Giraffes May Be Six Separate Species

The BBC reports on research, published in BMC Biology, pointing to the possibility that there may be at least six species of giraffe in Africa. Quoting: "'Using molecular techniques we found that giraffes can be classified into six groups that are reproductively isolated and not interbreeding,' David Brown, the lead author of the study and a geneticist at... UCLA told BBC News. 'The results were a surprise because although the giraffes look different, if you put them in zoos, they breed freely.'"

Comments

Same thing with people...

[Anonymous Coward]

Even though we all look different (eg: skin colour, height, "width", etc), if you put us in zoos, we will breed freely also

Re:Same thing with people...

[Beached]

Yah, it's called College

Re:Same thing with people...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, its also called low income housing...

Re:Same thing with people...

[hlt32]

We will breed freely with giraffes?!

Re:Same thing with people...

[iainl]

You don't find those long, long legs attractive?

Re:Same thing with people...

[Alsee]

Paraphrasing the sequence of this thread
Person A: "niggers and spics 2+2=4"
Person B: "Racist"
You: "You mean he's incorrect? Two plus two is NOT four?"

No. He meant person A was a racist ass (and/or a deliberate troll).

African-Americans and Hispanic people aren't disproportionately located in low income housing?

That is a simple fact.

Someone who thinks that fact is relevant to mention may or may not be a racist, and it is reasonable to consider the context to see if it was indeed a reasonable relevant point or if it was motivated by bigotry.

Someone who rants about "niggers and spics" is a racist ass (and/or a deliberately trolling), regardless of whatever is said along with "niggers and spics".

Hitler said 2+2=4. He may even have used 2+2=4 somewhere as one step in his rationalization for exterminating Jews and other "undesirables". A true fact is a true fact, no matter who utters it. And equally, the fact that some literal datum is true does not necessarily make it relevant, and does not mean that it is being applied in a valid context mental chain of intent and conclusion.

-

Re:Same thing with people...

[Chineseyes]

Here is a dirty little fact that most people don't know the average adult on welfare is a single WHITE woman with children. Furthermore white people live off of welfare as well and profit from it far more than African Americans or Hispanics, except in the corporate world they call it SUBSIDIES. All those farmers who get paid NOT to farm? All those airlines who receive money from the government to avoid bankruptcy. All of the oil companies who get huge tax breaks when they are earning record profits? Thats government sponsored WELFARE and the people who benefit from such welfare are largely middle class and upper middle class people who are largely white. Welfare programs for the poor are absolute chump change compared to the amount of money corporations and by proxy their shareholders take from the government.

Re:Same thing with people...

[Descalzo]

although the giraffes look different....

News to me.

Re:Same thing with people...

[Alsee]

not all of us approve of 'interbreeding'

Tough shit.

Your family tree has 'interbreeding' back there somewhere whether you like it or not. And your wife or husband is likely as not already is 1/4th or 1/8th or 1/16th or 1/32nd 1/64th or whatever already 'interbred'. And any sons or daughters you have, when they get married, as likely as not it will be someone who is 1/4th or 1/8th or 1/16th or 1/32nd 1/64th or whatever 'interbred'.

Your child's fiancée can be 1/16th african AND 1/16th hispanic AND 1/16th asian AND 1/16th whatever-you-object-to, and short of taking a DNA sample for laboratory analysis YOU'D NEVER KNOW. Even people who are one-quarter whatever are sometimes nearly impossible to identify by eyeball.

Go on racist rants against interbreeding all you like, population genetics are already "contaminated" and that mixing only INCREASES with each generation. It's over. You lose. Tough shit. Wrap yourself in a Confedrate flag and take all your slave-owner historical treasures with you, and curl up in a coffin and rot while the gene pool just keeps right on mixing more and more every single year.

Your fantasy of seeing "us" and "them" is dead and gone. It's already a blended gray zone where you can't tell who's on which side and who's "contaminated". People you know and consider "us" are already part of that blended zone and you're just ignorant of that fact. You may very well be part of your dreaded "contaminated" gray zone, and just in denial of that possibility. And I don't give a rats-ass if you've got a chart tracing your "pureblood" family tree back 80 generations. Genetic testing proves that at least 10% of births the claimed father is not the true father. So even going back a mere 4 generations makes your genealogy absolutely worthless, that spans a tree of 15 births. 90% accuracy to the power of 15 yields a %20 accuracy rate. Going back even a mere 4 generations there's an 80% chance any claimed family tree is flawed. That somewhere or other one of those unknown true fathers could himself be a half-breed or quarter-breed or whatever.

-

Re:Same thing with people...

[irm]

I don't recall a whole lot of freely breeding with me.

Re:Same thing with people...

[Hognoxious]

Here is a dirty little fact that most people don't know the average adult on welfare is a single WHITE woman with children.

You'd kind of expect that in a country where white people are over 70% of the population, wouldn't you?

Re:Same thing with people...

[Toonol]

It's great these people have been able to overcome the social handicap their ethnicities started with in America (as in, not being able to vote, having discriminatory hiring practices put in place against them, etc, etc). America must truly be a land of racial equality!

Yes, those practices were eliminated many decades ago. Thanks.

Re:Same thing with people...

[u235meltdown]

No see, even in college Computer Science majors are quite well isolated from the International Studies majors... or maybe it's just because my campus is huge.

Re:Same thing with people...

[Per Wigren]

No, but long, long tongues.

Re:Same thing with people...

[Chineseyes]

Apparently my sarcasm didn't come through. Although it seems like common sense to you and I, you would shocked at how many people assume that the majority of people on welfare on black and hispanic.

Re:Same thing with people...

[Mr. Slippery]

Yes, those practices were eliminated many decades ago. Thanks.

Officially? Yes, mostly. De facto? No, discriminatory hiring practices still exist, as do race-based blocks to voting.

Re:Same thing with people...

[FooAtWFU]

You might be surprised how pure some family lines are. Some of us call people like that "inbred" and roll their eyes at how snooty and better-than-thou they try to be when they're making complete fools of themselves for chasing some nigh-unto-utterly-useless metric of "purity" instead of things that really matter.

Just sayin'. :)

Re:Same thing with people...

[lsatenstein]

What does your topic have to do with giraffes? I don't know of any women who have physical bodies similar to giraffes.

Re:Same thing with people...

[Alsee]

genetic testing [] is usually done on a sample of people that have something to gain by lying about who the father is

True, and basing the cited statistic on that sample set would indeed yield entirely bogus inflated results. That sort of study must be preformed based upon combined DNA data for father and child that became incidentally available by reason *not* involving paternity cases. For example situations where an unsuspecting father and child are both tested for some genetic disease.

And perhaps I shouldn't have said "at least 10%". There have been quite a few studies coming up with varying results both higher and lower, but it doesn't much matter. 10% yields an 80% invalidation rate in an asserted 4 generation family tree. Even a 1% false paternity rate yields a 47% invalidation rate for an asserted 6 generation family tree. Even an entirely fictional 0.1% false paternity rate invalidates 64% of asserted 10 generation family trees.

-----

Professor Peter Fine at Florida Atlantic University had an idea for an art class. He would gather a group of students to produce work around their idea of their racial identity. But as part of the class he asked them to take a DNA test that would break down their racial background. His bet was that most of the class--of whom the majority saw themselves as whites of European descent--had no real idea who they were.

He was right. Of 13 students, only one turned out to be completely European. The rest displayed a mixture of European, Native American, African and Asian genes. The one black student turned out to be 21 per cent white.

Read more.

A totally arbitrary collection 13 "white european" students in a Florida Atlantic University art class, of 12 out of 13 DNA tested as some sort of mixed ancestry.

A substantial minority of "white" American racists are in fact part black themselves, and that quickly shifts far into the majority of them when you start counting native american and asian and others.

-

Re:Same thing with people...

[Alsee]

Professor Peter Fine at Florida Atlantic University had an idea for an art class. He would gather a group of students to produce work around their idea of their racial identity. But as part of the class he asked them to take a DNA test that would break down their racial background. His bet was that most of the class--of whom the majority saw themselves as whites of European descent--had no real idea who they were.

He was right. Of 13 students, only one turned out to be completely European. The rest displayed a mixture of European, Native American, African and Asian genes. The one black student turned out to be 21 per cent white. Read more.

A totally arbitrary collection of students in a random art class in a Florida state university, and 12 out of 13 students DNA tested mixed blood.

As I said: It's over. 12 out of 13. You lost. 12 out of 13. Tough shit. 12 out of 13.

You might be surprised how pure some family lines are.

Translation: "My family tree Does Not Branch."

No matter how inbred you think your family tree is, odds are quite good that I would get the pleasure of watching you choke on your own actual DNA test.

Do you fix our leaking sink, or just let it go on dripping

A sink is useless if you don't crank the faucet open at times.
And that's one sink I'd be delighted to help open full blast.

-

Re:Same thing with people...

[nurb432]

Filthy genes scan still be corrected. Sure, it will take several generations and some direct DNA manipulation, but it is is possible to breed out undesirable genes. ( would be easier to just sterilize the mistakes along the way to prevent re-infection, but thats not politically correct ). Any worthwhile project takes time and dedication.

And that should have been 'your leaking sink..' i'm well known for typos around here due to lack of caring.

Re:Same thing with people...

[Danny Rathjens]

"average" doesn't mean what you seem to be using it for. Do you mean the majority of adults on welfare are white single moms? It seems like a difficult area to aggregate statistics for since welfare comes in so many varieties. I get the feeling you are simply trying to counter one stereotype with its opposite. It sounds plausible, but I am wondering where you get your information? (My attempts so far have led me into a morasse of temporary programs, major programs that changed in '97, separate programs involving dependents,etc. http://www.acf.hhs.gov/acf_policy_planning.html#stats)

Re:Same thing with people...

[Danny Rathjens]

Well, the data on the temporary programs at least bear out the general impression that minorities are over-represented in welfare:

hispanic 26.1%, white 33.4%, african-american 35.7%
http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/ofa/character/FY2006/tab08.htm

I should sleep, but score 5 posts with seemingly erroneous data irk me. :)

Re:Same thing with people...

