David Brown, Washington Post, June 22, 2009
{snip}
All of Earth’s people, according to a new analysis of the genomes of 53 populations, fall into just three genetic groups. They are the products of the first and most important journey our species made — the walk out of Africa about 70,000 years ago by a small fraction of ancestral Homo sapiens.
One group is the African. It contains the descendants of the original humans who emerged in East Africa about 200,000 years ago. The second is the Eurasian, encompassing the natives of Europe, the Middle East and Southwest Asia (east to about Pakistan). The third is the East Asian, the inhabitants of Asia, Japan and Southeast Asia, and — thanks to the Bering Land Bridge and island-hopping in the South Pacific — of the Americas and Oceania as well.
The existence of this ancient divergence has long been known.
What is new is a subtle but important insight into what happened on a genomic level as the human species spilled across the landscape, eventually occupying every habitable part of the planet.
People adapted to what they encountered the way all living organisms do: through natural selection. A small fraction of the mutations constantly creeping into our genes happened by chance to prove beneficial in the new circumstances outside the African homeland. Those included differences in climate, altitude, latitude, food availability, parasites, infectious diseases and lots of other things.
{snip}
Scientists have long known that regardless of ancestral home or ethnic group, everyone’s genes are pretty much alike. We’re all Homo sapiens. Everything else is pretty much details.
Recent research has produced a surprise, however. Population geneticists expected to find dramatic differences as they got a look at the full genomes—about 25,000 genes—of people of widely varying ethnic and geographic backgrounds. Specifically, they expected to find that many ethnic groups would have derived alleles that their members shared but that were uncommon or nonexistent in other groups. Each regional, ethnic group or latitude was thought to have a genomic “signature”—the record of its recent evolution through natural selection.
But as analyses of genomes from dozens of distinct populations have rolled in—French, Bantu, Palestinian, Yakut, Japanese—that’s not what scientists have found. Dramatic genome variation among populations turns out to be extremely rare.
Instead, it is “random genetic drift” that appears to be more important in sculpting our genes. Drift describes the chance loss of genetic variation that occurred not only in the out-of-Africa migration, but through all of human history as famine, climate change or war caused populations to crash and then recover.
Despite those calamities, it appears that all contemporary populations ended up largely the same, or only crudely distinguishable from one another, on the genome level.
Of course, small variations can result in dramatic differences. Skin color is perhaps the most obvious.
{snip}
Among West Africans, a chance mutation in the blood protein hemoglobin turned out to partially protect against malaria. It rapidly became common in places where malaria was a huge threat to survival. Similarly, a mutation allowing adults to digest milk became valuable when Middle Easterners and Europeans domesticated cattle. About 90 percent of Scandinavians now carry it.
Such clear ethnic distinctions are the exception, however, defying the expectations of many researchers. That may have been a product of the way scientists have studied genes over the last century.
{snip}
“When it comes to the question, ‘What is the main process by which adaptation is happening?’, the answers may be very different for humans and flies,” said Jonathan K. Pritchard, a computational biologist at the University of Chicago. He is the senior author of a paper on the subject this month in the online journal PLoS Genetics.
{snip}
The short stature of rain-forest dwellers such as the pygmies of central Africa, for example, appears not to be the product of a single derived allele for shortness carried by virtually everyone in the population. Instead, dozens of gene variants that slightly decrease height have each become slightly more common, and it is their total effect that results in the group’s dramatically shorter stature.
{snip}
When a small number of people left Africa 70,000 years ago, they carried with them only a sample of the genetic diversity that had evolved on that continent in the preceding 130,000 years.
When the descendants of those migrants in turn divided into two groups 40,000 years ago, the westward-turning Eurasians and the eastward-turning East Asians each took by chance only some of the genetic diversity of their forebears.
As a result, African populations today have greater genetic diversity—more variants in more genes—than Eurasians or East Asians, and Eurasians somewhat more than East Asians.
{snip}
[Editor’s Note: PloS Genetics is available on-line here.
Original article
(Posted on June 22, 2009)
Comments
“One group is the African. It contains the descendants of the original humans who emerged in East Africa about 200,000 years ago.”
I don’t believe this myself. I have yet to see any theory of genetic drift that would explain how different groups of black Africans evolved into whites and asians.
Personally, I think that caucasoids, africans and asians all have a common NON-HUMAN primate ancestor which probably originated in Africa and radiated throughout Europe and Asia long before different branches evolved into different sub-species of humans.
