Is race real or is it just a human invention?

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Pale skin evolved after leaving Africa due to a mutation - in Europe, from a mutation of the SLC24A5 gene between six and twelve thousand years ago (quite recently). Asian skin mutation occurred separately.

That being said, it is true that all the population outside of Africa stems from only a tiny fragment of the African population. The Sinai was a formidable barrier which few were willing or able to pass. As a consequence, genetic diversity outside Africa is poor, and Africa has (by comparison) extremely high levels of genetic diversity.

Well physical adaptions are what we can see, but presumably peoples who are similar in external appearance are probably also similar in the rest of their functional DNA (occams razor).

I think race (like any other taxinomical classification) has to be defined in terms of functional genetic similarity, and not genetic kinship. For example the first mammal on earth was the offspring of a near-reptile; so based on genetic kinship, the first mammals were much closer to ancient reptiles than they are to today's mammals, but that still doesn't change the fact that they are mammals and not reptiles.

Similarly, congoids, capoids, and australoids are the 3 divisions of the Negroid race and even though their common ancestry is in the distant past, they are united by the fact that their genes have preserved their common ancestral phenotype

Trust me, epicanthic eye folds occur in not just Scandinavians, but also in other related northern populations, such as Germans, Dutch, Belgians, etc. I'm mostly German on both sides, with only a bit of Swedish on my Dad's side, and I've got that eye fold, along with the generally deep set eyes and narrow eye apertures. There is the prevailing theory that this trait might be associated with haplogroup subclade I1 (most common in northwest Europe, western Ireland, and the Balkan mountains), which seemingly has its origins in Ice Age Europe - meaning Cro Magnons.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

differences do however become more pronounced the more "evolved" the being, relatively small genetic variations can mean a huge deal both to octopi and humans.

that is to say that while your argument of [taxonomy based on functional dna] vs. [taxonomy based on kinship] might be valid, i dont think the way you apply it even aproaches valid.
the above is taken in the context where a thing such as junk dna simply doesnt exist, this means that in reality you are dealing with the argument of dna vs kinship as seen if you look at the whole of the genetic code.

if i had a duck, and i wanted to synthesize a perfect copy, what would it take?
is it enough to simply take the functional part?
or could it be argued that because you left something out it would esentially not be a copy anymore?

furthermore, taxonomy is the science of classifying the relationship between species, in that light isnt it fair to say that the past relations are as important as the current ones?

would the pseudogenetic evidence of the past, in that light, not bear an even greater importance than the common coding genetic structure of which you share no small part with even a banana?

in essence your argument bears a striking similarity to numerical taxonomy, where one draws out a statistical overview of traits and classifies on them, in the light of the above it isnt surprising that in the modern world it is as good as extinct as a practice.

The Basques



Yup! That's right. I keep mentioning them and you macaroons keep changing the subject.
They not only have "junk"/non-coding genetic differences from other humans, but function genetic differences between them and other humans. Like blood chemistry for example. Despite their mostly caucasoid appearance, many of them have physical features that distinguish them from other europeans. Genetically, they do not fit well into the Caucasoid race but they aren't exactly mongoloid either. I do believe that they are the only survivors of a race of people who are for the most part extinct. Perhaps this is also true of the Hadza, who are negroid externally but genetically as unique and distinctive as the Khoisan people.

If you'd mentioned the Basques before, I would have noticed. The Basque language is famous for not being related to any other known language. Very likely they are exactly what you think they are -- the only surviving remnants of a once much larger group.

Yep. Point being that we know, quite well, that it's meaningless to speak of traits as being "bundled" according to skin colour (which is only a single trait). Each trait tends to have its own cline (distribution pattern) and they do not generally match up well with other traits, much less things like culture and language.

FYI, these marks -> " ... " are quote marks, meaning that you are citing what someone else said or claiming that they said something. I did not use the word "racist," only pointed out that, once again, the entire population of the continent of Africa, which is more diverse than any other continent, was being referred to as if it were a monolithic block.

Africans are not a single ethnicity.
Referring to them as such is ignorant.

Also, keep track of whom you're responding to.

Besides the entire field of human anthropology?

All well and good if you ignore that Congoids, Capoids and Australoids are not phenotypically similar.
So you plan works great except for that. Just because the look alike to you does not mean they look alike to me to each other or to a person who is looking.

Your argument boils down to they are look black to me so they just hafta be black.
It is a view that ignores genetics, common sense and the fact they don't even look alike.

So that is the hurdle the 3-race rule works if and only if we all see the same thing.
We don't so it doesn't.

1) I have consistently said your definition of negroid is about as valid as the moon being made of cheese.
It looks like it was made of cheese so I guess it must be.

2) the word evolved is insane in this context populations don't evolve from other living populations they diverge. "Evolving from" implies winning in some sort of foot-race which is decidedly stupid when all contestants are still running.

3) Your ancestors would be what you call Negroids yes most definitely.

Last edited by JakobVirgil on 16 Aug 2012, 8:16 am, edited 1 time in total.

1) The Khosians don't have "thick lips" I think you have argued that they are Negroid, Right?

2) I think the European nose comes from the neanderthal.

3) about the kinky hair I am going to say prolly as it is a hot climate adaptation.

4) dolichocephaly is not a useful metric is has only been used by racists like Carleton Coon since Boaz showed that the diet of the mother was more powerful than genetics in regard to the Cephalic index in freaking 1910.
But still you keep using it why?



This sentence deserves a bit closer look. I assume you meant to put the words out of Africa at the end of it
how it is written it implies that Africans are not modern humans.

regardless of the occasion of the split proto-Caucasians would not have any of their northern climate adaptations until they left Africa.

So if my Tardis was working and we visited your Proud proto-European ancestors you would call them Negroid. I of course would argue that they were a separate race in the manner of the Khoisan or Pygmy.
But that is because I think the three race theory is dumb.

We don't know what and how much our genome comes from the Neanderthal.

ruveyn

But you know that it is true that I think that.

Got some specimens of prehistoric modern humans fresh out of africa with such features?




Might I add: Scandanavians with epicanthic folds are usually finnish or Saami(at they very least, such features are indicative of said ancestry), who are of uralic origin and descended from the original inhabitants of Scandanavia(ohne Denmark). Before those germanic tribes invaded, the people of scandanavia looked very much like this:

So now that you admit you have nothing ready to quit?

Or you gunna still stick with the white featured folks in Africa that all left at one time leaving no genetic
footprint story?

Oh and because I answer questions instead of ignoring them like a p****.
No, I have only have accesses to prehistoric human remains (fresh out of Africa) with what you call Negroid features. Because there are no specimens of the folks you require for your -I can't be descended from black folks whine-. You can continue pretending your ancestors had narrow noses and straight hair for God knows what reason but you really don't have science backing you up.
Sorry, maybe you should have studied more in school.