Genetic genocide?

Question

I read that there is a virus being developed that only attacks people of a certain race.

What do you think the world would be like if say for instance everybody got wiped out apart from one race.
Example
If it was only black people left would the world be a more laid back place?

Lets hear your examples!!

Answer 1

I'd love to hear where you got that... it sounds VERY FISHY in the first place. But if it did happen, I don't think that would matter much - that is, for "world peace". People can always find a reason to hate one another, and race is just one of those nonsense reasons. For instance, I live in a country where you can earn the honourable title of "traitor" simply by not having a certain political orientation... and often members of your own family will look down on you just because you don't vote for the same party they do.
So I don't know what effect wiping out all but one races would have on the world (just a side-note: ask any genetics pro, and they'll probably tell you that "black" people - more precisely, people from south of the Sahara desert - are genetically more diverse than all other people on earth put together. So much for races...), but I'm still pretty sure that the human race won't get any more sensible on average :(

Answer 2

It is very difficult to genetically distinguish between races with any degree of precision. There is no single gene or even set of genes that you can use that would correspond identically with the results of a race-sorting exercise based on expressed characteristics. Races are not genetically-defined entities in any simple sense, and culture and environment play a large part in shaping the sub-groups of humanity that we like to draw circles around and call seperate races.

You could possibly create a deadly virus that targets specific genetic characteristics that loosely correspond with certain races. However, it seems likely that this virus would soon mutate into a form that will be equally deadly to people other than its intended target, and its mutated offshoots would wipe out the whole human race.

The world with only one race? Well, as race is a fairly artificial concept anyway, the question has little meaning. Skin colour is most typically used to define race, but skin colour is an evolutionary adaptation to local climate conditions. In the stone age darker skin made a slight difference to a person's chance of survival in hot, sunny climes, and thus it was favoured by natural selection. The converse was true for lighter shades of skin.

A human population can change its skin colour in as little as 5,000 years due to selection pressure. Hence the arguments about whether the ancient egyptians were black-skinned or not are irrelevant to whether the modern egyptians are descended from them.

Nowadays these minute selection pressures make virtually no difference at all in humans.

A good example of selection pressure at work causing skin colour change is the peppered moth, a species whose skin has changed colour twice during the past two hundred years:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/peppered_mo...

Note that the selection pressure here is much more aggressive than in humans as it is based on predation rather than mere health issues. And the peppered moth has a much shorter generational cycle than humans, hence the very rapid evolution that has occurred.

Answer 3

I doubt such a thing is possible, certainly with todays technology. Excluding the monumental ethical and sociological arguments and looking purely at the science of if: different races are all of the same genetic pool, differences noted genetically tend to be limited to issues such as one race having a higher incidence of a particular version of a gene (allele).

This means that although race a has more of a particular version of a gene, that version is not exclusive to that race. Therefore a virus designed in such a way is more likely to affect people for all races, but perhaps hit a particular race a little harder.

I hope no-one ever commits any more time, thought or money to such a fucked up idea than what exists in this thread.

Answer 4

I don't think that human technology is that advanced to conduct such an experiment. Of course, if something like this was possible, it would most likely be done in a country that would have the capabilities to do this, such as the U.S., Russia, the European countries, Canada, Japan, and maybe China.
If one of these countries would try to do this, who do you think they would use it on? Would the white dominated countries wipe out the non-whites? Would the Chinese wipe out the non-Asians? Could the African countries develop something like this someday? What about those of mixed race? How would it affect them?
As far as I see it, all cultural populations are still increasing, so I doubt this is happening at all.

Answer 5

Look's like JESI is at it again, calling herself AFWife now.

Let's see...She says "if there were only black people left the world would be a VERY dangerous place, have you seen Africa??? there isn't one country over there that is doing well, they are very violent and selfish over there, imagine if that was what was left in the world?"

The world would be MUCH worse off if it were populated only with people like you.

Girl, why are you soooo painfully ignorant? And you claim to have a Black friend?!

Can you not see how Africa has been decimated by Europeans?!

So sad.

Answer 6

Hmm.. I'm not a geneticist.. but I have done some genetic modules in my time at uni and i'd say that to develop a virus like that will be more difficult than you think. Genetically, there is nothing that distinguishes the races. Choosing a gene to target will only be one of the many difficult hurdles the virologist inventing it will have to go through.
There are viruses out there which can modify genes. However, to make a virus that can identify a particular gene or set of genes, and than proceed to kill the person IF he/she contains of genes will be too complicated to do in the near future. I'm not saying its impossible, just complicated. Technically, there may be ways of doing it... but the virologist/geneticist concerned will have to do many many many years of research, and have huge amounts of money to accomplish it.

Answer 7

Simply to put, most likely not.
Even if there's one type of race, it still be divided by regions, ideal/politic, religion, physical shape, and etc.
Watch the movie, "Hotel Rwanda" you will probably get the idea what I mean. They are same people from one country, but divided by their origin of ancestry/political hatred from the past/grudges left from selective benefit that lead to genocide of Tutsi.

There's really no end to it really.

Answer 8

There would be just as much violence in the world. Just like catholics and protestants and sunnis and shiites of the same race kill each others. To me it looks like same race vlolence is even worse.

Answer 9

if there were only blacks, cliche theory mght eork snd we would all be funky and good dancers and make better music everyday. and sports like badmington and tennis would probably dissapear, but anyway there are so many subtypes of black people , if I could choose it would be lovely if only eritreans and niger and nigerian people were left. mmmmmmmm forgot to mention the massai

Answer 10

if there were only black people left the world would be a VERY dangerous place, have you seen Africa??? there isn't one country over there that is doing well, they are very violent and selfish over there, imagine if that was what was left in the world?