Race and Population Genetic Structure
Modern definitions of what constitute the distinct races of humanity are still rooted in taxonomic classifications first developed in 18th and 19th century Europe, before the later availability of many tools of modern science, in particular population genetics (see descriptions in the article Race (classification of humans). Part of the discussion surrounding the definition of "race" among human beings has overlapped in the past with debates regarding what constitutes a distinct species, known as the "species problem".
Since the 1960s a majority of scientists have come to understand the concept of race as a social construct mapped on to phenotypes in different culturally determined ways, and not as a biological concept. A 2000 study by Celera Genomics found that human beings largely have similar genetic input, and that citizens of any given village in the world, whether in Scotland or Tanzania, hold 90 percent of the genetic variability that humanity has to offer. The study found only .01% of genes account for a person's external appearance. Biological adaptation also plays a role in phenotype of bodily features and skin type. According to Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza, "Skin color and body size are less subject to genetic influence since they are also affected by exposure to the sun and diet, but there is always a hereditary component that can be quite important."
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Famous quotes containing the words race, population, genetic and/or structure:
“This is my father or, maybe,
It is as he was,
A likeness, one of the race of fathers: earth
And sea and air.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“The paid wealth which hundreds in the community acquire in trade, or by the incessant expansions of our population and arts, enchants the eyes of all the rest; the luck of one is the hope of thousands, and the bribe acts like the neighborhood of a gold mine to impoverish the farm, the school, the church, the house, and the very body and feature of man.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“We cannot think of a legitimate argument why ... whites and blacks need be affected by the knowledge that an aggregate difference in measured intelligence is genetic instead of environmental.... Given a chance, each clan ... will encounter the world with confidence in its own worth and, most importantly, will be unconcerned about comparing its accomplishments line-by-line with those of any other clan. This is wise ethnocentricism.”
—Richard Herrnstein (1930–1994)
“Man is more disposed to domination than freedom; and a structure of dominion not only gladdens the eye of the master who rears and protects it, but even its servants are uplifted by the thought that they are members of a whole, which rises high above the life and strength of single generations.”
—Karl Wilhelm Von Humboldt (1767–1835)