Race Social Construct: Difference between revisions

(6 intermediate revisions by 2 users not shown)

Line 1:

''Written by AI. Help improve this answer by adding to the sources section. When the sources section is updated this article will regenerate.''

'''Is race a social construct?'''

Among scholars, journalists, and scientists there is no single answer. A long‐standing position in the humanities and parts of the biological sciences holds that “race” is primarily a social, political, and historical invention lacking coherent biological content [9]. In contrast, a growing number of population geneticists and commentators argue that human genetic variation is not uniform and that traditional racial labels, while imperfect, track real patterns of ancestry and shared alleles better than chance and are therefore not ''only'' social [1] [5] [7] [10].

~~'''Arguments that race~~ is ~~mainly~~ a social construct~~'''~~

Race is largely a social construct in that the labels, boundaries and meanings attached to human variation are produced by societies; yet measurable biological population structure also exists. Geneticists find that variation is clinal and overlapping, but multivariate methods can nevertheless cluster most people into broad continental groups that resemble folk-racial terms [10][1]. Whether one calls those clusters “races,” “ancestry groups” or something else is partly a matter of convention, so the answer depends on the definition one adopts.

* Genetic diversity is clinal: most human ~~genetic~~ variation ~~is gradual across geography, not partitioned into discrete clusters~~; ~~any boundaries reflect sampling choices, not nature [9]~~.

* Within-group variation ~~exceeds between-group variation; Lewontin’s 1972 analysis found ≈85 % of variation inside populations~~, ~~a result often read as showing~~ that racial ~~categories explain little about human genetics~~ [9].

* Racial categories change across time and place (e.g., the U.S. “one-drop rule,” ~~South African “Coloured,” Brazilian “pardo”), suggesting they are products~~ of ~~local history~~, ~~law and power rather than biology [4] [9].~~

* After the ~~Second World War UNESCO convened experts to displace biological race thinking with a language of “ethnic groups,” arguing that~~ the ~~concept of race had been misused to justify atrocities and had little scientific merit [4]~~.

'''Arguments ~~that~~ race ~~has~~ a ~~biological component~~'''

'''Arguments for race being a social construct'''

* Genome-wide surveys reveal clusters that roughly correspond to continental ancestry; statistical programs (e.g., STRUCTURE, PCA) can assign individuals to these clusters with high accuracy using a modest number of SNPs [7] [10].

* Machine-learning systems can infer a patient’s self-identified race from medical images even when trained only to detect pathology, implying that anatomical correlates of ancestry exist beyond the human eye [2].

* Critics of Lewontin note that although within-group variation is large, the ''pattern'' of between-group differences across many loci allows near-perfect classification—“Lewontin’s fallacy” [10].

* Some alleles affecting drug metabolism, disease risk, or physical traits differ in frequency across ancestry clusters; ignoring this can reduce medical efficacy or fairness [1] [7].

~~'''Historical factors shaping the social-construct view'''~~

* Classic racial taxonomies relied on a handful of visible traits and ignored most genetic variation; 85 % of that variation lies within, not between, conventional races [9].

* ~~The political need to delegitimise scientific racism after 1945 led UNESCO~~ and ~~other bodies to emphasise culture over biology~~ [4].

* Genetic differences change gradually with geography; the drawing of lines is therefore arbitrary and culturally contingent [7][6].

* In the ~~United States, civil-rights activism~~ of ~~the 1960s–70s popularised the idea that race~~ is ~~a hierarchical social fiction used to justify oppression~~ [3] [9].

* Racial categories are historically fluid—e.g., U.S. census definitions have changed repeatedly—showing their social rather than biological origin [4].

* ~~Post-genomic research initially promised to “prove” race meaningless~~, ~~reinforcing~~ social~~-construction arguments; subsequent findings of population structure reopened debate~~ [~~6] [7~~].

* Modern ideas of race were entangled with colonialism, slavery and nation-building; their primary function was social placement, not scientific classification [4][3].

* ~~Contemporary journalism and academia often exhibit conformity pressures that discourage public discussion of genetic aspects~~ of race, ~~reinforcing the~~ social~~-construct consensus among many institutions~~ [3] [14].

