Race and evolution

[davidcross]

hello I was wondering if someone can tell me what evolutionists explain how there are many races in the world and why they shuldnt have all died out except for one race.

I don’t support evolution but would like to know what there opinion is

 

[Isca]

When you say you don’t “support” evolution, do you mean you don’t believe it?

 

[nagyszakall]

I don’t know if and what certain evolutionists have stated about this particular issue, but there have been observations and experiments (e.g. with fruit flies that have and extremely short life span) that documented changes within a species. Breeding domesticated animals also demonstrates that there can be a selection, which is called natural when we speak about wildlife. So, the same way, the racial features of homo sapiens can “evolve” (i.e. change) over long periods of time. This does not prove any of the evolution theories, but it is the foundation of neo-Darwinist theories. The leap (of faith) which you have to make if you want to subscribe to neo-Darwinist evolution theory is that these small, in certain cases observable changes (mutations) have the ability over sufficient period of time to change a certain species into another, thus to make one species evolve from another. This has never been proven, so, it is the weak link of the evolution theories.

I hope this helps.

A good book to read on the topic is The Evolution Controversy: A Survey of Competing Theories by Thomas Fowler and Daniel Kuebler
I liked this book very much, even though sometimes it went over my head with the science. Nevertheless, I could understand most of it, and that means it was written for the laity. You don’t need to be a scientist to understand it.

 

[rossum]

hello I was wondering if someone can tell me what evolutionists explain how there are many races in the world and why they shuldnt have all died out except for one race.

Genetically there is no such thing as race; all humans are far more similar than the minor genetic differences between individuals, and those differences do not form statistically significant clusters that would enable us to talks about races with any precision.

Evolution says that there are variations within any population. We observe variations within the human population.

rossum

 

[ThinkingSapien]

hello I was wondering if someone can tell me what evolutionists explain how there are many races in the world and why they shuldnt have all died out except for one race.

I don’t support evolution but would like to know what there opinion is

I think there may be a misunderstanding here. Race is largely a social construct. Evolution is a change in allele frequency within a population. Within the continent of Africa you’ll find some of the widest genetic diversity in the world yet most of the people of Africa are considered to be of one race. If you are looking for an evolutionary classification of people you would need to look at haploid groups, not race.

Racial classification is often includes non-genetic factors including religion, geography, cultural, and social affiliations. The physical characteristics that one usually includes in race classification hardly go past being skin deep

 

[Miserissima]

Racial classification is often includes non-genetic factors including religion, geography, cultural, and social affiliations. The physical characteristics that one usually includes in race classification hardly go past being skin deep

No. That is ethnicity, not race.

 

[ThinkingSapien]

I don’t know if and what certain evolutionists have stated about this particular issue, but there have been observations and experiments (e.g. with fruit flies that have and extremely short life span) that documented changes within a species.

Yes, that would be a change within the allele frequency in the isolated population.

So, the same way, the racial features of homo sapiens can “evolve” (i.e. change) over long periods of time.

Allele frequency within the human population can change. But once you start talking about “racial features” you are moving into something less precise and that result of social influences.

A good book to read on the topic is The Evolution Controversy: A Survey of Competing Theories by Thomas Fowler and Daniel Kuebler

My book suggestion are Biology, 10th Edition and The Myth of Race.

Or, if you don’t have the time here on some quotes from a few other books.

AAA 1998: For example, “Evidence from the analysis of genetics (e.g., DNA) indicates that most physical variation, about 94%, lies within so-called racial groups. Conventional geographic ‘racial’ groupings differ from one another only in about 6% of their genes. This means that there is greater variation within ‘racial’ groups than between them.”

Nature:

Keita; Kittles, Royal, Bonney, Furbert-Harris, Dunston, Rotimi (2004). “Conceptualizing human variation”. Nature 36: S17–S20. doi:10.1038/ng1455. PMID 15507998. "Modern human biological variation is not structured into phylogenetic subspecies (‘races’), nor are the taxa of the standard anthropological ‘racial’ classifications breeding populations. The ‘racial taxa’ do not meet the phylogenetic criteria. ‘Race’ denotes socially constructed units as a function of the incorrect usage of the term.

