Human Races

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Lineages and cultural associations go hand in glove ....
lineages are formed within a socio-cultural context.

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Except when they don't

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I mention African, Asian, etc. partly because that's what's
in the posts/citation that I am talking about, and partly
because it's an accesible terminology. I don't think that
one could claim that all africans are part of the same
race any more than all Europeans are.

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Why not claim all Africans are part of one "race"? According to you any difference, whether the same alleles show up in other populations or not, are clear and precise distinctions between groups...and then we can move on to defining what "kind" we all belong to

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I'm not even discussing whether or not there is a use for
a concept of race ... I don't consider useful application
to be a criterion for studying and attempting to understand
nature.

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So science should stop what it is doing and study Lamarkian evolution, intelligent design, and creationism because even though they are not useful concepts they are a way of studying nature?

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'Race' cannot apply to individuals though .... by definition
it requires a group

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Which groups? How about any two people then..it is a group of two and they are both genetically distinct from any other humans on the planet (if they are not clones)...how about 3 people per race?

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In regard to race and whether it has a genetic basis you have
twice not answered a very simple and relevant question. You claim
it as a straw-man when it is directly relevant to the issue.

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How the hell can you answer it? You are the one stating there are "significant" differences between some murky concept of "social-cultural" racial groupings that you claim (without support) are entirely valid and somehow self evident and not controversial. I say it is a strawman because I could find "significant" genetic differences between you and your kids..so you tell me where a "race" begins and ends that has absolute genetic support.

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Racial characteristics (i.e. those observed traits that lead
one to say that's a caucasian or whatever) are heritable.

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Looking at non-coding regions may well provide information
concerning the ultimate origin of humans, but it is not looking
at those things that make different populations observably different.

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Hmmm height is also heritable. Should tall people in a population be considered part of the tall race? Also skin color is highly variable and you would find overlap between your "caucasians" and "non-caucasians" in skin color....again, it hardly makes a fool proof distinction.And since you seem to think that scientists are a bunch of dumbasses who only study non-coding genes and do nothing else, there are also those who do study what you want science to study...aint so simple i.e. last line of the abstract about "standardizing of phenotype assessment"Annu Rev Genet. 2003;37:67-90. Related Articles, LinksGenetics of hair and skin color.Rees JL.Systems Group, Dermatology, University of Edinburgh, Lauriston Buildings, Lauriston Place, Edinburgh, EH3 9YW, United Kingdom; email: jrees@staffmail.ed.ac.ukDifferences in skin and hair color are principally genetically determined and are due to variation in the amount, type, and packaging of melanin polymers produced by melanocytes secreted into keratinocytes. Pigmentary phenotype is genetically complex and at a physiological level complicated. Genes determining a number of rare Mendelian disorders of pigmentation such as albinism have been identified, but only one gene, the melanocortin 1 receptor (MCR1), has so far been identified to explain variation in the normal population such as that leading to red hair, freckling, and sun-sensitivity. Genotype-phenotype relations of the MC1R are reviewed, as well as methods to improve the phenotypic assessment of human pigmentary status. It is argued that given advances in model systems, increases in technical facility, and the lower cost of genotype assessment, the lack of standardized phenotype assessment is now a major limit on advance.

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If you are looking for ducks don't go to the sahara.

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Hell, ducks in just about any given coding sequence will have well over 50% homology to humans...what "race" of human do they belong to? Homo quackus?

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If you do subscribe to the out-of-Africa hypothesis (?) then
you have to acknowledge that human populations have diverged.
Swedes are not the same as Nigerians (apart from the Nigerian
immigrants and their descendents of course ... or Swedes in
Nigeria).

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I don't deny that populations have diverged. I don't even deny that some populations may have private polymorphisms, little gene flow, etc. But to ascribe these differences to a level "race" that has biologically been ascribed to a sub-species level distinction is preposterous. You claimed earlier in this thread that it was of no interest to compare one population of humans to another as if we were talking about different species.

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The divergence might be small ... does that make it irrelevant?

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It is not irrelevant..but it is probably (for medical studies) less relevant than within population variation which excedes among population variation.

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Maybe, if one could shed the fear (as I see it), that one will
be labelled a Nazi then a study of what makes human populations
observably different may illuminate the ascent of man.

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And what do you think all the human populations studies I cited, the human genome projects goal, the entire SNP mapping project, are in effect studying? Nobody is shying away from the field. If anything it is under more study than ever before.

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Lineages and cultural associations go hand in glove ....
lineages are formed within a socio-cultural context.
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Except when they don't

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Lineages are always formed within a socio-cultural context ...
mating is the result of social activity, and happens within
a cultural setting.You get cross-cultural pairings ... but there is always
a socio-sultural context.

