Human races - alpha rules

DeepThought said:
Would somebody briefly explain Alpha Rules?
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spurious should have done this at the outset, for the benefit of our new users. He's been rather naughty in not doing so.

As a minimum the Alpha rules are:

  • No trolling.
  • No personal attacks.
  • No hijacking, derailing; no off-topic posts (the last of these emphasised for effect!).
  • Be polite!

Additionally, in a scientific topic such as this (in one of the science subforums - Biology & Genetics, in this case), you're expected to have a scientific approach:
  • Present arguments calmly, logically, precisely; don't ramble; stick to the point.
  • Present appropriate evidence - peer-reviewed, ideally - to support any contentious claims. Your quotes from Wikipedia will not be taken seriously!
They're the main ones I think. Older members will tell you if I've left out anything important.
 
The positive aspect is we are all a work in progress, nothing is fixed in stone thanks to evolution especially our negative or inferior traits.
 
The biological significance of the seeming disconnect between skin color and race, is that skin color is only one aspect of inherited traits. A more accurate picture of ancestry can be determined by analyzing DNA.

I think you are also talking about sexual selection. Geographical isolation is the more typical route of diverging species, but any kind of isolation will do the same thing. Given that people are not so much constrained by geography, sexual selection may indeed be more powerful in creating "races". Identification with skin color is only one possibility. Cultural factors like language could be equally powerful.
 
Oh - and it is also an assumption that the mind is discontinous. Is it not more likely that, for example, the colors of the rainbow are stated as reference points rather than to the exclusion of all other colors (primary or not). It is similar to saying "The east coast." Most of the east coast might actually be northeast of someone in the south or southeast of someone in the north - but east coast gives one a generalized reference point.

As for the idea of adaptive radiation - races in humans are not an example of adaptive radiation. They are examples of the variability inherent in the genome. It is that variability that has enabled such success in promotion of the species.
 
Since 'race' and 'subspecies' are synonyms and all humans are of the subspecies Homo sapiens sapiens, I would say that today there is only one human race.
So there are no different human races. This makes the significance zero.
 
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