[Chineseyes]

Erroneous data? I said ADULTS! In fact I'll quote myself since you didn't bother to read what I wrote. Here is a dirty little fact that most people don't know the average adult on welfare is a single WHITE woman with children
The chart you have only includes FAMILIES by the race of the adult family member. So single adults do not count in the stats you provided. If you had bothered to look a bit more for the stats for race/ethnicity for ADULTS only, you would have seen that white ADULTS do in fact make a majority of the welfare recipients by a slim margin.

http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/ofa/character/FY2006/tab21.htm

There are several books that break down these numbers even further and I can assure you that the vast majority of those white adults on welfare are single mothers and as an interesting side-note most of those single mothers are recently divorced mothers. If you are really that concerned about erroneous data I will be more than happy to give you ISBN numbers for the books after the holiday season and when I have time to look through my collection. There are still many subjects that reliable data can not be found on the internet and this is one of them.

Re:Same thing with people...

[Hognoxious]

I don't know of any women who have physical bodies similar to giraffes.

Well this one's making a fair attempt.

Breeding?

[FroBugg]

Although the giraffes look different, if you put them in zoos, they breed freely.

Assuming they produce viable offspring, isn't that one of the primary definitions for a single species?

Re:Breeding?

[Kranfer]

Well, I am no biologist... But from what I know of most birds, most species can't interbreed... there are sub species... like a scarlet macaw can reproduce with a blue and gold and you get a catalina.... but a Parakeet cannot breed with a macaw... If they ever do... I think I might want one then... but the macaw would eat the poor Parakeet... wouldn't it be better to say 6 subspecies of giraffe?

Re:Breeding?

[srussia]

Although the giraffes look different, if you put them in zoos, they breed freely.

Assuming they produce viable offspring, isn't that one of the primary definitions for a single species? There is no rigorous definition of "species". See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Species_problem

Re:Breeding?

[dancingmad]

Someone can correct me if I'm off my nut here but:
I think that's the major definition, but further categories can be made on things like different physical or (like in this study) genetic characteristics. Also, if the populations are genetically (and possibly morphologically, as the summary suggests) and do not interbreed in the wild that would suggest that giraffes may be well divided into subspecies.

Re:Breeding?

[djupedal]

"wouldn't it be better to say 6 subspecies of giraffe?"

You mean, like:

• giraffa
• giraffb
• giraffc
• giraffd
• giraffe
• girafff

?

Re:Breeding?

[ozmanjusri]

What about the Norwegian Blue?

Remarkable bird, the Norwegian Blue, idn'it, ay? Beautiful plumage!

Re:Breeding?

[Kranfer]

Well, no... You would name them... birds for example... Conure is the species and then the sub species are: nanday, sun, jenday, cherry head, patagonian, green cheek, cinamon cheek, peach front, etc... Why not the Kranfer Giraffe, Picard Giraffe, etc etc

Re:Breeding?

[Hognoxious]

You can also get odd situations where varieties A and C can't interbreed with each other, but either can with B. IIRC there is some kind of duck or goose that has this property.

Re:Breeding?

[ConanG]

you mean like:

Reticulated Giraffe
Masai Giraffe
Rothschild Giraffe
South African Giraffe
Thornicroft Giraffe
Nigerian Giraffe

Re:Breeding?

[srussia]

You can also get odd situations where varieties A and C can't interbreed with each other, but either can with B. IIRC there is some kind of duck or goose that has this property. There are at least two metaphysical issues in these kinds of statements:
1. "Varieties" do not interbreed, individuals do. Interbreeding is a property of members of different sets, not of the sets themselves.
2. The use of the word "can" implies that potential (as opposed to actualities) can be considered a property (of the set or of the member of the set?). Certain members of a given set will necessarily be "unable" (not do so ever) to interbreed or even breed within its own set (cf. set of Slashdot subscribers).

Re:Breeding?

[Epistax]

Assuming they produce viable offspring, isn't that one of the primary definitions for a single species?

I am no biologist. What about Tiger + Lion = Liger? Tigers and Lions don't breed in the wild (geographic reasons, mostly!). A lion is one species, a tiger is another species, and a liger is a third species, all in the genus Panthera.

If anyone would like to educate me on this that's fine, I willingly profess my ignorance in this classification system!

Re:Breeding?

[mapkinase]

By "breeding" scientists usually mean producing fertile offspring. "Ligers", alas, are sterile, as well as mules, as far as I know.

I am tempted, but lazy, to look into an original peer-reviewed article to find out if "zoo offspring" of different kinds of giraffes is fertile or not.

Re:Breeding?

[shellbeach]

wouldn't it be better to say 6 subspecies of giraffe? IAAB, and yes, that's absolutely correct. They're subspecies.

You get the same thing with the house mouse, mus musculus -- subspecies that are genetically distinct and geographically isolated, but which will interbreed in captivity (and in bordering zones in the wild). It's presumed that a lower fitness in the offspring of cross-subspecies matings in bordering zones keeps the subspecies separate.

Re:Breeding?

[Mhtsos]

By definition two animals of a single species can produce non sterile offspring. For example horses and donkeys aren't of the same species because mules are sterile.

Re:Breeding?

[aussie_a]

Someone want to link me the Monty Python script this is taken from so I can see where this comment originated?

Oh you might be wondering how I know its a Monty Python quote without knowing the reference? Its elementary, you see:
* Its been modded 2, Funny so it could be a joke.
* It makes very little sense in this context confirms it is a joke.
* A very British accent is being used so obviously the joke is of English (the country, not the language) origin.
* This is a site for nerds so unless a cult of The Goodies has risen up while I wasn't looking, it has to be a Monty Python reference.

Re:Breeding?

[mapkinase]

oops. I take back my comment about ligers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Species_problem:

"One fairly extreme example is that lions and tigers will hybridize in captivity, and at least some of the offspring have been reported to be fertile."

Re:Breeding?

[aussie_a]

Tigers and Lions don't breed in the wild (geographic reasons, mostly! Well that and everyone knows tigers are sluts and so no-one will consider sleeping with one unless they've got a vet nearby to help treat them for the STDs the poor lion invariably caught.

Re:Breeding?

[Enleth]

The question is, what is the airspeed of an unladen giraffe of each species?

Considering the old engineers' saying that even pigs can fly given enough thrust, we should assume equal initial thrust, then calculate the air drag given the aerodynamic properities of a giraffe of each species. That, in turn, allows us to determine the giraffe's velocity after the time t, which, after a simple integration, yelds an average airspeed value. Moreover, it would be preferable to confirm the findings experimentally, as an excercise for the reader.

Re:Breeding?

[KDR_11k]

And in biology they just call it "ring species" and are done with it.

Re:Breeding?

[Epistax]

Sure liger is a species, it's not called "liger" though. It's called P. tigris × P. leo, or the cross between the two.

Re:Breeding?

[mapkinase]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liger#Fertility

Actually, I reverse my view on this again: since only ligresses are fertile, I would not consider this successful fully fertile offspring.

Re:Breeding?

[djupedal]

"giraffe - Wiktionary
giraffe (plural giraffes). A ruminant, of the genus Giraffa, of the African Savannah with long legs and highly elongated neck, which make it the tallest ..."

So, if they haven't gotten the DNA analysis wrong (I think they may have), they would bump the genus up to specie and run the a, b, c, d, e, f routine - works for me :)

Re:Breeding?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't get people like you. In the time it took you to type out four bullet points (including one with a wikipedia link), you could've just googled for the exact phrase and checked the first fucking hit on google to get the answer to your question.

Re:Breeding?

[protobion]

Actually, it depends what you're talking about. A species is defined *loosely* as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. However, more precise and increasingly quantitative definitions are possible when looking at molecular markers and such. It would depend on the degree of stringency required for the particular problem being addressed. Since in this case, the giraffe populations are reproductively isolated in the wild, even though there is presuably no geographic isolation, they could be classified as separate species.
For example, several members of the Canis genus can interbreed and produce fertile offspring. However, wolves and jackals are typically classified as separate species.

Re:Breeding?

[srussia]

And in biology they just call it "ring species" and are done with it. Thanks for the info. But to my mind, this just accentuates the fact that the concept of "species" is broken and is no longer useful for scientific advancement.

Re:Breeding?

[91degrees]

Yes, but then he wouldn't be able to show how smart he was working out it was a python reference.

Re:Breeding?

[mdiep]

Assuming they produce viable offspring, isn't that one of the primary definitions for a single species?

It is one of the definitions, yes, but not the only one. And while it's true that inviable offspring show that there are two separate species, two separate species will not necessarily produce inviable offspring.

Darwin's finches in the galapagos are commonly used as an example of an evolutionary speciation event, but they are able to interbreed and produce viable offspring. What counts in this case is their reproductive isolation: they don't normally interbreed.

Reproductive isolation can result from differences in appearance, geographic location, breeding rituals, or other factors. These factors may then result in the separation of species.

It all seems like a bit of a crock to me, but the definition of species appears to be a hard problem.

Re:Breeding?

[orclevegam]

Wait, I'm confused... so, does this count as meta-humor now? Or is it just pretentious showing off? I guess maybe it would depend on whether he really doesn't know the Norwegian Blue skit or not. In one case he knows what he's talking about making this meta-humor, and the other he's trying to show off some deductive reasoning playing off of slashdot stereotypes. Or maybe he just really likes bullet point lists.

Re:Breeding?

[Conanymous Award]

>> Although the giraffes look different, if you put them in zoos, they breed freely.
> Assuming they produce viable offspring, isn't that one of the primary definitions for a single species?

Not necessarily. Defining a species is a real hassle, and hasn't been solved. In biology this is known as the Species Problem. You see, many populations - like, for example, these giraffes - could interbreed and produce viable offspring, but for many different reasons, like geographical isolation, different mating patterns, different ecological niches etc., they just don't do that unless brought into unnatural conditions (in this case, zoos). In biology there are many different definitions for species.

The concept of biological species is ultimately an abstract construction made by us, who only see a temporary glimpse of a huge genetic continuum in time. You might want to take a look at these Wikipedia articles:
Species
Species Problem

Re:Breeding?

[stuntpope]

From the BBC:

"Currently giraffes are considered to represent a single species classified into multiple subspecies."

