If humans are a product of evolution...

[Katie88]

Don't you mean Evilution?!

 

[Senethro]

We've certainly established that much.

The article quotes several academic studies that demonstrate the controversy I referred to. Now you may disagree with them, of course, but it behoves you to explain why you believe the matter is settled among scientists and to provide some evidence for that. You haven't even attempted to do so.

My ISP blocks sci-hub so I can't get them. If you're on a less restrictive ISP how about you provide alternative links to those papers you thought most convincing?

 

[Broken_Erika]

Don't you mean Evilution?!

Wasn't that a Doom 3 Expansion Pack?

 

[Berzerker]

Not absolutely sure what you’re asking here. The social construct of race has rarely required your DNA to be applied.

You said the social construct of race produced in the past isn't supported by molecular methods (correct me if I got that wrong), do molecular methods show groups that could still be classified along racial lines if we ignore prior attempts? Seems to me we're just replacing 'race' with some other word based on newer, better methods. Course we're letting the science do it rather than the personal biases of past peoples, and thats a good thing.

 

[trader/warrior]

I think the idea that you would have different populations separated from each other for tens of thousands of years, in different environments, and that there would be no significant genetic differences is pretty ridiculous.

I think the idea that there wasn't traffic between these populations is pretty ridiculous, the origins of flint-stone tools and the like can be pretty easily traced and we can see far-reaching connections from very early on. This all depends on what perspective of time we use, if we view it as Homo Sapiens versus Homo Erectus where it is about a million years between their respective spreads across the world it's obviously a bit different, but with Homo Sapiens there is a clear trade connection in just the early spread from East Africa to South Africa far, far earlier than the migration out of Africa (part of what makes Sapiens so advanced).

Populations of Homo Sapiens were always connected in the times of the actual spread out of Africa while there were some distinct precursors some of which are linked in this thread like Homo Sapiens Idaltu (with Denisovans and Neanderthals being earlier, more "successful" verions of these precursors around 400k years ago https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_human_evolution, this timeline should show approxomately how long it would take for Homo Sapiens to diverge, hundreds of thousands of years, not to mention Erectus lasted about 1.5 million years, covered the world, and diverged quite a bit while still being considered one species.).

 

[Traitorfish]

How many non-marginal examples do we have of humans remaining actually isolated from each other for that sort of timeframe?

The only examples I can think of are indigenous Australians, who separated off about 60-70,000 years ago, and those of the Americas, who separated off somewhere between 16-40,000 years ago, depending on who you ask. And in neither case will you find consensus in favour of total isolation;

Maybe 10% of the world's population, at the very outside, have any degree of Amerindian ancestry. Less than 1% have any degree of Aboriginal Australian ancestry. So even if it were true, so far as it applies to these specific populations, what conclusions are we actually supposed to draw from that, as regards the other nine-tenths of the world's population?

 

[Katie88]

Wasn't that a Doom 3 Expansion Pack?

If it wasn't then it should be!

 

[Katie88]

My ISP blocks sci-hub so I can't get them. If you're on a less restrictive ISP how about you provide alternative links to those papers you thought most convincing?

So I have to go out of my way before you'll deign to provide anything? Jesus wept.

But my claim is about the divided opinion of scientists, and I have provided evidence for it. So if you want to argue that there is no controversy, that the matter is settled, perhaps in similar terms to global warming, then feel free. If your ISP will allow you of course...

 

[Senethro]

I already said in a previous post that controversy is a stupid bar to jump and I thought Creationism and climate change denial were illustrative examples of why.

Do you want me to argue that the controversy doesn't exist, by whatever standard that can be done? Or to guess what positions you share with the nasty racist blog and allow you to step away from any you feel you can't defend?

Without access to the papers the racist blog linked (which I am sure you have read and understood as you referred to them!) I can't exactly make a good faith effort against the points the racist blog uses them to make.

 

[Traitorfish]

So I have to go out of my way before you'll deign to provide anything? Jesus wept.

I have placed evidence refuting all of your evidence in a cave at the end of the world, guarded by the terrible hydra.