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Why not claim all Africans are part of one "race"? According to you any difference, whether the same alleles show up in other populations or not, are clear and precise distinctions between groups...and then we can move on to defining what "kind" we all belong to

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Because Africans are not all part of one race.Not any single difference -- I have always (I hope) referred to
trait sets.

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So science should stop what it is doing and study Lamarkian evolution, intelligent design, and creationism because even though they are not useful concepts they are a way of studying nature?

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No ... but if something is observed in nature it is worthy of
study.The above are suggested explanations of nature, not features to
stduy.

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Which groups? How about any two people then..it is a group of two and they are both genetically distinct from any other humans on the planet (if they are not clones)...how about 3 people per race?

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If they are genetically distinct, and there are more than one
they are a race. If they have alleles at different frequencies
than other groups, alleles that others don't, and alleles missing
that others have ... what have you.... course looking at allele frequencies might be statistically
unviable with such a small sample.

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How the hell can you answer it? You are the one stating there are "significant" differences between some murky concept of "social-cultural" racial groupings that you claim (without support) are entirely valid and somehow self evident and not controversial. I say it is a strawman because I could find "significant" genetic differences between you and your kids..so you tell me where a "race" begins and ends that has absolute genetic support.

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Fairly simply -- it would require a 'yes' or a 'no'.Scenario:
Take a group of a supposed racial group, observe the offspring
over a number of generations.Question:
Would children result that would be judged (by common standards)
to be part of a different racial group?The concept of racial groupings IS self-evident.That's why people talk of themselves as 'the asian community'
or the 'Afro-caribean community' or whatever.As to me and my kids -- paternity testing can identify the
father genetically -- which kinda suggests that you wouldn't
be able to find sufficient differences to infer racial separation.

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Hmmm height is also heritable. Should tall people in a population be considered part of the tall race? Also skin color is highly variable and you would find overlap between your "caucasians" and "non-caucasians" in skin color....again, it hardly makes a fool proof distinction.

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Like I said ... it's about trait sets, not individual traits.Height can be affected by development ... but the alleles that
determing that development could form a part of a unique
trait set.I've never come across much overlap in skin colours (tones
maybe, but not colour) ... feeling the need to point out that
I don't care about skin colour again!!

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And since you seem to think that scientists are a bunch of dumbasses who only study non-coding genes and do nothing else

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I never said they didn't -- I said the papers cited in this
discussion do -- and that that is not relevent to looking at
the racial differences amongst us humans.The abstract that you have posted would tend to support my
view that we don't actually know enough to claim that
race has no genetic reality -- if we cannot even indentify
how skin-colour works what hope do we have (at present) for
understanding all of the differences that combine to make
the racial distinctions that are observable in any city.

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Hell, ducks in just about any given coding sequence will have well over 50% homology to humans...what "race" of human do they belong to? Homo quackus?

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And probably vary more within their group than they do
from us too .... The point was to look at the data which is relevant to the
question ... to look in the right place.

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I don't deny that populations have diverged. I don't even deny that some populations may have private polymorphisms, little gene flow, etc. But to ascribe these differences to a level "race" that has biologically been ascribed to a sub-species level distinction is preposterous. You claimed earlier in this thread that it was of no interest to compare one population of humans to another as if we were talking about different species.

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I'm not ascribing it to sub-species (thought I already said that).
I've been arguing that the cultural concept of race has a genetic
basis and to say otherwise would need more support that has
been given.If there is an observable divergence, then there is observable
difference -- and that difference is race.

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It is not irrelevant..but it is probably (for medical studies) less relevant than within population variation which excedes among population variation.

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Then what's the problem?There are relevant differences between human populations that
are heritable and tie-up with the cultural view of race.And which is more relevant to a study in any case ... an allele
that is shared with little variation by one group that is
absent in other groups, or one that varys greatly within a single
group?From a targetting of care point of view one would like to find
definite pointers!![This message has been edited by Peter, 11-24-2003]

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Lineages are always formed within a socio-cultural context ...
mating is the result of social activity, and happens within
a cultural setting.

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You get cross-cultural pairings ... but there is always
a socio-sultural context.

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I would say lineages (in a biological sense) form by mutations that occur in individuals and spread to their children. If they have children from lineages that have formed elsewhere you cannot point to the offspring and call them a race unless you define race so narrowly that it becomes useless.

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Because Africans are not all part of one race.

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Not any single difference -- I have always (I hope) referred to
trait sets.

