Gene Study Identifies 5 Main Human Populations

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

[blam]

"That time perios happens to coincide with the eruiption of a supervolcano near New Zealand known as Tova."

That was Toba in Sumatra. I've seen estimates that only 5,000 people worldwide survived this incident.

[PatrickHenry]

Here's a sampling of the political correctness agony that goes on in academia over the concept of "race:"

Does Race Exist? A proponent's perspective by George W. Gill. (he says "yes")
Does Race Exist? An antagonist's perspective by C. Loring Brace. (he says "no")
RACE DOESN’T EXIST . (this discusses both views)

[MeekOneGOP]

At first I misread this. I thought it was a reference to The Bush Family. < /bad humor >
LOL! Wouldn't they wallow in THAT at DU?....

The Family Bush

The branch lengths illustrate the number of genetic differences, not only between species, but among species as well. The pruned bush for humans shows how little genetic diversity exists. (Marco Doelling/ABCNEWS.com)

[Ahban]

Hi toothy,

I'd like to know how they came up with the "as recently as 50,000 years ago number". If it is like some of the fudge factor numbers I have seen in other DNA studies, the real number will be even more recent than that.

I have a suggestion for a potential bottleneck- Adam and Eve were created recently compared to the creation of Chimps and other primates.

I understand the Toba hypothesis, but I'd like someone to explain to me how Toba thinned only the HUMAN gene pool, while leaving the genetic diversity in the other primate gene pools, allegdedly from the same region, intact.

The most logical explanation for the data is that human beings are very recent compared to other primates.

[Noumenon]

Thanks for the geographical and spelling correction. Quite scary, isn't it? Even though we're about 700 miles upwind of Yellowstone, I don't take much comfort fro mthat. It'll be a worldwide disaster when that caldera blows.

[NukeMan]

Some claim and others advocate. Shouldn't "science" be more than dueling claims and counter claims? Is science just "Hardball" with guys in long, white coats?

Heh! Pretty close to the truth in many cases. The longer I live, the more I see Thomas Kuhn validated. It really is a human activity, and humans sure aren't paragons of objectivity and logic.

[staytrue]

In mammals, mitochondiral rna mutates at a fairly fixed rate. The number of mutations is sort of like a ticking clock. Count the mutations and you have a very good time line. PS. Modern science does not preclude a god or even a christian god. Besides, the bible is simply man's imperfect translation of whatever was originally said. You can use it as a guide, but it may be an imperfect translation. Don't let creationist BS blind you to facts.

[FITZ]

I think race can exist but it depends on how someone wants to define it. We're still all descended from the same people (group or couple depending on evolution or creationism), it still takes making some kind of cut-off ---in time or geography and it all seems very arbitrary where you'd make the cut-offs.

[300winmag]

Yet humans have prevailed, even though low genetic variability leaves us more susceptible to disease.

I think it's the ability to make tools that has reduced human genetic diversity. It has also reduced the need for genetic diversity.

Rather than waiting for time and evolution to kill off one genetic population and enhance another, humans make tools for themselves that work much faster. Before evolution can kick in, humans have already fixed the situation.

That means that a person's genetic makeup is less important than his ability to use his brain. "Genetically inferior" people can make contributions that overpower the evolutionary threat. Someone once said that if we outlawed eyeglasses, the gene for near-sightedness would disappear, along with the people that carried it. But the simple "tool" of eyeglasses lets these "inferior" people thrive and survive, and contribute more to society than what the glasses cost.

"Brain" short-circuits evolution because it works faster than evolution. Genetic differences become small and meaningless because everybody has the tools needed to survive, regardless of the genes one was born with. If the earth was hit by a killer asteroid, humans would get busy with making new tools, while the other creatures could only "ride it out", and hope that their genes are good enough to get some of them through.

[A.J.Armitage]

I'll be sure to remember that next time I go to Club Med in Guadalupe, near the Equator. While I am having lunch with my new acquaintances, Sven, from Sweden, and Akiri, from Ghana, I'll mention to them to use the exact same suntan lotion, since, the apparent difference in their skin color is actually a social construct.

But an Italian and a North African aren't very different. And the North African isn't very different from an Ethiopian, and they're black. It's not the case that's you're simply in one category or another.

