Evolution

[dnaval]

Is it possible that Asians,Africans,Native Americans and Europeans evolved
as different "races"??(hope this is a proper term)
Just an idea I got from a previous post about the new Asians and Africans
theory.

[VelvetVellocet]

It isn't possible that each "race" evolved separately when you have evidence of man's migration out of Africa to populate the world. Man had already "evolved" to the level of homo-sapien when the migration out of Africa began over 200,000 years ago so there was no more "evolving" to take place.

The concept of "race" has no basis in science and is merely a 19th century concept on how to classify humans based soley upon the expression of different alleles which code for different superficial physical features in humans. These natural physical features developed over a very long time based entirely on variances in geographic climate (heat, sunlight, darkness, cold), diet (access to various vitamin rich or vitamin poor food sources), and genetic selection (mother nature preferring, and expressing one physical trait over another) for reasons of human survival. The concept of "race" is an outmoded concept which anthropologists do not use.

DNA has a scientific basis, and that simple fact is that everyone on earth can trace their genetic lineage directly to Africa, and by using DNA alone, you can see the unifying connection of your place on earth to everyone else on the planet. Race fits nowhere in that equation. Culture and ethnicity does, but never "race".

[darroll]

Then, Why do we look different? (I hope that I do not have to go into details)
This has always bugged me with the African theory?
And please don’t accuse me of being a racist, I’m serious and not a liberal so I only accept fact.
d
Our DNA does match exactly.

[Jim Barrett]

One of us is lost!

Man had already "evolved" to the level of homo-sapien when the migration out of Africa began over 200,000 years ago so there was no more "evolving" to take place.

Your line may have stopped evolving 200,000 years ago but mine didn't. We are still changing today.

Race fits nowhere in that equation. Culture and ethnicity does, but never "race".

Please explain the the difference between race and "culture and ethnicity".

[Pleroma]

Here is some information regarding the difference between the concept of "race" and ethnicity:

http://www.radford.edu/~jaspelme/minority-groups/Race%20vs.%20Ethnicity%20&%20Culture%20handout.pdf

[tomcat]

...
Man had already "evolved" to the level of homo-sapien when the migration out of Africa began over 200,000 years ago so there was no more "evolving" to take place.
...

The capacity of humans to evolve is not tapped-out, we hope. The differentiation once known as 'racialization' resulting from successful adaptation to differing climates, stressors and opportunities is an example of evolution.

There is no predeterminate endpoint or trajectory to the evolution of any organism. The organism either has the capacity to respond successfully to the next novel stressor or does not. If the organism cannot adapt it dies out, if it adapts it lives on. Period.

[paitenceofjob]

Here is some information regarding the difference between the concept of "race" and ethnicity:

http://www.radford.edu/~jaspelme/min...%20handout.pdf

That handout denotes race as mutually exclusive. I don't think most people think of race as such. I don't know of anyone who does. As the handout acknowledges, the term ethnicity shares the same problems.

The short answer to the dnaval's and darroll's question is evolution explains the differences we see in populations today. Something we loosely call ethnic or racial characteristics came about due to natural and sexual selection. Traits that helped people survive and reproduce in one area may not be the same in another. That's when the frequencies of alleles start accumulating and observable differences in one population from another become apparent. The Out of Africa theory explains this very well. I recommend reading Spencer Well's Journey of Man or at least watching the documentary.

The long answer would require many threads on this forum, but those threads would involve divergent evolution, isolation, physical barriers, genetic drift, natural selection, sexual selection, adaptation, and many more concepts.

[tomcat]

What might be termed 'racialization' is not speciation. The differing human 'races' are not different, albeit related, species of Homo sapiens. I suppose they might be considered all sub-species. The test of speciation is whether the differing forms can interbreed.

[GregKiroKHR1bL1]

I think talking about how the DNA changed is more challenging than talking about phenotypes people see day by day. Evolution is a gradual change in time. How the phenotypes became encoded into the DNA is the most interesting aspect to ponder.

Most of the articles I read about racism have to do with legalism as seen on the Redbone website.