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You have not defined a trait set so it is impossible to tell at what point you would call something a race or not even if not based on a single trait.

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If they are genetically distinct, and there are more than one
they are a race. If they have alleles at different frequencies
than other groups, alleles that others don't, and alleles missing
that others have ... what have you.

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... course looking at allele frequencies might be statistically
unviable with such a small sample.

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This gets to my point before. If you use this definition (and it is a highly idiosyncratic one) of race, it becomes meaningless. If you can define it to cover two to three people then there are billions of races. It also then goes against your adhering to a socio-cultural definition of race since 3 people are usually not a cultural group (unless it is Syamsu and his two imaginary friends).

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That's why people talk of themselves as 'the asian community'
or the 'Afro-caribean community' or whatever.

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I asked where does a race begin and end and you say the answer is "yes or no"..could you clarify?How people identify themselves may 1) have no bearing on genetics..again you are conflating a social race definition with a biological (more specifically genetic) basis for race 2) the census did not even include mixed "race" until recently so most people declare themselves as part of some social defintion..again, irrelevant to the biological question.

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As to me and my kids -- paternity testing can identify the
father genetically -- which kinda suggests that you wouldn't
be able to find sufficient differences to infer racial separation.

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So now genetic differences are deemed irrelevant if you can tell who the father is? What is sufficient then? A little ways back you agreed that 3 people could be a race. If a kid is born with trisomy 21 that is an entire chromosome difference from the parents...is that significant or insignificant? My point is you are making arbitrary choices to establish "clear cut" racial criteria and it just does not work.

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Height can be affected by development ... but the alleles that
determing that development could form a part of a unique
trait set.

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So if a group of tall people in a population (while completely differening at all neutral loci) share a set of alleles that predisposes them to greater height, you would consider this a race?

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The abstract that you have posted would tend to support my
view that we don't actually know enough to claim that
race has no genetic reality

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Actually all the studies I have cited point to the fact that H. sapiens is a relatively genetically homogenous primate species that has historically had a great deal of gene flow between populations making distinct separation among groups extremely difficult to define. If it were clear cut we could separate out differences as with other species of primates such as the divergence among different chimp groups that are much higher or sub-species level divergence in African elephants i.e. forest versus savannah.

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There are relevant differences between human populations that
are heritable and tie-up with the cultural view of race.

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Except that there are more relevant differences that do not tie up with the extremely vague (and variable) views of race.While there are useful ways of partitioning genetic variation in humans, trying to force fit it to completely amorphous definitions
of race (which often have extremely negative connotations to boot) hardly seems like a way to proceed. Given that the results of genetic studies typically shatter preconceived notions of race (like Basques being some super Iberian mystery race) it would be better to develop a terminology that fits the data rather than outdated concepts.

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I would say lineages (in a biological sense) form by mutations that occur in individuals and spread to their children. If they have children from lineages that have formed elsewhere you cannot point to the offspring and call them a race unless you define race so narrowly that it becomes useless.

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You can identify family groups that are composed of single
culturally defined races and those that aren't.Even if it's only by their own perception.

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You have not defined a trait set so it is impossible to tell at what point you would call something a race or not even if not based on a single trait.

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Are you asking me to provide a list of traits for each race,
or do you not understand the term 'trait set'?

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This gets to my point before. If you use this definition (and it is a highly idiosyncratic one) of race, it becomes meaningless. If you can define it to cover two to three people then there are billions of races. It also then goes against your adhering to a socio-cultural definition of race since 3 people are usually not a cultural group (unless it is Syamsu and his two imaginary friends).

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The 2/3 people have to be genetically distinct from others
in order to be a race. I am not suggesting that ANY 2/3 people
could be categorised as a separate race -- only that should
such a small group exist they would BE a race.Lineages start with mutations that get passed on, so logic
would suggest that any racial divergence must start with
a reletaively small number of individuals.Perhaps due to a bottleneck in the recent past.

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How people identify themselves may 1) have no bearing on genetics..again you are conflating a social race definition with a biological (more specifically genetic) basis for race 2) the census did not even include mixed "race" until recently so most people declare themselves as part of some social defintion..again, irrelevant to the biological question.

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(1) is the question being asked. Assuming the answer a priori
seems a little backward.(2) What people have had to put on a census form does not relate
to how they view themselves.If I am of mixed-race parentage I am most likely to identify
with the race of the peers in my environment (which-ever side
of the family that may be). Genetically this is not incorrect,
just incomplete.

