Cry me a river. You can access the bloody stuff online. As you seem to have read enough in the past to call me by name, then you should have run into the very same materials I have cited in the past.
Native American is not a race. The article is a popular recounting and indeed the specific allele is found, per the citations above, ex-America in Siberia.
Perhaps you should bloody well stop assuming and you should bloody well start learning.
Your presumption that races exist is unfounded, the use of such a term suggestive.
Boo bloody hoo. At least you got some parts right.
Two simple scenarios, Blake, to demonstrate that one mutated chromosome does not a “race” make.
Scenario #1: Two boys grow up in the same home on a Lakota Souix reservation in South Dakota. The boys are half-brothers, with two different dads, both of whom are Lakota Souix tribe members. One of these boys carries the mutated Y chromosome, while the other one doesn’t. Are these half-brothers of the same race?
Scenario #2: I go and get a genetic analysis. It turns out that I carry the mutated Y chromosome, indicating that, at some point in my past, a carrier boinked some chick on my dad’s side of my family tree. Me, I’m a blond-blue Irish-German lad. Does the presence of the mutated Y chromosome make me a member of the Native American “race”?
I didn’t want to hijack the discussion, so I started a new thread here concerning the use of neutral, but emotionally charged, words like miscegenation.
Did biologists ever really use the term race to describe sets of animals within a species? Frankly, ignoring the human race, a horse race always suggested a running contest to me.
Did biologists ever really use the term race to describe sets of animals within a species? Frankly, ignoring the human race, a horse race always suggested a running contest to me.
There was another genetic marker in Native Americans that made the news last year. This marker is also common in Southeast Asia but not Northeast Asia. This caused some people to postulate a Rube Goldbergish migation from SE Asia to North America.
Given the Han Chinese are an intrusive group (sorry, can’t remember the cite, not my area) and that SE Asia has numerous linguistic and physical distinct relict populations, a simple explanation is that there was a distinct population in NE Asia 12,000 years ago of which a group crossed over Beringia. The ones who were left were expelled or migrated to the south.
Obviously, it would require hard archaelogic evidence in terms of a migrating front of artifacts to prove this. But, outside of some sort of Lamarckianism, the evidence points to a distinct population, at least 12,000 years ago.
What does “tout croyant” mean? Is this Coll’s long overdue restraint in expletive laden retorts?
Implied in this review is that the Bering strait land bridge migration hypothesis is falling out of favor. Among the other hypotheses I’ve read about (I’d have to dig through my piles to find the cites though) is coastal migration by boats along the polar ice cap, and an early wave of migration that got all the way South (or perhaps even originated from Southern Pacific Islander routes) and was then replaced (?killed off?) by a later migration from the North. My only point is that complete understanding of these migratory patterns will not come from some simplistic imposition of a race concept, but from a willingness to integrate convergent lines of evidence about populations … about how males traveled and settled independent of women of their site of origin, how males traveled and abducted women and brought them back with them, about how males traveled and raped as they went, about how women went to “other” populations independent of males, about how populations supplanted each other by war and murder and by absorption, and about how many waves of migration may or may not occur. My question to the eminently irritable but informative Collounsbury and others, is how do you read the genetic data currently available visavis alternative migratory patterns becoming more accepted by the archeologic crowd?
Exactly why does this subject stir up such strong reactions? Well, Coll just bloody well acts like that sometimes, but many others have responded strongly to this concept on multiple threads past and present. Just because some people persist in attempting to impose a concept that may have sociologic relevance and has the appeal of matching first impressions, onto biologic data despite the fact that it has been well explained on multiple occassions that the desciption of “races” just does not do justice to the complexity of the genetic data? Or is it for some other reason than frustration with persitent ignorance? And why do some hang onto trying to force this particular concept onto genetic data that it does not have the flexibility to well explain? Are other agendas at work form either side of the discussion?
(BTW PNAS-online requires a subscription. I tried, but I’ll hold onto my $5 for now for single article access)
Like many people, I once believed in biologically distinct human races. I rejected this belief when I encountered the current scientific evidence on the subject and realized that the data did not back up my previously held belief. This was not a painful or difficult process, as I had no particular emotional investment in this false belief. It was just something I’d been wrong about, partially from youthful ignorance and partially from being exposed to the old “Five Races” biological theory.