The story contrasts this current view with the new DNA studies that show at least 6 different giraffe species. So the news is that giraffes actually are of different species, not subspecies as previously thought.

Re:Breeding?

[VolciMaster]

http://www.mtholyoke.edu/~ebarnes/python/dead-parrot.htm

because i'm a nice guy and have been your google proxy today

merry christmas

Re:Breeding?

[xouumalperxe]

I think it's actually "they produce fertile offspring" -- horses and donkeys producing viable, non-fertile mules.

Re:Breeding?

[Anonymous Coward]

I am not convinced. The ability to produce viable offspring ("if you put them in zoos, they breed freely") means that they're by definition one species. The only thing the new test shows is that the generation of the subspecies was very long ago, but that doesn't change anything.
Also, the "species" classification appears to be politically motivated. From TFA: "It is hoped that classifying current subspecies as fully fledged species will help inform conservation plans" Regardless of the motivations behind that, it is a really bad way to do science, which should be concerned only with the facts of the matter.

Re:Breeding?

[xouumalperxe]

I know the one you mean. It's the Anatidae commutator subgroup!

Re:Breeding?

[Alsee]

You're a lyin'!

-

Re:Breeding?

[Gospodin]

Yeah, but that's hard to iterate over. Let's go with: giraffe[0], giraffe[1], giraffe[2], giraffe[3], giraffe[4], giraffe[5].

Re:Breeding?

[MillionthMonkey]

You mean you're going to make me do a bounds check whenever I access an element from your giraffe type array?

At least put any new giraffes you find at the end- don't stick them in the middle or at the beginning.

Re:Breeding?

[plazman30]

They are not separate species. They are subspecies on their way to becoming separate species. Evolution is action. The line may be blurred if subspecies a can breed with b and b can breed with c, but a cannot breed with c. They are a number of North America birds in that blurry line. That's the end stages of evolution creating a new species.

Andy

Re:Breeding?

[plazman30]

By "viable", they mean fertile. What's the point to having offspring that can't breed. You'd be an evolutionary dead end. For offspring to biologically viable, it has to be fertile.

Re:Breeding?

[starX]

If you do it in perl, you could just use a hash and then loop over everything using a combo of foreach and keys. And then if you decide you want more giraffes, you can stick 'em in wherever you want without having to worry about any bounds checking.

Re:Breeding?

[Junior J. Junior III]

Giraffa? Why would you start counting giraffe subspecies at 11? Clearly the more natural progression is:

Giraffe000
Giraffe001
Giraffe010
Giraffe011
Giraffe100
Giraffe101

This also leaves room for a few additional, as yet undocumented giraffes, namely Giraffe110 and Giraffe111.

Re:Breeding?

[laddiebuck]

The Goodies, although funnier than Python, were sadly strangled by BBC2's controller, Jane Root, who refused to repeat them or release them. Thus, they were never syndicated to the U.S. on a large scale, nor did they see more than 5 or 6 episodes released out of some 94... It's a real shame.

Re:Breeding?

[piojo]

The Liger is not a species. It is a hybrid of two other species. Most ligers are sterile and unable to reproduce with either of the parent species or with another liger. Do you meant that some ligers are not sterile? Would their offspring also be fertile? If so, they could become a species, by any definition.

Re:Breeding?

[aussie_a]

My post was something of a joke. I'm sorry you can't get any jokes but the most obvious.

Re:Breeding?

[Quasar Sera]

Yes. I believe that the correct term here would be 'race'.

Re:Breeding?

[Huntr]

Wish you hadn't posted AC, because IAAB and I agree with much of your post. IMO, geographical restrictions should not necessarily be a primary means to define species, even if regional differences can be identified at the molecular scale. Although I believe that species can benefit from the higher resolution of conservation plans based on subspecies classification, I agree that a certainly not subject to peer review headline such as "Giraffes really 6 species" is lazy and the likely politicized review of the genetic evidence presents "bad science" in a much more positive light than it deserves.

Re:Breeding?

[supernova_hq]

Dead parrot sketch. Seen in: -Flying Circus Series (forgot which season/episode) -And Now For Something Completely Different in case you were still wondering....

Re:Breeding?

[JavaRob]

But to my mind, this just accentuates the fact that the concept of "species" is broken and is no longer useful for scientific advancement. The flaws of the term can be frustrating, but it's silly to say it's "no longer useful".

First, do we have a replacement set of terminology? Taxonomy of life is unavoidably an imperfect business, but we can't just say "yeah, life actually is a big intermingled mess, there are lots of gray areas and overlap... so animals may only be referred to as individuals by their given names."

So I think we're stuck with an imperfect system -- though really, it's not such a big deal. The biologists all understand the limitations of the system, and scientific advancement can easily continue because of that understanding -- they make up new terms as they need them and move on.

There's also the huge amount of extant research using this system that's still relevant.

Re:Breeding?

[Copid]

But to my mind, this just accentuates the fact that the concept of "species" is broken and is no longer useful for scientific advancement.

If the concept of a species was really that fragile, it would have been "broken" the moment asexual organisms were discovered.

Re:Breeding?

[Gospodin]

In pedantic mode: Of course you have to worry about bounds checking (or at least existence checking). What if you want to add a new giraffe at an existing key? If you don't check first, you'll overwrite the previous entry. Surely that's not what you want.

Re:Breeding?

[Walter Carver]

Assuming.

A spartan reply eh? :-P

Re:Breeding?

[cthulhu11]

I would call them "populations"

Contradiction?

[shish]

reproductively isolated and not interbreeding ... if you put them in zoos, they breed freely. Does this not make sense to anyone else?

Re:Contradiction?

[edittard]

It's clumsily worded, but it's fairly clear that it meant they don't naturally interbreed in the wild.

Re:Contradiction?

[ferd_farkle]

Reproductive isolation is a major characteristic of speciation. Lions and tigers, horses and donkeys, etc are different species, but under unnatural conditions may mate and even produce offspring. Depending on how unrelated the species are, the offspring may or may not be viable.

Speciation is not as cut-and-dried as you might think. Reproductively isolated populations diverge more and more over time, and the speciation becomes more and more pronounced.

Re:Contradiction?

[mapkinase]

Yes. That was the reason I posted this in my journal. Other examples:

races of humans: diverged thousands and thousands years ago, yet considered one species.

Domesticated animals: some of the dog breeds are so different in size, that they hardly can copulate... One species.

Another example: finches, that Darwin classified even into different genera, only later to be found easily interbreeding. (same finches that inspired him to his famous "origin of species" idea).

This is an example of pseudoscience, when scientists are under the pressure to "discover" something, read: call the same old phenomenon a new name.

Re:Contradiction?

[Zeinfeld]

It's clumsily worded, but it's fairly clear that it meant they don't naturally interbreed in the wild.

So? I have not attempted to breed with Anna Nichole Smith, that does not mean that I am a different species.

Question, which was larger, the number of Californians wo ran for Governor or the number who claimed paternity of the child?

Re:Contradiction?

[aussie_a]

Does anyone know how long (on average) two groups have to be isolated for before they diverge sufficiently that they'll no longer be able to reproduce fertile offspring with each other? Is it tens of thousands of years? Hundreds of thousands? Millions?

Re:Contradiction?

[Nephrite]

Well, maybe that means they prefer not to in the wild, but do it anyway when don't have choice in the captivity. Free will you know and stuff.

Re:Contradiction?

[Baron_Yam]

I doubt it is a static number - it would depend heavily on the selection pressures on the two separated groups.

Re:Contradiction?

[pigah]

Most people are familiar with what is called the Biological Species Concept, which defines species as a reproductively isolated group of organisms that can all interbreed among themselves and produce fertile offspring. This works pretty well for most animals, but terribly for plants and many animals. Plants that are quite different can interbreed frequently, but do not because they are isolated by things such as flowering time, pollinator species etc... Then you get into weird intransitivity issues such as: population A can breed with population B, population B can breed with population C, but A and C can't breed. These issues mean that a species is not a very well defined thing anymore. There have been many attempts to unify what we understand about the biology of reproductive isolation and genetic differentiation into one species concept, but we are left with many different "species concepts". I can't remember them all, but many are based genetic differentiation. It becomes crazy because under some gene-based concepts you could be defined as a species for one gene analysis and not another. There is a new idea which may have showed up on slashdot that is called the genetic bar code and those scientists believe that there is one (or just a few) genes where a specific amount of differentiation in this area will define a species. They predict that they can create a machine that you can just put tissue samples in and have a determination of what species it is within minutes. It is a controversial line of research, needless to say.

Re:Contradiction?

[Oligonicella]

Depending on how unrelated the species are, the offspring may or may not be viable.

Maybe you need to find other examples then. In ligers, only the female is viable because the X is comparable enough. We have no idea as to whether this viability extends past a generation yet or causes long term problems. Mules are sterile with rare exceptions.

Reproductive isolation is simply the first step, otherwise a simple catastrophe which isolates a group creates a new species and this is not the case.

Re:Contradiction?

[Chrisje]

"Isolated" and "Not interbreeding" sound more like an attitude than an incapability. Much like a (I live in Israel, so bear with me) Palestinian male will be "Isolated" from Tel Aviv and "Not interbreed" with his Jewish female counterpart (which is a shame, because there are a lot of hot chicks in this country).

Still, once you move 'm to Palo Alto on a tech salary and they become atheists, they might still not interbreed but bang each other to smithereens (and I mean that in the best of ways).

As another submitter has said, I think they mix up their "species" with their "breed", "group" or, dare I say it, "tribe".

Re:Contradiction?

[oldhack]

The same reason why physics people look down on biology as a "lesser" science. Engaging in vehement debate using such muddled terms make you look like fools, not to mention confusing the crap out of the lay public. Like the stupid intelligent design debate which invariably sink to the bottom mud when it gets dragged to arguing the semantics of "species."

You biology people should give a good beat-down to those among you maintaining this archaic, nonsensical taxonomy, and sort the terminology out better - unlikely, I know, with all the vested political/economic interests.

Re:Contradiction?