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So now genetic differences are deemed irrelevant if you can tell who the father is? What is sufficient then? A little ways back you agreed that 3 people could be a race. If a kid is born with trisomy 21 that is an entire chromosome difference from the parents...is that significant or insignificant? My point is you are making arbitrary choices to establish "clear cut" racial criteria and it just does not work.

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No, just suggesting that the genetic difference between a parent
and offspring seems to be small. Admittedly paternity is likely
based just on Y-chromosome matching.The distinctions aren't arbitrary. They are observable trends
within differing populations.

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So if a group of tall people in a population (while completely differening at all neutral loci) share a set of alleles that predisposes them to greater height, you would consider this a race?

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No. They have exclusive relationships in some parts of the
genome.

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Actually all the studies I have cited point to the fact that H. sapiens is a relatively genetically homogenous primate species that has historically had a great deal of gene flow between populations making distinct separation among groups extremely difficult to define. If it were clear cut we could separate out differences as with other species of primates such as the divergence among different chimp groups that are much higher or sub-species level divergence in African elephants i.e. forest versus savannah.

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I don't disagree, I'm just saying that because it is difficult
to do doesn't mean that there aren't racial differences that
are genetically determined.

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Except that there are more relevant differences that do not tie up with the extremely vague (and variable) views of race.

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Such as ...?

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While there are useful ways of partitioning genetic variation in humans, trying to force fit it to completely amorphous definitions
of race (which often have extremely negative connotations to boot) hardly seems like a way to proceed. Given that the results of genetic studies typically shatter preconceived notions of race (like Basques being some super Iberian mystery race) it would be better to develop a terminology that fits the data rather than outdated concepts.

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...but the studies that you have cited show that there are
differences between races, and that these differences (in genetic
distance terms) correllate to geographical separation.

Rather than go point by point I will address the main themes ok? I do this since we are talking past each other in a few places and Moose complained about overuse of quotes in posts.I brought up lineages in a genetic sense and you immediately switched to cultural. We have to stay on the same page if this debate is going to be meaningful. I am asking you what a trait set is because you now have introduced another undefined term that I could define almost any way I want. Also, given the immense variation within groups, it would be interesting to see how you define a trait set.If you think that 2/3 people are a race then it effectively negates any use one could have for race. For example, if one were to take the phylogenetic species concept to an extreme, then any single base difference I find in a sample in say, cytochrome b, could be defined as a new species...this then makes almost every individual a species. By claiming 2/3 people are different enough to be considered a race, your biologically related uncles and nephews etc could belong to a different race from you.That divergence would start with a few individuals or small population is fine. But if they persistently mix with other groups via migration etc. it will quickly cancel out the limited results of the bottleneck and tend towards homogenization of the gene pool. My argument is that humans have tended more towards homogenization throughtout most of their history as opposed to sub-speciation that is scene with our nearest relatives among the great apes.

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They are observable trends
within differing populations.

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"observable trends" is not exactly a way of making cut and dry "racial" distinctions. There are observable trends among unrelated families in geographical areas. One can note them and study them, but it does not provide a clear biological basis for distinction. And the distinctions are arbitrary or you would be able to list them and define people of a specific "race" with them. One can say that Ashkenazi jewish women have a higher frequency of breast cancer due to BRCA1 mutations that common in the population, and this is a trend. But it is not a defining feature of this religious group.

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I don't disagree, I'm just saying that because it is difficult
to do doesn't mean that there aren't racial differences that
are genetically determined.

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Funny then that geneticists have been able to map extremely complex quantiative traits that are highly variable and multifactorial with precision and have even isolated the underlying genes involved yet a clear genetic basis of "race" is not forthcoming. Suggests it is more apparant than real.

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...but the studies that you have cited show that there are
differences between races, and that these differences (in genetic
distance terms) correllate to geographical separation.

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Actually, the studies show that the greater the geographic distance between two people, the higher the liklihood that they have a higher genetic distance from one another...but this is true within a population as well...negating the cultural concept of "race" which presupposes some vague clear distinction between whatever the hell a "race" is supposed to be and the next one at its boundary. The fact is that every population has a large distribution of genetic variation which overlaps with all other groups. The only way to get "race" out of it is to make highly arbitrary distinctions among groups of people which I do not find particularly compelling or helpful.

I continue to refer to cultural lineages because
this discussion is about whether or not there is a
genetic basis for the cultural racial distinctions that
are commonly made.You cannot discuss this without reference to cultural
definitions.A trait set is exactly that, a 'set' of 'traits'. Each
race should be indentifiable by a collection of traits that
are unique to that race.Some traits may be common with other races, but membership of
a group is defined by holding all elements.e.g. the following sets are unique:{1,2,3,4,5}
{4,5,6,7,8}
{1,2,3,7,8}even though there is overlap in the element values.I think you are missing what I am saying. I am NOT saying that
ANY three people can be considered a race, I am saying that
should three people exist who share a trait set that is unique
to them, then they would constitute a race.If one person has a unique trait set, that is not covered by
another categorisation they are an anomaly. Their traits will
either be assimilated into the cultural racial group in which they
interact, or disappear.

