Genetic Differences Between Africans and Non-Africans

Yes, there are genetic differences between Africans and non-Africans, but there are more genetic difference between Africans themselves than between them and poupulations all around the world, and between populations all around the world. That´s because most of human history took place in Africa.

Races are both biolocial AND social construct. Races are biological in the sense that there are branches, dividing populations acquiring a few different traits, but social construct in the sense that it´s commonly organized. As the biggest genetic differences occur between Africans, is not quite precise to refer to "black" as a single race (I´m not quite sure, but I think black habitants of Australia evolved the black skin independently or at least re-evolved the black skin after). "Africans" would be bit more precise, but then all the other "non-african" races would be "sub-races" of Africans, and not taxonomically equivalent races, since most of the difference between humans happened there.

The problem is somewhat in the sense of putting black bears and butterflies in a group of "black (or white) animals", prioritizing a visual remarkable trait as a dinstinguishing element over all the other differences between them and similarities with other groups.

And there are some problems with other socially created "races", such as "Latinos", which are distinguished from some "white" Europeans in a nearly arbitrary way. This and other stuff make the social concepts of race a unuseful to biology.
 
Not to mention that any taxonomic classfication below the species level is up to some point almost always arbitrary. Or at least only suitable for a specific narrow viewpoint/application.
 
GeoffP said:
Why are you people bickering over race? Who cares?
YES there are genetic differences among human races. Permanent colouration doesn't come from the bloody sun. There are genes "for" it, if you want to put it like that,
Why avoid the issue?
Geoff
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yes there is a gene "for" it
and every one of us has it except albinos
so geoff, who is "black"?
 
Ok first of all race is a word used to define a persons ethnic origin. Therefore, race is made up, in our minds nothing else. Can you say ethnocentricity- for those that dont know this is when people self segregate temselves and begin to feel in group out group resentment. Why is this important- because were human, it isnt wrong to question anything. ok Second we are all different when it comes to genes, it is what makes us. There are only, I believe, 6 genes out of 100,000 control what our skin color is, and I hate to upset anyone but we all have the genes capable of making our skin color as dark as an African American, Latino, Asian and so on. If you dont believe this- SFgate.com look it up!
 
brita said:
...6 genes out of 100,000...
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As an aside, I think the current estimate of the number of genes in the human nuclear genome is ~25,000 to 30,000. Estimates of 100,000 were pre-human genome project values.
 
leopold99 said:
yes there is a gene "for" it
and every one of us has it except albinos
so geoff, who is "black"?
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There is no 'black', nor 'white', except as homozygous tails of colour morph genotypes on the extremes of a Z-normalized distributions. Melanism should be understood as a quantitative spread, rather than a binary or ordinal threshold phenotype.

And that's all I have to say about that.

Geoff
 
It is my understanding that a major difference is that the African gene pool has a lot more variety than gene pools from other parts of the world.

The above might be the only significant difference at the genetic level.

It seems to me that analysis of small groups from certain geographic areas can turn up interesting facts. For example: Running ability seems to have been selected for in various localities. If you consider the 100 or so best distance runners in the world, most of them are from a small region in East Africa or can trace their ancestry to that area. Similarly, most of the world class sprinters come from a smal region in West Africa or are descended from somebody who lived there.
 
Many universities across the country, even Ivy league universities, lower their standards of admission for African-Americans so that they can meet the "status quo" for them to get in. This is called "reverse discrimination" and is unequal and unfair. Perhaps African-Americans are genetically inferior toward intelligence, perhaps it's just their economic and social conditions that they were born and raised in the United States, I don't know? But either way this is a crime against fairness and equality in the U. S.

"An athletic director at a Division IA school said to me, "If it weren't for sports, you wouldn't see a black face on this campus." http://www.princeton.edu/~paw/web_exclusives/features/features_27.html
 
Perhaps African-Americans are genetically inferior toward intelligence, perhaps it's just their economic and social conditions that they were born and raised in the United States, I don't know? But either way this is a crime against fairness and equality in the U. S.
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No. This aims to address past unfairness, economic inequality, inequality of access to quality education, and so on.
 