The idea of simple categories comes from the historical accident that early America was settled by immigrants from northern Europe and slaves from equitorial Africa.

I bet if they'd look specifically at North Africans, they'd have both European and African markers.

[A.J.Armitage]

Zoologists would also describe these as sub-species.

No they wouldn't.

[blam]

Don't leave out Mungo Man.

[blam]

"It'll be a worldwide disaster when that caldera blows."

Yup. Last time, it left six feet of ash in Nebraska.

[Junior]

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

[visualops]

Well that's the point- the legislation isn't based on real differences. The legislation is based on lies and misconceptions (current).
Real genetic differences will, and should, have an impact where they matter, in medicine. And, the information gleaned about mankind as a whole is a good thing.

[FreedomCalls]

But an Italian and a North African aren't very different. And the North African isn't very different from an Ethiopian, and they're black. It's not the case that's you're simply in one category or another.

The idea of simple categories comes from the historical accident that early America was settled by immigrants from northern Europe and slaves from equitorial Africa.

The existence of ovals does not mean that that there are no such things as circles or squares.

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. Questions of race can be handled similarly.

[FreedomCalls]

But Finns are not "scandanavians", but have linguistic and cultural similarities to American Indians. In Minnesota, the Finns and Chippewa got along because of this.

If Finns and Chippewa get along because they have linguistic and cultural similarities, then you need to take that fact and tell it to the Serbs, Croatians, and Bosnians. After that you can go to Rwanda and talk to the Hutu and Tutsi tribesmen.

[FreedomCalls]

I think race can exist but it depends on how someone wants to define it. We're still all descended from the same people (group or couple depending on evolution or creationism), it still takes making some kind of cut-off ---in time or geography and it all seems very arbitrary where you'd make the cut-offs.

The fact that all dogs are descended from wolves does not mean that we can't categorize certain dogs as having features that match a pre-defined description of Basset Hounds or Poodles. The fact that some dogs look like a kind of a mix between a Basset Hound and a Poodle does not mean that we cannot define the difference.

That the difference between humans should be immaterial to the way a government treats someone, or the rights they are entitled to, or to their status in life should not negate an objective look at their differences. Why someone would want to persue such a scientific path is a different matter. The Nazis wanted to prove that Germans were superior. Most grants are given now in an effort to prove there are no differences when such differences clearly exist. Both are persuing a political end not a scientific one.

In the end we are all humans, with dreams, aspirations, and emotions. We all want the best for our children. We all want a government that treats us with equal opportunity yet preserves our ability to seize that opportunity to rise above the mean based on our own knowledge, skills, and abilities even if that equality of opportunity puts some individuals behind other individuals (regardless of race) in outcome.

Freedom. Free to succeed, free to fail.

Security. Safe from failure, safe from success.

[FITZ]

The fact that some dogs look like a kind of a mix between a Basset Hound and a Poodle does not mean that we cannot define the difference.

Dog breeds are a little different though because whoever decides what the dog is supposed to look like can decide what differences belong and which don't. If I decided to make a breed of red-headed humans, I could say certain hair tones or skin tones didn't fit and throw them out but who gets to say who belongs to one race or another? At what time does one race break off another race? I'm not saying we can or cannot define races but it seems pretty arbitrary and up to the definer and humans aren't quite like dogs because we don't have the same kind of breeding programs. Sort of like Indian tribes now ---who gets to say who is still an Indian ---some of those casino owners don't exactly look that much Indian.

[VOA]

Gene Study Identifies 5 Main Human Populations

The Los Angeles Times article on this topic (published yesterday, Friday
12-20-02, IIRC) was a real hoot.

The poor science writer was really torn in trying to not offend two groups:
1. The "we are all the same...can't we all just get along?" crowd......
AND
2. The "we are all different...we value 'diversity' and 'diversity' is our
strength!" crowd.

It was fun to read the article to see the writer trying not to set gored by either horn
of this dilemma.


Of course, no mention of one major world religion that states that human beings are
all "one blood"...
(not mentioning that as a true fact...just noticing that at least one scientific camp
is now scratching their head at the apparently minor variation between people of different
"ethnic" groups at the level of molecular biology...)