Quote:
And yes, cultural anthropologists often due teach there is no such thing as race. However, physical anthropologist are less likely to say that.
physical anthropologists are the ones who actually deal with the genetic differences. |
See
http://www.physanth.org/positions/race.html, where the major organization of physical anthropologists dismisses the idea of race. Some choice quotes:
Pure races, in the sense of genetically homogenous populations, do not exist in the human species today, nor is there any evidence that they have ever existed in the past. The only living species in the human family, Homo sapiens, has become a highly diversified global array of populations. The geographic pattern of genetic variation within this array is complex, and presents no major discontinuity. Humanity cannot be classified into discrete geographic categories with absolute boundaries. Furthermore, the complexities of human history make it difficult to determine the position of certain groups in classifications. Multiplying subcategories cannot correct the inadequacies of these classifications.
Quote:
And 200 000 years since we first left africa is NOT too little time for the changes to occur.
Since the changes are from breeding within a limited gene pool. 200 000 years is about 10 000 generations.
Breed animals today with only limited genetic differences, and you can see very distinct traits become exaggerated in only a few generations. |
Most physical anthropologists agree that anatomically modern Homo sapiens (i.e., us) is between 150,000 to 200,000 years old, but that we didn't leave Africa until perhaps 100,000 to 120,000 years ago, and didn't reach the main areas of all the major continents until maybe 30,000 years ago. Thus, our species is incredibly young, and its sub-populations are much younger. 100,000 years is a blink of an eye in geologic and evolutionary time.
Any discussion about the human-induced domestication of animals has little bearing on the much weaker, slower force of natural selection. Yes, with forced culling and breeding we can increase the evolutionary rate a million-fold (as we did with dogs, cats etc.), but humans are not subject to such pressures (notwithstanding the efforts of the American eugenics movement and the Nazi war machine).
Quote:
Read some works of Chris Stringer and his out-of-africa model.
Instead of taking the race subject as such an "evil" thing. Hyper-sensitivity leads to false beliefs. |
Stringer would likely have a heart attack if he learned you were quoting him in support of the notion of races. Here is a statement from Stringer indicating his view:
Since so little time has passed since they decamped from Africa, dispersing to the far regions of the world -- 100,000 years being a mere paleontological moment -- ''only slight differences, if any, in intellect and innate behavior are likely to have evolved between modern human populations.'' We are ''all Africans under our skin.''
The whole point of Stringer's Out of Africa model is as an alternative theory to the multi-regional model, which does posit that there are separate, long-standing human races. The multi-regional model, now on the ropes and likely to be discarded soon, has lost to the out-of-Africa model not because of PC or hyper-sensitivity but simply because the evidence overwhelmingly supports its rival.
