There’s Only One Human Race
Nobel Laureate, James Watson, recently made the claim that blacks were ‘less intelligent,’ than whites, which just goes to show, being smart in one area doesn’t prevent you from being foolish in other realms.
The following message is from the American Anthropological Association:
“race” has no scientific justification in human biology.
Tiger Woods coined the term Cablinasian to describe his ethnicity, merging Caucasian, black, Indian, and Asian to encompass his blending of heritages. The very fact that such diverse groups of people can successfully produce offspring together proves that they are not of different races.
The difference between light and dark skin human beings really is only skin deep, when we trace the course of human migrations we learn that our skin colors are an adaptation to sun exposure. As humans migrated into the North, they were exposed to less sunlight, and began to suffer Vitamin D deficiencies. People with lighter skin produced more Vitamin D and survived to pass on their genes in this environment.
Ryan Somma’s |
I’m in Haplogroup J2 on my paternal side, according to my genetic ancestry test. My father’s Italian, but specifically Southern Italian, which means we share our ancestry with people from Northern Africa. I’m practically half-Arab genetically (but don’t tell my Italian relatives that).
Similarly, Native Americans bare a stronger resemblance to Asians the further Northwest you go, because that’s where their ancestors crossed the Bering Strait.
All of us are Kingdom Animalia, Phylum Chordata, Class Mammalia, Order Primates, Family Hominidae, Genus Homo, Species Homo sapiens, and Subspecies Homo sapiens sapiens, all of us. It doesn’t matter if someone’s dark skinned, blue-eyed, tall, heavy-set, light-skinned, curly-haired, big-nosed, smart, web-toed, etc, etc, they are only about 0.1 percent genetically different from anyone else.
As for Watson, it was also recently found that he has black genes.
Scientific food for thought this MLK Day.
You can read the final revision of the American Anthropological Association Statement on “Race” here.
Which genetic ancestry test did you take? I’ve been wanting to do this.
Comment by doranchak — January 21, 2008 @ 8:56 am
I did the Genographic Project, which was very affordable and enlightening about where my ancestors got off the human migration trek. Unfortunately, it only tested one half of my genes, so we got my mom to do it also to figure out the other half.
Comment by ideonexus — January 21, 2008 @ 12:44 pm
Clearly, all this proves is that people who are the spawn of many different ethnicities end up being better at whatever skill they choose to do, whether it being Golf or Politics.
Comment by Nick Hamden — January 21, 2008 @ 12:58 pm
I gotta say I don’t really see this as much more then a semantic argument. Isn’t race the same as a breed of animal? Of course a Great Dane and a Poodle can mate, but they are still quite different, even if their genetic differences are 0.1% (or however much).
0.1%, genetically, is still a lot– don’t we share 93% identical DNA with a flatworm? That only leaves 7% variance for our whole race. 0.1% out of 7% is actually more like 1.42% if you only count the 7% as having possible variances.
Is the issue just the choice of the word “race”?
Comment by Clint — January 21, 2008 @ 2:37 pm
Above, I meant “7% variance for our whole species”, not race.
Comment by Clint — January 21, 2008 @ 2:37 pm
The issue is the use of the word “race,” which is scientifically inaccurate, and the AAA’s statement deals with the misuse of this word, meant to imply genetic differences that don’t exist.
I do remember hearing the 93% identical DNA to a Flatworm claim, but couldn’t find it online. I do remember thinking the claim was silly since humans have much more DNA than worms, 100,000 genes compared to 20,000 (the significance and accuracy of these numbers is under debate).
The 0.1 percent differences between humans is significant, but still prevents us from establishing human “races.” This 0.1 percent would drop even further, dramatically so if we factor out genetic variations that all cultures share, such as height, weight, etc, etc. The regional genetic differences are extremely minor in this light, and, as humans continue to blend together, will eventually become altogether irrelevant.
Comment by ideonexus — January 21, 2008 @ 4:34 pm
I never really thought of race as being a particularly scientific term anyway… I always considered it a layman’s term. So the real message is “race != species”. I can stand 100% behind that. :)
Comment by Clint — January 21, 2008 @ 5:17 pm
Oh and interesting tidbit about the flatworm DNA! Maybe the 93% was vs. Chimpanzees or something else (runs away)
Comment by Clint — January 21, 2008 @ 5:17 pm
Ha! Ha! I like that “(runs away)” bit. I have to do that pretty often.
Comment by ideonexus — January 21, 2008 @ 6:01 pm
[…] I said it first (by quoting the American Anthropological Association), and now The Economist is totally stealing my content with their article exploring the genetic differences between human phenotypes. Didn’t even give me ping-back, buncha libertarian jerks. […]
Pingback by Science Etcetera Venusday, 20080208 « ideonexus — February 8, 2008 @ 6:02 am
I feel so strongly that we are all one race human that I came up with a design for a t-shirt that I have available on my website. It has won rave reviews and has been honored at the YWCA. Please visit http://www.oneracehuman.org
Comment by Linda C — December 6, 2008 @ 11:11 pm
bullshit of epic proportions
Comment by you — August 19, 2009 @ 8:44 pm
@Troll: Care to explain why the American Anthropological Association is wrong?
Comment by ideonexus — August 20, 2009 @ 5:17 pm
So they say…And yet all of the first world nations are white majority nations – and founded/built by white people. Hmm odd. But were all the same race blah blah ZERO differences at all blah blah. Yet the results are totally different from a white society such as the UK to a black society such as Haiti or ANY black African nation.
Comment by john — April 30, 2010 @ 7:44 pm
human race only race no black white or any of that and only one religion NO RELIGION
Comment by d — July 6, 2011 @ 1:32 am