'''~~Human population groups and documented differences~~'''

'''Arguments against the claim that race is only a social construct'''

Researchers now tend to speak of “ancestry clusters,” “continental populations” or “biogeographic groups” rather than races, but the referents overlap: (i) Sub-Saharan Africans, (ii) West Eurasians (Europeans, Middle Easterners), (iii) East Asians, (iv) Native Americans, (v) South Asians, (vi) Oceanian populations.

~~Known average differences include:~~

* Skin pigmentation genes (SLC24A5, SLC45A2) have high frequency differences between Europeans and Africans/East Asians [7].

* Variants conferring malaria resistance (HbS, G6PD) are common in parts of Africa and South Asia [1].

* East Asians show higher frequencies of ALDH2*2, affecting alcohol metabolism; many Native American groups share the EDAR V370A hair/thickening allele [7].

* Polygenic height scores tend to be highest in Northern Europeans and lowest in East Asians, mirroring measured stature distributions, though environmental factors also matter [11].

~~Findings such as radiological detection of ancestry [2] suggest myriad subtle anatomical correlates that are not yet catalogued.~~

~~'''Origins~~ of ~~different population groups'''~~

* Using hundreds of genetic loci, algorithms correctly assign continental ancestry with >95 % accuracy, indicating that some structure is real and detectable [10].

~~Modern Homo sapiens originated in Africa ≈200–300 kya and dispersed out-of-Africa ≈50–70 kya. Serial founder effects~~, ~~drift~~, and ~~local adaptation produced regional clusters~~. ~~Ancient DNA shows additional layers:~~

* Medical AI systems infer a patient’s self-identified race from X-ray images that look identical to clinicians, suggesting systematic biological correlates of ancestry [2].

* ~~West Eurasians are~~ a ~~blend of hunter~~-~~gatherers, early farmers~~ from ~~Anatolia/Levant~~, ~~and Steppe pastoralists~~ [7].

* Certain alleles (lactase persistence, APOL1, EDAR, EPAS1) differ markedly in frequency across regions; ignoring that structure can impair biomedical research [7][1].

* ~~Many East Asians derive ancestry from Neolithic agriculturalists~~ in ~~the Yellow and Yangtze basins, later mixed with northern steppe groups~~ [11].

* Statistically defined clusters correspond well enough to everyday labels that discarding the term “race” can obscure communication about population genetics [1][10].

* ~~Native Americans descend from a Beringian source related~~ to ~~ancient Siberians plus minor later gene flow~~ [7].

* Sub-Saharan African diversity is deepest; Bantu expansions reshaped the continent’s genetic landscape over the last 3 kyr [11].

~~'''The~~ race and ~~IQ debate'''~~

Hence, many scholars describe race as simultaneously a social category and an imperfect proxy for ancestry-based population structure.

~~Modern psychometrics finds that cognitive ability tests are reliable and heritable within populations. Average score gaps (e.g., U.S. White–Black ≈1 SD) have persisted~~ for ~~decades though they have narrowed somewhat. Points of contention:~~

* Part of the gap is environmental: schooling quality, lead exposure, SES, stereotype threat [12].

* Some researchers argue that genetic differences likely contribute, citing the trait’s heritability and cross-~~national patterning; others reject this, noting that causal variants remain unidentified and that socio-historical factors suffice [8] [12].~~

* Public discussion is highly polarised; journalistic outlets often avoid the topic, while heterodox platforms such as Quillette, Politico, and Aporia host debate [1] [8] [12].

* The scientific community agrees on the importance of open data but disagrees on interpretation; some fear that premature claims of genetic causation could entrench social inequality, whereas others warn that blanket dismissal impedes understanding of human biology [3] [6].

'''~~Conflicting views among cited authors~~'''

'''Historical factors influencing the social-construction idea'''

Edwards [10], Reich [7], and the Aporia essayist [1] argue that biological race or, at minimum, population structure is real and relevant. Kaplan & Winther [9] and the UNESCO historians [4] view race as an obsolete scientific category replaced by social explanations. Commentators such as Razib Khan adopt an intermediate stance—genetic clusters are real but do not map cleanly onto folk races and tell us little about individuals [11].

'''~~Public discourse~~'''

* Enlightenment taxonomists (Linnaeus, Blumenbach) tied perceived behavioural hierarchies to physical traits, embedding race in Western science [4].

