Foreword
Scientific Racism is a 19th century term that denotes a movement among some pseudo-researchers to prove that northern Europeans are inherently superior to Africans, Native Americans, and Hispanics. They wanted to prove that cognitive ability and physical prowess is greater in individuals that have fair skin.
The term Scientific Racism is ironic for several reasons. First, racism is a value judgment or a belief system and not something that lends itself to scientific inquiry. The term Christian Science is similarly ridiculous. Christianity, like racism, is a belief system that also does not lend itself to scientific inquiry.
Second, science tells us that there is more genetic variability among Africans than among Asians or Europeans. This means that the outliers on the bell curve of any characteristic are further from the mean in the Africans. In other words, it may be that the world's smartest and the world's dumbest man is an African. I don't know if IQ is the best example of this but you get the idea.
Third, greater genetic variability tells us which group is the original group and which group is a subset. It turns out that Europeans are a subset of Africans. The thing of it is … is …
We is them.
Fourth, even if some new genes have arisen through adaptive mutations, these are simple genes that code for superficial differences. These new characteristics are not better or worse, they are just different.
Fifth, in terms of passing genes to future generations the thing that produces strength is diversity. Genetic variance produces genetic strength. Genetic homogeneity produces weakness.
Variance = strength
Homogeneity = weakness
(Just ask that incestuous Czar Nicholas II about his hemophilic son.)
My nostalgic Russian fiancé is not going to like that little parenthesis. She loves Czar Nicholas because he was strong in the orthodox church. OK, maybe the latest St. Nick did not screw his sister but he and his wife were kissing cousins. Apparently not distant enough cousins.
If you are a young damsel from Sweden and you want genetically strong offspring, then you should blow off the dude next door and seek a mate from Tanzania.
Finally, science begins with a hypothesis and ends with a conclusion but the term "scientific racism" suggests that it should be the other way around.
This term was not created by real scientists who were seeking the truth. It was created by individuals who had a political agenda and who wanted to pretend that objective evidence supported their viewpoints.
These guys were called physical anthropologists. A few of them figured out that beauty is only skin deep and this created a split among these professionals. Some of them hung on, and a few are still hanging on, to these outdated notions but now the molecular or genetic anthropologists do all the race stuff. And they don't use the word "race" accept in an historical context.
Actually, this book is not even about racism. It is about the real science of why people hate each other. Race is the most obvious excuse in the year 2009 but it is only one of a multitude of rationalizations that humans use in order to mistreat each other.
Bias is the real culprit. Bias is the innately human characteristic of dividing everything in the world into artificial categories and then assigning attributes or making assessments based on these artificial categories. This has great survivability value for a small-brained species in a complex environment.
That is why I juxtaposed the word bias for the word race in the title. Scientific Biasism is meant to be facetious. If you can't appreciate that then you probably need to stop reading this book and go grab a copy of Mein Kampf or a 19th century physical anthropology text.
So, what is a race?
The term race was invented during the time of European colonization to describe perceived subspecies of humans. They got the idea to classify humans from the botanists who had been classifying living things for quite some time. The problem was that the lowest rung on the traditional botanical classification scheme was species. They defined species as a group capable of interbreeding. The Europeans quickly figured out that they were the same species ... he... he ... so they needed the classification scheme to focus a little further down. Thus, they invented races and defined them as subspecies of human.
In botany, a subspecies or race has different characteristics that are heritable. For example, white roses, red roses, and yellow roses are all "races" of roses. This concept has been used to infer that different races within a species could go their evolutionarily separate ways and become different species. Theoretically, this process requires physical separation. This separation needs to happen for a long enough period of time that new genetic mutations and differential loss of DNA could produce two or more new species. The time element involved for this type of change to happen in a complex species such as ours is variable but it is on the scale of millions of years.
The time element involved for a complex species such as my fiancé to do something like changing her mind may be even longer.
The human species has only been around for about 170,000 years. During this time there has been physical separation of subgroups but separated subgroups have always had interactions with each other. These interactions include sharing of DNA (i.e. screwing). This book is theoretically about genetic anthropology, however, we all know that "genetic anthropology" is a scientific code term that means "sex book."
Therefore, the human species has not been around long enough and subgroups have not been separated well enough to produce separate species. Races were thought to exist because superficial visual differences seem so striking. The three main groups of humans that were frequently described as races are African, Asian, and European. There are about a hundred other ways that humans have been subdivided into races with as many as 64 races in one classification scheme. No matter how you slice and dice us, these groups are simply not genetically different enough to warrant consideration as true races. At least not at this point in time.
