifteen years.  Olsen was elected to play in 14 consecutive pro-bowls beginning with his rookie season in 1982.  The foursome were close friends for life.

After retiring from football, Olsen was a football commentator for NBC and became an actor as well.  He starred with Michael Landon in Little House on the Prairie and later as Father Murphy, both of which were quite popular.  And wholesome.

"Merlin was always doing good work to help other people have a meaningful life," said Grier, who was told of Olsen's death by Elizabeth Jones, Deacon's wife. "He was always there for you, no matter what."  He was known to be intimately involved in charitable works, and hosted telethons for the benefit of those in need.  

He lived deliberately and even had a written mission statement which was made public by his family after he passed away.

*The focus of my life begins at home with family, loved ones and friends. I want to use my resources to create a secure environment that fosters love, learning, laughter and mutual success.

... on the wall at Olsen's alma mater.

*I will protect and value integrity.

*I will admit and quickly correct my mistakes.

*I will be a self-starter.

*I will be a caring person.

*I will be a good listener with an open mind.

*I will continue to grow and learn.

*I will facilitate and celebrate the success of others.

All in all, an extraordinary gentleman who lived his convictions; perhaps an encouraging example for us all.

The world has changed since Olsen's generation.  I wonder how he might have formed his personal mission now that the world is so interconnected.  What we do here, good or bad, affects them all.  Would he have enlarged his view a bit, expanded his goal to include the larger community of humanity?  I expect so, he was a good guy; we could use more like him.

To be! Or not ...

To be, or not to be, that is the question.  Whether 'tis nobler to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing, end them.  'Tis an end devoutly to be wish'd, yet the weight of heart for such an endeavor is sufficient to devour the strength of one who walks alone, and that which accompanies a father with his son in battle is more than can be borne unless heaven wars on their behalf.

To be, or instead perhaps, to have, and to pursue the having; 'tis the satisfaction of every dream, of every desire; and by having, we say we end the heartache, and the thousand natural shocks a day might bring.  Having heals it all.  To have, perchance to have continually more; aye, there's the rub, for we know not what the pursuit itself may bring.  'Tis known, though, that when we have shuffled off this mortal coil, having much will be our grand advancement.  Because Wall Street and Madison Avenue say so, and they wouldn't lie to us.

Having or being, ... as divergent as these ways might be, the two are each religions of a sort. Eric Fromm in his discussion of the divergence understood religion to be“any group-shared system of thought and action that offers the individual a frame of orientation and an object of devotion”, and he says that modern society is characterized by this new religion – of 'having'. In this new religion people serve the economy, and the objects of worship are work, property, and power. To Fromm, this state of things is fundamentally wrong.

“Modern man has transformed himself into a commodity; he experiences his life energy as an investment with which he should make the highest profit, considering his position and the situation on the personality market. He is alienated from himself, from his fellow men and from nature. His main aim is profitable exchange of his skills, knowledge, and of himself, his "personality package" with others who are equally intent on a fair and profitable exchange. Life has no goal except the one to move, no principle except the one of fair exchange, no satisfaction except the one to consume.  p97.” 
― Erich Fromm, The Art of Loving

He suggests this unhealthy shaping can be reversed, but much of life must change. Women have long been a "property" of men.  The rich have long enslaved the poor.  This race has long subjugated that race.  The powerful have long abused the disenfranchised.

Acknowledging the complexity of such a task as finding a “cure” for the world, Fromm is sure that the chances for success are small. However, he still hopes that the new “City of Being” will come to be the next global vision (Fromm 202).

Global vision?  Or perhaps
a personal path ...

Was Fromm overly pessimistic about the destiny of the world?  He didn't live long enough to see the fearful expectation of WW III evaporate when the Soviet Union collapsed.  The world is much different, the scale of wars is decreasing, and globalization is changing everything.  Of course, resources all over the world are now in decline, economic troubles afflict most people in the world, and the social gap is widening at an accelerating pace. Fromm may or may not have considered globalization a good step forward. It's what we've got to work with, however.  A cure for the world; or perhaps an individual path.

You must choose wisely ...

The bad guy, he chose poorly ...

Our culture shapes us and our children, powerfully and emphatically.

Unless we wisely choose a better way; no?    