[Chandon Seldon]

Much like a (I live in Israel, so bear with me) Palestinian male will be "Isolated" from Tel Aviv and "Not interbreed" with his Jewish female counterpart

And if that remained reasonably consistent with two separate stable populations for (say) a hundred thousand years, the populations would diverge enough genetically that they'd lose their ability to interbreed. In reality, the Israelis and Palestinians probably *do* interbreed enough - even in the current political climate - to prevent this, and there's no way the situation will stay the way it is long enough to matter evolutionarily anyway, but conceptually a cultural divide could lead to the human species splitting if it prevented interbreeding for thousands of generations.

Re:Contradiction?

[sumdumass]

I doubt that. If the human species could divide then it probably would have long ago. We have had isolated colonies last hundreds of thousands of years without this happening. Island populations like Hawaii were separated from the rest of the world for centuries, same with the Eskimos, the original south American populations and the American Indians.

You would think that bing isolated for that length of time would be enough if there was enough time. But they haven't isolated into anything other then race.

Re:Contradiction?

[CharlesEGrant]

Engaging in vehement debate using such muddled terms make you look like fools, not to mention confusing the crap out of the lay public.

Actually I think physicists have much the same problem. A zillion years ago when I was studying physics I read an article titled: "On Teaching Newtonian Physics to Aristotelean Minds in an Age of Quantum Operators." An awful lot of people live in an Aristotelean world. I think the real difference is that they know they don't understand physics, but many think they understand biology. If you ask them which falls faster an iron ball or a wooden ball, 7 times out of 10 they'll say "the iron ball". However, if you correct them they'll be diffident and allow that they didn't much like their physics class. If you ask them to define species 99/100 will tell you "animals that can interbreed". If you try to correct them, they'll get quite huffy, and explain that that is what they learned in 7th grade biology, and they are sticking with it.

I don't think they are absurdly stupid, it's just confusing because an Aristotelean world view seems to explain so much of everyday life.

Re:Contradiction?

[Chandon Seldon]

We have had isolated colonies last hundreds of thousands of years without this happening.

We have? Where?

The most significant splits you could argue for are the American and the Australian native - and the earliest I've heard for either of those is 40,000 years ago. But even those are extremely unlikely to have been truly isolated populations. Australia is close enough to the rest of Southeast Asia that it's probably never really been genetically isolated. As for the Americas, there have probably been a number of major migrations - with the most recent no earlier than about 10 thousand years ago.

For species splits you really need hundreds of thousands of years without interbreeding, at least for a species with ~20 year generations. Island populations being isolated for centuries is nowhere near long enough to be significant.

Re:Contradiction?

[sumdumass]

40,000, hundreds of thousands, it make no difference. If humans were going to split, they would have. They just won't and that was my point.

Do you seriously think it is possible to isolate something for hundred of thousands of year without interbreeding? Even without today's tech, it wasn't possible for humans to be isolated long enough.

Re:Contradiction?

[G3ckoG33k]

"Reproductive isolation is a major characteristic of speciation. Lions and tigers, horses and donkeys, etc are different species, but under unnatural conditions may mate and even produce offspring. Depending on how unrelated the species are, the offspring may or may not be viable."

While technically correct, i would still stay that today most would say that "Reproductive isolation is a minor characteristic of speciation".

It may sound heretic, but the fact is that only very few _diagnosable_ ("identifiable") species have been tested for "reproductive isolation", in particular genetic reproductive isolation. Other forms of isolation, especially temporal, are even more difficult to manifest. Geographic isolation, per se, may on the other hand not be very informative at all.

The farm house perspective of e.g. horses and donkeys is rarely an issue for accepting what is a species.
-

Re:Contradiction?

[mapkinase]

Well, at my secret work place we are not very fond of taxonomy (and not only because of annoying whistling of the head of that department). It is the same with many things: take sequence alignments, for example. Biological variation varies in so many different ways, that is impossible to reflect using one rigid system of definition. It is a consequence of the fact that live objects are very bad objects for analysis. It is is an irreducible system complexity thing (meme used here intentionally for trolling and flamebaiting)

Re:Contradiction?

[mapkinase]

Amen to that. (to the side) move on, strawman, let me reply.

I am not against science. I am pro-science. But we are doing a very bad service to science by defending pseudscience. Science is not a "process that leads to knowledge". That definition is referential. What is knowledge? There is religious knowledge ("there is God") which is not scientific, you cannot scientifically prove or disprove it. Scientific knowledge is limited to the world of repeating and repeatable phenomena. Things that happen only once cannot become subject of science.

Take history, for example. By definition, it deals with historical events, that are not repeatable. You cannot make experiments like "what would happen if Gore had won in Florida". Of course, you can draw historical parallels and say that Bush winning 2000 is perennial putsch, coup d'etat, but in a situation when you quintessentially cannot perform an experiment, there is little use of those categorizations.

"Origin" of species (or anything) is not a scientific phenomenon. Actually, quite substantial effort nowadays of creating life in a tube (artificial ab initio microbial genomes, etc.) unintentionally are heading to prove the idea that we cannot really give a scientific answer to how life was created on Earth. While such efforts were unsuccessful in chemistry, for example (philosophers' stone, anyone?), we are quite successfully heading towards that in biology.

There is very simple criteria of what science is. Practical use. If you cannot imagine how to use in practice (read, technology) both yes and no in yes-or-no hypothesis, then it is not science, it is a religion, or a cult (like the cult of "origin of species").

You cannot possibly apply to any technology any answer to the question what is the "origin of species"? You definitely can apply to technology any existing and promising artificial methods of creating new species. How many years humans breed dogs and cats? Yet, they still remain the same species. Yet, in very near future, we will be able to do that in a tube by manipulating the genetic material. Which is science called "molecular genetics" or "molecular biology".

Re:Contradiction?

[Chandon Seldon]

Do you seriously think it is possible to isolate something for hundred of thousands of year without interbreeding?

Absolutely. That's what this Giraffe article is about, after all. It's even happened to humans - that's why there are other species in the "Homo" genus. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_floresiensis makes a good example of long-term isolation.

Re:Contradiction?

[sumdumass]

Absolutely. That's what this Giraffe article is about, after all. It's even happened to humans - that's why there are other species in the "Homo" genus. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_floresiensis makes a good example of long-term isolation.

Isn't that a misnomer? I mean the popular theory isn't that they are a new species but a homo with microcephaly.

While they would have been difference and isolated, they were in no way a different species. And if memory seres me correctly, they have found remains of regular sixed people in the same areas dating to the same relative time. I'm not sure this says what you want it to. I may be wrong though.

Re:Contradiction?

[edittard]

The same reason why physics people look down on biology as a "lesser" science. Engaging in vehement debate using such muddled terms make you look like fools

Biology deals with living things. hence there are simply too many variables (for one, two dogs are likely to differ more than two protons). Lesser I don't accept. Messier I might.

Re:Contradiction?

[vistic]

I think a more relevant measure would be how many generations... a hundred years means quite different things to a fruit fly (lifespan about 30 days) as it does to a tortoise (100-200 years old)... or a sequoia tree (can be thousands of years old).

Re:Contradiction?

[Chandon Seldon]

Apparently the "different species" hypothesis looks pretty good, but if you want to argue it then that's not something a pair of non-experts are going to resolve in a Slashdot thread.

Homo floresiensis happens to be a good example for the "island isolation" situation, but Neanderthals (or even Chimpanzees if you want to be 100% sure on your "species" difference) are good - and less arguable - examples of speciation among our near evolutionary relatives.

Re:Contradiction?

[sumdumass]

Well, Neanderthals are considered to not be a separate species by many in the scientific community now. I was watching a thing on discovery science and they made the case right down to genetic comparisons in modern humans that Neanderthal man was the same and their traits were basically bred out but still exist. Of course this means that they mixed and interbred with humans making then not a separate species in the sense of reproductive isolation.

As for the chimps. They are a separate species. The degree of relationship to humans is somewhat questioned but it seems that if it were ever possible break, it would be here. However, one has to wonder how far apart or how long ago the branch was and what might have caused it. I don't think it would ever be repeated to the extent that humans could remain reproductively isolated enough to branch species.

Re:Contradiction?

[Chandon Seldon]

The scientists actually studying in the field seem to think that there is enough variation within the Homo genus to have distinguished at least 14 separate species: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_(genus). You could argue that they have their definition of species wrong, but that's sort of silly - "species" is a scientific classification, so it's far more likely that you have the definition wrong than they do.

Re:Contradiction?

[sumdumass]

It is interesting. You are going to believe what you want regardless of what I say, but there were TV special specifically dealing with the last 3 or 4 on the list from the wiki page claiming they are all the same species. They are sometimes thought to be subspecies but more accurately reflect a breed as we would think with dogs. And this wasn't one program, this was several dealing with the ice age and up. They also were air originally within a year or two ago so maybe Wikki and you are out of sync with the modern theory. Well, I know Wiki is because their Neanderthal page talks about the 2006 paper that claims they did freely interbreed.

I would actually suggest that at least from Homo cepranensis on forward are the same species in different forms of development and the island effect. They were perfectly capable and did interbreed which by definition makes them the same species.

While the definition of species changes quite often, it still usually involves breeding in one way or another when dealing with organism that are sexual. The common definition was Two organisms that are able to reproduce naturally to produce fertile offspring. Organisms that can reproduce to almost always make infertile hybrids, such as a mule or hinny, are not considered to be the same species. It has adapted and changed from time to time mostly to keep things in a classification rather then defining a classification. This is why a lot of other science field look down on biological classifications. They are unscientific to some degree and intentionally confusing to the point of using the same terms at different branched of the spectrum. In the species category, you have super species, species, subspecies, infra species, and quasi species that consist of animals that are of a species for historical reasons more or less. In biology, they don't like the Idea of a definition changing Pluto from a planet to an object. Instead, they adapt the definition to fit the old ideas which is most likely why we are having this conversation in the first place.

In related moves

[kaiwai]

After much debate within the men's community, there has been a decision to classify females as an entirely new species.

Confirming the almot accepted idea that men are from earth and women are from planet far away and at constant war every 28 days.

Re:Huh?

[ferd_farkle]

Let me be the first to ask: Who cares?
um, Biologists, geneticists? You know, nerds...