Race and Reality:

Harrison, Guy (2010). Race and Reality. Amherst: Prometheus Books. “Race is a poor empirical description of the patterns of difference that we encounter within our species. The billions of humans alive today simply do not fit into neat and tidy biological boxes called races. Science has proven this conclusively. The concept of race (…) is not scientific and goes against what is known about our ever-changing and complex biological diversity.”

Roberts, Dorothy (2011). Fatal Invention. London, New York: The New Press. “The genetic differences that exist among populations are characterized by gradual changes across geographic regions, not sharp, categorical distinctions. Groups of people across the globe have varying frequencies of polymorphic genes, which are genes with any of several differing nucleotide sequences. There is no such thing as a set of genes that belongs exclusively to one group and not to another. The clinal, gradually changing nature of geographic genetic difference is complicated further by the migration and mixing that human groups have engaged in since prehistory. Human beings do not fit the zoological definition of race. A mountain of evidence assembled by historians, anthropologists, and biologists proves that race is not and cannot be a natural division of human beings.”

 

[Jon_S_1]

hello I was wondering if someone can tell me what evolutionists explain how there are many races in the world and why they shuldnt have all died out except for one race.

I don’t support evolution but would like to know what there opinion is

I do believe evolution is how God created, and I don’t see why there need be only one race. There are lots of different species of dogs for example not just one species.

And even among a single species such as Homo sapiens, there can be differences in color size and shape just as a Chihuahua can come in a number of colors sizes and shapes.

Subtle differences among humans arise from different environmental factors and their location in the world and show that humans change over time.

I think the real question would be for a young earth creationist to answer how the races developed instantaneously after Noah’s flood.

 

[Miserissima]

I do believe evolution is how God created, and I don’t see why there need be only one race. There are lots of different species of dogs for example not just one species.

And even among a single species such as Homo sapiens, there can be differences in color size and shape just as a Chihuahua can come in a number of colors sizes and shapes.

Subtle differences among humans arise from different environmental factors and their location in the world and show that humans change over time.

I think the real question would be for a young earth creationist to answer how the races developed instantaneously after Noah’s flood.

As I heard from Mormons and JWs, some of Noah’s sons were cursed and given darker skin.

 

[Jon_S_1]

As I heard from Mormons and JWs, some of Noah’s sons were cursed and given darker skin.

That’s just horrible! :banghead::banghead: Not to mention it’s completely made up and has no basis in the Biblical narrative.

What did God do? Come down and make a white son of Noah black. And we have no record of this?

Not to mention it’s not a curse to have dark skin, Noah probably had dark skin, so maybe the whites are the cursed ones if that nonsense is true.

Lord have mercy

 

[Beryllos]

hello I was wondering if someone can tell me what evolutionists explain how there are many races in the world and why they shuldnt have all died out except for one race.

What is it that you think needs explaining? Before you ask why all races shouldn’t have died out except for one race, you need to ask how there came to be different races in the first place. In the view of “evolutionists” as you call them, humans first appeared in one place, maybe Africa, and initially they must have been “racially” uniform because they were interbreeding (or intermarrying if you will) in one geographic area.

Considerable time passed and humans spread over much of the earth. Geographic separation made it possible for humans in separate regions to evolve along different lines. Some differences may have evolved by natural selection (survival of the fittest) according to the demands of different climates and environments. Other differences may have evolved by chance, since the populations were separated by vast distances, mountains, oceans, etc., and there was little or no interbreeding.

By the way, the “creationists” also believe that humans first appeared in one place, and then spread across the world. For Young Earth Creationists, it may be a bit of a stretch for evolution over just a few thousand years to lead to racial differences such as they are today. However, Old Earth Creationists and the like should have no difficulty with it, since the longer time span allows larger variations to evolve.