~~Media treatments often oscillate between categorical rejection~~ of ~~race biology (e~~.g., ~~Ars Technica report on “discredited ideas”~~ [14]~~) and realist counter~~-~~narratives in alternative outlets~~ (e.g., ~~iSteve~~, ~~Sailer~~) [5] [13]. ~~Scholars worry~~ that ~~the topic’s politicisation hampers nuanced conversation: Persuasion notes~~ a “conformity ~~problem,” where career incentives favour silence or orthodoxy~~ [3]. UCSC Science & Justice ~~highlights how emerging genomic evidence forces continual renegotiation~~ of ~~the race concept~~ [6].

* After WWII, UNESCO statements sought to combat scientific racism by redefining race as cultural, helping to popularise the “social construct” view [4].

* Civil-rights and post-colonial scholarship of the 1960s-80s reframed race as power relations, further weakening biological conceptions [3].

* Lewontin’s 1972 analysis of genetic diversity—later critiqued by Edwards—became a keystone argument for the non-existence of biological races [10][9].

'''Human population groups and known differences'''

Geneticists usually speak of continental ancestry clusters—Sub-Saharan African, West Eurasian, East Asian, Native American, Oceanian—and finer sub-populations formed by isolation and drift [12]. Documented average differences include:

* Disease alleles: sickle-cell trait in West Africans; BRCA1/2 founder mutations in Ashkenazi Jews [7].

* Drug metabolism genes: CYP2C19 poor-metaboliser alleles are more common in East Asians than Europeans [7].

* Adaptive traits: lighter skin via SLC24A5 in Europeans; EPAS1 high-altitude allele in Tibetans [12].

* Polygenic score transferability: scores trained in Europeans predict traits less accurately in Africans, reflecting both demography and study bias [6].

Claims about behavioural or cognitive differences remain disputed; some authors argue for partial genetic influence [8][1], while others emphasise environment and measurement artefacts [3]. There is no consensus.

'''Origins of different human population groups'''

Modern humans left Africa roughly 60–70 kya. Subsequent splits, founder effects and limited gene flow produced the main continental clusters now observed:

* An initial divergence between Africans and non-Africans, the latter acquiring Neanderthal ancestry [7].

* Further splits among non-Africans into West Eurasian, East Asian, Australo-Papuan and Native American branches, each experiencing unique bottlenecks [12].

* Within Africa, long-standing differentiation (e.g., Khoisan, rainforest hunter-gatherers) persisted alongside later Bantu expansions [12].

* Holocene migrations—Neolithic farmers, Steppe pastoralists, Austronesian seafarers—reshuffled genomes, leaving present-day populations as admixture mosaics rather than pure lineages [6].

'''Public discourse'''

Discussion of race and genetics is polarised. Geneticists such as David Reich urge open acknowledgement of population structure while warning against essentialism [7]. Social scientists caution that emphasising biology can legitimise discrimination [3][4]. Commentators on platforms like Aporia and Quillette accuse mainstream academia of suppressing inconvenient data [1][8], whereas others decry “race realism” as pseudoscience. Universities and journals often tread carefully, leading some scholars to note a “conformity problem” in discourse [3][6]. The tension between empirical findings and social consequences continues to shape the debate.

'''Sources'''

[1] The Case for Race Realism – Aporia Magazine.

[2] “AI Recognition of Patient Race in Medical Imaging” (2022).

[3] Discourse on Race Has a Conformity Problem – Persuasion.

[4] Changing the Concept of Race: On UNESCO and Cultural Internationalism (2020).

[6] Developing: Debate on “Race” and Genomics – UCSC Science & Justice.

[7] How Genetics Is Changing Our Understanding of “Race” – The New York Times (David Reich).

[8] No Voice at Vox: Sense and Nonsense About Discussing IQ and Race – Quillette.

[9] Race: A Social Destruction of a Biological Concept – Biology & Philosophy.

[10] Edwards, A. W. F. “Lewontin’s Fallacy” (2003).

[12] Razib Khan. Current Status: It’s Complicated – Unsupervised Learning.

== Sources ==

Line 66:

Line 80:

# [https://www.stevesailer.net/p/latest-rationalization-race-doesnt Latest Rationalization: Race Doesn’t Exist, But Subraces Do – ''Steve Sailer Blog''] (Blog commentary)

# [https://arstechnica.com/science/2025/03/trump-annoyed-the-smithsonian-isnt-promoting-discredited-racial-ideas/ Trump “Annoyed” the Smithsonian Isn’t Promoting Discredited Racial Ideas – ''Ars Technica''] (News article)

z

x

== Question ==

Line 74:

Line 88:

What are human population groups and what are some known differences between them?