The definitive word on giraffes

[Nerdposeur]

They call this science? Bah. Everything you need to know about giraffes is contained in this brilliant, revolutionary book:

http://www.amazon.com/Giraffes-Doris-Haggis-Whey/dp/1932416978

For example:

The legs of giraffes are filled with various types of fruit juice. You see, giraffes love drinking fruit juices - pineapple, boysenberry, mango-lemon - but their bodes have no real use for fruit juice, so it all trickes down to their legs where it stays and squishes around. This should have been obvious to you.

Re:The definitive word on giraffes

[Gothic_Walrus]

I bought that book for a dollar at Borders last year.

Now that was a well-spent dollar!

Racist animals

[CriminalNerd]

"The female Maasai giraffe may be looking at the male reticulated giraffe and thinking, 'I don't look like you; I don't want to mate with you'," Mr Brown explained.

So, in short...the giraffes are racists unless they live in a "multicultural" environment (ie: a zoo)?

Now, where have I heard that before?

Re:Racist animals

[mapkinase]

Tatars never breed with Australian aboriginals. Ergo, different speices? Not.

Re:Racist animals

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not racism. People tend to choose partners who look like them, in various obvious and less obvious ways. Ear shape, eye distance, and for most people, skin colour and 'racial' characteristics. This is Darwin's theory of sexual selection: human 'races' exist due to such selective pressure, not vice versa. In fact ethicities are just extended families.

Human families would diverge into separate species if kept in isolation for long enough AND if confronted by significantly divergent evolutionary pressures. For the last 200k years or more, all significant human evolutionary pressures have been technological, not environmental.

So we could see nerds emerge as a distinct species if they can find female nerds to breed with, and thus outcompete non-nerds. If a successful nerd family evolves a really useful new ability - like the ability to detect bullshit at a long distance - this would get spread into the new nerd family. Over time, enough such changes - hundreds of thousands, probably - affect the DNA enough to break new nerd to non-nerd breeding.

That, more or less, is what is happening with the Giraffes, except their specialization is the ability to recognize the right trees, remember which villages to avoid, and not to mess with the cape buffalo. The difference is not great enough to make them inter-infertile. It's obvious that a giraffe from family A is not going to want to breed with one from tribe B because (a) they are competitors, and (b) it'd produce less viable - specialized - offspring who would be sub-class in both families.

With people, interbreeding works great because we are genetically so close it's almost embarrassing. Our variation is cultural, above all.

Re:Racist animals

[Anonymous Coward]

People tend to choose partners who look like them, in various obvious and less obvious ways. Ear shape, eye distance, and for most people, skin colour and 'racial' characteristics. This is Darwin's theory of sexual selection: human 'races' exist due to such selective pressure, not vice versa.

Hmm, in theory it sounds reasonable, but in (human) practice "exotic" partners are preferred by many. "Hybrid" partners, those who inherit characteristics of both "own" and "other" race are certainly THE most liked. IMHO, only the social, cultural pressure and barriers, as well as geographic separation keeps humans from mating with other human races more then they already do.

I dunno... my wife IS of my ethnicity (well...almost), but she looks quite different then me and it positively influenced my choice. Women who look like my kin generally seem ... "plain" and "uninteresting". Married couples we know are rarely same complexion, same hair-color or same eye-color.

Re:Racist animals

[m50d]

That makes a lot of sense as well in a less competitive environment - it's worth keeping up the diversity of the population in order to be able to respond to changes in environment. If people were under much harsher selection pressure (as was the case through much of human history), you'd see much more of people staying within their groups.

Re:Racist animals

[Agripa]

it's worth keeping up the diversity of the population in order to be able to respond to changes in environment.

Regardless of whether this is true or not, it does not play a part in selecting a mate. The objective is to have successful children even if that means lower fitness for the population overall. Individuals compete with their piers as they exist. Even behaviors like litter size are regulated by individual fitness instead of what is best for the population. The later would require a conspiracy of doves which is an unstable state.

To give an example of an extreme case, a meiotic drive gene can cause species extinction.

Re:Racist animals

[The Archon V2.0]

I doubt if you present a woman with a very genetically different vegetable, rather than a human, she would feel madly attracted.

Pshaw. What woman doesn't like a nice hothouse cucumber?:)

Supports Gervais' doctrine

[Pythonian]

I think this merely serves to prove Ricky Gervais' theory of scientists getting a per-species payment.

in that case ...

[ThirdPrize]

the people of texas are a completely different species to the ones in New York and California.

Re:in that case ...

[Anonymous Coward]

The fact that these giraffes interbreed in captivity but not in the wild may suggest a more social or territorial element to their reproductive habits, as opposed to some purely genetic aversion/incompatibility. Not entirely unlike the one you describe above. Again, I don't know how much I really care when we are speaking of different SUBspecies with no real difference other than region and spot patterns.

Re:in that case ...

[Oligonicella]

The people of New York and California are two variants of a different species from the rest of the U.S.

Re:in that case ...

[Antique Geekmeister]

Don't forget those families of cousins in Arkansas, each of which constitutes its own genetically isolated species.

Re:Huh?

[KDR_11k]

Creationists who somehow want to claim there is "macro-evolution" that's different from regular evolution?

Glen Quagmire....

[mikerubin]

Good Morning Baby..... ... ...
Hey wait a minute, you're not the same giraffe from last night !

Re:Huh?

[fellip_nectar]

This guy

Don't assume...

[Dareth]

Don't assume this is a racist situation, based on spots arrangement or something so trivial.

This is obviously a division based on politics. I am sure once the primaries in the US are over, they will be down to two, three at most "subspecies" of giraffe.

I mean come on, would you want to mate with a Hillary supporter?

Re:Species or subspecies?

[Azzmodan]

That would make tigers and lions the same species, since there have been fertile offspring. I'd say there's a lot wiggle room in the definition.

I care...

[tomzyk]

... because random stupid facts like this are bound to show up as a question or two on NTN trivia within the next month.

Molecular

[ischorr]

Molecular Techniques? Is that like back in the 50s, when suddenly everything became associated with "the atom"?

"New, Fallout Man. With Kung Fu grip and the Power Of the Atom! (Note: Contains REAL ATOMS!!!)"

Re:Huh?

[yuriyg]

Well, this is "News for Nerds" site after all. I, for one, openly admit my nerdiness, and proudly declare that I do care.

Zoos and desert islands

[michaelmalak]

although the giraffes look different, if you put them in zoos, they breed freely

Wouldn't that be considered bestiality?

Breeding

[Braxton_the_Covenant]

If they can interbreed and generate fertile offspring, as they obviously can, then they are obviously the same species, even if micro-evolution has taken them down different paths.

What this study may have discovered is the equivalent of the "black" giraffe, the "white" giraffe, and the "oriental" giraffe.

Re:Breeding

[CharlesEGrant]

The notion of a species is not an expression of a simple natural law, but rather part of a complex human scheme for organizing our observations. Aristotle though that species were eternal unchanging categories. He thought you could distinguish species both by observing distinguishing physical characteristics, and observing who mated with what. The early church promulgated these ideas, and they've become the bedrock of the popular notion of what constitutes a species. Like Aristotle's physics, these ideas work well for many commonly observed cases: house cats don't mate with dogs, lizards don't mate with birds, insects don't mate with mammals. Also like Aristotle's physics, his ideas about species began to fall apart as people looked at the world in more detail.

Historically animals were assigned to different species because they looked very different, but sometimes it turned out they could interbreed freely: dogs and wolves for example. It also turns out that mutual inter-fertility is a continuum rather then a binary characteristic. Birds and lizards never produce offspring, Horses and donkeys can produce offspring, but everybody knows that mules are infertile. Except that once in a blue moon, a female mule will be fertile. Tigers and lions in zoos can sometimes produce fertile offspring. On the other hand, many pairs of humans are mutually infertile, but we certainly don't classify them as different species. From a modern point of view the question of inter-fertility is a question of how much alike two genomes are. That turns out to be a complicated question. Sometimes you can have an entire extra chromosome (Down's syndrome) and yet be able to successfuly mate. On they other hand you may have an unusual gene for a just one protein in the membrane of the egg or sperm and be infertile with 99% of your fellow humans.

By the middle 20th century biologists knew of so many exceptions, caveats, and problems with the classical Aristotelean idea of a species that they moved to the more contemporary definition: "Species are groups of actually or potentially interbreeding natural populations, which are reproductively isolated from other such groups." This definition still has tons of problems. Many organisms are entirely asexual. Does each asexual individual constitute its own species?

In the end it is still an attempt to pigeonhole complex observations into neat categories. Sometimes the pigeonholing provides insight, sometimes it produces confusion. The trick is to remember that how you define a species is a matter of human language, not natural law.

giraffes also the gayest animal on land

[rubycodez]

homosexual rather than hetero mounting are the rule this might explain the six subspecies in the wild, no motivation to walk far away in search of new females when all they mostly want is some quick gay ass

Are you trolling?

[spun]

Are you serious or are you trolling? Because if your serious, that's the most offensive thing I've seen on Slashdot, and I've seen a LOT of offensive shit here.

Race is a myth. There is as much genetic variation between individuals within a so-called race as there is between races.

Re:Are you trolling?

[nurb432]

More serious then you could ever imagine.

Funny how one gets marked as a troll around here when they are just being honest, or not subscribing to the liberal point of view. Oh well, it IS slashdot..

Re:Are you trolling?

[spun]

That's disgusting. I can't believe anyone feels that way in the 21st century.

Re:Are you trolling?

[jd]

That does depend a little on how one defines "race". There are twelve known mtDNA "families" that exist in modern times. It could reasonably be argued that these twelve families are sufficiently ancient and sufficiently divergent as to constitute a "race" of sorts. Mind you, they don't correspond at all well with popular notions of race, but if "race" has any meaning at all, it will be found in genetics and not in popular culture or stereotypes.

There is, of course, a major problem with using the twelve "daughters of Eve" as they are sometimes referred to, in that there is no meaningful correspondence between them and the Y chromosome lines that have been identified - geographically or chronologically, either instantaneously or in terms of population migrations. This is why you get the high variance within the popularly-identified "races". People mix, have always mixed, and will always mix.