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That divergence would start with a few individuals or small population is fine. But if they persistently mix with other groups via migration etc. it will quickly cancel out the limited results of the bottleneck and tend towards homogenization of the gene pool

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If this is the case, then that cannot have been a feature of
human development.Human groups have diverged ... heritably so.To deny that is to deny the basic observation that different
cultural racial groups will only have children that appear
to belong to that cultural racial group, unless there is an
influx of outside influence.

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My argument is that humans have tended more towards homogenization throughtout most of their history as opposed to sub-speciation that is scene with our nearest relatives among the great apes.

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Recent history perhaps, but hardly most of their history.Can sub-species inter-breed and produce fertile offspring?

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Funny then that geneticists have been able to map extremely complex quantiative traits that are highly variable and multifactorial with precision and have even isolated the underlying genes involved yet a clear genetic basis of "race" is not forthcoming. Suggests it is more apparant than real.

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So your main argument above is that since it hasn't been found
yet, it doesn't exist?

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every population has a large distribution of genetic variation which overlaps with all other groups

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Overlaps, yes. Represents the absence of biological race, no.If someone can find a single trait or genetic sequence that ONLY
occurs in one particular group and that group tallies with a
cultural racial distinction then there IS a biological basis
for race.The papers quoted/cited in this discussion mention such seqeunces.
One's which only appear in African populations but not in
Europeans or Asians. Sequences that only appear in the region
around Japan.And that's not even looking at the genetics directly behind
the perceived distinctions between people (like bone structure,
muscle attachment, metabolic differences, etc.)

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I continue to refer to cultural lineages because
this discussion is about whether or not there is a
genetic basis for the cultural racial distinctions that
are commonly made.
You cannot discuss this without reference to cultural
definitions.

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Fine. Then give a "cultural" version of racial distinctions. You won't find any that are universally accepted or acknowledged so you are screwed from the beginning. You have been defining race in such a bewildering number of ways it is really getting hard to follow anymore what you are or are not supporting.How about this. What is a race to you culturally? Are Africans a race? Black people? The Amish? Jews? The freemasons? 3 people who share a mutation in the dystrophin gene that nobody else has?

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If one person has a unique trait set, that is not covered by
another categorisation they are an anomaly. Their traits will
either be assimilated into the cultural racial group in which they
interact, or disappear.

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Give me a break. So if data is found that contradicts your hypothesis it s an anamoly? What if that anamoly appears in a group completely unrelated to the one you are claiming belongs to a race? Mongolians share haplotypes with some Central Americans...is there a Mongolian/Central American race?If you take a combination of alleles as a "trait set" then I am a race as I have a unique trait set that does not overlap anybody else on the planet even though probably every allele I have is common. I have also heritably diverged from my parents and my grandparents as have you. The other problem are the large number of people in each group that do not share the trait sets you are assigning. The japanse population share many combinations in common with other groups...what about those people? What race are they even though they are culturally japanese? Africa has the highest level of genetic diversity measured for humans. What is an African trait set when two neighboring populations (culturally considered the same race) could be as genetically dissimilar in "trait sets" as they are from Asians?

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Recent history perhaps, but hardly most of their history.

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Can sub-species inter-breed and produce fertile offspring?

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What evidence do you have for lack of interaction among human populations over the vast majority of human evolution? Honest question. I am not aware of this data.

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So your main argument above is that since it hasn't been found
yet, it doesn't exist?

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Nope. I am arguing that using the same kinds of methodologies used to detect highly variable and subtle differences in order to localize a specific boundary (i.e. a gene responsible for a phenotype) one does not run into "genetic races".

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If someone can find a single trait or genetic sequence that ONLY
occurs in one particular group and that group tallies with a
cultural racial distinction then there IS a biological basis
for race.

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Then every single mtDNA mutation that occurs gives us a new "race", species, family or kind or anything else you want to call it...oh and I am sure these two guys in this study will be thrilled to know they are members of a new race as they have a novel integration of a LINE element not found in other people..Kazazian HH Jr, Wong C, Youssoufian H, Scott AF, Phillips DG, Antonarakis SE. Related Articles, Links
Haemophilia A resulting from de novo insertion of L1 sequences represents a novel mechanism for mutation in man.
Nature. 1988 Mar 10;332(6160):164-6.