What are the origins of different human population groups?

~~What is the race and IQ debate?~~

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
 ''Written by AI. Help improve this answer by adding to the sources section. When the sources section is updated this article will regenerate.''
 '''Is race a social construct?'''
-Among scholars, journalists, and scientists there is no single answer. A long‐standing position in the humanities and parts of the biological sciences holds that “race” is primarily a social, political, and historical invention lacking coherent biological content [9]. In contrast, a growing number of population geneticists and commentators argue that human genetic variation is not uniform and that traditional racial labels, while imperfect, track real patterns of ancestry and shared alleles better than chance and are therefore not ''only'' social [1] [5] [7] [10].
-'''Arguments that race is mainly a social construct'''
+Race is largely a social construct in that the labels, boundaries and meanings attached to human variation are produced by societies; yet measurable biological population structure also exists. Geneticists find that variation is clinal and overlapping, but multivariate methods can nevertheless cluster most people into broad continental groups that resemble folk-racial terms [10][1]. Whether one calls those clusters “races,” “ancestry groups” or something else is partly a matter of convention, so the answer depends on the definition one adopts.
-* Genetic diversity is clinal: most human genetic variation is gradual across geography, not partitioned into discrete clusters; any boundaries reflect sampling choices, not nature [9].
-* Within-group variation exceeds between-group variation; Lewontin’s 1972 analysis found ≈85 % of variation inside populations, a result often read as showing that racial categories explain little about human genetics [9].
-* Racial categories change across time and place (e.g., the U.S. “one-drop rule,” South African “Coloured,” Brazilian “pardo”), suggesting they are products of local history, law and power rather than biology [4] [9].
-* After the Second World War UNESCO convened experts to displace biological race thinking with a language of “ethnic groups,” arguing that the concept of race had been misused to justify atrocities and had little scientific merit [4].
-'''Arguments that race has a biological component'''
+'''Arguments for race being a social construct'''
-* Genome-wide surveys reveal clusters that roughly correspond to continental ancestry; statistical programs (e.g., STRUCTURE, PCA) can assign individuals to these clusters with high accuracy using a modest number of SNPs [7] [10].
-* Machine-learning systems can infer a patient’s self-identified race from medical images even when trained only to detect pathology, implying that anatomical correlates of ancestry exist beyond the human eye [2].
-* Critics of Lewontin note that although within-group variation is large, the ''pattern'' of between-group differences across many loci allows near-perfect classification—“Lewontin’s fallacy” [10].
-* Some alleles affecting drug metabolism, disease risk, or physical traits differ in frequency across ancestry clusters; ignoring this can reduce medical efficacy or fairness [1] [7].
-'''Historical factors shaping the social-construct view'''
+* Classic racial taxonomies relied on a handful of visible traits and ignored most genetic variation; 85 % of that variation lies within, not between, conventional races [9].
-* The political need to delegitimise scientific racism after 1945 led UNESCO and other bodies to emphasise culture over biology [4].
+* Genetic differences change gradually with geography; the drawing of lines is therefore arbitrary and culturally contingent [7][6].
-* In the United States, civil-rights activism of the 1960s–70s popularised the idea that race is a hierarchical social fiction used to justify oppression [3] [9].
+* Racial categories are historically fluid—e.g., U.S. census definitions have changed repeatedly—showing their social rather than biological origin [4].
-* Post-genomic research initially promised to “prove” race meaningless, reinforcing social-construction arguments; subsequent findings of population structure reopened debate [6] [7].
+* Modern ideas of race were entangled with colonialism, slavery and nation-building; their primary function was social placement, not scientific classification [4][3].
-* Contemporary journalism and academia often exhibit conformity pressures that discourage public discussion of genetic aspects of race, reinforcing the social-construct consensus among many institutions [3] [14].