Are there exceptions to this? Well, sort of. There have been populations that were (and sometimes still are) in isolation from all other humans, and have been for tens of thousands of years. Many have become extinct, when traders and missionaries brought diseases to such populations. Some have survived, such as the Australian aborigines. In some cases, these people have very marginally different bone structure than the dominant types in Europe and Asia. In other cases (such as with native North Americans), ten thousand years has not been sufficient time. In no case has it been sufficient for there to be any fundamental difference. Most perceived differences owe far more to culture than to biology. Nature vs. Nurture battles are most often won by Nurture.

What about intelligence studies? Exactly. What about them. We don't even have a working definition of intelligence other than a self-referential one from Turing. IQ tests between Europe and the US are so fundamentally different that anyone who does well at one will almost certainly fail at the other, and that is with cultures far closer together than either is with, oh, the Maoris or the Bedouin. Such studies are flawed in the fundamental assumption that equal intelligence means identical culture. That assumption cannot be avoided when the only reference to intelligence a person has is themselves and is tolerable within very narrow parameters, but is completely invalid outside of those.

(One of the other problems with defining intelligence is that every attempt has led to conclusions regarding either human or non-human intelligence that enough humans were not willing to accept for one reason or another. Most of the definitions probably were incorrect, imprecise or just plain wrong in some way. However, if agreement is impossible, then so is a definition, and therefore so is any attempt to meaningfully distinguish.)

What about nations, languages, visible differences and so on? Too many of each of these. The daughters of Eve permit an absolute maximum of 12 groupings. However, that is an absolute maximum. To be sufficiently "pure" as to be meaningful as a race, you must be able to show that all members of that race trace back to exactly the same mtDNA group and exactly the same Y chromosome group. If there's a difference, then you cannot determine what fraction of the DNA comes from what source, as there's currently no real mapping of the rest of the DNA (ie: most of it) to a given population.

Except amongst royal families and certain cults, I seriously doubt you'd get enough markers to match on just those mapped regions of DNA even with first or second cousins. Relatives on one side of the family should match to one of the sets, yes, but both sides are almost guaranteed not to match with both. This means that 10,000 years ago, one set of your ancestors were living in isolation from the other set, amongst wholly different people who might very well be considered different races.

In fact, the odds are extremely high that when you get to third or fourth cousins, people you identify with as being "your sort", and historic figures you c

Re:Are you trolling?

[nurb432]

Who said i was white? I didn't declare allegiance to any particular race. I don't care what color you are, you shouldn't mix with another race as you dilute both.

And i didn't use the word 'uncomfortable' the term i used was 'offensive', a bit more aggressive. Nor did i say 'unfair' when discussion moderation. it was an observation that most people here are closed minded to alternatives and consider them trolls when they don't agree with them. Personally, i just think you are wrong if you disagree, i don't consider you a troll for expressing your ( differing ) opinions. I am a bit more tolerant then that.

Re:Are you trolling?

[spun]

Race is an arbitrary distinction. There is not purity to be maintained. Animals breed with other 'races' all the time. Read about ring species.

I'll uphold your right to say anything you like, but I get the right to state my opinion, too. At first I was shocked that anyone actually felt that way. In my circles, it would be like finding a living dinosaur or a fairy or something. Then I was disgusted, viscerally disgusted that anyone could feel that way. But now I'm just curious as to how anyone could even arrive at that position. It runs so counter to everything I know, scientifically, about genetics, I can't imagine how anyone could find any logic to it.

Do you have close family? Will you be with them this Christmas? Do they feel the same way? I'm not making any more value judgments here, just trying to understand the context.

Re:Are you trolling?

[Dun Malg]

just don't breed with someone that isnt part of your own race. Animals don't do it, why should people? The "racial" differences in humans are less than the differences between different breeds of dogs. Mixed-breed dogs are not only common, but they're generally healthier than purebred/inbred dogs. You want to create your own little genetic backwater and bring up all sorts of genetic deficiencies, like hemophilia in the old royal families of Europe, or Tay-Sachs among European jews? Well, that's just fine. You and all your cracker buddies can breed yourselves into decrepit worms. Just don't try to justify it scientifically.

Re:Are you trolling?

[nurb432]

My pets are all full AKC purebreds. No 'mutts' in my house.

Re:Are you trolling?

[Toonol]

On the plus side, take some satisfaction in the realization that this guy's grandchildren, or their children, will most likely be of mixed race. He's not only wrong; he's already lost.

Re:Are you trolling?

[MichaelSmith]

Are there exceptions to this? Well, sort of. There have been populations that were (and sometimes still are) in isolation from all other humans, and have been for tens of thousands of years. Many have become extinct, when traders and missionaries brought diseases to such populations. Some have survived, such as the Australian aborigines

They are barely surviving. Western culture is for them as bad as the diseases which were introduced into Aboriginal populations by outsiders.

Some Aboriginal communities are doing well by totally banning alcohol, effectively increasing their isolation from the rest of the country. At the moment that is the only strategy which works well.

Re:Are you trolling?

[Chandon Seldon]

What is so bad about wanting your linage to remain pure and not become some sort of grey amalgam?

It actually makes the gene pool worse. It's the equivalent of breeding show dogs. Sure, you can get them to look exactly like the breed standard and win your blue ribbon - but it's at the cost of intelligence, temperament, and motor skills other than walking around a show stage. In contrast, smart and useful dogs almost never look purebred.

With dogs, it's a stupid hobby. With humans, it's strictly a bad trade off. Even if we accept that breeding humans is a good idea, breeding them for appearance is still a bad plan.

Re:Are you trolling?

[sumdumass]

What makes you think he is a cracker? And why are you bringing the slurs to the table?

I know a few black men who think along the same lines. They prey on white girls as a conquest but get sorely pissed when a black woman take a white partner. They spout the same lines of purity and all that.

And the big problem with purebred dogs compared to mutts is inbreeding more then anything. It is hard to have pure breeds of animals without poor breeding practices along the lines somewhere. But with care, all the pitfalls that you think mutts are immune from can be avoided in purebred dogs. Something else that is generally accepted is that pure bred animals are supposedly more intelligent and easier to train. In mutts, it depends on the amount of mix and all, but when you start straying away from a solid breed, they tend to lack concentration and inteligence, they are harder to train.

Now, don't get comments about dogs mixed up with representations of humans. There is nothing directly insinuating that there is or should be a correspondence in some manor between the two.

Re:Are you trolling?

[jd]

You are correct there. Many societies that were isolated from Europe never developed the ability to process alcohol, so react violently to it. Indeed, their reactions probably say much about why early Europeans regarded alcohol with such fear and mysticism. The ability to process milk as an adult is unique to those who evolved in norther Europe, or are descended from them, so any modern processed food containing lactose may make such people violently ill.

(It's not all one-way, either. The Inuit have a diet which would be lethal to anyone from the Mediterranian over any sizable length of time, for example.)

The loss of native languages (120 languages become extinct daily, according to some reports) is another factor in the death of such cultures. If you lose the ability to unify and identify, then there is nothing to keep the group together.

Re:Are you trolling?

[Mr. Slippery]

What is so bad about wanting your linage to remain pure and not become some sort of grey amalgam?

Uh, my lineage is pure. For at least a hundred generations back, all of my ancestors have been human beings. That's as pure as it gets.

As for "race", I think Pete Seeger said it well:

There were no red-headed Irishmen
before the Vikings landed in Ireland
How many Romans had dark curly hair
before they brought slaves from Africa?
No race of man is completely pure,
nor is anyone's mind, that's for sure
The winds mix the dust of every land,
and so will woman and man.

Re:Are you trolling?

[CastrTroy]

Of course, dogs never mate outside their own breed. Never happend. All those non-pure bred dogs you hear about are just a myth.

Re:Are you trolling?

[crazyeddie740]

>Animals don't do it

Y'know, my state's state animal is the mule. So is my university's mascot. Call it a hunch, but I think that's a bit more radical than two humans of slightly different melanin counts having a kid.

>What is so bad about wanting your linage to remain pure and not become some sort of grey amalgam?

Well, I personally think that castes (which are defined by who eats with who and who marries who) tend to be divisive to a society. But I'm not too worried, since your kids and/or grandkids might disagree with you. My ancestors include Huguenot peasants and French aristocrats (very near the crown - escaped Paris because of the Revolution). I probably have some great-great-great-great-great-great ancestors spinning in their graves somewhere in France. Y'know, their pure, noble blood mixing in with that of the riff-raff. Though I'm not exactly grey, I suppose. Reasonably tan, more like. That'd be the Lapplander. Or so we think - my great-grandpa never did 'fess up, claimed to be Swedish. Bit of a prejudice against Lapplanders in Scandinavia. But at least none of my lineage is non-European - yet. The generation is young.

Re:Are you trolling?

[nurb432]

Or my ( even yours, you never know ) grandkids might take it an extra step and start a campaign actively purge the earth of undesirable sections of the human species.. It has happened in the past.

a lot can happen in 2 generations.

Perhaps the mule, which it its core is a defective creature genetically, should be eradicated, instead of held up as a mascot.

Re:Are you trolling?

[Alsee]

you shouldn't mix with another race as you dilute both.

Your spelling is atrocious as well. "Enrich" doesn't begin with a "d".

-

Re:Are you trolling?

[nurb432]

its called typos, and lack of proofreading since this is slashdot, and it really doesnt matter.

Re:Are you trolling?

[nurb432]

I totally agree. The wrong eye color, hair color or other defective traits should be bred out of the human race.

Re:Are you trolling?

[Alsee]

Not too bright either.
Go back and take a closer look at your typo.

-

Re:Are you trolling?

[Alsee]

For at least a hundred generations back, all of my ancestors have been human beings.

Same deal here. Its' really freaky the way nature can suddenly weird out in a single generation. It must be some seriously recessive genes or something, to skip a hundred generations like that.

A hundred generations of species human being, and then bam! out of nowhere a geek pops out.

-

Re:Are you trolling?

[Alsee]

defective traits should be bred out of the human race.

Ooooh... I think that is one point where your arguments are indeed effective in convincing people to think and desire exactly that.

-

Re:Are you trolling?

[crazyeddie740]

>Perhaps the mule, which it its core is a defective creature genetically, should be eradicated, instead of held up as a mascot.