You will naturally concede that I have the stronger case.

 

[Katie88]

I already said in a previous post that controversy is a stupid bar to jump and I thought Creationism and climate change denial were illustrative examples of why.

Without access to the papers the racist blog linked (which I am sure you have read and understood as you referred to them!) I can't exactly make a good faith effort against the points the racist blog uses them to make.

That's just a silly position. Something like 97% of climate scientists agree that humans are causing climate change, and this is trivially easy to demonstrate; there is a clear consensus, in other words. There is, as I have shown, no such consensus on the biological reality of race. You took issue with this claim, but can't provide anything to prove there is a consensus.

And you haven't made any good faith effort so far, nor provided any argument (calling something nasty and heretical is not an argument), so I doubt you're willing to change.

I have placed evidence refuting all of your evidence in a cave at the end of the world, guarded by the terrible hydra.

You will naturally concede that I have the stronger case.

I'm sure that made sense to you, but I'm afraid I can't see your point.

 

[uppi]

You said the social construct of race produced in the past isn't supported by molecular methods (correct me if I got that wrong), do molecular methods show groups that could still be classified along racial lines if we ignore prior attempts? Seems to me we're just replacing 'race' with some other word based on newer, better methods. Course we're letting the science do it rather than the personal biases of past peoples, and thats a good thing.

You could identify groups of people that are genetically similar to each other and somewhat distinct from other groups. But I would say that these classifications would be along "racial lines" would be misleading at best, because the classification would depend on the algorithm. One algorithm would result in very different groups than another. and the number of groups would depend on how many groups you would want there to be. So method A would put you in one group out of 50, method B in a different group out of 1000 and method C would classify you as an outlier that does not belong to any group at all. That means, human race is an unscientific concept, because it is ill-defined and there is no obvious way to make up a definition.

You could force a definition by choosing one classification method and call that "race". You could then go ahead, subject every human to a genetic test and write that result in their passport. But why would you do that? What would be the benefit against the obvious drawbacks of having yet another set of dividing lines that creates conflicts between humans.

Obviously, whatever method you would choose, the result would be very different from the social construct of race. For example, the notion that there is such a thing as a "black race" is inherently racist, because biologically it is utter nonsense. There is always the danger of racists trying to shoehorn scientific facts into their prejudices and claim that there is a scientific basis for their racism.

I think the idea that there wasn't traffic between these populations is pretty ridiculous, the origins of flint-stone tools and the like can be pretty easily traced and we can see far-reaching connections from very early on. This all depends on what perspective on time we use, if we view it as homo sapiens versus homo erectus where it is about a million years between their respective spreads across the world it's obviously a bit different, but with homo sapiens there is a clear trade connection in just the early spread from east Africa to south Africa far, far earlier than the migration out of Africa (part of what makes Sapiens so advanced). Populations of Homo Sapiens were always connected in the times of the actual spread out of Africa while there were some distinct precursors some of which are linked in this thread like Homo Sapiens Idaltu (with Denisovans and Neanderthals being earlier, more "successful" verions of these precursors around 400k years ago https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_human_evolution, this timeline should show approxomately how long it would take for Homo Sapiens to diverge, hundreds of thousands of years, not to mention Erectus lasted about 1.5 million years and diverged quite a bit while still being considered one species.).

How many non-marginal examples do we have of humans remaining actually isolated from each other for that sort of timeframe?

The only examples I can think of are indigenous Australians, who separated off about 60-70,000 years ago, and those of the Americas, who separated off somewhere between 16-40,000 years ago, depending on who you ask. And in neither case will you find consensus in favour of total isolation;

Maybe 10% of the world's population, at the very outside, have any degree of Amerindian ancestry. Less than 1% have any degree of Aboriginal Australian ancestry. So even if it were true, so far as it applies to these specific populations, what conclusions are we actually supposed to draw from that, as regards the other nine-tenths of the world's population?