Amazing. Even when describing proof positive to the contrary, the PC establishment attempts to spin this as the (now heavily discredited) “out of africa” theory.
Human remains have been found from thousands and thousands of years earlier than the theory states the migration took place. And for one simple reason. Humans did NOT originate in africa. Black people originated in africa and the other races did not come from them. Whites originated elsewhere and asians originated still somewhere else. In a way, we are three distinct species….not races at all. But like dogs can interbreed with wolves, despite being completely seperate species, humans can breed with blacks etc.
But just because it can happen, doesn’t mean it should. The outcome is not a positive event. And just like the dog/wolf hybrid, more often then not, the result turns out to be feral.
“As a result, African populations today have greater genetic diversity—more variants in more genes—than Eurasians or East Asians, and Eurasians somewhat more than East Asians.”
And so we have it: Africans represent “diversity” more than anybody else. This must be why leftists the world over are aggressively working to make the whole world African. The murder and mayhem that results doesn’t bother them, of course; after all, they live in gated communities and have personal security guards.
“Everything else is pretty much details.”
There you have the great lie of race being a figment of the White/Western imagination boiled down to an assertion as devilishly ludicrous and deceitful as it is simplistic and ridiculous. Those “details” explain the differences between civilization and savagery - between historical success and failure as racial-groups competing in the evolutionary struggles of mankind! “Detail??” Indeed!!
“Of course, small variations can result in dramatic differences. Skin color is perhaps the most obvious.”
Precisely. Humans are very similar to chimpanzees at the genetic level. But, the 1-2% is the reason for the vast differences in achievement between humans and chimpanzees. Likewise, human races are ‘similar’, when looked at from this perspective. But, that doesn’t mean that the differences are trivial, just because there is an ‘underlying’ similarity. Why is it difficult to believe that a .1% difference between the human races is the reason for the unequal levels of historical achievement and civilization between them? Hence, the differences explain the peculiar history of certain East Asian ethnic groups, the Germanic European groups, the Slavic groups, Latin European groups, etc. And then, even within these larger ethnies there are differences, i.e. Japanese and Chinese among the Asians, Anglo-Saxons and Franks among the Germanics, etc.
BTW, I think that ‘skin color’ isn’t nearly as ‘obvious’ as other differences, such as historical achievement.
Lol, yes, and those details are ‘obviously’ quite important, for anyone with more than an elementary education in history. What does one make of all the division and conflict throughout history, if these things are just minor details? Talk about misrepresentation.
Plus, it’t not just about being ‘homo sapiens’. Everything in nature is a matter of degree, not ‘kind’ in an absolutist sense. Every generation is its own degree; no two generations are ever the same, because of differential fertility, which results in different gene pools. The population of Japan today isn’t exactly the same as it was 200 years ago. That would be impossible. It is always different, based on who procreates.
I tried saying this before, but it was never posted, whites are white and our next of kin are the Asians.
If you take a genetic test it will blow your mind how diverse whites are and still are white.
Second if you read the history of genetics and migration we are cousins to Asians = Eurasian. R1b R1a comes from central Asia and many asians have R1b genetic marker……… It is the predominate marker of Europe!
Third I1a is a sub clad of IJ = I and J = F = fertile crescent is only found in Scandinavia associated with vikings = possible vikingjews??? Also it was the fertile crescent that domesticated in this article they even say 90% of Scandi can handle milk correlation ………?
“African populations today have greater genetic diversity—more variants in more genes—than Eurasians or East Asians, and Eurasians somewhat more than East Asians.”
Does this mean that perhaps, just perhaps, what we see and hear everyday….what we know from the time we are 3 or 4 years old….that there are distinct races of man?
“But like dogs can interbreed with wolves, despite being completely seperate species”
Actually, wolves and dogs are now considered to be the same species, Canis Lupus.
“When the descendants of those migrants in turn divided into two groups 40,000 years ago, the westward-turning Eurasians and the eastward-turning East Asians each took by chance only some of the genetic diversity of their forebears.”
I’ve always thought that the original people who left Africa thousands of years ago (if this is indeed true)took the BEST genes with them. Look at it this way: you have a family that’s been in the same house for generations. One child leaves home and travels all over the world. The other children in this same family are born, live and die in this same house. They never leave home. They never travel more than a few miles away, and only when they absolutely have to. Can you picture the difference in personality, intelligence, and ambition between the child who globe-trotted and the ones who never left home? Africans are the epitome of the “child that never left home”. Those kind of people are never destined for greatness. They merely exist, unnoticed and unaccomplished and seething with jealousy for the brethren that left home.