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The papers quoted/cited in this discussion mention such seqeunces.
One's which only appear in African populations but not in
Europeans or Asians. Sequences that only appear in the region
around Japan.

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Ah..so now we are saying Europeans, Africans, and Asians are a race? And there is an "around Japan" race?Again, one does expect that those in closer proximity will be more cloesly related...however, as you travel within the cultural "race" you will find that people are diverging from one another (sometimes extremely so) and blending into the next group continuously forming a single human genetic continuum. Thus, someone in Taiwan may be more genetically similar to someone in Japan but is culturally Taiwanese. This is just one example where race fails as a biological concept.

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How about this. What is a race to you culturally? Are Africans a race? Black people? The Amish? Jews? The freemasons? 3 people who share a mutation in the dystrophin gene that nobody else has?

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All but the last two have, at one time or another, been consdiered
(culturally) to be races ... (except maybe the Amish -- don't
know much about them).The last one could be considered a race, but only culturally so
if they (or someone else) considers them a race.The freemasons cannot be considered a race -- partly because they
are all men so would find it hard to breed

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Give me a break. So if data is found that contradicts your hypothesis it s an anamoly? What if that anamoly appears in a group completely unrelated to the one you are claiming belongs to a race? Mongolians share haplotypes with some Central Americans...is there a Mongolian/Central American race?

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First, such a single, anamolous individual does not contradict
anything I have said. They just don't constitute a race, since
a race requires more than a single individual.If the unique traits persist in subsequent generations then
we have am emergence of a new racial group.Perhaps the Mongolians and Central Americans share a common
racial ancestry.

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Africa has the highest level of genetic diversity measured for humans. What is an African trait set when two neighboring populations (culturally considered the same race) could be as genetically dissimilar in "trait sets" as they are from Asians?

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Culturally by whom? Caucasian, non-African scientists?Ask a Zulu if he is the same as a Bantu, or a Nigerian.Africa has high genetic diversity BECAUSE it is composed of
a number of different racial groups.Take 10 Zulu instead of 10 any-Africans and then do the
comparisons.Which is more dissimilar having alleles in different frequencies
or having an allele that no-one else does?

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What evidence do you have for lack of interaction among human populations over the vast majority of human evolution? Honest question. I am not aware of this data.

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Well .... language for one.Then there's basic history, which shows there was very limited
contact between continents until the late 1700's (sure the Vikings
made it to America, but as far as I can tell they decided there
was nothing there worth having so didn't bother with it much).Then there's classic literature -- which does not feature much
in the way of multi-racial populations, suggesting they weren't
common.I'm not sure where you got the idea that there has been a lot
of contact throughout human history.Trying not to be too cyclic, but the fact that were are having
this discussion suggests that there must have been limited
interaction between populations in the early evolution of humans
too ... or maybe we diverged recently?

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Nope. I am arguing that using the same kinds of methodologies used to detect highly variable and subtle differences in order to localize a specific boundary (i.e. a gene responsible for a phenotype) one does not run into "genetic races".

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If it has been looked for and not found then that is a stronger
argument than I have seen so far ... if you are saying no-one
has stumbled over it while looking for something else ...

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Then every single mtDNA mutation that occurs gives us a new "race", species, family or kind or anything else you want to call it...oh and I am sure these two guys in this study will be thrilled to know they are members of a new race as they have a novel integration of a LINE element not found in other people..

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Well I was only thinking of nuclear DNA to be honest. Mitochondria
are largely from mother only ...

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Ah..so now we are saying Europeans, Africans, and Asians are a race? And there is an "around Japan" race?

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No, I'm making a comment based upon data in cited papers. If THEY
use those as categories I cannot refer to their data without
using their categories.

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Again, one does expect that those in closer proximity will be more cloesly related...however, as you travel within the cultural "race" you will find that people are diverging from one another (sometimes extremely so) and blending into the next group continuously forming a single human genetic continuum. Thus, someone in Taiwan may be more genetically similar to someone in Japan but is culturally Taiwanese. This is just one example where race fails as a biological concept.

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If people at the geographical extremes interact with one another
there will be overlaps at the 'boundaries', how does that detract
from racial distinctions? It just means that there are a large
number of races and they can all inter-breed.Chimpanzees have sub-species ... presumably there is a specific
metric for the genetic difference that says 'Yes, they are distinct.'How did that happen?Go back 1/2 a million years, what would you expect to see in the
chimp gene pool? Where they always distinct from one another?
Do the modern sub-species share a common ancestor? How long ago?How much inter-tribe interaction is there with chimps? How will
that affect divergence and divergence time?With humans, what's wrong with us diverging? Why do we all have to
be the same to get along?