There doesn't need to be total isolation for genetically distinct groups to emerge. Bottlenecks that limit genetic flow are probably enough for that. Even if population groups are still connected by a few traders, they would still evolve somewhat separately if the rate of genetic change exceeds the rate of genetic exchange. And there are enough geographic bottlenecks that limit exchange, like mountain ranges, deserts, or bodies of water. Sure, these can be crossed, but how often was this done? Usually, people didn't travel the world to find a partner. It is evident that the interconnections between humans weren't enough to fully mix the human genome to the point that local variations are greater than the global variation. For example, the African populations that were analyzed, carried significantly less contribution of Neanderthal genes than the analyzed European or Asian populations. So 40000 years of human connections weren't enough to carry those genes to those African populations.

The only way to avoid distinct groups would be to claim that the genome is a continuum to a degree that makes it impossible to place boundaries between groups. But there are enough geographic barriers that are inconvenient to cross that I believe it is possible to draw boundaries between genetic groups if you really want to. That doesn't mean it is a good idea to do it every time you can.

 

[trader/warrior]

There doesn't need to be total isolation for genetically distinct groups to emerge. Bottlenecks that limit genetic flow are probably enough for that. Even if population groups are still connected by a few traders, they would still evolve somewhat separately if the rate of genetic change exceeds the rate of genetic exchange. And there are enough geographic bottlenecks that limit exchange, like mountain ranges, deserts, or bodies of water. Sure, these can be crossed, but how often was this done? Usually, people didn't travel the world to find a partner. It is evident that the interconnections between humans weren't enough to fully mix the human genome to the point that local variations are greater than the global variation. For example, the African populations that were analyzed, carried significantly less contribution of Neanderthal genes than the analyzed European or Asian populations. So 40000 years of human connections weren't enough to carry those genes to those African populations.

The only way to avoid distinct groups would be to claim that the genome is a continuum to a degree that makes it impossible to place boundaries between groups. But there are enough geographic barriers that are inconvenient to cross that I believe it is possible to draw boundaries between genetic groups if you really want to. That doesn't mean it is a good idea to do it every time you can.

I would agree that there are clearly genetic differences created by geography. This is seen in haplogroups, and simply stuff like skin, hair, and eye color. What would be more important to me would be how we distinguish a human subspecies where we have species like Homo Erectus that lasted over a million years and diverged a vast amount compared to Homo Sapiens over that time generally trending towards increased brain mass. Of course Erectus may have had uncounted subspecies (like maybe Floriensis as some believe unless their ancestry is from even farther back, or from malformation of more modern humans) that we may not have the exact data for yet.

In my view the current human species is way, way more "unified" than other large-spread species like for example crows, mice, or rats that can't even breed with specimens of the same species that are from the other side of the world (I've heard this especially for crows, not sure about the others, but it is a known phenomenon for wide-spread species that they cannot breed with those from the other side of the world).

 

[Cutlass]

How many non-marginal examples do we have of humans remaining actually isolated from each other for that sort of timeframe?

The only examples I can think of are indigenous Australians, who separated off about 60-70,000 years ago, and those of the Americas, who separated off somewhere between 16-40,000 years ago, depending on who you ask. And in neither case will you find consensus in favour of total isolation;

Maybe 10% of the world's population, at the very outside, have any degree of Amerindian ancestry. Less than 1% have any degree of Aboriginal Australian ancestry. So even if it were true, so far as it applies to these specific populations, what conclusions are we actually supposed to draw from that, as regards the other nine-tenths of the world's population?

I'm not sure how isolated Australia was. Certainly for many 1000s of years prior to Europeans becoming aware of Australia there were people in all of the islands of the Indian Ocean basin which had boats and seafaring skills sufficient to have contact with Australian peoples.

The Americas are different. Now for 13-15,000 years aboriginal native Americans were biologically isolated from very close to all other human groups. The exception being the Inuit. And the Inuit were largely isolated from most other human groups themselves.

So we have a native American Indian population which has the time and isolation to develop distinct characteristics. But still not a singularly distinct look, as the northern plains Indians didn't look quite the same as the Aztecs or the Incas. And some of the Brazilian tribes were nearly as dark as Africans or Australians.

