# Do Different Human Races Exist? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 16, 2002, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-different-human-races-exist/103973 "2002-04-16T16:47:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![edwino](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/35a633/32.png) [@edwino](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/edwino)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2002, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-different-human-races-exist/103973/41 "2002-04-19T23:55:35Z")
It has been said before, I’ll say it again: holy flurking snit. A bunch of puzzling quotes that don’t seem to relate to the argument, and a complete misreading of Cavalli-Sforza’s data. I like trying to fight ignorance, but I don’t honestly know where to begin here. So I will skip all of the quotes (the great Jewish doctor Horowitz? Who the hell is he?) and try to address what appears to be the data in your last post. First, to get it out of the way, intelligence, especially as measured by arbitrary things as standardized test administration and college performance, is not a scientific measurement. First, define the parameter. Define “intelligence.” Then explain how you are taking such extraneous things such as societal influences, socioeconomic status, upbringing, previous education, etc. out of such a measurement and how the measurement truly reveal genetic factors. Next, I’ll choose an easy target: your presentation of “genetic distances data.” I have no idea what this means. Your description sounds a little like RFLP, heteroduplex, or SSCP analysis. But data like that don’t come out of those experiments. Perhaps you are talking of STR analysis? I have never seen these analyses correlated with ethnicity. I can’t imagine how Dutch, French, German, Belgian, or Swiss populations are genetically different seeing that until about, oh, 1800 years ago, Europe was totally populated by clans totally distinct from modern nationalities. Please could you cite a specific page number from the Cavalli-Sforza book or a scientific paper containing these primary data? Thanks. Your view of human evolution is, to put it politely, incredibly far from what we understand from mainstream science. The archaeologic, anthropologic, and genetic evidence just plain does not support it. There is no political or social need to believe that humans all arose from Africa. I couldn’t care if they arose from Trenton, New Jersey in 1922. It is just what the data support. Please provide a citation to recent primary literature in a peer-reviewed journal that draws these conclusions. Outside of peer-review, we have nothing IMHO. But of course I just say that because I am a mainstream scientist with faith in the process of scientific review. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2002, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-different-human-races-exist/103973/42 "2002-04-20T01:38:36Z")
> [@](#): > > just look at the Human genome data!! its is also very clear…the data is not “grey”…it shows that their are 3 main races an one lesser studied race in NE ASIA…so in reality…not only are there RACES…but genetically their are …4 The Human Genome project provided no evidence of races. Period. You appear to be inventing this claim, so you might want to try to produce a genuine citation for who has mislead you into believing this. Your reference to Cavalli-Sforza’s book is multiply ironic. First, while the book depicts Cavalli-Sforza’s attempts to determine pre-historic human _migration_ by following the trail of certain DNA markers, there is nothing in his book that would indicate that the various groups have been separated long enough to cohere as “races.” The book explicitly shows the exact opposite: that by discovering the “trails” of cross-migrating humans from the earliest times, we find that there are so many cross-migrations and interbreedings that _no_ group stands out as a separate race. Further irony is revealed in your reliance upon Cavlli-Sforza for you claim, as he is the author of the following statements: > [@](#): > > It is extremely rare that a mutation has reached 100% in humans living in one part of the world and is absent in other parts. In fact, we find that any population, however small, has enormous genetic variation; on average, one finds 85% of the total human variation is within populations, and only 15% between. We therefore cannot use for the comparison of different human populations the same measure of genetic distance useful for comparing different species… > I don’t like the word “race” because it corresponds to old subdivisions that are inconsistent with genetic reality and unjustifiable by a rational classification. Moreover, there is no real use of such classifications and, what is worse, there is always an associated racist flavor… > It is important, however, to note that current classifications depend on external appearance, which is due to very few genes (hereditary factors) affecting skin, hair and eye color. Body and face size and shape may involve a few more genes but, like the former, are the result of an adaptation to climate (including diet and customs, which obviously also depend to a large extent on climate). Common belief in the “existence” of races must depend on local uniformity of skin color in different environments: dark in tropical climate, brown at some distance