2006-09-02 21:52:29 · 4 answers · asked by Anonymous in Arts & Humanities ➔ Other - Arts & Humanities
Strictly speaking races do not exist among humans, we are one race. It was not alway the case. A few thousands of years ago, in Europe, the Homo Sapiens Sapiens (us) was living alongside the Homo Neanderthalis (another species of Humans). This situation lasted about 10 thousand years and the Homo Neanderthalis vanished. It is still dabated whether modern Europeans carry some of the genes of this other type of humans. So far it has not been proved and if we do carry these genes they represent a tiny proportion of our genome.
To go back to you initial question:"is natural selection the force behind human evolution?"
Of course it is, or at least it was for most of the human history. For instance, in Europe during the great plagues in the middle ages, a lot of the survivors had a certain immunity to the disease and therefore Europeans nowadays are much more immune to the plague than their ancestors, say in Roman antiquity, because us modern Europeans are the descendants of those who survived the plague and we have inherited the genes of immunity that helped our ancestors to survive.
2006-09-02 22:08:55 · answer #1 · answered by The High Flying Freedom Frie 3 · 1⤊ 0⤋
"Race" doesn't have any scientific meaning anymore, except the human race, so the question is actually meaningless. Different groups have different appearances depending to a large extent on geographical factors. Those factors are highly dependent on natural selection. The differences in appearance give the bearers a survival edge in their particular environment.
"I do not know of any instances where human "races" cannot interbreed. In genetics, cultural "races" are considered to be merely genetic isolates, and all human genetic isolates are within the same species. So, if a new species of human is found (which wouldn't actually be "human"), then I would believe that "races" between these species could not interbreed. The definition of species is a group of related individuals that can breed and produce fertile offspring.
The reason that you do not see "Eskimos" and "Bushmen" interbreeding is that they come from isolated communities and very different climates and would likely never meet naturally. It has nothing to do with genetics.
The only place I have found information on this topic is through hate-mongering websites that want to perpetuate the myth that one "race" is superior to another: Caucasians differ from Africans by one single base change that causes their skin to be darker (even Caucasians have pigment in their skin-- just not as much). DNA is virtually identical between humans-- hey, even chimps are 99.99% identical to all humans so we must be more identical than that!"
2006-09-05 03:34:05 · answer #2 · answered by peter_lobell 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Evolution is bullsh*t it is a unexplained theory. for example where the hell is the missing link. Evolution is not a proven fact so for it is not true. On the other hand the Bible has info in it that has been proven and more to come.
2006-09-06 17:25:42 · answer #3 · answered by Phil 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Homo Sapiens have only been around for 120,000 years or so. Evolution isn't done with us yet.
2006-09-02 21:57:53 · answer #4 · answered by Jolly1 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