“But, the 1-2% is the reason for the vast differences in achievement between humans and chimpanzees. Likewise, human races are ‘similar’, when looked at from this perspective. But, that doesn’t mean that the differences are trivial, just because there is an ‘underlying’ similarity. Why is it difficult to believe that a .1% difference between the human races is the reason for the unequal levels of historical achievement and civilization between them?”
Your “.1% difference” isn’t doing much to preserve the white culture or even the white ‘genome’. Yet the other races seem to have no problem with that.
I tried saying this before, but it was never posted, whites are white and our next of kin are the Asians.
If you take a genetic test it will blow your mind how diverse whites are and still are white.
“Second if you read the history of genetics and migration we are cousins to Asians = Eurasian. R1b R1a comes from central Asia and many asians have R1b genetic marker……… It is the predominate marker of Europe!
Third I1a is a sub clad of IJ = I and J = F = fertile crescent is only found in Scandinavia associated with vikings = possible vikingjews??? Also it was the fertile crescent that domesticated in this article they even say 90% of Scandi can handle milk correlation ………?”
Haplogroup R also comes from Haplogroup F I might add.
“African populations today have greater genetic diversity—more variants in more genes—than Eurasians or East Asians, and Eurasians somewhat more than East Asians.”
With regards to evolution and adaptation……………….
ladies and gentlemen the latest model of man is in the mirror. As of GOD and Nature.
Interesting. I would say there are four races, adding Australian Aboriginals as the fourth. Then there are the Dravidians of India. Are they Caucasian? Not sure.
The civil-rights era myth of all men being the same beneath the skin has been scientifically and unassailably debunked.
I’m not holding my breath that elementary schools will begin teaching ‘three-race’ science immediately. It’s too subversive.
The origin of the human along with the different races, as it should be, is a ever a lingering question. To find the true facts look into a book titled The Urantia Book. Yes, as the other comments have stated, the other races and the first human beings did not come from the black race. And the first human beings did not originate from Africa. The blacks went into Africa from India. Unfortunately, these incorrect theories are spun by people who hold high academic positions so the average person tend to accept them as truth.
The things that are being talked about on these posts are good arguments against what this Washington Post article is saying. The facts are on our side. The only trouble is the Washington Post and the rest of the MSM reach millions more people than we can so the white race is being slowly brain washed into interbreeding itself into extinction and letting nonwhites takeover their countries.
I am going to have to read the full paper, I guess - because I don’t see how a population that remains where it is can be more genetically diversified than one that migrated to new regions and further mutated (evolved) to adapt to those conditions. It just seems to me that they would have more genetic variants than a homebody set of genetics.
The malaria mutation in Blacks is well known among health care providers. It is that mutation that helps Blacks resist malaria, but that later can lead to Sickle Cell Anemia. And why haven’t Blacks developed a genetic compensation for the problem that too much melanin poses when they migrate to more shadier, northern (or extreme Southern) regions?
Fact is that the Hapmap project proved that a 12% genetic difference exists between the races.
Here are some articles about it.http://news.softpedia.com/news/12-of-the-DNA-Differs-Amongst-Human-Races-and-Populations-40872.shtml http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6174510.stm http://news.softpedia.com/news/Breakthrough-First-Individual-Human-Genome-Decoded-64522.shtml http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/11/061122-human-genetics.html
And here are the genetic STUDIES that proof this.http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v444/n7118/full/nature05329.html http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v444/n7118/fig_tab/nature05329_F7.html http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2006Natur.444..444R
Fact is that the original human genome project that concluded in 2001 that all humans are 99.9% identical was fatally flawed, in that it only had one human genome that was made up of multiple different donors, which means that you cannot make any objective conclusions.
The Hapmap (2006) on the other hand took 270 genomes from 270 individuals from different population groups and compared them and found huge genetic differences between the races.
What one should rather ask, is why is this data and scientific studies mostly ignored by the main stream media?
What could their agenda be????
The author of this article reminds me of Spencer Wells. I don’t know how many of you have read his books. He spends half the time telling you interesting facts about human genomic differences and then the other half telling you how inconsequential it all is.
What other area of science exists where its proponents constantly demean the importance of their own work???
Apropos of nothing, supposedly there’s more genetic diversity in a single band of chimpanzees than in the whole human race, Africa included. Meaning that the whole human race also was squeezed at some point in our evolution.