Sirrah, you have not only insulted the mule, you have also insulted the great state of Missouri!

To quote the Wikipedia:

"The mule possesses the sobriety, patience, endurance and sure-footedness of the donkey, and the vigour, strength and courage of the horse. Operators of working animals generally find mules preferable to horses: mules show less impatience under the pressure of heavy weights, whereas their skin, harder and less sensitive than that of horses, renders them more capable of resisting sun and rain. Their hooves are harder than horses', and they show a natural resistance to disease and insects. Many North American farmers with clay soil found mules superior as plow animals, especially in the U.S. state of Missouri, hence the expression "stubborn as a Missouri mule."

Not bad, for a "grey amalgam"!

Re:Are you trolling?

[RockDoctor]

I'll uphold your right to say anything you like, but I get the right to state my opinion, too.

Oui, M.Voltaire.

At first I was shocked that anyone actually felt that way. In my circles, it would be like finding a living dinosaur or a fairy or something. Then I was disgusted, viscerally disgusted that anyone could feel that way.

Either you don't get out much, or you're very careful to NOT mix with people outside your own socio-economic group. Or you associate with people who have learned to keep their "PC radar" (in the sense of Political Correctness) on at all times and who engage their brains before they open their mouths. Racism, to some degree or another, is deeply ingrained in all Western Societies that I've lived or worked in. And I'm pretty sure that it's pretty deeply ingrained in the non-Western societies too, but I don't have the language skills to pick up on it.
An absolute dead give-away phrase is "I'm not a racist but ...", before the racist starts testing you out for how deep your racist opinions are. At that point, if they hear evidence of PC-awareness, they shut up or move onto a different subject.

The last couple of years have been somewhere between amusing and dispiriting, as the "flavour du jour" for racist opinion in the UK has shifted from the easily-identified (and therefore easily-victimised) "Pakis" and "niggers" to the far more insidious horrible, horrible foreigners who try the dirty trick of being white. They're spectacularly dangerous to the racist and the Little Englander (or Little Scotlander, for that matter), because they can actually pass for being a human being. It's so terribly confusing for the poor little racist fuckwits. It's even worse for the racists if you point out to them that most of these terrible people have come here because it's legal, and they want to work for a living. It's enough to make you want to cash your dole check in disgust.

But now I'm just curious as to how anyone could even arrive at that position. It runs so counter to everything I know, scientifically, about genetics, I can't imagine how anyone could find any logic to it.

You think that people arrive at this sort of position by using logic, and by using externally verifiable data? You really don't get out much, do you?

Most people don't think. Full stop. ("Period" in Americanese)

For all that I bemoan the American-centric attitudes on Slashdot, and the abysmal spelling and grammar of most participants, it has to be said that an abnormally high proportion of the Septics on Slashdot do show evidence of both being able to think , and of actually thinking. In this respect, Slashdot really does present a distorted mirror to the reality of the world. Some of you should see and hear the behaviour and attitudes of your compatriots who you send abroad as ambassadors - they'd be quite ... educational. And I don't mean that in a nice sense. (Some of the Brits who go to work abroad are scumbags too, and for at least some of them I know they're abroad because they can't remain in their employment in the civilised world due to their racist behaviours, or their liking for illegal activities of various sorts, or because they know inconvenient facts and have the photographs to prove them.

Re:Are you trolling?

[spun]

I'm not so naive as I made myself out to be, I know the world is full of hateful, small minds, desperate for any sense of superiority because they know themselves to be so inferior. I also know that this is, for most, not by choice or even temperament; but from sad circumstance. Most people behave as they are taught. Knowing that most people are as much victims of their own oppression as the people they lash out at, I try to stand up to oppressive thinking wherever I find it, without being too judgmental.

I've traveled and lived in Europe fairly extensively, for an American, and I have seen how my compatriots act. Quite frankly, we're about as loud, pushy and smugly ignorant as many of the Germans I met. So we're both kind of at the bottom of the barrel. No offense to any Germans out there, I've met plenty of nice Germans too. Usually of the anarchist-punk variety.

Logic error?

[PPH]

...groups that are reproductively isolated and not interbreeding,...

By this logic, supermodels and Slashdotters are members of different species.

umm

[superwiz]

If they CAN interbreed, they are not different species. Giraffes are very likely just as picky. If you remove cultural influences, are you sure people would breed as freely as we do? Why do some people like brown eyes and some like blue? If you insist that it's entirely cultural, then you'll have to explain why children under 4 have these preferences, too.

Re:umm

[CharlesEGrant]

If they CAN interbreed, they are not different species.

That's the popular notion of the definition of a species, but it turns out not to work very well in detail. You have problems like dogs (Canis familiaris), and wolves (Canis lupus) being pretty inter-fertile. Then there is the problem of asexual organisms. Is every asexual individual its own species? In the end it's just a human definition not a natural law.

Re:umm

[superwiz]

You have problems like dogs (Canis familiaris), and wolves (Canis lupus) being pretty inter-fertile Isn't that because dogs are wolves artificially selected for domestication?

In the end it's just a human definition not a natural law. What? Specie? Or criterion for belonging to a specie.

Then there is the problem of asexual organisms. Is every asexual individual its own species? Being able to interbreed is a sufficient (rather than necessary) condition for being of the same specie.

Re:umm

[sumdumass]

Wouldn't the differenced in dogs and wolves be more of a name classification error then a problem with the definition of species?

And with Asexual organisms, you have to look at the purpose of breeding as used in the term species which is to exchange genetic information. Asexual organisms transfer genetic mutations and stuff through chemicals and proteins. It really isn't a problem as much as it is made out to be. Althought it isn't exactly as simple as I just made it seem.

Re:umm

[CharlesEGrant]

"Isn't that because dogs are wolves artificially selected for domestication?"

Does it matter? Given your statement that

Being able to interbreed is a sufficient (rather than necessary) condition for being of the same specie.

then wolves and dogs should be classified as being in the same species, but they aren't, and haven't been since Linnaeus set up our modern classification system. The problem is that the folks had all sorts of implicit Aristotelean assumptions that inter-fertility went hand in hand with morphological similarity. Wolves and dogs were morphologically distinct so they were called separate species, even though they could interbreed. Perhaps the early naturalists were unaware that wolves and dogs could and did interbreed. Aristotle was a smart guy, but there was a lot of information he just didn't have.

I

In the end it's just a human definition not a natural law.

What? Specie? Or criterion for belonging to a specie.

I don't see that these can be independent considerations. Throughout history people thought they had clear and objective criteria for assigning organisms to species, but in too many cases later evidence showed the criteria to be flawed or of limited applicability. Heck, we've had to expand from two to six entire kingdoms of life, never mind assigning critters to species.

Part of the problem with this classical definition of species is that we now know that ability to interbreed is not a binary attribute, but a continuum. Birds and lizards are completely infertile, horses and donkeys and lions and tigers are often fertile, but their offspring are usually infertile (female mules are very rarely fertile, female ligers more commonly). It's really a question of how "close" two genomes are. I quote the word "close", because even that is a very complex issue.

This is not to say that it isn't important to understand who is mating with who, but that's why most biologists now work with something like Mayr's definition:

"Species are groups of actually or potentially interbreeding natural populations, which are reproductively isolated from other such groups."

This still doesn't deal with the earlier problem I mentioned of classifying asexual organisms. There you have to depend on morphology or genome similarity.

Re:umm

[CharlesEGrant]

Wouldn't the differenced in dogs and wolves be more of a name classification error then a problem with the definition of species?

Yeah, but that's sort of my point. The classification is mistaken in terms of the original, theoretical, basis for distinguishing species, but the assignment is kept because it is kept, presumably because classifying dogs separately from wolves is useful for other reasons.

Asexual organisms transfer genetic mutations and stuff through chemicals and proteins.

I'm not sure what you are saying here. Genetic information is transmitted via nucleic acids, either DNA or RNA. Those are sure enough chemicals, but they are not proteins. There is a bunch of epigenetic information that is controlled by proteins, but that gets transmitted at the same time as the DNA. Normally asexual bacteria can exchange genetic material (across species no less) in a process called conjugation, but I was thinking of things like rotifers. My understanding is that critters like bdelloid rotifers don't exchange genetic information at any point in their life-cycle.

Re:umm

[sumdumass]

I'm referring to the conjugation process. I was sure that the rotifers were actually both asexual and sexual but it appears that some are and some aren't and some are both.

Re:umm

[superwiz]

Well, I would probably argue that classification of wolves and dogs as being of different species actually surprised me. Given what we know about them, they should probably be reclassified as being of the same specie.

You are probably right about the asexual organisms. I don't see how else they can be classified other than by morphology. Of course, we could change our paradigm there. It is, after all, precisely a situation where (to use the word a bit inaccurately since it is locally constant rather than properly continuous) continuum of intra-specie differences exists.

As for artificial forced breeding. I agree that the definition could be made more precise by saying that members of a species would have to be able to produce an offspring of the same specie. On surface this may seem to be a circular definition, but I'd rather think of it as recursive. That is, it has built into it the requirement that the offsprings have to be fertile and be sufficiently genetically similar to both parents.

Having said this, I am pretty sure that the analogy between human reproductive preferences and Giraffes still holds. The fact that they turned out to be picky doesn't mean that the inter-breeding ones form different species. The offsprings can still breed with Giraffes.

huh?

[plazman30]

"if you put them in zoos, they breed freely."

If the offspring are viable, then they're the same species. That is the definition of a species. Doesn't matter if they geographically isolated, or not.

Sqwawk!

[TaoPhoenix]

pliCAAWW! (He's Right. It is Monty Python.)
qu'kcuUH! (They found me out. I'm NOT dead!)
chthkqWA! (I'm a Avian Ventriloquist!)

http://orangecow.org/pythonet/pet-shop.html
http://www.davidpbrown.co.uk/jokes/monty-python-parrot.html
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/~ebarnes/python/dead-parrot.htm

Giraffes are one species, descended from horses.

[Commander Doofus]

Giraffes were formed when Chuck Norris gave a horse an uppercut.

But They Forgot Space Giraffe!

