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originally posted by: depleteduranium92
I don't want this thread to turn into a race vs intelligence. I only want people to post differences that have concrete evidence (images, numbers, scientific facts etc.), so please post as much as you can provided you can back it up.
That aside, there are notable physical differences between whites and blacks; Blacks (Round Foreheads, wide nose, coiled hair, maxillary protrusion) Whites (Flat forehead, thin nose, straight hair, and straighter features)
What I'm trying to get to is that we focus on Physical External features of race but there are Physical Internal features too.
There must be a difference in thyroid function, respiratory function, digestive function etc?, otherwise why would certain races be more prone to diseases? (Sickle Cell in African populations) changing your external apperance wouldn't change your succeptability to disease would it?
originally posted by: pheonix358
So far it seems that everyone is so tied up with the 'Race Thing' that they don't want to answer. Says a lot about us as a species.
Interesting question OP. I don't know the answers to your thoughtful questions but I would be interested in others replies if we can get past the bit about talking about the very taboo subject.
I wonder why we are conditioned to see this as a taboo subject. Hell, sex is easier to discuss, nudity, not so much.
P
originally posted by: WP4YT
Physically...
Blacks tend to have the smallest skulls and smallest brains, while Asians have they largest brains and skull cavities. Whites have feet adapted for swimming (flatter feet, like a paddle), while blacks have "snap" muscles in their legs similar to cheetahs that allow them to run fast from a dead stop. Blacks tend to have the largest genitalia, while Asians generally have the smallest. Blacks are better adapted to warmer weather, and whites are better adapted to cooler weather.
Even though one of the non-profit goals is to use kit sales to support "community-led indigenous conservation and revitalization projects", some indigenous populations have objected to the project:
“The greatest history book ever written is the one hidden in our DNA.”
—Dr. Spencer Wells
The Genographic Project is a multiyear research initiative led by National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Dr. Spencer Wells. Dr. Wells and a team of renowned international scientists are using cutting-edge genetic and computational technologies to analyze historical patterns in DNA from participants around the world to better understand our human genetic roots. The three components of the project are:
To gather and analyze research data in collaboration with indigenous and traditional peoples around the world
To invite the general public to join this real-time scientific project and to learn about their own deep ancestry by purchasing a Genographic Project Participation and DNA Ancestry Kit, Geno 2.0
To use a portion of the proceeds from Geno 2.0 kit sales to further research and the Genographic Legacy Fund, which in turn supports community-led indigenous conservation and revitalization projects
The Genographic Project is anonymous, nonmedical, and nonprofit, and all results are placed in the public domain following scientific peer publication.
I can't say I understand the objections that it provides no benefit to indigenous peoples since that's one of the stated goals, and I think the risk of giving a small blood sample is pretty minimal, so I can only presume those are excuses and the real reasons for not wanting to participate remain unstated, which I don't know but can only guess may have something to do with fear of genetic/racial profiling or something?
In May 2006, some indigenous representatives went to United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII) to contest participation in genetic testing. A spokesman said,
"The Genographic Project is exploitative and unethical because it will use Indigenous peoples as subjects of scientific curiosity in research that provides no benefit to Indigenous peoples, yet subjects them to significant risks. Researchers will take blood or other bodily tissue samples for their own use in order to further their own speculative theories of human history".
originally posted by: boymonkey74
a reply to: depleteduranium92
Why look at the differences when we should be looking at what makes us all basically the same? a common ground where we can understand and respect each other and not look at physical differences which are not important at all really.
We all love our children no matter what race and are all human beings/great apes.
We are different only because of the place we were born.
I don't think any race have different insides than me, again it is more to do with the place you were born and that culture.
Oh and sickle cell isn't a disease it is a genetic (inherited) blood disorder.
Down the line we all have black/blue/yellow blood in us and no one is pure white/black etc.
