@XEmoCatX
In case the real message in my post above wasn't clear, I'm pro-facts and pro-science, which means I'm unhappy with a lot more than RCTA/ECTA based on manifested DNA modifications.
So I'm quite sympathetic towards the views you shared. But I believe it's too late to do anything about it. If this is ever "fixed" it won't be as a result of calm, rational discussions /sigh.
The problem is that society made a choice to catch itself in a trap of its own making: that impossible DNA changes are in fact possible.. And now we're seeing effects of the rule "If a lie becomes a truth, the truth becomes a lie".
We can't blame Zoomers and Gen Alpha for buying into what they were taught.
We can't even blame them for being less likely to be able to count or read than their elders /sigh.
But regardless of "why", they're "lost in the fog".
FWIW: I agree with the others OFC: it's
not possible to change the DNA in the majority of the cells in a human body. Exceptions are things like transplants and blood transfusions.
So, with a reminder that we're all pink inside, and we all have red blood, and that "race" is just a random thing we fixate on because we're visual creatures:
Race/ethnicity is real in a sense. It's fixed at birth (along with a lot of other stuff of course). Body modification is possible for some aspects of appearance, but it's impossible to effect some kind of fundamental change in every cell in a living person's body.
On the other hand, race is just a minor aspect of appearance, with a few less visible distinctions that correlate (like the famous variation in the frequency of sickle-cell anemia). In general we might just as well classify people by the shape of their ears.
So race is "real" but for the most part, race as such is not important. Why does it matter?
Differences in
culture are important, but clearly not "real" in the sense of being coded in DNA.
Note that there's also a strong connection between language and culture. It's out of scope for this though.
And to link it up: the best statistical measure of whether two people will get on well if if they speak the same language with the same dialect and accent. i.e. we are comfortable with people who share our culture.
In the past, culture and appearance were generally linked of course: the human world once comprised a majority of places where culture and race/ethnicity were strongly correlated, with a modest amount of mixing, and a few places where homogenous areas intersected, in which that was significant variation in the culture/race combinations.
Where does this leave us in a world where some of the more advanced societies treat DNA as mutable in ways that are currently impossible, have stopped "curating" their own cultures, and believe that an integrated society can, as a whole, be "multicultural" ?
Confused, and collectively looking foolish /sigh.