Past unfairness is present unfairness. At what point in history do we forget the past and move on to global egalitarianism? Do we still oppress Germans and Japanese for the war crimes they committed during World War II? The majority of them were never persecuted: only the high ranking officers. African slaves were brought to America long before any of this. Why should we still give African-Americans extraordinary preferential "unequal" treatment?
 
One has pink skin and one has brown skin, as is immediately obvious to the naked eye.

Beyond that, aside from some medical genetic facts that could be helpful to an individual's health treatment in some very specific circumstances, who cares? A human being is a human being. God dearly loves every human creation. Even the pink ones. And even the brown ones. And even every other ones.
 
We are paying for our colonial and slave trading past today. Nature did not create 'multiracial' societies - European's greed and desire did.

Maybe we learn to live in harmony with nature rather than trying to exploit it for a profit. Hopefully our ancestors in the future can then avoid all these pitfalls.
 
I think we have overdone the Political Correctness issue. The racists are obviously trying to make various ethnic groups seem genetically infierior, which is not a tenable view. This does not excuse the extreme liberal notion that there are no genetic differences other than skin color. I think there is ample evidence of differences in both physical & mental capabilities. The issue of one group being superior due to such differences is an unresolvable issue.

I do not call myself the Dinosaur because I am a huge reptile. When I was a teenager, I was one of a group of affluent white high school & college age athletes who were recruited by Bayard Rustin (sorry if I misspelled his name). We attended baseball games the first year that Jackie Robinson played. It was our job to cheer for him. He only recruited athletes because he considered the possiblity of physical confrontations.

We did not do it because we felt guilty about slavery in past centuries. We did not do it because of racism and unfair treatment in the previous 50 or so years. We did it because we thought that Jackie deserved better treatment than he was getting in the here and now of 1947.

BTW: I doubt that anyone who did not witness it can imagine how Jackie was treated: Vicious racial epithets shouted loud enough for him to hear (including insidious allegations about his parents), tossed beer cans, attempts by opposing players to physically harm him, umpires who called all questionable pitches or base running calls against him.

However, I think it is reasonable to judge a person on the basis of his/her current behavior and future potential, totally ignoring past history. I do not care if a person was abused by his parents or schoolmates. I do not care if he or his ancestors were treated unfairly in the past. Life can be terrible unfair and I feel no obligation to try to balance the scales of justice or fairness unless I was responsible for the unfair treatment. My attitude depends on my view (right or wrong: I am not infallible) of a person’s current behavior and future potential to be a decent person.

While I think we might have erred on the side of doing too much, I agree with various affirmative action legislation & programs designed to help those with potential. If such actions result in unfair results for another person, that is an unfortunate unintended consequence. So life is not always fair. We try our best to make this a better world. While I think that some of our efforts are misguided and the concept of Welfare Rights makes me ill, I sympathize with those who try to help the less fortunate.
 
James R said:
No. This aims to address past unfairness, economic inequality, inequality of access to quality education, and so on.
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Are you saying the way whites treated blacks has made them less intelligent?
 
The idea that race isn't a biological concept has been thoroughly discredited.

"Mr. Risch has shown that researchers, by analyzing DNA, can correctly match an individual’s self-described race in 99.9 per cent of cases. There was a greater chance, he said, that researchers would incorrectly guess an individual’s self-described gender.

"'There is great validity in racial/ethnic self-categorizations, both from research and public policy points of view,' Mr. Risch, now director of the centre for Human Genetics at the University of California, concluded in a 2002 paper in Nature Genetics."
The Source
 
Non-whites shouldn't be judged according to white values. That is patently unfair and a ridiculous racist standard measurement.

Each group has their own values and standards and should not have to endure attempts by outsiders to judge them to foreign norms.
 
firecross said:
Non-whites shouldn't be judged according to white values. That is patently unfair and a ridiculous racist standard measurement.

Each group has their own values and standards and should not have to endure attempts by outsiders to judge them to foreign norms.
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Certainly - and different standards are subject to change with socioeconomic progress.
 
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