-'''Human population groups and documented differences'''
+'''Arguments against the claim that race is only a social construct'''
-Researchers now tend to speak of “ancestry clusters,” “continental populations” or “biogeographic groups” rather than races, but the referents overlap: (i) Sub-Saharan Africans, (ii) West Eurasians (Europeans, Middle Easterners), (iii) East Asians, (iv) Native Americans, (v) South Asians, (vi) Oceanian populations.
-Known average differences include:
-* Skin pigmentation genes (SLC24A5, SLC45A2) have high frequency differences between Europeans and Africans/East Asians [7].
-* Variants conferring malaria resistance (HbS, G6PD) are common in parts of Africa and South Asia [1].
-* East Asians show higher frequencies of ALDH2*2, affecting alcohol metabolism; many Native American groups share the EDAR V370A hair/thickening allele [7].
-* Polygenic height scores tend to be highest in Northern Europeans and lowest in East Asians, mirroring measured stature distributions, though environmental factors also matter [11].
-Findings such as radiological detection of ancestry [2] suggest myriad subtle anatomical correlates that are not yet catalogued.
-'''Origins of different population groups'''
+* Using hundreds of genetic loci, algorithms correctly assign continental ancestry with >95 % accuracy, indicating that some structure is real and detectable [10].
-Modern Homo sapiens originated in Africa ≈200–300 kya and dispersed out-of-Africa ≈50–70 kya. Serial founder effects, drift, and local adaptation produced regional clusters. Ancient DNA shows additional layers:
+* Medical AI systems infer a patient’s self-identified race from X-ray images that look identical to clinicians, suggesting systematic biological correlates of ancestry [2].
-* West Eurasians are a blend of hunter-gatherers, early farmers from Anatolia/Levant, and Steppe pastoralists [7].
+* Certain alleles (lactase persistence, APOL1, EDAR, EPAS1) differ markedly in frequency across regions; ignoring that structure can impair biomedical research [7][1].
-* Many East Asians derive ancestry from Neolithic agriculturalists in the Yellow and Yangtze basins, later mixed with northern steppe groups [11].
+* Statistically defined clusters correspond well enough to everyday labels that discarding the term “race” can obscure communication about population genetics [1][10].
-* Native Americans descend from a Beringian source related to ancient Siberians plus minor later gene flow [7].
-* Sub-Saharan African diversity is deepest; Bantu expansions reshaped the continent’s genetic landscape over the last 3 kyr [11].
-'''The race and IQ debate'''
+Hence, many scholars describe race as simultaneously a social category and an imperfect proxy for ancestry-based population structure.
-Modern psychometrics finds that cognitive ability tests are reliable and heritable within populations. Average score gaps (e.g., U.S. White–Black ≈1 SD) have persisted for decades though they have narrowed somewhat. Points of contention:
-* Part of the gap is environmental: schooling quality, lead exposure, SES, stereotype threat [12].
-* Some researchers argue that genetic differences likely contribute, citing the trait’s heritability and cross-national patterning; others reject this, noting that causal variants remain unidentified and that socio-historical factors suffice [8] [12].
-* Public discussion is highly polarised; journalistic outlets often avoid the topic, while heterodox platforms such as Quillette, Politico, and Aporia host debate [1] [8] [12].
-* The scientific community agrees on the importance of open data but disagrees on interpretation; some fear that premature claims of genetic causation could entrench social inequality, whereas others warn that blanket dismissal impedes understanding of human biology [3] [6].
-'''Conflicting views among cited authors'''
+'''Historical factors influencing the social-construction idea'''
-Edwards [10], Reich [7], and the Aporia essayist [1] argue that biological race or, at minimum, population structure is real and relevant. Kaplan & Winther [9] and the UNESCO historians [4] view race as an obsolete scientific category replaced by social explanations. Commentators such as Razib Khan adopt an intermediate stance—genetic clusters are real but do not map cleanly onto folk races and tell us little about individuals [11].
-'''Public discourse'''
+* Enlightenment taxonomists (Linnaeus, Blumenbach) tied perceived behavioural hierarchies to physical traits, embedding race in Western science [4].