But what actually did we get for a genetic difference? Well, American Indians, the Inuit as well, were massively more susceptible to a range of diseases which were common in Eurasia and Africa. And that's really about the sum total of actual genetic differences which were not strictly appearance. And that can be explained by all of the native American Indian peoples being descended from a actually quite small base population.

So, 13-15,000 years, not enough generations for speciation of humans.

 

[Senethro]

There is, as I have shown, no such consensus on the biological reality of race. You took issue with this claim, but can't provide anything to prove there is a consensus.

How have you shown this? You've linked to a racist blog that you can't quite work up the courage to own or disown their opinions. They link to papers (on a site that I ideologically support but don't have access due to copyright enforcement,) and claim these papers support their position, but mostly they just cite the whole paper and don't quote what they feel provides the support. Its sloppy citation and possible outright dishonesty.

As for consensus - Go look up Homo sapiens species and/or subspecies. There is a single one extant. Pretty much everyone agrees this. Pretty much noone agrees on a satisfactory definition for a taxonomic group below the level of subspecies (in mammals) and I'm guessing its the cause of some majorly hurt feelings on the letters pages of some journals.

So I guess someone needs to find a reasonably functional definition of race/population/group for humans before BEFORE there can even be a consensus AGAINST it existing.

 

[Birdjaguar]

So I have to go out of my way before you'll deign to provide anything? Jesus wept.

That's a pretty poor use of scripture. Your ignorance of the context is evident.

The use of race in most contexts is simply to divide people for cultural or political purposes. If your reasons are not divisive, I'd like to hear what those reasons are.

 

[Senethro]

You said the social construct of race produced in the past isn't supported by molecular methods (correct me if I got that wrong), do molecular methods show groups that could still be classified along racial lines if we ignore prior attempts? Seems to me we're just replacing 'race' with some other word based on newer, better methods. Course we're letting the science do it rather than the personal biases of past peoples, and thats a good thing.

Eh, mostly what uppi said.

Theres a whole bunch of problems going on. Like, you pick a characteristic of appearance like skin tone and you draw a north-south line across the equator and you find it gets paler the further you get from the equator. Its real. Then you pick malarial resistance and it varies from high to low if you draw a line through an area with lots of malaria present. Its real. Draw a line from the deepest steppes to just about anywhere and you'll get a gradient of increasing lactose intolerance. Its real too. They're all real and they've all got a genetic component and its related to the history and environment of the humans who the genes have passed through.

But you put them altogether and none of its real because they're all overlapping and don't match up. You can add more characteristic measurements to try to resolve better but it makes the picture messier, not clearer. The more you add, the more humanity breaks down into a messy mosaic of gradients rather than coherent groups.

Another problem - there is always an outgroup. The outgroup to your nuclear family is your cousin, the outgroup to humanity is the chimp, the outgroup within humanity I expect would be pacific islanders or those guys who made it all the way to the tip of South America. So you do tests of genetic similarity and it scales whatever level you examine it at. What criteria do you use to decide where to stop?

Last problem that I'm too tired to write about tonight - Fst being an average etc

So really there are as many races as you want or need there to be, but if you're honest about your methods then you don't get to choose who falls into which categories.

 

[Ryika]

I'm so very glad I created this thread, it is both, informative and entertaining.

 

[Berzerker]

This question(s) may not be answerable yet, but since Neanderthals and Denisovans (and erectus) outside of Africa still had African origins (assuming of course erectus did), how do we know the eg Neanderthal DNA we're looking at is unique to them? Someone either brought it with them or it evolved in their new environment.

If we know enough to make a distinction between their DNA and ours, does that mean our erectus ancestors didn't have those particular Neanderthal gene(s) either? I read some genes they provided helped us adapt to cold mountain ranges so that suggests those genes were selected for by cold mountain ranges. On the other hand I read recently that blue eyes go back to a relatively recent European maybe 7,000 years ago long after the Neanderthal extinction.

 

[trader/warrior]

Edit: Nevermind.