[hedkandee]

But I've come to expect that people as a rule ignore the genius of Jeff Minter's psychedelic gaming opus. A game that is unfairly ignored by players and hated by amateur gamers who don't 'get' it - there's no justice in this world, well except for the french filter disco band Justice....

Re:Huh?

[sumdumass]

Macro and Micro evolution is used to part the evolution argument into agreeable and disagreeable pieces. Evolution isn't one specific theories but rather several distinct ones lumped together in an envelope of sorts.

Micro evolution is the entire darwin theory of survival of the fittest. Macro evolution is the idea of new species being created that are separate from like species except for a common ancestor. Something that defines this separation is the ability to breed and carry a viable offspring that can reproduce but not with the sibling species.

So when you see the micro and macro, think evolution and common ancestral (species) evolution verses adaptation.

Not Separate Species, Different Breeds.

[YetAnotherBob]

If they can interbreed and produce viable offspring, then they are not separate species. Just different breeds. In humans, some would call them races. In dogs it's breeds. Isolate any population long enough and genetic drift will produce differences. It takes a very long isolation to prevent interbreeding.

For that matter, dogs and wolves are still the same species. Lots of variation, but they can still interbreed.

Horses an Asses are different species. They can interbreed, but the cross is almost always sterile. Same with horses and zebras. Or so I hear. African and Indian elephants are also different species, I think. I don't know of any fertile crosses. Lion and tiger can produce offspring, but it's sterile too.

We need better definitions for species. I still use the old one from the 60's that a species is any population whose members can reproduce fertile offspring. (This assumes male/female pairing of course.)

I understand a lot of biologists don't like that any more. It destroys too many cherished theories. But, as I am an experimentalist, I have always believed that theories were made to be broken.

Re:Species or subspecies?

[YetAnotherBob]

The first liger was Shasta in the Hogle zoo in Salt Lake City. The liger was sterile. Sorry to have to let you know that. Lions and Tigers remain different species.

[Oblig.]African or European?

[psychicsword]

South African Giraffe BRIDGEKEEPER:
What... is your quest?
ARTHUR:
To seek the Holy Grail.
BRIDGEKEEPER:
What... is the air-speed velocity of an unladen Giraffe?
ARTHUR:
What do you mean? An African or European Giraffe?
BRIDGEKEEPER:
Huh? I-- I don't know that. Auuuuuuuugh!

You mean

[zehaeva]

Like Dogs? or Cats?

Re:Huh?

[KDR_11k]

But if we can't draw the line where one species ends and another begins and we have things like ring specieses, where is this "macro" evolution supposed to happen? From what we see speciation is just what happens when the adaption adds up.

Re:Huh?

[sumdumass]

Well, ring species is really a classification and labeling issue more then a biological issue.

As for the macro verses micro, I'm not supporting it, I was just attempting to define it. The differences are between some changes and a genetically different species that cannot interbreed at all. If you want to argue the basis of it, you will have to find someone using it to support their argument. If you want to know what it is, I told you. But from your own definition of "From what we see speciation is just what happens when the adaption adds up" I would have to say that when adaptation adds up to a point it is a different species all together is where the macro part starts.

It really stems from wanting to admit to part of the theory that we can test and see and counter or contradict the parts that we assume for whatever reasons. When creationist say there is no empirical evidence supporting macro-evolution, they are willing to admit the micro-evolution or the adaptations occur. It isn't like they are saying "all evolution is false", just the parts we haven't directly observed. As a matter of fact, they claim that the evolution we can observe fits in with creationism nicely.

They're all trolling. Some are just hypocrites.

[Rui del-Negro]

No, race is not a "myth" any more than talking about "blondes" and "brunettes" is a "myth". A "race" is simply a description given to people who share some similar (physical) traits. It's a shortcut. If I say a guy "looks nordic", that saves me the trouble of saying "he has pale skin, blond hair and blue eyes". Think of it as a prototype library.

Races form when communities live isolated for a long time (either as adaptations to the environemnt or as consequences of cultural selection), and they fade when different communities mix (and interbreed) regularly. The fact that there's a lot of genetic variation within, say, the Tutsi tribe, does not mean a Tutsi isn't likely to be more similar (both physically and genetically) to another Tutsi than to a native of Japan.

In any case, 90% of humans are innately tribal (hey, it was really useful until 100 thousand years ago, or so), so even if physical racial distinctions become meaningless, they'll simply divide people in tribes based on their place of birth, language or culture. In fact, this is what most people already do in "modern societies" where being a "racist" is considered a bad thing (so, instead, you talk about the superiority of your "culture"; how civilised your society is, how erudite your language is, how deeply moral your religion is, and so on).

Re:They're all trolling. Some are just hypocrites.

[spun]

The fact that there's a lot of genetic variation within, say, the Tutsi tribe, does not mean a Tutsi isn't likely to be more similar (both physically and genetically)to another Tutsi than to a native of Japan.

No, that's exactly what I'm saying. I stretched the truth a little, by genetic variation there are exactly two races: a small tribe in Africa (that coincidentally believes their ancestors came from Sirius) and the rest of us. Skin color and other racial markers are a small component of overall genetics.

Race might not be a myth, per se, but it isn't a useful concept in genetics.

Re:They're all trolling. Some are just hypocrites.

[Rui del-Negro]

If you interpret "genetic similarity" blindly (i.e., by comparing how many genes are exactly identical), humans are extremely similar to bananas. Clearly, that kind of interpretation is pointless. It's like comparing the similarity of two digital images by counting the number of identical bytes (when two images can _look_ indistinguishable while not having a single matched byte, and completely different despite having over 50% matched bytes). Some genes have a much bigger influence on our appearance (and behaviour) than others, and some different combinations of genes can have very similar end results.

Race is not, and was never meant to be, a genetic concept. That's what "species" is there for. A "race" is simply a group of people that share similar physical characteristics. It's a visual / linguistic construct, as real as any other one ("tall", "blonde", "hairy", etc.). As long as people understand that, the concept is rather useful.

But, even if we're talking about genes, people from isolated communites will tend to be more similar to others in their community than to those in the other communities. That's simply a consequence of heredity. Most of those similarities are probably invisible, so they're not an issue. But when you change something like hair / eye / skin colour, the difference is very noticeable, and you have a "race". What matters isn't the _number_ of genes that are different or identical, it's how big an impact they have on the appearance of the individual.

Using a "race" as a shortcut to describe someone's physical features sure beats using his or her nationality, which tells you nothing about how they look, and is just a pseudo-politically-correct tribal division. Saying "he's african-american" suggests that he isn't a _true_ american, and that he has some connection to Africa which he probably doesn't. And then you get nonsense like the Trevor Richards / Westside High affair.

Re:They're all trolling. Some are just hypocrites.

[spun]

Awesome. Based on your name, I'm guessing you are non-white. What better refutation of the OP's ridiculous hypothesis? I bow to your superior understanding of race and genetics. ;-)

Re:Huh?

[KDR_11k]

IMO it looks like they just wanted to create another gap to fit their god into, we've been able to observe evolution so they claim it's not real evolution and that there's a magical barrier that it cannot cross for some reason.I bet as speciation is obbserved they'll move higher and higher up the ancestry tree to find a place where they can say "we don't know what's here so it must definitely be god's work!".

Re:Huh?

[sumdumass]

Well, you can believe whatever you want to believe, I'm not about to try and stop you in this type of debate. I think if we ever ended up with empirical evidence supporting evolution in the sense of macro evolution, they would at least have to acknowledge it. I don't see how they could make a claim further along the chain then that point, it either exists or it doesn't exist.

On another note, the definition for species has changed over the years. This is probably why it is so hard of a topic to get straight and keep everyone on board. It used to be that we just looked at animals that were different enough in characteristics and called them a different species. This is why Blacks were at one time considered only part human and mostly of a different species. But we got wise and realized that couldn't be true and added the idea of sexual reproduction. It was then, with sexual reproduction being a pivoting point, the macro verses micro evolution became a popular issue. Now the reproduction requirement is watered down so much that if it can reproduce but decides not to naturally, they are a different species. This of course creates more problems, problems like now Racists, White or black or whatever nationality, would be considered a different species because they choose not to breed with others not like them.

I give this because you seem to think this is some settled issue that creationist are attempting to turn upside down. While that may be true, science in and of itself has turned it around more in the last 2 centuries then any religious organization. But this is part of the scientific process that makes it so great. While there isn't any empirical evidence proving a common ancestor and speciation, There is a lot of circumstantial evidence suggesting it. And while most of the Newer attempt to point to speciation further twists the definitions of species to make the point. The definition of species shouldn't exist just to discredit creationist, that is the farthest from scientific we can get with science.

It also seems that you haven't explored the "other way" yet want to cast it in a dim light. Thats fine but it is also non scientific. You should at least understand the argument's you are rejecting. Simple rejecting them for the sake of doing so or to favor your pet project and procedures leads to an almost religious interpretation of science. One of the founding principles of science is that it can be wrong and we can correct our knowledge when we find these things out. An association with god doesn't automatically make something untrue, It doesn't make it true either. But think about that, If god willed you to fill a glass with watter and drink it, the only thing not testable (unscientific) is God willing you to do something. Getting a glass and filling it with water and then drinking it at some point in time could be a reality. The same would be true is evolution did end up with a macro verses micro reality. If it is found that one doesn't actually happen, then the only thin unscientific could be the God created part, the rest can be testable to some degree. You also have different theories of evolution inside the science community like the Bubble theory of evolution that I heard back in the mid 70's that to some degree supports the macro verses micro separations.

In the end, we just have to look at why we are discrediting something. If it is because of sound facts, then it is one thing. If it is because of disdain for a group of people or whet they might claim in and of itself, then it is sort of doing the same things you don't like about them.

Why?

[nurb432]

Its just another day of the month. Just happens to be a day off from work for many people. ( not all, but many )

Re:huh?

[belg4mit]

Actually no. The name escapes me at the moment (and my search-fu is weak after a red-eye flight) but their is a
classic example in genetic of a "species" of bird found the world over which is subtly differentiated. A given
"sub-species" can breed with it's neighbors, but not one from the other side of the planet...

Re:huh?

[belg4mit]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_species