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DNA Suggests Three Basic Human Groups
Death Metal writes "All of Earth's people, according to a new analysis of the genomes of 53 populations, fall into just three genetic groups. They are the products of the first and most important journey our species made — the walk out of Africa about 70,000 years ago by a small fraction of ancestral Homo sapiens."
Three Sons of Noah are supposed to be the ancestors of us all.
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As far as I can tell, this story attempts to make three points:
1. Human genomes tend to cluster into three groups: african, eurasian, and east asian.
2. We expected that the genomes of different ethnic groups would be very different. They aren't.
3. Neutral drift is the major story in how ethic groups' genomes differ.
This pretty much follows the contours of the current orthodoxy in population genetics (with certain distinct exceptions).
So are these three points meaningfully true?
1. Human genomes tend to cluster into three groups: african, eurasian, and east asian.
Generally speaking they /do/ cluster this way. Of course, you can make room for as few or as many clusters as you want-- if it was two, it'd be african/everything else. Three, african/eurasian/east asian. Four, perhaps african/eurasian/east asian/naitive american. Five, perhaps west african/east african/eurasian/east asian/naitive american. From what I've read, the most elegant statistical clusters arise when you allow for four groups (splitting native americans off from east asians). Of course, this clustering gets more complex when you consider admixture populations (e.g., the majority of south america and mexico).
2. We expected that the genomes of different ethnic groups would be very different. They aren't.
It's hard to say this is true or false yet, because we simply don't know how functionally significant these differences are. Two genomes may look very similar, yet be very different in many very significant ways.
3. Neutral drift is the major story in how ethic groups' genomes differ.
This is code for a very contentious question-- are ethnic differences merely skin-deep? The fact is, we don't know yet. There's a lot of research that points to yes; there's a lot of research that points to no. The answer to this is undoubtedly going to turn out to be: yes and no, depending on the context and the threshold you look at.
I take a general offense to the nature of this article, presenting this as though it is some sort of surprise. Researches along time ago classified people into 3 groups and this is merely genetic confirmation of the original findings. They classified people in 3 groups a long time ago, I suppose this is DNA confirmation of the initial categories: Negroid, Mongoloid, Caucasoid.
non-PC names these days I suppose, but that's what they were called.
Unless one of Noah's sons was black, one was white, and one was east-asian, this is pretty much not possible.
blacks vs whites vs christians vs atheists vs global warming followers vs global warming deniers vs pro-life vs pro-choice vs republicans vs democrats vs whatever
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I'd add a fourth point that to me is even more interesting (and apparently comes from the data):
* [The population split away from Africa 70K years ago, and then that sub-population splitting again 40K years ago into Eurasian and East Asian groups. The African source population is 130K years old.]
Advances in communication and transportation in the last century mean that members of these three groups are migrating away from the areas their ancestors lived in. I live in Australia but my ancestors came from England. My wife was born in Malaysia but her ancestors came from China. Our son is a mix of two of the groups defined by TFA.
Yesterday he brought home a school project to work on. Each child in the class has to fill in a page in a scrap book about themselves. His classmates come from England, Spain, China, Egypt, Australia (one Aboriginal boy) and Turkey. The next generation here will be even more mixed than the last.
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Only if you read the book of Genesis like a Catholic does- as an allegorical story explaining many things about the natural world and how to live in it.
Otherwise, no. And in fact, for the racists out there, this proves once and for all that Africans, of the three groups, are the most evolved, with the most diversity. The other two groups are subgroup descendants of the Africans.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
I don't think anyone's fretting about it at all. AC is just wondering out loud.
Anyway, the worst that will happen is some group will protest the finding. The only people who are going to take the findings to conclusions about racial superiority are people who are using it to validate their pre-existing racism. Knuckle-dragging racists aren't made by facts, they're made by ignorance.
Not really, humans as a species are just about as homogeneous as you're going to get, which makes it difficult to make those sorts of claims stick. Just as much of suggesting that Africans are inferior as superior. Additionally, there's been some research to suggest that African populations have more genetic diversity than other groups, which I wouldn't think would contribute to the suggestion that they're any more or less well adapted than other groups.
;)
But then again, if it drives white supremecists nuts, why bother arguing.
The advice and truths given in the Bible are credible because they mirror the real personal stories and events that happen in the world around us. Many myths and religions try to do the same, and they get some things right, but there is always the element of mysticism that has been injected by people trying to gain personal advantage. I know that many "Christians" have tried to do this too (most notably the catholic church and their instance that only the Pope can talk to God, which is in direct contradiction to the primary message of pretty much every book of the Bible, they also asserted in the past that only a properly educated person should be allowed to read the Bible), but such lies are easily uncovered by even a cursory independent look at the Bible.