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Perhaps the Mongolians and Central Americans share a common
racial ancestry.

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So what is the usefullness of the concept of "race" when you end up linking two completely different populations? i.e. genetic "race" is not a predictor of "cultural race". Seems to present a problem.

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Culturally by whom? Caucasian, non-African scientists?

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Ask a Zulu if he is the same as a Bantu, or a Nigerian.

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And we see again, since nobody can even agree on what a "cultural race" is in the first place how do you want to go about defining them genetically? The twists and turns of your "racial" definitions in this thread demonstrate that it is a problem from the outset.

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Well I was only thinking of nuclear DNA to be honest. Mitochondria
are largely from mother only ...

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You are correct wrt mtDNA...the LINE elment was a nuclear insertion.

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If people at the geographical extremes interact with one another
there will be overlaps at the 'boundaries', how does that detract
from racial distinctions? It just means that there are a large
number of races and they can all inter-breed.

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What boundarries would those be? And I am not talking about geographical extremes but a continuum. You do not need very much immigration to homogenize a gene pool. And it detracts from the concept of race because making specific assignments of populations or groups of people based on a continuous distribution is not useful and is completely arbitrary.

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With humans, what's wrong with us diverging? Why do we all have to
be the same to get along?

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there is nothing wrong with diverging...however, there is no evidence that humans are diverging..and with the ever increasing contact among populations the trends will probably go in the opposite direction..much like languages which are becoming extinct....and it would not matter whether we are divergent or homogenous...people will not get along in either case.

Re: Uselfulness of race.I've not said I think it useful, but in the case of suggesting
some common ancestry it may be interesting to figure out how
that could be.Or the likelihood of the same mutation happening in different
populations that are geographically separated.Ghengis Khan commanded a vast empire that impinged upon the
remains of previous empires that had contact with the
Egyptians ... and Thor Hyerdal suggested that the Egyptians
had travelled to the America's ... where we also find
Egyptian-like architecture.So maybe this genetic link is indicative of a real amount of
travel in the ancient past.Maybe I'm completely wrong.Re: Cultural definition of race:As with 'teams', the definition is based upon whether the members
identify themselves as part of a separate group, not whether
outsiders do.That's why 16+1 and self-determination is coming into play
in UK police forces.

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What boundaries would those be? And I am not talking about geographical extremes but a continuum. You do not need very much immigration to homogenize a gene pool. And it detracts from the concept of race because making specific assignments of populations or groups of people based on a continuous distribution is not useful and is completely arbitrary.

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If you don't need much immigration to homogenise gene pools
why are there heritable characteristics that have been used
as racial differentiators?Why are there any differences between human populations?How much genetic difference does one need to claim a
difference?...and remember I am not talking about species, or even
sub-species.

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there is nothing wrong with diverging...however, there is no evidence that humans are diverging..and with the ever increasing contact among populations the trends will probably go in the opposite direction..much like languages which are becoming extinct....and it would not matter whether we are divergent or homogenous...people will not get along in either case

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But they must have diverged already .... because there are
observable differences that are heritable (i.e. genetically
determined).I agree about the not getting along bit -- which is why
denying race for political reasons is so pointless.

I'm getting a bit lost in the details of this thread Peter. But if we are talking about races aren't we talking about 4 large divisions of humanity (or 3). Has the term "race" been redefined in this thread?If "race" means what it has historically meant then I think that it has been demonstrated to be a not useful or definitive categorization for any reasons (medical, cultural or whatever you pick). Do you think otherwise, Peter?

Perhaps it would clarify matters if Peter would list a few groups that he thinks constitute races.

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So maybe this genetic link is indicative of a real amount of
travel in the ancient past.

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Of course their is a genetic link in the ancient past...we are the same species and have a common ancestor. If you mean a genetic link of different populations, much of the data suggests that all populations of humans share a common ancestor that emerged in Africa. That is why earlier I said we all belong to African sub-populations.

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How much genetic difference does one need to claim a
difference?

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...and remember I am not talking about species, or even
sub-species.

