Besides the obvious skin color, general physical appearance and propensity toward certain illnesses are there any major differences between humans?
Some of us have bank accounts in the Caymans, some of us don’t. Just the way the DNA cookie crumbles, I guess.
blood groups
number of roots on different teeth
Pygmies lack the adolescent growth sprint
According to this article, apparently the scope of genetic variability is larger in African populations than in others
http://www.gladwell.com./1997_05_19_a_sports.htm
i only have 2 wisdom teeth.
some people have 13 sets of ribs.
Well, Kilgore Trout, you are slightly more evolved than those of us with four. Congrats!
i have no choice but to agree.
The likely hood a multiple births differs form population to population. If I remember correctly Amish persons are much more likely to have twins than the regular population, and asians are much less likely to have twins.
About bolls groups. Most people are familiar with A,B,O and posotive or negative, but there are many more sub group types. FWIW black perople are more likely to be A POS which is a dominant gene, and white people are more likely to be O pos.
michael
African women have shorter pregnancies, East Indians longer, with Europeans intermediate.
Corrected for nutrition, African children reach most physical thresholds earlier: reflexes develop earlier, crawling and walking begin earlier, puberty begins earlier, and wisdom teeth erupt earlier. Asians are later in all categories, with Europeans intermediate.
Why are Europeans intermediate in nearly everything? There is an interesting hypothesis that seems to be consistent with the genetic evidence: Euopeans descend from an admixture of the ancestors of modern Asians and of modern Africans, the Asians contributing about 2/3 of the genes. The admixture is supposed to have happened roughly 35,000 years ago.
ref: Nei, M. and G. Livshits. 1989. Genetic relationships of Europeans, Asians and Africans and the origin of modern Homo sapiens. Human Heredity, 39:276-281.
What exactly would distinguish the Amish from the rest of North American white people, in terms of race and genetics? The fact that they’re only reproducing within a small sub-group? In other words, does interbreeding (no offense, I’m using this term VERY broadly here, I’m not implying incest) increase the likelyhood of twins?
If you wish to know more about the amish you should see the reference book “Amish Society.”
The short answer is yes. 400 years of closed society “interbreeding.” Also in the amish culture women who are “good breeders” are highly valued, and women who aren’t have less social status and are therefore more likley to leave the community. Over the 400 years this has selected for a higher incidence of twins.
(these remarks are in no way meant to disparage the good people of the amish community)
Speaking for my Oh so downtrodden lefthanded wife I can say that lefthandedness tends to be a European trait. The incidence of leftie-ness decreases in a fairly straight curve the farther east one looks on the Eurasian landmass.
A similar situation can be seen in Africa. Few africans are lefthanded while the incidence of left-handedness among african americans is much higher.
Now the question becomes: Is our new baby girl (4 weeks old today!) going to be a lefty? My wife is ALREADY trying to find that out. I ask why and she just mutters darkly about making sure there is more demand for those damn green handled scissors in the house!
bibliophage, I just ran across these differences in another group and am glad to have the cite. Thanks. Jois
Anybody know a good cite for vestigal traits?
One class I took included a slide show of humans with tails, hair on their entire body, etc. These types of traits can be passed from parent to child. The porcupine man springs to mind. He was covered with short, thick, bristly type protrusions on his whole body. IIRC, that trait got passed through three generations until the poor buggers couldn’t find someone to marry them.
Polydactyly (the tendency to have extra fingers and toes) also is inherited.
Although I’ve been talking about individual traits, not populations in general, the frequency of these, and pretty much any other trait you can think of, will almost certainly vary from population to population. So in answer to your question, we are all different! Hooray for everyone! You are special, I’m special! Group hug!!!
I was going to start a new thread with my question, but this seems like a perfect place for it instead - I hope the people with all of the good informationa are still reading this!
When I was in Biology 101 a few years ago, my instructor said that the Australian Aborigines had been separated from the rest of the human species for so long that they were almost a separate species. He said that species differentation between very similar groups was based on interbreeding ability. If two very similar groups were bred together, and there was a less than 70% conception rate, the two groups were considered to be different species. He stated that AAs fell right at the 70% borderline, and that a few hundred more years of separation from the rest of the world would probably have dropped them well below the 70% success rate.
Can anyone tell me if this is true? Or if he was wrong, why and where was he wrong?
And, since this seems to be the thing to do on the board these days, please let me add that my question is not ‘racially motivated’ - I just think it is interesting, and might be something for the ‘creationists’ to consider when asking for proof of evolution occurring in a time frame we can more easily grasp.
You guys are right. I was wrong. “Too breed within a closed group” is an acceptable (and totally counterintuitive, IMHO) definition. I was gonna say the term y’all wanted was “inbreeding”, but I looked it up, and it looks like you guys have it okay. Weird.
One difference that I think is very important, is lactose intolerance. In white-majority America, it’s usually phrased that “black people are more commonly lactose intolerant”, but it would be more parsimonious to say, “Lactose tolerance is rare, and concentrated among South Asians and Europeans.” I would even go so far as to say, lactose tolerance is concentrated among Aryans, but people use of the word “Aryan” tends to put people in bad moods.
The rest of the world, East Asians, Africans, probably aboriginal Americans before their blood was mixed, and maybe Inuits, tend not to consume animal dairy, and when they do, it’s in low-lactose form. The reason I think this difference is important is it heavily influences the kind of agriculture; cattle aren’t worth the trouble if you have to slaughter the beasts to get a meal out of them. Mmm, cheeseburgers.
Boris B, I think it might be the other way around. We are only supposed to drink Mother’s Milk. Our ability to digest lactose for more than 3-5 years is all that we should have needed.
Digesting lactose after breast feeding was unnecessary until someone started domesticating and raising milk producing animals. People who undertook that life style did “develop” lactose digesting ability.
Or maybe that is what you said!
Coosa said: “When I was in Biology 101 a few years ago, my instructor said that the Australian Aborigines had been
separated from the rest of the human species for so long that they were almost a separate species. He said
that species differentation between very similar groups was based on interbreeding ability. If two very similar
groups were bred together, and there was a less than 70% conception rate, the two groups were considered to
be different species. He stated that AAs fell right at the 70% borderline, and that a few hundred more years of
separation from the rest of the world would probably have dropped them well below the 70% success rate.”
I’ve not heard of the 70% as a dividing point or the AA as being close to being their own species. In most discussions a million years is the suggested separation before speciation, sometimes 500,000 years. No where long enough to separate the AAs. I’ll ask around.
Incidentally, the plural and adjective is Inuit… the singular is Inuk. Thank you. This has been a Canadian Grammar Moment.
Well, the biggest difference between people is that some are male, and some are female. It’s genetic, too: The vast majority of female humans have a female parent, and likewise, the vast majority of males have a male parent.
Back to what the OP was really asking, though, I’ve heard that the B-type blood allele isn’t present in Native Americans or Asians.
labdude wrote:
Not that it’s too likely there would be any representatives of the Amish community online to be offended . . .