1527 Spanish royal decree of 11 May recommends that male slaves ought to marry female slaves as much as possible: "with marriage and their love for wives and children and orderly married life they will become more calm and much sin and trouble will be avoided."
1638 Ordinance of the Director and Council of New Netherland prohibits adulterous intercourse between whites and heathens, blacks or other persons, upon threat of exemplary punishment of the white party.

http://www.redboneheritagefoundation.com/Chronicles/interracial_marriage_timeline.htm

The legal system used race and marriage as tools to help keep land and money within a few families. And so, there were ruling classes of people and slaves along with a working class and a supporting class of people. The rise of the church soon stratified itself between priest and followers. The clash between priests and kings clouded history as technology required skilled scientist to examine a natural truth. And so people wondered why other people were different leading to the discovery of a series of skin pigments.

DHI-melanin; black, insoluble,high MW
DHICA-melanin; brown, slightly soluble, intermediate MW
5-S-cysteinyldopa and 2-S-cysteinyldopa Pheomelanin; yellow/red, alkalisoluble, low MW
and a variety of mixed melanins as well as Neuromelanin

Epidermal melanin has important evolutionary and
physiological implications, particularly for unclothed humans.
Thus high melanin content (racial pigmentation)
protects the skin against ultraviolet (UV)-induced skin
damage through its optical and chemical filtering properties
(8). Indeed, skin pigment levels and anthropological
origin are closely associated, with higher pigment
amounts in regions of lower latitude and higher UV radiation
levels. However, this connection may only be a
recent human adaptation since early hominids may have
possessed dark, dense, terminal body hair. A closely related
primate, the chimpanzee, similar to most other nonhuman
primates, exhibits white or lightly pigmented epidermis
(591). Interestingly, chimpanzees have active melanocytes
only in the epidermis of those areas directly
exposed to UV radiation, e.g., face and friction surfaces
(488).
The tendency toward relative hairlessness in modern
humans has been explained by the need to maintain thermal
balance under the progressive increase in demands
for heat dissipation that results from the enhanced blood
flow to the brain. Alternately or complementarily, hairlessness
would also reduce parasitic infestations (549).
Without concomitant increase in epidermal melanization,
the end result of reduced hair coverage in humans residing
in high UV radiation areas would be direct exposure to
the adverse effects of that radiation. . . .
Nevertheless, the
value of the melanin pigmentation as a truly effective
sunscreen for seasonal tanning is debatable since its sun
protection factor (SPF) is only 1–2 (902). Additional properties
of melanin may include a bactericidal potential via
the production of orthoquinones (618), and contribution
to the tensile strength of hair via cross-linking with proteins.
Melanin Pigmentation in Mammalian Skin and Its Hormonal Regulation
Physiol Rev
84: 1155–1228, 2004; 10.1152/physrev.00044.2003.

Race gave some people a feeling of superiority without having to be a hero or earning the stripes of admiration. The feeling of power and the rewards of land and capital affected judgment upon a group of people who now could not gain the resources to defend or to express their point of views. With the rise of the people, a new middle and upper class of people with capital appeared. And so race became less important as a way to gain security and wealth. Laws changed as did the public viewpoint of race allowing scientist to explore the ideas of a common ancestor and other such ideas. Yet, scientific achievements were influenced by personal believes as well as a lack of knowledge. So negotiation power influenced funding and results.

So what is the molecular structure of melanin is less popular than what is race.

Still, I think Louis XIV dressed better than I did.

[josh w.]

For cultural reasons the concept of "race" persists despite its limited scientific value. First of all, many who favor the concept seem to be of the opinion that if people share some physical traits, on the basis of genetics they also share social and psychological features. There is very little scientific evidence of any such genetic linkage. The vast majority of "racial" differences can be explained by culturual and ecomomic factors. One exception appears to be genes linked to brain measurements but this is only weakly related to more important functions such as intelligence.

Secondly the concept of race appears to assume that people of the same race have much in common besides physical appearance. However scientific evidence goes in the opposite direction. There is much greater genetic and behavioral variation within races than between races. This is one reason why race based medical treatment will be of value but to only a limited degree. Finally, as autosomal genetic testing clearly indicates, people of different "races" have alot in common genetically speaking.