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I have been asking you this question for several posts. You have alternatively talked about "significant genetic" differences "trait sets" etc. and it is completely unclear to me what you consider a significant difference at the genetic level. I don't claim that there is a right or wrong answer to this since like species, it is hard to define precise differences in a continuum. But remember the distribution pattern I posted of pairwise differences between humans, the neandertal type specimen and chimps. You see that human pairwise differences are all in one large normal distribution. You don't see separate non-overlapping or poorly overlapping distributions for Asians, Africans or whatever because this kind of divergence has not occurred. Contrast this with chimps (which are also very genetically similar to humans). Their distribution not only does not overlap with human pairwise distances but their distribution is not even remotely close. Let's say for the sake of argument that the neandertal distribution against humans represented an equal sampling of neandertals rather than a single individual. There is a slight overlap with humans. Knock that overlap over a bit so that it is greater and I might start to believe neandertals were a "race" of humans. But certainly not the Vikings, the Nigerians, or whatever.

I'm not talking about 3-4 major divisions. I find that too
broad ... but then in the UK we can get hot under the colour
about being called British! We are English, or Scottish, or
Welsh .... but NOT British (a guy from Cheshire even went to
court for refusing to fill in his census form because it
didn't have an 'English' option under ethnic background).I've never disputed whether or not it is useful ... I am objecting
to the suggestion that there is no biological reality
to 'race'. That seems to fly in the face of observation and logic
and be motivated by political thinking rather than scientific
curiosity.The following nicely sums up my objection to the rejection of
human races as a biological concept as argued in this thread.
I will admit though (to save time) that this paper agrees that
the link between cultural concepts of race and a meaningful
biological one is likely not there.I tend to disagree with that aspect of the paper, simply because
the commonly held view of what makes races of humanity different
focusses on 'adaptive' differences."On the concept of biological race and its applicability to humansBy Massimo Pigliucci1,2 and Jonathan Kaplan2,31Departments of Botany and of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37996. Phone 865-974-6221; fax 2258; email pigliucci@utk.eduLewontin and Gould have made much of the fact that there is relatively little genetic variation in Homo sapiens (compared at least to other mammals; see Tempelton 1999) and that most of what genetic diversity is known to exist within Homo sapiens exists within (rather than between) local populations (see, for example: Gould 1996; Lewontin et al. 1984), and these facts are cited repeatedly in arguments concluding that there are no biologically significant human races. But the idea that this data might imply something about the existence of biologically significant human races emerges from a focus on the wrong sort of biological races. The relative lack of genetic variation between populations compared with within populations samples does imply that the populations have not been reproductively isolated for any evolutionarily significant length of time. But of course, this fact is irrelevant for the consideration of races based on adaptive variation; in this case, if there is extensive gene flow, genetic variation can be mostly within groups, rather than between groups, as variations not related to the adaptive phenotypic differences between the populations will be spread by gene flow relatively easily. The question is not whether there is significant levels of between-population genetic variation overall, but whether there is variation in genes associated with significant adaptive differences between populations (see our discussion in Kaplan and Pigliucci 2001)."

Besides the fact that the article you cite is hardly a consensus on the issue of race i.e. directly the opposite of what Gould, Lewontin, Templeton, Pbo, and others say, it also has a completely non-sensical statement at the beginning

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"But the idea that this data might imply something about the existence of biologically significant human races emerges from a focus on the wrong sort of biological races."

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This is simply a rehash of the "kinds" debate. Since they don't like the common definition of "race" as it is commonly used as a cultural-social measure, they just decide to completely redefine it....so if I call an apple an orange can I go argue with botanists that they are completey wrong about plant taxonomy?

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But of course, this fact is irrelevant for the consideration of races based on adaptive variation; in this case, if there is extensive gene flow, genetic variation can be mostly within groups, rather than between groups, as variations not related to the adaptive phenotypic differences between the populations will be spread by gene flow relatively easily.

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In other words, we are a single population with a distribution of variation that overlaps extensively as opposed to sub-species or "races" where the overlap is on a trajectory heading towards diminishing overlap.

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The question is not whether there is significant levels of between-population genetic variation overall, but whether there is variation in genes associated with significant adaptive differences between populations

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And notice here at the end...not a mention of the word "race". No segregating of human groups by cultural-social criteria. No, they talk about adaptive differences between POPULATIONS. Why not use population genetic terms when dealing with a population genetic question such as adaptive response, allele frequency, and allele distribution in a SINGLE SPECIES? Reserve race (or eliminate it completely since it could be subsumed under sub-species) for clearly divergent populations under a population genetics model.We have largely been arguing past each other Peter because you have been clinging to a term that cannotes a finer degree of separation than is visible among our species and has had a changing social meaning (much of which is nasty). But we do not appear to disagree that researching the poplational variation within our species is a relevant course of study.(edited: Ooops, I goofed and did not see that Peter was responding to NosyNed and not to me)[This message has been edited by Mammuthus, 11-27-2003]