Race and Physiology

[Guest guest]

Just to make a quick comment, don't we also share about 98% of the same

genes as chimps? This fact should show how profound a 2% difference can be.

I may be way off but that is the conclusion I drew from the following

statement:

>Around 95% of all genetic variation exists within populations. Just 3 to

>5% of variation occurs between different ones, the study finds. " When the

>world is such a fractious place, it's reassuring to think about our

>similarities, " comments Lynn Jorde, a population geneticist at the

>University of Utah in Salt Lake City. "

I don't know much about genetics but even though there have been huge

advancements in genetics, there seems to be more that is unknown than known.

To try to draw such conclusions seems to be a little unfounded since it is

not only how single genes work alone, but how they work together and in

pairs etc. It seems we actually know very little about genetics and have a

long way to go in this field. I am always a little wary when we try to draw

such conclusions from a fairly new and complex science. I read a book a

while ago called " The G Factor " which talked about the different Allele

frequencies between populations, but it has been so long I cannot remember

the actual conclusion.

Any comments?

Bob Forney

San Mateo, Ca

[Guest guest]

Rosemary

I like Diamond's work. I want to point out though as an anthropologist that

even though many people would relate to your piece : " There were actually

some people who went backward froma settled society with crops to one of

hunter-gatherers simply due to the necessity to survive in the environment

in which they found themselves " . My own feeling is that they didn't

necessarily go backwards. If you look at the health aspects, hunter

gatherers were stronger, taller, had more dense bones, very little caries or

anaemia etc, etc as compared to the later agriculturalists that replaced

them. Diamond has written a great piece on this called " The worst mistake

in human history " . I tried to find the reference for it but no luck. You

might find it with a web search.

Also I think the Dolfzine magazine that you edit is excellent

McBride

University of Queensland

Brisbane, Australia

----------

>

> To take this one step farther than the Nature article excerpted by

> Mel, the book " Guns, Germs, and Steel " by Diamond gives some

> interesting reasons why one group of humans advanced over another

> group. In this Pulitzer Prize winning book, Dr. Diamond who is a

> Professor of Physiology at UCLA Medical Center, cites several basic

> reasons. The book is 450 pages long, so obviously I can only give

> an extremely brief highlight. I recommend this excellent book to

> anyone interested in the subject of anthropology.

>

> 1. The east/west axis vs the north/south axis. Because the Fertile

> Crescent, which actually ran from Asia into Western Europe was on

> the same latitude, the climate was very similar. Thus it was easy

> to adapt domesticated plants and animals across this vast distance.

> When you talk North/South, however, the climate changes (and quite

> drastically in certain areas). Thus plants and animals that thrive

> in one area often don't make it in another.

>

> 2. The availability of large domesticatible animals. Even to this

> day, African animals, like zebras and rhinos have never been

> domesticated. They have been tamed on occasion, but not

> domesticated like the goats, sheep and cattle in the Fertile

> Crescent area. And when these animals were moved into different

> areas, they succummed to the local " germs. "

>

> 3. Political control. Dr. Diamond compares the control the Chinese

> emperors had over extremely vast areas as compared to the European

> states which are diversified. A bad decision by the Emperor, like

> no longer allowing ships past a certain point thus curtailing

> exploration, set a huge society back. Contrast this to Columbus who

> ran around to royalty of various countries until he found someone

> who would bankroll his expedition.

>

> As I said, it's impossible to go through all of what is in the book

> in a short post, but Dr. Diamond weaves a tale of 13,000 years of

> human evolution and bases it on various reasons with one meshing

> into the other. However, ethnicity has absoultely nothing to do

> with it. It boils down to being in the right environment at the

> right time. There were actually some people who went backward from

> a settled society with crops to one of hunter-gatherers simply due

> to the necessity to survive in the environment in which they found

> themselves.

>

> Just imagine that suddenly electricity no longer existed and there

> would be none within our lifetimes. It would sure be a different

> world.

* Kindly sign all letters with full name and city if you

wish them to be published

[Guest guest]

McBride wrote:

<< " There were actually some people who went backward from a settled

society with crops to one of

hunter-gatherers simply due to the necessity to survive in the

environment in which they found themselves " . My own feeling is that

they didn't necessarily go backwards. If you look at the health

aspects, hunter gatherers were stronger, taller, had more dense

bones, very little caries or

anaemia etc, etc as compared to the later agriculturalists that

replaced them.

****, first of all, thank you for the nice compliment about

Dolfzine!

Re my statement about " going backward, " Diamond points out what you

said as far as diseases and germs.

The regression from being able to domesticate crops and animals to

reverting to the hunter-gatherer state had different implications.

Granted, packing humans in closely together with each other and

animals (from whom we got a lot of diseases) was bad from that

standpoint. However, it enabled humans to specialize. There were

many who no longer had to worry about finding and preparing food.

Without that problem, they did other things, such as becoming

soldiers, metalurgists, potters, inventors, etc. The business of

control over this mob (whether good or bad) fell to others who then

took the technology and went out to explore and conquer.

As the book points out, the " Collision at Cajamarca " (page 67)

whereby the Inca Emperor and empire (over time) was over run by

Pizarro and his small band because they possessed better body armor,

guns and horses is only one example. We can find examples of this

throughout history. Sometimes the overtaking was more peaceful,

such as the Bantu in Africa sort of swallowing up the Pigmies. I'm

not saying there was no violence; humans never seem to manage much

without it. However, violence also seems to be the human condition.

As Diamond points out, until rather recently in New Guinea, when one

encountered a strange human, the first reaction was to kill. It

seems we have not come very far.

Another very interesting point made in the book is that enlightened

societies have been taken over by barbarians. It seems we are in

just such a struggle right now. One can easily imagine what would

happen to all our technology (space exploration, modern medicine,

quantum physics, etc.) if the current crop of middle eastern fundamentalists

somehow manage to become the driving political force. Although they

are currently using modern technology, I doubt that their regimes

would be able to sustain it or at least not in such a way that it

would be available to the general population. After reading

Diamond's book and getting a quick overview of history in this

manner, I have to wonder if the possible upcoming conflagration is

not warranted just for the fact that we don't want to lose our style

of life. Personally, I don't relish living in a tent, using outdoor

non-plumbing and no electricity.

Rosemary Vernon, Editor

Dolfzine On-Line Fitness, Inc.®

A Not-For-Profit Corporation

www.dolfzine.com

Marina del Rey, CA

IronRoses@...

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