Re: Morphological and Genetic Races in Humans

[kyle robert brudvik <krbrudvi@midway.uchicago.edu>]

Human beings are not divisible into races for the simple fact that no real
dviding line can be drawn or erected.  Though it appears on the surface
that people around the world do indeed look different and appear 
regionally
distinct, this is not the case.  Though there might be some isolated clans
or populations (any examples?) in some remote regions around the world,
the insistance of
pure racial types is bogus.  Negroid, mongoloid, caucasoid, australoid,
and however many -oids you can think of, went out the window long
ago.  Anyone on Earth can mate with anyone else on Earth, but further,
people are not separated from each other and therefore are not racial
distinct.  THough it may seem to you that you have no real connection to
say an aboriginal Australian, or someone living in Mongolia, this is not
true because you are connected through many, many other
people.  Osteological markers do not show clear natural population
divisions and should not be looked to as a means to morphologically type
any one skeleton or even a group of them (for recent humans.  Homo erectus
is actually distinctive from Homo neaderthalensis, for example, but their
differences are much greater than anything seen in modern populations,
regardless of stature).  The human sample is huge, much larger than any
other sample animal we can easily study, and we are lucky to be able to
witness such a range of variation in one species.  However, don't make the
mistake of seeing this variation as anything other than variation within a
species.  There is absolutely no reason to erect racial groups because
where do you draw the line?  How many people do you include in your
groups? Only those who fit your presupposed criteria for
inclusion? Besides, what are these mysterious racial
characterisitics?  They come from people's imaginations and are applied to
humans, they are not the results of observations of any naturally defined
populations.

Kyle Brudvik

On Wed, 24 Oct 2001, Jaime A. Headden wrote:

> David Marjanovic (david.marjanovic@gmx.at) wrote:
> 
> <Just for the record (I apologize for any possible political implications), 
> while dog breeds are
> relatively distinct populations (by both morphology and genetics), human 
> """races""" are nothing
> of the sort. The """racial""" characteristics appear to be nothing more than 
> _individual
> variation_. The most isolated human population _ever_ (IIRC) were the 
> inhabitants of Easter Island
> for just a few hundred years, and nobody has ever invented a separate 
> """race""" for them. The
> rest of humanity is little more than _one_ population, despite the rather 
> weak connections between
> some demes.>
> 
>   Actually, there are several distinct races of human kind. I'd hate this to 
> come off as a
> possible racist comment (I am not in any way racist), but morphologically 
> speaking, there can be
> identified several phisologies and morphologies separable into races: the 
> negroid or "african"
> type, the caucasian or "europoean/white" type, the oriental or 
> "asian/amerind" type, the
> aboriginal or "australian" type, and the distinctive San or "Bushman" type, 
> which are not negroid
> in any way. Osteological markers include proportions of the limbs, the form 
> of the nasals and
> brow, prominence of cheeks, etc. These all form natural populations, but I do 
> not consider them
> species, or subspecies, etc.. I myself am both Danish/German on one side of 
> my family, and
> Amerind/Irish on the other, making me a Gaulish Celtic Viking Indian, if you 
> can imagine that!
> 
>   There are dog breeds (less than races) that cannot, in any way, cross breed 
> and are, by
> morphology, genetically isolated. You cannot breed a Chihuahua to a St. 
> Bernard, for one thing,
> and I beleive this is true even of artificial insemination. One can look at 
> the terrier, toy,
> hunter, sport, or non-sport (including the "wolf-like breeds) groups of 
> breeds, and see that there
> are distinct morphotypes that correspond to genetically distinct populations. 
> We are even working
> at perfecting this. That mongrels still persist indicates that cross-breeding 
> is prevalent. The
> multiple evolution of "domestic" dogs indicates for one thing that dogs are 
> not even their own
> species, but merely interbreedable sets of the wolf, and are *Canis lupus* 
> _variabilis_ familiaris
> ad caput; they have no real genetic identity except at the artificial breed.
> 
>   So the case is not like David describes above, but the reverse: humans _do_ 
> have distinct
> morphological yet-interbreedable populations, which can be called "races", 
> and dogs have only
> distinct breeds, but are not even a distinct species. One should actually 
> identify, as is being
> done in cats, scientific designations for each breed which can be genetically 
> isolated, even by
> artificial means.
> 
>   Anagenesis? Hah ... a Vulcan's dream....
> 
> 
> 
> =====
> Jaime A. Headden
> 
>   Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhr-gen-ti-na
>   Where the Wind Comes Sweeping Down the Pampas!!!!
> 
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