Re: virus: Races

Paul Prestopnik (pjp66259@pegasus.cc.ucf.edu)
Mon, 15 Jun 1998 14:01:35 -0400


Joe E. Dees wrote:

> > Date: Sun, 14 Jun 1998 18:24:47 -0400
> > From: Eric Boyd <6ceb3@qlink.queensu.ca>
> > Organization: Religious Engineers Inc.
> > To: virus@lucifer.com
> > Subject: virus: Races
> > Reply-to: virus@lucifer.com
>
> > Hi,
> >
> > "Michal Kulczycki" <88802@dawid.uni.wroc.pl> wrote:
> > > Don't quit follow. Do you mean that there are no genetical
> > > differences between Japanese and Pole? It is not a _false_
> > > concept. I really don't know why is this matter so emotional.
> >
> > There are differences. This no one denies. However, I think that moving
> > from this to concluding that "races" may be more or less intelligent than
> > other races is a huge leap... we all possess roughly the same brain, after
> > all. In evolutionary terms, races just are not separated enough from each
> > other to have made a significant difference. And to finally settle the
> > issue, I will quote Deborah Blum:
> >
> > "There's about a 15 percent genetic variation between any two
> > individuals," according to science writer Deborah Blum. "Less than
> > half of that, about 6 percent, is accounted for by known racial
> > groupings... A randomly selected white person, therefore, can easily
> > be genetically closer to an African than another white."
> > -- "Race: many biologists argue for discarding the whole concept,"
> > Deborah Blum, The Sacramento Bee, October 18, 1995, p. A12.

Correct me if I am misinformed, but I thought that we shared 98% of our DNA with
other primates, how can there be 15% genetic variation between two humans?-Paul
Prestopnik