Biologists rely less and less on the outdated concept of "race"; there is only one, HUMAN. Genetic variances are superficial.
Please don't speak for scientists because you don't know Jack about this
topic:
Last fall, the prestigious journal Nature Genetics devoted a large supplement to the question of whether human races exist and, if so, what they mean. The journal did this in part because various American health agencies are making race an important part of their policies to best protect the public - often over the protests of scientists.
I think Peaches knows as much or more about this topic than you do. You certainly arenÂ’t very convincing when you storm in here making grand statements without any links to buttress your
claims. To be truthful, there is something eerie about this whole thing. First of all, the body of your narrative is a word for word excerpt of an original article written iin 2005 by Armand Marie Leroi, an evolutionary developmental biologist at Imperial College in London.
Although Leroi is convincing in his delivery, he really tells us little more than we already know. He even admits that the “findings” had not been widely accepted back in 2005. Now, today, in 2014, his exhortations remain shrouded in obscurity.
BTW, here is a clickable link to the article for those interested in reading the whole thing!
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/14/opinion/14leroi.html?_r=0
Peaches, I advise you to stick with your current beliefs while we wait another decade for Mr LeroiÂ’s premonition to unfold!
Rikurzhen said:
In the supplement, some two dozen geneticists offered their views. Beneath the jargon, cautious phrases and academic courtesies, one thing was clear: the consensus about social constructs was unraveling. Some even argued that, looked at the right way, genetic data show that races clearly do exist.
Looked at the right way? Would that be through the eyes of people with an agenda? If the "right looks" were so profound back in 2005, thousands of scientist must have blinked and closed their eyes after straining so hard to focus on that" right look." Now, its 2014 and still that "right look" has evaded the scientific community.
Rikurzhen said:
Rejection of race is an IDEOLOGICAL position, not one based on science or evidence. Even some scientists can have ideological biases which they value more than evidence.
Technically, the term "race" was not based on science or evidence to begin with. I will give your author credit for one thing, though. His categorizations are not designed to perpetuate the racist ideology from which the word "race" sprang. He accounts for race intermixture and inclusiveness of all human manifestations in the evolutionary process of humanity. However, he is not as clear in explaining how the mitochondrial Eve fits into all of this. If she was indeed the distant ancestor for which all living humans owe their existence, variations of her genome would be mutations spurred by environmental forces over thousands of years. But she too had genes passed from HER ancestors, some of whom may not have been human! Hominids, but not Homo Sapiens! My head hurts, I'm going to bed...to much critical thinking... heh heh heh!
