Race only skin deep - S.J. STUDENTS DISCOVER GENETIC LINK

Mercury News ^ | Mon, Feb. 09, 2004 | Katherine Corcoran

[CobaltBlue]

More than half of the class at San Jose's Piedmont Hills High School, students from numerous racial and ethnic backgrounds, are linked in their DNA to the same ancestor, born more than 100,000 years ago in central China or Taiwan.

[nuconvert]

pong

[CobaltBlue]

These high school kids in California found out they are all related to a common ancestor 100,000 years ago using genetic testing.

Piedmont Hills High students who share a common ancestor include, from left, Simon Bao (Chinese and Vietnamese), Beth Gomes (white), Aaron Saini (Indian), Austin Buckner (African-American and Japanese), Michael Huynh (Chinese and Vietnamese) and Andrew Tran (Vietnamese).

[Aracelis]

bump for later read

[Callahan]

Their ancestor punched mine in the nose. Where's my check?

[LiteKeeper]

Christians, and particularly creationists, have been saying this for centuries. (Genesis 11) It is not a startling discovery.

[Modernman]

Read Later

[GrandEagle]

are linked in their DNA to the same ancestor, born more than 100,000 years ago in central China or Taiwan.
I believe the timing to be quite a bit off (100,000 years ago), but if you believe in a worldwide flood, then we would all have to be related to Noah.

[WinOne4TheGipper]

bttt

[CobaltBlue]

As you know, evolutionists - many of whom are Christians - put the common ancestors far further back in time than Young Earth Creationists - not all of whom are Christians.

[whereasandsoforth]

Sorry, race has to be biological. There are distinct differences in the bone structure (between some races), and there are illnesses that one race gets and the others don't (I know there are exceptions). I'd call that biological.

[CholeraJoe]

Methane gas from their ancestor's cow caused global warming and my ancestors drowned in the flood. I want reparations, too.

[puroresu]

My guess is they were using mitochondrial DNA, which is irrelevant to race. The recent PBS series denying the existence of race also used mitochondrial DNA, and was thus dishonest.

Race can in fact be identified by one's DNA, and all of us are more closely related to members of our own race than members of other races. If you just think about it, it would be biologically and genetically impossible for it to be otherwise.

There's a lot of dishonesty floating around today on issues such as this. There's also a lot of hypocrisy, since the very people most determined to deny that race exists are also the first to notice if the racial numbers aren't balanced at a school or workplace.

[Little Pig]

So where do the physical differences come from, if not genetics? Unconscious force of will? Do chinese couples, for example, simply expect that their baby will look chinese, and therefore subconsciously determine the infant's future physical characteristics? How novel. If we had known that earlier, we'd all have hypnotized ourselves to produce progeny with high-powered immune systems and supermodel looks.


Sheesh.

Bending-science-to-fit-preconceived-notions ping.

[Seeking the truth]

Geneticists who spent years mapping the human genome, however, discovered just the...

Cautionary tale: These same geneticists anticipated finding 100,000 human genes. When the Genome Project finished mapping, they found only 30,000.

Conclusion: Even the best "experts" are wrong sometimes.

[Modernman]

Sorry, race has to be biological

The concept of race is purely man-made. From a biological point of view, there is no more difference between a white person and an asian person than there is between a white house cat and a black house cat.

There are distinct differences in the bone structure (between some races)

The differences in bone structure among members of the same "race" are just as great as the differences in bone structure between races. Now, if one race had extra bones, you might have an argument....

there are illnesses that one race gets and the others don't (I know there are exceptions). I'd call that biological

These are genetic disorders that have nothing to do with race. Sickle cell anemia is almost exclusively a disease suffered by black people. However, if whites and blacks inter-marry, eventually you'll see white people with SSA (and there are probably already cases in America of white folks with SSA).

[Sloth]

What a dumb discovery. Did they previously think that a bunch of unrelated humans just sprang out of the ground and didn't intermarry?

[sphinx]

Anyone who has read The Flashman Papers knows the answer to this ....

[puroresu]

#####The concept of race is purely man-made. From a biological point of view, there is no more difference between a white person and an asian person than there is between a white house cat and a black house cat.#####

Bad analogy. The right analogy would be between a Persian cat and a Siamese cat, which are, in fact, different.

#####The differences in bone structure among members of the same "race" are just as great as the differences in bone structure between races. Now, if one race had extra bones, you might have an argument....#####

Bad analogy again. The existence of variation within a race doesn't negate the differences between races. Suppose the tallest adult member of RACE A is 7 feet, and the shortest is 5 FEET. The tallest adult member of RACE B is 6 feet, and the shortest is 4 feet. There would be considerable variation within each race, and considerable overlap as well. But the fact would remain that ONLY RACE A grows to heights of 7 feet. And in our real world, ONLY certain races have black skin, or white skin, etc.

#####These are genetic disorders that have nothing to do with race. Sickle cell anemia is almost exclusively a disease suffered by black people. However, if whites and blacks inter-marry, eventually you'll see white people with SSA (and there are probably already cases in America of white folks with SSA).#####

Exactly! Think about it!

[CobaltBlue]

Ping - cute story.