Taken two anthropology courses, I’ve never understood how the most homogeneous races are the most “genetically diverse”. Apparently, blacks are the most diverse followed by Asian Mongoloids. Yet, nearly 100% of blacks have the the same nose, eyes, mouth, chin, hair texture, hair color, eye color, etc, with subtle deviances. Asians are just as homogeneous, not only in appearance but in demeanor. Look at the differences between white people’s personalities. And the dramatic differences in nose shape, mouth shape, eyes, hair texture, color, skin tone, etc. It’s PC incorrect to discuss this diversity but I can’t help but wonder about it.
“I would say there are four races, adding Australian Aboriginals as the fourth. Then there are the Dravidians of India. Are they Caucasian? Not sure.”
According to genetic researcher Luigi Cavalli-Sforza and author Michael Hart, there is indeed a fourth race - one that Hart refers to as “Austronesian” or “Australoid”. This group includes the Australian Aborigines, the African-looking inhabitants of New Guinea, and even the Taiwanese Aborigines and the Ainu of Japan. They were descended from a group that migrated out of Africa, but mostly never made it colder climates. The original inhabitants of India were of this race as well, but were mostly swamped by waves of invading Caucasoids. The current inhabitants of India are Caucasoid-Australoid hybrids, while Southeast Asians (Vietnam, Indonesia, etc..) are Mongoloid-Australoid hybrids
Which introductory authoritative publication into this topic is suitable for the intelligent layman? The researchers, funded by whom, and why the ‘out of Africa’ theory?
And any authoritative contrary publications?
Where would the Indo-Germanic migration from the North, as described by the science of the spade, fit in (it was not a migration to the North)?
And the analysis of different language groups and grammatical uniqueness? Why would it not be possible that the races could be far more stable and unchangeable despite natural selection and evolution since their unknown beginnings?
Any web links?
I feel compelled to comment on the assertion that there is a 1-2% difference, genetically, between humans and chimpanzees.
This is incorrect. Of the 6 percent of DNA that we share with chimpanzees, 1-2% (of that 6 percent) is similar.
Also, the article states that there are three races. I recently read that scientists have decided that there is a fourth race, Australian aborigines. Aboriginal skeletal and facial structure is nearly identical to Homo erectus. In fact, my anthropology teacher in college referred to them as “an excellent proxy for Homo erectus.” Average IQ: 54.
25 — Lygeia wrote at 5:29 PM on June 23:
“I feel compelled to comment on the assertion that there is a 1-2% difference, genetically, between humans and chimpanzees.”
The bottom line is that the differences between humans and chimpanzees can be viewed from a similar standpoint as the differences between human races. As I’ve said, evolution is about degree, because every generation is only a temporary representation of a specific species. The gap between human beings and chimps, whatever it may look like on the genetic level, is clearly the reason for the differences in cultural and civilizational achievement. Similarly, the gaps between the various human races also provide insight into their historical track records of achievement and their civilizational profiles.
A more likely scenario: Homo Erectus left Africa a million
African4 wrote at 3:11 AM on June 23:
“Fact is that the Hapmap project proved that a 12% genetic difference exists between the races.”
The articles you linked and other scientific analysis might suggest that while some people may think that the difference between the races is greater than previously guessed, the real meaning of this is the divergenience that occurs after the genetics guarantee that a primate will have two arms, two legs, five toes, five fingers, two eyes, … etc. The crucial differences are more subtle and do not require the gigantic dna substructures that are common to all mamals and primates. But they make all the difference.
A previous post:
I believe more understanding needs to be put into this theory. The differences between races while present, must not be that great. We all evolved from the same “chimp” that much is clear, otherwise the “races” would be different, but similar species, which would mean people of mixed raced cannot have children (which they evidently can). This must have also happened at roughly the same time, otherwise we witness a situation similar to cassowaries and ostriches, who share a common ancestor, but a quite different. Therefore a “focal point” is the most tempting explanation for the origin of man, this happens to be Africa, after all chimpanzees or other primates weren’t found in Asia or the Americas; some present in Europe, but on the whole, Africa was the home of the chimp (as it still is). It therefore only makes sense that all races “migrated or stayed” in Africa and went on to develop their own features (but not so much that their different, a bit like breeds of dog I suppose). I await a more plausible explanation.
There is only one active gene that distinguishes men from women — testis determining factor. But that one little gene makes a heck of a lot of difference. So even if the races differ only in a tiny fraction of their genes the fact remains that we can see with our own lying eyes that there are differences among them that matter, and go well beyond skin color.
