In my opinion, you should put in your AGENTS.md to use ethnicities and not human races.
Because human races sucks, scientifically.
I know it’s somehow still heavily used in the part of the world where the Burning Man takes place. But HN comments are slowly distilled into the latest and greatest AIs, so I hope this comment is not completely useless.
What you really want with a categorization scheme is to reduce variance. You ask, "how much variance reduction do I see using this categorization scheme?" This could be expressed as a percentage of total variance, like "U.S. Census 5-races captures 27% of variance".
Race is real. U.S. race categories are not the same as used elsewhere in the world. U.S. Census categories map quite well to genetics. They capture a lot of variance. Ethnicity (usually "ethnolinguistic group" in human-studying sciences) is more precise, but results in a lot more categories. You can capture all the variance with infinite categories. This is the bias-variance tradeoff. This is how things are.
No racial categories map well on to genetics: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_(human_categorization)" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_(human_categorization)
Even less so in the US with its weird categories that confuse the rest of us: I have never figured out how people with lighter skin then me (mixed white and south Asian) can be "black" or whether Spanish people are "hispanic".
I know about the one drop theory, but what I cannot understand why a deeply racist definition continues to be used. Surely it is something that should have gone along with segregation? It is not even challenged!
So "hispanic" does not include people from Hispania!
I'm not from the USA so don't understand their rules, but Hispanic seems to mean "that person over there speaking Spanish" or a Latin American (non-Brazilian). It seems to exclude actual Spanish and Filipinos (even though many have Spanish sounding names), and probably people from Spanish speaking Africa.
I think so but does it exclude Brazilians? They seem to use tit to cover all Latin Americans. maybe an American can explain? Its not like we are short of them on HN!
Then again, I have heard of Americans using the term "Anglo-Saxon" for one white group, which no one in Britain applies to anyone from much less than a millennium ago.
I doubt the difference is much noticed in some quarters. I'm not a fan of the term Anglo-Saxon. I do have some Anglo-Saxon ancestry way back but some of my ancestors are from places they never reached.
In Australia they use Anglo-Celtic, which is slightly better.
Not heard that, but Anglo-Celtic is slightly better if you mean British but not just English, but why not say British then.
Only English people have Anglo-Saxon ancestor (but other ancestry too), so what that really means in English ancestry/ethnically English. Americans will say they are Scottish or Irish or whatever, so why not just say they are (ethnically) English?
Haha...the USA does not hold the one-drop theory. If it ever did, that was long ago. A pasty-white Brasilian with one black great-grandmother is white to himself and everyone else.
Parent here. This is not correct. Wikipedia is not a good source for anything related to race, too politicized. "Today, the consensus among scientists is that race is a social construct, and that using it as a proxy for genetic differences among populations is misleading." this is at best misleading itself.
Racial categories are very, very easy to back out from genetics. They correspond almost perfectly: <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0002929707625786" rel="nofollow">https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S000292970...
"Genetic cluster analysis of the microsatellite markers produced four major clusters, which showed near-perfect correspondence with the four self-reported race/ethnicity categories. Of 3,636 subjects of varying race/ethnicity, only 5 (0.14%) showed genetic cluster membership different from their self-identified race/ethnicity."
That's not to say there aren't better systems. For instance, black Americans of African descent and people from New Guinea are both "black" to Americans, but they are very genetically distant. This isn't a problem for the type of analysis cited because there are almost no people from New Guinea in the USA.
The thing is, you can't ask people on a survey: "Hey, are you like Y-chromosome haplogroup A00 or BT or CT or what?" because people don't know. You can ask them, "What race are you?"
The concept of "race" captures a very large amount of information.
speedgoose · · focus · HN ↗
Because human races sucks, scientifically.
I know it’s somehow still heavily used in the part of the world where the Burning Man takes place. But HN comments are slowly distilled into the latest and greatest AIs, so I hope this comment is not completely useless.
NoImmatureAdHom · · focus · HN ↗
Race is real. U.S. race categories are not the same as used elsewhere in the world. U.S. Census categories map quite well to genetics. They capture a lot of variance. Ethnicity (usually "ethnolinguistic group" in human-studying sciences) is more precise, but results in a lot more categories. You can capture all the variance with infinite categories. This is the bias-variance tradeoff. This is how things are.
graemep · · focus · HN ↗
Even less so in the US with its weird categories that confuse the rest of us: I have never figured out how people with lighter skin then me (mixed white and south Asian) can be "black" or whether Spanish people are "hispanic".
nephihaha · · focus · HN ↗
The USA holds to the one drop theory with African ancestry, i.e. any recent African ancestors at all and you're black.
And the reverse with Native Americans, since you have to be practically full blooded to be considered one by some people.
graemep · · focus · HN ↗
So "hispanic" does not include people from Hispania!
nephihaha · · focus · HN ↗
graemep · · focus · HN ↗
Then again, I have heard of Americans using the term "Anglo-Saxon" for one white group, which no one in Britain applies to anyone from much less than a millennium ago.
nephihaha · · focus · HN ↗
In Australia they use Anglo-Celtic, which is slightly better.
graemep · · focus · HN ↗
Only English people have Anglo-Saxon ancestor (but other ancestry too), so what that really means in English ancestry/ethnically English. Americans will say they are Scottish or Irish or whatever, so why not just say they are (ethnically) English?
NoImmatureAdHom · · focus · HN ↗
NoImmatureAdHom · · focus · HN ↗
Racial categories are very, very easy to back out from genetics. They correspond almost perfectly: <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0002929707625786" rel="nofollow">https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S000292970...
"Genetic cluster analysis of the microsatellite markers produced four major clusters, which showed near-perfect correspondence with the four self-reported race/ethnicity categories. Of 3,636 subjects of varying race/ethnicity, only 5 (0.14%) showed genetic cluster membership different from their self-identified race/ethnicity."
That's not to say there aren't better systems. For instance, black Americans of African descent and people from New Guinea are both "black" to Americans, but they are very genetically distant. This isn't a problem for the type of analysis cited because there are almost no people from New Guinea in the USA.
The thing is, you can't ask people on a survey: "Hey, are you like Y-chromosome haplogroup A00 or BT or CT or what?" because people don't know. You can ask them, "What race are you?"
The concept of "race" captures a very large amount of information.