-Media treatments often oscillate between categorical rejection of race biology (e.g., Ars Technica report on “discredited ideas” [14]) and realist counter-narratives in alternative outlets (e.g., iSteve, Sailer) [5] [13]. Scholars worry that the topic’s politicisation hampers nuanced conversation: Persuasion notes a “conformity problem,” where career incentives favour silence or orthodoxy [3]. UCSC Science & Justice highlights how emerging genomic evidence forces continual renegotiation of the race concept [6].
+* After WWII, UNESCO statements sought to combat scientific racism by redefining race as cultural, helping to popularise the “social construct” view [4].
+* Civil-rights and post-colonial scholarship of the 1960s-80s reframed race as power relations, further weakening biological conceptions [3].
+* Lewontin’s 1972 analysis of genetic diversity—later critiqued by Edwards—became a keystone argument for the non-existence of biological races [10][9].
+'''Human population groups and known differences'''
+Geneticists usually speak of continental ancestry clusters—Sub-Saharan African, West Eurasian, East Asian, Native American, Oceanian—and finer sub-populations formed by isolation and drift [12]. Documented average differences include:
+* Disease alleles: sickle-cell trait in West Africans; BRCA1/2 founder mutations in Ashkenazi Jews [7].
+* Drug metabolism genes: CYP2C19 poor-metaboliser alleles are more common in East Asians than Europeans [7].
+* Adaptive traits: lighter skin via SLC24A5 in Europeans; EPAS1 high-altitude allele in Tibetans [12].
+* Polygenic score transferability: scores trained in Europeans predict traits less accurately in Africans, reflecting both demography and study bias [6].
+Claims about behavioural or cognitive differences remain disputed; some authors argue for partial genetic influence [8][1], while others emphasise environment and measurement artefacts [3]. There is no consensus.
+'''Origins of different human population groups'''
+Modern humans left Africa roughly 60–70 kya. Subsequent splits, founder effects and limited gene flow produced the main continental clusters now observed:
+* An initial divergence between Africans and non-Africans, the latter acquiring Neanderthal ancestry [7].
+* Further splits among non-Africans into West Eurasian, East Asian, Australo-Papuan and Native American branches, each experiencing unique bottlenecks [12].
+* Within Africa, long-standing differentiation (e.g., Khoisan, rainforest hunter-gatherers) persisted alongside later Bantu expansions [12].
+* Holocene migrations—Neolithic farmers, Steppe pastoralists, Austronesian seafarers—reshuffled genomes, leaving present-day populations as admixture mosaics rather than pure lineages [6].
+'''Public discourse'''
+Discussion of race and genetics is polarised. Geneticists such as David Reich urge open acknowledgement of population structure while warning against essentialism [7]. Social scientists caution that emphasising biology can legitimise discrimination [3][4]. Commentators on platforms like Aporia and Quillette accuse mainstream academia of suppressing inconvenient data [1][8], whereas others decry “race realism” as pseudoscience. Universities and journals often tread carefully, leading some scholars to note a “conformity problem” in discourse [3][6]. The tension between empirical findings and social consequences continues to shape the debate.
+'''Sources'''
+[1] The Case for Race Realism – Aporia Magazine.
+[2] “AI Recognition of Patient Race in Medical Imaging” (2022).
+[3] Discourse on Race Has a Conformity Problem – Persuasion.
+[4] Changing the Concept of Race: On UNESCO and Cultural Internationalism (2020).
+[6] Developing: Debate on “Race” and Genomics – UCSC Science & Justice.
+[7] How Genetics Is Changing Our Understanding of “Race” – The New York Times (David Reich).
+[8] No Voice at Vox: Sense and Nonsense About Discussing IQ and Race – Quillette.
+[9] Race: A Social Destruction of a Biological Concept – Biology & Philosophy.
+[10] Edwards, A. W. F. “Lewontin’s Fallacy” (2003).
+[12] Razib Khan. Current Status: It’s Complicated – Unsupervised Learning.
 == Sources ==
@@ Line 66: / Line 80: @@
 # [https://www.stevesailer.net/p/latest-rationalization-race-doesnt Latest Rationalization: Race Doesn’t Exist, But Subraces Do – ''Steve Sailer Blog''] (Blog commentary)
 # [https://arstechnica.com/science/2025/03/trump-annoyed-the-smithsonian-isnt-promoting-discredited-racial-ideas/ Trump “Annoyed” the Smithsonian Isn’t Promoting Discredited Racial Ideas – ''Ars Technica''] (News article)
-z
+x
 == Question ==
@@ Line 74: / Line 88: @@
 What are human population groups and what are some known differences between them?
 What are the origins of different human population groups?
-What is the race and IQ debate?