Sickle cell trait is more common in certain ethnic groups, including:
African Americans (8 to 10 percent of African Americans have sickle cell trait)
Hispanics
South Asians
Caucasians from southern Europe
People from Middle Eastern countries
All newborns in the United States are now tested for sickle cell disease and sickle cell trait.
Using the latest molecular biology techniques, Templeton has analyzed millions of genetic sequences found in three distinct types of human DNA and concludes that, in the scientific sense, there is no such thing as race.
"Race is a real cultural, political and economic concept in society, but it is not a biological concept, and that unfortunately is what many people wrongfully consider to be the essence of race in humans -- genetic differences," Templeton said. "Evolutionary history is the key to understanding race, and new molecular biology techniques offer so much on recent evolutionary history. I wanted to bring some objectivity to the topic. This very objective analysis shows the outcome is not even a close call: There's nothing even like a really distinct subdivision of humanity."
Templeton used the same strategy to try to identify race in human populations that evolutionary and population biologists use for non-human species, from salamanders to chimpanzees. He treated human populations as if they were non-human populations.
"I'm not saying these results don't recognize genetic differences among human populations," he cautioned. "There are differences, but they don't define historical lineages that have persisted for a long time."
Templeton's paper, "Human Races: A Genetic and Evolutionary Perspective," is published in the fall 1998 issue of the American Anthropologist, an issue almost exclusively devoted to race. The new editor-in-chief of the American Anthropologist is Robert W. Sussman, Ph.D., professor of anthropology in Arts and Sciences.
"The folk concept of race in America is so ingrained as being biologically based and scientific that it is difficult to make people see otherwise," said Sussman, a biological anthropologist. "We live on the one-drop racial division --if you have one drop of black or Native American blood, you are considered black or Native American, but that doesn't cover one's physical characteristics.
"Templeton's paper," Sussman continued, "shows that if we were forced to divide people into groups using biological traits, we'd be in real trouble. Simple divisions are next to impossible to make scientifically, yet we have developed simplistic ways of dividing people socially."
In The Ancestor's Tale Richard Dawkins devotes a chapter to the subject of race and genetics. After an extensive discussion race, and how the term is not well defined, Dawkins turns to the genetics of race. Dawkins describes the relatively low genetic variation between races, and geneticists conclusion that race is not an important aspect of a person. These conclusions echo those of Lewontin, and Dawkins characterizes this view as scientific orthodoxy. However, Dawkins felt that reasonable genetic conclusions had been tainted by Lewontins politics. Dawkins accepted Lewontin's position that our perception of relatively large differences between human races and subgroups, as compared to the variation within these groups, is a biased perception and that human races and populations are remarkably similar to each other, with the largest part by far of human variation being accounted for by the differences between individuals. Dawkins' also agreed with Lewontin that racial classification had no social value, and was in fact destructive. Together with Edwards, Dawkins disagreed with Lewontin that this means race is of 'virtually no genetic or taxonomic significance' and summarized Edwards' point that however small the racial partition of the total variation may be, if such racial characteristics as there are highly correlated with other racial characteristics, they are by definition informative, and therefore of taxonomic significance. Dawkins went on to concludes that racial classification informs us about no more than the traits common used to classify race: the superficial, external traits like eye shape and skin color.
Anthropologists (such as C. Loring Brace), philosopher Jonathan Kaplan and geneticist Joseph Graves. have argued that while it is possible to find biological and genetic variation roughly corresponding to race, this is true for almost all geographically distinct populations: the cluster structure of genetic data is dependent on the initial hypotheses of the researcher and the populations sampled. When one samples continental groups, the clusters become continental; with other sampling patterns, the clusters would be different. Weiss and Fullerton note that if one sampled only Icelanders, Mayans and Maoris, three distinct clusters would form; all other populations would be composed of genetic admixtures of Maori, Icelandic and Mayan material. Kaplan therefore concludes that, while differences in particular allele frequencies can be used to identify populations that loosely correspond to the racial categories common in Western social discourse, the differences are of no more biological significance than the differences found between any human populations (e.g., the Spanish and Portuguese).