 

[Miserissima]

That’s just horrible! :banghead::banghead: Not to mention it’s completely made up and has no basis in the Biblical narrative.

What did God do? Come down and make a white son of Noah black. And we have no record of this?

Not to mention it’s not a curse to have dark skin, Noah probably had dark skin, so maybe the whites are the cursed ones if that nonsense is true.

Lord have mercy

It’s called the Curse of Ham.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curse_of_Ham

 

[Ridgerunner]

Geneticists acknowledge that there’s really only one “race”, in terms of “species” of people since people of all “races” are capable of producing fertile offspring with those of all other “races”. It may be of interest to know, for example, that northern Chinese share more DNA with Caucasians than they do with southern Chinese, even though we think of all Chinese as being of the same “race”.

Nevertheless, people are not immune to environmental “survival strategies”. So, for example, white people more readily absorb sunlight through skin, and are better able to manufacture Vitamin D in an environment in which there is less sunlight than in other areas. Those who can’t, die out, and after awhile everybody in relatively sunless places are light skinned. On the other hand, in areas where there’s a lot of sunlight all the time, protection in the form of more skin melanin is needed.

This seems to work even fairly short term. Indo-Europeans are the only people on earth most of whom retain lactose tolerance into adulthood. Indo-Europeans spent thousands of years on the Eurasian steppes as herders. out there, there’s not much of anything to eat except animal products; meat and milk. If you couldn’t digest milk or milk products, you died, so lactose tolerance became the dominant trait over a fairly short period of time, relatively speaking. In places where herding was not the only source of food, lactose tolerance was not so important, and lactose intolerant people survived readily, passing on their genes.

Certainly, in that sense, almost anyone could believe in “evolution”, and ought to, otherwise things like skin color and lactose tolerance are inexplicable. After all, if baby looks like grandpa and not some guy halfway across the world, that’s an inherited or “evolutionary” phenomenon. If all blonde people married only blonde people for generations, all their offspring would be blonde. We see this sort of “evolution” all the time.

(yes I know, it’s not the same thing as “men came from monkeys”, which i’m not addressing in this post)

 

[Joie_de_Vivre]

hello I was wondering if someone can tell me what evolutionists explain how there are many races in the world and why they shuldnt have all died out except for one race.

I don’t support evolution but would like to know what there opinion is

What we think of as race is actually a rather dodgy pseudoscientific social construct.

For example epicanthic folds which people identify as an “East Asian” characteristic are also found in the San people in Southern Africa, the Sami in Northern Finland, many indigenous Amerindians, somewhat common in Irish people (known as “Irish eyes”) and some other Northern European populations.

 

[tabycat]

I always thought there was only one race: the human race.

I do believe evolution is how God created, and I don’t see why
there need be only one race. There are lots of different species of dogs for example not just one species.

And even among a single species such as Homo sapiens, there can be differences in color size and shape just as a Chihuahua can come in a number of colors sizes and shapes.

Subtle differences among humans arise from different environmental factors and their location in the world and show that humans change over time.

I think the real question would be for a young earth creationist to answer how the races developed instantaneously after Noah’s flood.

There is only one species of dog. The main differents between a Chihuahua and a Great Dane is size, not species. BTW, Chihuahuas come in one size: small and yappy!

 

[UbiCaritas15]

Genetically there is no such thing as race; all humans are far more similar than the minor genetic differences between individuals, and those differences do not form statistically significant clusters that would enable us to talks about races with any precision.
Evolution says that there are variations within any population. We observe variations within the human population.

rossum

THANK YOU!!! Just the word race is so aggravating. It isn’t a reality regarding people. It’s just a devise for division.

 

[edwest2]

forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=408684

Ed

 

[oldcelt]

THANK YOU!!! Just the word race is so aggravating. It isn’t a reality regarding people. It’s just a devise for division.

Exactly to those last two posts. A good many in prior posts are confusing the terms Race and species… Race is a created term…even dogs are a single species,just many breeds due to the intervention of mankind. Kind of glad they did…I love black labs,