I can well understand that many people may still be wrong in the same way that I was once wrong. But if they continue to cling to belief in biologically distinct races despite having been exposed to the current scientific evidence, then they are not merely ignorant or misinformed. They must have some desire to believe in biologically distinct races despite all evidence to the contrary. Frankly, I find that creepy, not least of all because I can think of precious few reasons other than good old-fashioned racism why anyone would have such a desire.
Blake, several on-line dictionaries define allele as an alternative form of a gene at a given locus. An allele is still a gene, which is why no one else deemed it important enough to berate you on it.
While one may wish that Col had expressed himself using more tact (or one may not–I do not seek to impose a specific reaction on any poster to any other poster), his point distinguishing alleles from genes was pertinent to this discussion.
So, while it is possible to carry on this conversation using only the term gene, the explicit reference to alleles more specifically describes the situation in that particular part of the discussion. In other words, while it is true that an allele is a gene, it is in alleles that one finds differences among humans, because all humans have the same genes while there are a wide number of different alleles (variants) to express those genes.
Thanks for an excellent example of fighting ignorance. Your post is pertinent not only to the specific OP but more generally in showing the value of how a bit of research can expand, and even refute, poorly written articles in the press.
Keep up the good work and watch the blood pressure.
Note that the term gene not allele was used. Now is the Academy deserving of **Collounsbury’s ['b] scorn, or should Collounsbury be scorned for suggesting that we all have the same complement of genes?
Actually, it is a fact that we all do not have the same number of genes. Many of us have Downs Syndrome which involves extra genes as I recall.
The general public knows the word gene. It doesn’t know the word allele, so gene is used when allele is meant.
The distinction is very clear when used correctly - a human being has a standard set of genes (chromosomal irregularities not withstanding), usually two of each (except the X and Y chromosomes in men) but the actual DNA code in place (the locus, the location on the chromosome) for the gene is one of many alleles in the population.
So a given locus can only have one allele. A human can have two different alleles (one on each of the paired chromosomes). Typically, only one is expressed (dominant).
When the AAFP says “gene for Alien Syndrome found” it means one or both of two things: The locus of the gene has been found on a given chromosome and/or the allele which, when expressed, causes the syndrome has been identified.
Well, I don’t know that anyone–including or especially Blake–is deserving of Col’s scorn. I have on a couple of occasions suggested that Col could tone down his replies (and I am not in the habit of commenting on other posters’ styles).
I will note that the article cited used rather casual language, perhaps understandable in light of their intent to present the information to a less literate audience without conducting vocabulary lessons.
In fact, it is not “the HFE gene” that causes Hemochromatosis in the sense that having the HFE gene does not, in and of itself, cause one to suffer Hemochromatosis:
While Col’s presentation was harsh, it remains that a clear understanding of the distinction between the use of the words gene and allele do have a point in this discussion.
(Regarding the Down Syndrome comment: would it be your suggestion that sufferers of Thalidomide not be called human? Or that we never say that “humans have two arms”? Barring trauma or mutation, humans “have” the same numbers of limbs and genes.)
Just butting in to hand out kudo’s. Seldom have I seen such a sound thrashing delivered to an unworthy concept!
It would appear that alleles well!
(I’m sorry, really, I am, I just can’t help myself sometimes…)
Note to The Collounsbury: none here holds you in better esteem than myself. But, heavens, man, did you quit smoking? Suddenly renounce crack?
Your friends, and we are Legion, are unanimous in dismay at your recent descent into prickly curmudgeonhood. Pray return at once or you will be sorely missed.
What a horrible suggestion. I said “some of us” have extra genes. There is no basis for your implication.
If we say all humans have two arms, then we are in error. My point is after all, if we are being picky enough to cast aspersions on someone’s credibility because he isn’t specific enough regarding terminology, then criticism for not being rigorously correct is warrantred as well. We all can play this childish game.
One more point. On more than several dozen occasions, the claim of greater genetic diversity among Africans has been touted on the SDMB. Considering that we all have the same full complement of genes, (exceptions as previously discussed), shouldn’t we be claiming that Africans are more allelicly diverse?