from the equator, light brown in south Europe, reaching the highest degree of whiteness in the southern Baltic. To a very superficial examination, races exist, in the sense that some groups of individuals are distinguishable and relatively uniform for a few superficial traits. That there exist “pure” races is pure myth, generated by the fact that most Europeans are white, subsaharan Africans black, many Asians brown, and a few further traits may help to distinguish more finely the geographic origin of individuals. There is no equal uniformity under the skin. Genetic differences among populations or races, however defined, are small or trivial compared with those within populations. Below the superficially uniform veneer, there are no “pure races”. [http://www.balzan.it/english/pb1999/cavalli/paper.htm](http://www.balzan.it/english/pb1999/cavalli/paper.htm) And from the very book that you cited The History and Geography of Human Genes: > [@](#): > > The classification into races has proved to be a futile exercise for reasons that were already clear to Darwin. Human races are still extremely unstable entities in the hands of modern taxonomists, who define from 3 to 60 or more races. To some extent, this latitude depends on the personal preference of taxonomists, who may choose to be “lumpers” or “splitters.” Although there is no doubt that there is only one human species, there are clearly no objective reasons for stopping at any particular level of taxonomic splitting. In fact, the analysis we carry out…for purposes of evolutionary study shows that the level at which we stop our classification is completely arbitrary. Explanations are statistical, geographic, and historical. Statistically, genetic variation within clusters is large within compared with that between clusters. All populations or population clusters overlap when single genes are considered, and in almost all populations, all alleles are present but in different frequencies. No single gene is therefore sufficient for classifying human populations into systematic categories. [http://www.eneubauer.com/Cavalli-Sforza.html](http://www.eneubauer.com/Cavalli-Sforza.html) Pointing to Calii-Sforza as a supporter of any “racial” theories is absurd. ---
**Author:** ![Darwins\_Finch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darwins_finch/32/20304_2.png) [@Darwins\_Finch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darwins_Finch)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2002, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-different-human-races-exist/103973/43 "2002-04-20T03:14:42Z")
…“Maybe if you guys TYPE IN ALL CAPS…with lots of EXCLAMATION POINTS!!!..and ellipses…he’ll listen.” - Darwin’s Finch (2002) ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2002, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-different-human-races-exist/103973/44 "2002-04-20T03:59:38Z")
I’m sorry, I really do have to respond to this: > [@](#): > > "In order to arrive at any numbers, the people doing the measuring have to pre-select their populations (unless you can show that anyone has actually measured every human on earth?). "----tomndebb > > …NO…we dont have to “measure every human on earth”…common on man!!!..Statistical analysis is done every single day in every Univeristy on this planet…its well understood…very reliable…and common practice for any Grad student…or even under Grad… My point was not that no one knows how to do statistical sampling. My point was that everyone who has entered the “race” debate on the _pro_ side has been forced to pre-select their populations to guarantee their outcomes. Rushton does that regularly. Murray and Herrnstein were flagrant in doing it (and only partially successful in disguising what they had done). Even Arthur Jensen (usually very circumspect in his ability to carefully “define” his populations) has been found to select just the ones his theories needed. ---
**Author:** ![Tyrrell\_McAllister](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tyrrell_mcallister/32/16772_2.png) [@Tyrrell\_McAllister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tyrrell_McAllister)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2002, 5:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-different-human-races-exist/103973/45 "2002-04-20T05:49:18Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Kukulkon \* > \*\*“Society is thus being shaped to meet the dictates of a collective fraud. The fiction is aiding and abetting bigots to a far greater degree than any truth ever could, because its specific side-effects - racial preferences, official mendacity, free-wielding accusations of racism, and falling standards - are creating deep cynicism and broad resentment against minorities, blacks in particular, among the citizenry.” > Kuhn,T. S. > The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press \*\* I thought that this quote seemed unfamiliar, and I couldn’t find it in my copy of _The Structure of Scientific Revolutions_. A [Google](http://www.google.com) search, however, revealed that the quote above is from [this](http://www.duke.org/library/innate/gottfredson.html) article on David Duke’s website, written, evidently, by [this](http://www.udel.edu/educ/gottfredson/) woman. I doubt that Ms. Gottfredson appreciates you misattributing her work. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-different-human-races-exist/103973.md?page=2)