[GregKiroKHR1bL1]

Here is a nice link for those interested in learning and teaching evolution . . .

http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evosite/start.shtml

[dnaval]

The reason I asked...

Well, I noticed that we have animals in every part of the world.
Even dinasours developed in North America, How did they migrate.
Also there are different types of cats,tigers,jaguars that live only in
certain parts of the world.
Don't animals follow the same evolutionary pattern.
My point is how did they animals develop as seperate species without
a starting point.
They say humans developed out of africa and migrated out to middle east
asian and north america.
My point is did animals start in africa also and migrate the same pattern,also.
I feel that their must be a creator under all this evolution ,otherwise
how would we even start?
I think it may be possible the creator put people in different parts of the
world and evolutized there.
I just love questioning things...
I am not a scientist, its important to open our mind a bit though.

I wrote this fast hope it makes sense

Here is a nice link for those interested in learning and teaching evolution . . .

http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evosite/start.shtml

[josh w.]

To briefly elaborate on my point about autosomal testing. For the most part, people of different "races" do not yield reliably different autosomes except for the genes associated with physical appearance. With some effort, testing companies can identify distinguishing autosomes--AIMs. However the main implication is that people are far more alike than they are different.

[GregKiroKHR1bL1]

The modern ancestor of the dog is thought to be from China based upon genetics (see references for details). Genetic bottlenecks occur from time to time, and these occur in different places. We often try to simplify our ideas for the general public (and often ourselves). In the past, we thought of the five kingdoms for living things. However, today, we talk about the three domains for living things. When we count things, we are sure about the starting point because we label it as one. When we measure things, we pick a starting point. Experts in the field agree upon standards for the starting point. Dreams and hopes are not standards. Standards are picked from repeatable evidence; every once in a while, we change our standards because of improvements in our theories. Modern dogs and modern humans appeared together maybe 20,000 or 10,000 years ago which is around the agricultural age. However, we still find human and wolf bones 200,000 years ago. We all wish our fathers kept better records. Maybe, the origins of wolves were too top secret for the fathers to write a history (for)? The same could be said for all of the other animals and plants and tiny things in nature. Actually, Aristotle was one of the first people in recorded history to put together the ideas of minerals, planets, animals, humans, and so on, so they could be compared with their physical properties.

Well, I noticed that we have animals in every part of the world.
Even dinasours developed in North America, How did they migrate.
Also there are different types of cats,tigers,jaguars that live only in
certain parts of the world.
Don't animals follow the same evolutionary pattern.
My point is how did they animals develop as seperate species without
a starting point.
They say humans developed out of africa and migrated out to middle east
asian and north america.
My point is did animals start in africa also and migrate the same pattern,also.
I feel that their must be a creator under all this evolution ,otherwise
how would we even start?
I think it may be possible the creator put people in different parts of the
world and evolutized there.
I just love questioning things...
I am not a scientist, its important to open our mind a bit though.

I wrote this fast hope it makes sense

[dnaval]

Thanks that was interesting

I will read more on Aristotle.

The modern ancestor of the dog is thought to be from China based upon genetics (see references for details). Genetic bottlenecks occur from time to time, and these occur in different places. We often try to simplify our ideas for the general public (and often ourselves). In the past, we thought of the five kingdoms for living things. However, today, we talk about the three domains for living things. When we count things, we are sure about the starting point because we label it as one. When we measure things, we pick a starting point. Experts in the field agree upon standards for the starting point. Dreams and hopes are not standards. Standards are picked from repeatable evidence; every once in a while, we change our standards because of improvements in our theories. Modern dogs and modern humans appeared together maybe 20,000 or 10,000 years ago which is around the agricultural age. However, we still find human and wolf bones 200,000 years ago. We all wish our fathers kept better records. Maybe, the origins of wolves were too top secret for the fathers to write a history (for)? The same could be said for all of the other animals and plants and tiny things in nature. Actually, Aristotle was one of the first people in recorded history to put together the ideas of minerals, planets, animals, humans, and so on, so they could be compared with their physical properties.