There is nowhere in the bible where it says giving sacrifices will bring a good harvest (though it does say that you should make sacrifices to atone for your sins and celebrate God), or that your God-given leader will bring you to God (though it does say that Jesus loves you and has opened they way for you). It also doesn't say that you can get to heaven through your own personal works (though it does talk about the importance bearing good fruit).
There are a number of other elements to most religions which the Bible lacks, but the main difference is that most religious are designed to promote cohesion in society by establishing a theological basis for a hierarchal leadership structure (much the same way modern economics, philosophy and political science have established a theoretical basis for the same kind of structure). The Bible seeks to promote cohesion by explaining the benefits of good social behavior and uncovering the lies of society (society tries to tell us that bad behaviors like promiscuity, deceitfulness, idolatry and hedonism will make us happy, while in truth those behaviors separate us from the life-giving society we are a part of and will only lead to isolation and tragedy).
Please do not think that the behavior of most people who call themselves Christians is indicative of the content of the Bible. Many people use the Church as a social club to further their own worldly goals. Instead, read the Bible (it's not much longer than Atlas Shrugged, which you should also read BTW) with an open mind and see whether or not you agree that it is a better way to go about living.
The future of 'racism' is that word will fall out of fashion and pretty much cease to exist in a generation or so. It's hideously divisive in a modern context.
At the start, where there was a serious belief in the western world that being non-caucasian meant you were sub-human, then the laws necessary to stop that were a boon.
Now, anything gets shoved under the context of 'racism' that's meant to cause a knee jerk reaction.
Say something about someone who was born in Ireland? Racist (their parents may have come from just down the road from you, but hey, 'racist')! Nobody from an 'ethnic group' turns up for interviews for jobs at your company for particular roles? Hey, you're not hiring enough of them, so you're racist.
The worst thing about the modern "positive discrimination" isn't that it's actually the most prevalent form of racism at the moment, it's that it actually intimates that someone from an ethnic background isn't capable of performing well enough to compete against anyone else, and "allowances" have to be made for them. Filtering back into schools, there's a whole sector of kids that know they'll get jobs allocated to them under this, so don't consider it worth pushing themselves as hard to compete (some of my family work in the school system, and this drives them nuts!).
Face it, people are people, and some people don't like others for a variety of reasons. Mannerisms, attitude, so on, so forth. The way this used to be dealt with was a little thing called Etiquette, which for some reason seems to be considered horribly old fashioned and outdated these days. The basic principle was that you knew other people were flawed, in the same way you knew yourself to be flawed. Yet everyone needed to keep on going without killing each other. So you looked for the best in people, and given the chance chose to accept something as complimentary rather than derogatory (or at least did so at face), and you exchanged pleasantries, no matter how the barb ran underneath that.
Now, taking offense is an industry. If you can find a way to take offense to something someone says, there's a quick bit of cash to be had through a Lawyer somewhere who specialises in that. Taking offense on behalf of someone else (who frequently isn't offended at all anyway) is the way to obtain a false sense of self worth. Sure, it makes you feel good (after all, you're looking after "the children"/"some group that can't look after themselves"/"some other group that you're better, and more able than"). It puts you subjectively above them, even if that's not what you think you're doing.
When science comes up with these figures, it is NOT a method of saying "hey look, food for bigots". It is stating an observable fact. Anything beyond the figures is conjecture. There are three main branches of humanity that have been successful in evolutionary terms. That's possible failsafes in case there's a flaw in one or more branches of the genetic structure that some pathogen can take advantage of. It's a good thing.
If you instantly think of 'racism' over released figures, I think you're part of a longer, more insidious issue than ever these figures could be.
That sounds a little like wishful thinking. In just a few generations we've made tremendous progress with prejudice, however, it is rampant in its grossest forms in much of the world, and about 10% of westerners, who are "ethnocentric".
Then there's covert racism, which is till common in modern society. Peoples behaviour choices are influenced unduly by racial considerations - esp. when it's personal (eg: choosing a family doctor), or ambiguous (eg: I didn't employ the black person because of his credentials).
There are many ways to measure covert racism, however, be wary of the IAT, it's highly controversial, so take what the researchers say about it with a grain of salt. Behavioural measures are the best (ie: watching what people *do*).
It seems that prejudice is built into the human condition - at least at a subtle level:
That's just who we are as human beings, and it means that we're always going to tread a fine line between in-group preference and out-group prejudice, and have difficulty even seeing that that's what we're doing. And that's in ideal situations when there are plenty of resources for everyone.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right