The Law of Averages

It doesn't work well in real life, primarily because there's no such law.

Were it not for smart people in my life, I'd not have known that you have to have a very large sample set before it begins to get close to helpful.  In the real world, stuff happens.

Playing roulette, for example; I tried it as a young sailor overseas. Bet this and that color, here and there, double if, etc. It perhaps would have almost worked if there had been enough samples. Bad math cost me two weeks pay.  A valuable lesson.

Everything can get skewed.  An extra day of spring rain, an unexpected crowd at the market, traffic on the beltway; we adapt.

This year's maize crop; a small hand-managed
field in coastal Kenya.

It's harder for some than for others, sometimes. Like in Kenya where our friends live in the coastal region. This year's rainy season has been good so far, so the corn is growing nicely.  They hope for a much better harvest than in previous years. They've endured about ten consecutive years of drought.  As with many challenges in life, averages don't help when the rain doesn't fall.  They and we also are thankful for the year's rain.

Large-eared People

Above, the discovered diversity of Asia's people, from Nordisk familjebok (1904) (A Swedish Encyclopedia)

For two centuries, western culture referred to Asia as though
 it were one place, one culture, one race.

 Africa is often viewed in a similar fashion as if it were
just a place and not larger and more diverse than the USA, China,
 India, Japan, and all of Europe, combined.

'Race' was the way we differentiated between 'us and them' when I was a kid. That colonial era perspective is now obsolete.^[a]  Science has disproved racial explanations for physical and behavioral traits.^{[b][c][d][e][f]}

"By the 1970s, it had become clear that (1) most human differences are cultural; (2) what is not cultural is principally polymorphic – that is to say, found in diverse groups of people at different frequencies; (3) what is not cultural or polymorphic is principally clinal – that is to say, gradually variable over geography; and (4) what's left – the component of human diversity that is not cultural, polymorphic, or clinal – is inconsequential. Genetics has undermined the fundamental assumptions of racial taxonomy."   `Marks

The consensus among anthropologists and geneticists is that race – as largely discrete, geographically distinct gene pools – does not exist.

Asiatiska folk

1. Tsjuktsjer. (Chukchi people)

2. Kamtsjadal. (Itelmens or Kamchadal)

3. Aino. (Ainu people)

4. Giljakiska. (Nivkh people or Gilyak)

5. Samojed. (Samoyedic peoples)

6. Ostjak. (Ostyak peoples)

7. Tatar. (Tatars)

8. Kirgis. (Kyrgyz people)

9. Burjät. (Buryats)

10. Kalmuckiska. (Kalmyk people)

11. Tungus. (Tungusic peoples)

12. Golder. (Nanai people, formerly known as Golds or Samagir)

13, 14. Japan och japanska. (Japanese people or Yamato people)

15. Korean. (Koreans)

16. Lao. (Lao people)

17. Kines. (Chinese people)

18. Negrito. (Negrito peoples)

19. Bataviska. (Betawi people, named after Batavia, Dutch East Indies)

20. Javan. (Javanese people)

21. Sundanska. (Sundanese people)

22. Bata (Sumatra). (Batak people)

23. Dajak (Borneo). (Dayak people)

24. Inföding på Celebes. (Indigenous people of Sulawesi or Celebes)

25. Georgiska. (Georgian people)

26. Tsjerkess. (Adyghe people or Circassians)

27. Kabardin. (Kabarday or Kabardin people)

28. Arab. (Arab people)

29. Jude. (Jews)

30. Vedda (på Ceylon). (Vedda people)

31. Singales. (Sinhalese people)

32. Indier. (Indian people)

33. Perser. (Persian people)

34. Belutsjer. (Baloch people)

35. Kosack. (Cossacks)

One perhaps humorously revealing analysis from 1904 (picture, above) shows the variations among those who had previously been lumped into the single racial category of Asian.  From personal opinion to foreign policy, that was the context.

Race?
Presumed in early thought to have defined 'different origins' than 'us', race marked a valuative dividing line between populations, much of which persists today despite a lack of supporting evidence.  Modern anthropologists acknowledge that all of humanity is descended from a single genetic origin.

If we still need to somehow visually categorize ourselves for the purpose of personal elevation and valuation, I think we should note the extraordinary coolness of large-eared people. Like myself, for example.