Gene Study Identifies 5 Main Human Populations

New York Times ^ | 12-20-02 | Nicholas Wade

[FreedomCalls]

Zoologists would also describe these as sub-species.

No they wouldn't.

Why not? Here is a page describing the various subspecies of tigers. They differ by color, size, and coat. Here is a page describing the subspecies of Jardines. They differ primarily in coloration. Why could you not describe a small Bushman of Southern Africa, with dark skin and curly hair as different in subspecies from that of a tall North America Lakota Sioux with much lighter skin and straight hair? Is it because it is the "third rail" of anthropology? Is it too political? How are the differences that create subspecies defined? Are humans the only mammals without defined subspecies?

[wardaddy]

This week's other race thread....a contradiction of sorts to this one:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/808028/posts

[FLAUSA]

If there is no such thing as race, then there can be no affirmative action based on race.

If, on the other hand, racial differences do exist, some differences would be good for society and some differences would be bad for society. Some races would be taller. Some races would be more artistic. Some races would be more intellegent. Some races would be more civilized.

Defining differences in race, even on a DNA scale, can only get a person in big trouble with the PC crowd.

By the way I believe we are all one race, created in the image of God. Please don't ask me what God looks like. I don't know.

[300winmag]

Except that Homo Hablis was making tools, and I'd say we've evolved since them.

Chimps make crude tools, too. They just don't use them as a major survival device.

There must have been a time when man started to depend on tools to stay alive, rather than just something to snag the hard-to-reach fruit off the tree. "Tools" include weapons, and farming implements. Man could then explore other climates and regions, and become a hunter, rather than just lunch.

I once read an article (that I can no longer recollect) that theorized that humanity's final burst of evolutionary change was in changing from another Great Ape into a toolmaker. Full-color stereoscopic vision, optimized for up-close work, is great for a toolmaker. Tools and hands shaped each other, which is why our hands and feet are so different from that of other apes. In fact, the need to carry and use tools put humans on their two feet, and gave them a taller vantage point to scan the rest of the world.

[stands2reason]

I've always thought human evolution was forced primarily through extinction-level events. This seems to correspond to that theory....

[A.J.Armitage]

Given that circles and squares exist, we can take square-ish ovals and place them in the category of square-like objects and we can take round-ish ovals and place them in the category of circle-like objects.

If you want to. But circle-like and circle aren't the same thing. Circle-like is a mental category to make things easier, which is say a construct. That it's based on an underlying reality doesn't make it less of a construct.

Questions of race can be handled similarly.

What questions of race do you have in mind?

[A.J.Armitage]

which is say

Which is to say.

[A.J.Armitage]

Read post #35. That's why.

[Right Wing Professor]

But skin tone doesn't make a race ----I've seen siblings with the same parents have different needs for suntan lotion. In the same family there can be very fair skinned, blue eyed blonds and dark complected.

So you're saying that you could easily mistake some children from a Scandinavian family for some children from a Ghanan family?

No, of course you're not. Race is a perfectly obvious phenomenon; it's no more a social construct than gravity is. Scientists who try to obfuscate what is everyday common sense are merely bringing science into disrepute.

[FITZ]

I never said there can't be races but what they are is up to whoever is defining them. Your example is obvious ---but what about not so pale Europeans? Are Greeks and Italians a different race from Scandinavians? Or from Persians and Arabs? Or are Persians an Asian race? I've read people from India are considered Caucasians which makes sense I guess but racially they seems different than your Scandinavians.

[FreedomCalls]

What questions of race do you have in mind?

The scientific field is called "Taxonomy." There are people who devote their lives to placing things into categories. The oft-raised question is: can humans be categorized by what are commonly called "racial characteristics"? I'm not a taxonomist, it doesn't really matter to me. It apparently does matter to a lot of people. The government is constantly asking me "which race" I belong to. I on the other hand, do care when people want to deny that there are differences between things such as circles and squares. That kind of ignoring the obvious can lead to pseudoscience.

[CanisMajor2002]

*yawn* (not to you, but to the study :) )

In other news, scientists figure out that there were originally five different sets of marshmellows in Lucky Charms.

[FreedomCalls]

I never said there can't be races but what they are is up to whoever is defining them. Your example is obvious ---but what about not so pale Europeans? Are Greeks and Italians a different race from Scandinavians? Or from Persians and Arabs? Or are Persians an Asian race? I've read people from India are considered Caucasians which makes sense I guess but racially they seems different than your Scandinavians.

I never said there can't be races basic geometric forms but what they are is up to whoever is defining them. Your example is obvious ---but what about not so pale Europeans ovals? Are Greeks and Italians pentagons and hexagons a different race geometric form from Scandinavians circles? Or from Persians and Arabs rhombuses and parallelograms? Or are Persians parallelograms an Asian race actually triangles? I've read people from India hexagons are considered Caucasians ovals which makes sense I guess but racially geometrically they seem different than your Scandinavians circles.

[Ahban]

OK, I will avoid creationist AND evolutionist BS. If they used 'mitochondiral rna' as their test, as you claim, it is not stated anywhere in the post. So even if 'mitochondiral rna' does have a fixed mutation rate in mammals, it may not be relavent to this study.

Furthermore, I have seen lots of studies done on more than one type of genetic material where they play tricks with the numbers in order to get the answer they want. I remember two studies that assumed the breeding population of human males to be 7,500 or less until 2000 B.C.. That is absurdly low, unless you are a YEC. We have excavations of single cities from that era that could hold that many men.

I want to know if they used that kind of fudge factor with the 50,000 year figure.

[Pharmboy]

Nice post. Thanks ST.

[Pharmboy]

If there is no such thing as race, then there can be no affirmative action based on race.

Brilliant! Why didn't I think of that? (Don't answer that...)

[reg45]

Races are a temporary evolutionary phenomenon based upon pre-historic geographical isolation. Now that geographical isolation has been eliminated, the trend will be back to a single more homogeneous race. Ten thousand years from now there be no distinctive races.

[reg45]

Oops, I forgot a word!

Races are a temporary evolutionary phenomenon based upon pre-historic geographical isolation. Now that geographical isolation has been eliminated, the trend will be back to a single more homogeneous race. Ten thousand years from now there will be no distinctive races.

[PatrickHenry]

Ten thousand years from now there be no distinctive races.

This assumes that there will be constant intermarriage, or at least inter-group breeding, among all presently-existing races. Will this be true for the pygmis, for example? Maybe not. There could be groups that may continue to be genetically isolated. We don't really know.