Quote:
Originally Posted by vickyyy?
I think we all began as one family, which is also in the bible. The family got bigger and bigger over a huge period of time and people started spreading out to different places. That's why I think people in different regions all generally look alike. And I don't completely believe the evolution theory because Africans have wide nostrils, but they live on a huge dirt pile in the heat. Europeans have narrow nostrils, but they live in a giant pile of snow.
That's my general idea, but what I can't explain is that if this were true there would be a whole lot of genetic malfunctions.
|
well the thing about genetics is that traits can be kept around simply because they aren't detrimental enough to one's reproductive prospects. or these traits could be considered especially attractive to potential mates and spread that way. selection isn't always about function.
all the genetic evidence suggests that there was a single woman living in africa some 200,000 years ago who passed her mitochondrial dna on to every person living today. since then the expansion and resulting isolation caused groups to diverge genetically somewhat by keeping genetic mutations within the group. by whatever means, some of the traits that grew from these mutations came to be selected for and became predominant within the group. but subsequent mixing was innevitable and no group has ever remained completely isolated for more than a couple thousand years.
in the end race is a purely social construct that can never be adequately defined, but oh man have people tried. there's just so much overlap between all the "races" that any measurements one would make (a favorite was cephalic index, which is the ratio of a skull's maximum width and maximum length) end up meaning nothing on a case-by-case basis. races are nothing more or less than what you make of them. i for one am proud to be part of a most beautifully diverse species