The real scientific question is whether the human species has developed subspecies that are on the road to becoming separate species. Since there is not a clear line or threshold over which this occurs, this question is difficult to answer. Nevertheless, the weight of the scientific evidence would seem to indicate that the human species is too homogenous to be described using the concept of race.
This is a good thing because it means that Whitney Houston and I can still produce a normal and fertile love child ... or … well … me and my fiancé who is a Kazak can do that. Yeah, better go with my fiancé on this one.
"But why are there so many groups of humans that seem to be so different?"
"Because there are a lot of sub groups of humans that have differences."
Since it is possible to have a range of genetic complexity in each and every difference, how can we tell how complex our differences are? The answer is that any difference requiring a lot of genes will take a lot of time to develop. Another question is whether or not evolution is a slow or a fast process?
The answer is BOTH. Evolution is slow, a little faster, medium speed, fairly quick, and really fast. Evolution can occur at literally any speed.
Of course, the intensity of selective pressure can speed up evolution. If food became scarce or if the climate changed drastically or if a plague killed millions, then the human species would change more quickly.
However, the degree of change is ultimately limited by the complexity and presence of genes that code for the characteristic that is changing. Simple genes can change rapidly but complex genes, not so fast. Genes that are present in low frequency can expand quickly given a change in selective pressure. New genes that have to enter the gene pool through mutation can only change rapidly if they are simple. Complex changes that have to occur through multiple mutations take much longer.
For example, if having pigment in your iris (the colored part of your eye) suddenly began to cause immediate death, then blue eyed individuals (those that lack pigment) would be the only ones that would pass on their genetic material. The entire race would have blue eyes over night. Blue eyes are coded for on a single gene and arose by a single mutation in a single individual as little as one or two thousand years ago.
If we suddenly needed to be able to fly in order to survive, then we would all die and the species would be permanently extinct. There is zero chance of anyone currently having the ability to fly and it would take millions of years for evolution to produce a human that had wings.
There is a major difference between the characteristic of blue eyes and that of wings. Blue eyes are coded for by a single gene. This gene can enter or exit the population rather quickly. Therefore, a lot of humans could have blue eyes within several hundred years.
Wings, on the other hand, are coded for by thousands if not millions of complexly associated genes. You would have to separate and recombine DNA millions of times and numerous new mutations would have to arise to result in a human with wings.
Characteristics may be coded for by a range of differing levels of genetic complexity. Therefore, there may be a range of time spans to cause changes in a population.
Humans have recently, by evolutionary standards, undergone increased selective pressure due to the conversion from small mobile groups engaged in hunting and gathering to large sedentary societies engaged primarily in farming. As a result there has been dramatic and rapid change in characteristics that are genetically coded for in simple ways. Things that are coded for more complexly have undergone little change.
That is why we all look very different, and yet, we are all essentially the same.
Ashkenazi Jews are an interesting and unique example. One hyposthesis is that a relatively minor gene change affecting a certain type of lipid that is important for neural transmission may have caused an increase in verbal and mathematical ability. This was selected for and spread rapidly because 80% of Ashkenazi Jews were forced to be in the finance business if they wanted to survive and have lots of kids. Of course, adding and subtracting for a living requires some degree of verbal and mathematical ability to be successful. Today, they have an average IQ (mostly a test of verbal and math ability) that is one standard deviation above the norm. This likely happened over a relatively short period of time … maybe as little as 5-600 years.
They are a relatively small group and they seem to have been genetically isolated for the past half millinium. Apparently, they didn't want to interbreed with anyone else and no one else wanted to interbreed with them. In any case, they are now screwing everyone and everyone is screwing them so this difference will likely go away. With larger groups and/or when any amount of DNA sharing is going on differences like this are not seen.
These new genes that were likely developed through mutation and spread around rapidly by the Ashkenazi Jews will now be graciously donated to all of humanity. In this new world of high tech they will come in rather handy. No need to thank us.
"Tonto ... our job here is done."
You can find small groups of humans all over the planet that have significant, yet genetically simple, differences. However, you can't find any two groups on the planet that have genetically complex differences. That is why we can all interbreed. It is also why we are all considered to be the same species. It is even why the idea of separate races that might develop into different species does not really apply to humans at this time.
In summation:
There may be Samoans and pigmies … but there are no flying humans.
Definition
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