FST in Humans
The International HapMap Project estimated FST for three human populations using SNP data. Across the autosomes, FST was estimated to be 0.12. The significance of this FST value in humans is contentious. As an FST of zero indicates no divergence between populations, whereas an FST of one indicates complete isolation of populations, Anthropologists often cite Lewontin's 1972 work which came to a similar value and interpreted this number as meaning there was little biological differences between human races. On the other hand, while an FST value of 0.12 might be lower than that found between populations of many other species, Henry Harpending pointed out that this value implies on a world scale a "kinship between two individuals of the same human population is equivalent to kinship between grandparent and grandchild or between half siblings".
Read more about this topic: Fixation Index
Famous quotes containing the word humans:
“Here we also see: what this divinity lacks is not only a sense of shame—and there are also other reasons for conjecturing that in several respects all of the gods could learn from us humans. We humans are—more humane.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)