> and plausibly similar changes occurred in other regions
Sure. But did ALL regions change? And did they change to the same destination? When the environments differed so much? It is easy to see how answers (or the questions themselves) could be politically contentious.
> The average european person and the average east asian person are a little bit different genetically, but way less different than any two real europeans or two east-asians are to one another.
This is always touted as an “racism-is-not-only-immoral-it-is-scientifically-wrong” argument, but it is a fallacy.
Example: The average height (a trait with very high heritability) of Dutch men is 6’0 feet (183 cm) and the average height of Philippine men is 5’4 (163 cm). This means the height difference between these two groups is 20 cm. And it is obvious that the difference inside one group MUST be larger, for example there are 6’4 Dutch basketballers but also certainly Dutch 5’2 horse riding jockeys.
And depending on context both of these insights are useful. For example if you manage a basketball team it is much more effective to consider people as individuals, simplified you should hire very tall people (regardless if they are Dutch or Philippines) who can throw precisely a ball into a basket. But the diversity between population groups points to real information too! If you sell shoes to both countries you shouldn’t provide the same one-size-fits-all and assume to catch the same percentage of the market.
Plus the overlap in one metric is expanding into separable clusters the more dimensions are used:
Take a Dutch and Philippine who have the exact same height: Their own respective brothers (heck, even twins) will not be the same perfect match, instead being a bit taller or smaller. But the more variables you consider (weight, muscle composition, leg length, head radius, hand size, form of earlobe .. etc) you will find that holistically seen two brothers truly are much more similar to each other than to a stranger.
A few hundred years ago Europeans were very much shorter too. The Chinese have increased in height within just the last couple of generations. In both cases this isn't because their genes changed, it's because their diets changed. Diet also explains the difference between the Netherlands and the Philippines.
The height thing is a bad example. Generally in genetics you like to focus on things without so many confounding factors. That's why the article focuses on attributes like baldness, MS, and lactose intolerance.
None of what you said refutes the fact that genetic diversity is just as different within two people of the same ethnicity as it is between different ethnicities.
You listed a handful of traits from a handful of genes. And from that you make an argument about relative distributions of entire genomes of entire populations. Do you realize the fact that brothers are genetically similar compared to a stranger in no way implies the similarity or difference of entire populations?
Even the traits you mention are just a handful of physical traits. There are about 20,000 protein encoding genes and 180,000 non-encoding. Protein encoding genes code for the structures in our body. The other 180,000 genes code for all kind of dynamics -- the rna that turns genes to proteins, how proteins are expressed in different cells to make them different cells, how relative expression levels change in response to external stimulus, etc. So, the set of genes to consider is clearly all 200,000 genes and not just the 20,000 protein encoding genes much less the handful of protein encoding genes responsible for something like eye color.
Unfortunately for racists but fortunately for the vast majority, the world is a great big melting pot with all the different ethnicities producing all kinds of variety. So much that the blend complexity long ago surpassed any tiny set of visible trait uniformity.
I honestly don't know how so many people fall for these simplistic illogical racist arguments. But it makes me happy to know that racists are about 200,000 years to late to shove the entire human race into tiny little boxes based on physical traits.
> None of what you said refutes the fact that genetic diversity is just as different within two people of the same ethnicity as it is between different ethnicities.
Note, however, that this does not imply there are not significant genetic differences between different ethnicities. Differences that are selected for will be cloaked in a sea of non-significant differences.
Definitely. I'm not saying there aren't average differences. We literally see different physical traits. But physical traits are a minute fraction of all the complexity that is the human genome. And all of those physical traits are always mixing fluidly between and within groups.
My point is, there are clearly wide swaths of genetic traits that we have in common with any other ethnicity compared to what may be the average of a broad distribution. Humans are inherently mosaic.
Personally I believe it's why our species is so resilient. But that's a stronger statement, so just a belief.
Yes, and there are also wide swaths of genetic traits that we have in common with other species. But it would be senseless to propose we're the same as chimpanzees. The point is it doesn't take much in the way of genetic differences, as a fraction of the total genome, to make a very large difference in phenotype.
Well, if the phenotype or trait due to any random gene was the differentiation between race, species, or anything else besides that specific trait, you might have a point in support of OP. But unfortunately for racist ducks there are so many differences, and similarities, that have nothing to do with hair color or height. Any given swath is it's own mosaic of combinations, no matter what we label it.
I read what you wrote there several times and can't make heads or tails of what you're trying to say. Are you claiming genetic differences aren't why species are different? Are you claiming chimps and humans don't share most of their (protein coding) genes? Are you attacking a strawman where you think the people you are attacking are claiming specific single gene differences are why they claim races are genetically different?
I'll add that "racist ducks" is a bad sign there, since arguments about facts don't have anything to do with motivation, and bringing up motivation is an ad hominem argument. "Argue like this and you are a bad person."
There are a few glazing comments there too though.
> Well he veered off of the technical and into the personal so I'm not surprised it's dead.
I don't know what he posted, but it is easy to see how a small fan group around Laurie can form?
She is an attractive girl not afraid to be cute (which is done so seldom by women in tech that I found a reddit thread trying to triangulate if she is trans. I am not posting that to raise the question, but she piques peoples interest) plus the impressively high effort put into niche topics PLUS the impressively high production value to present all that.
I agree, but also find it funny that by that standard the DRM in the original Google video streaming product was not hacked before the service was shutdown, after about 2 years :)
> Elimination communication (EC) is a practice in which a caregiver uses timing, signals, cues, and intuition to address an infant's need to eliminate waste. Caregivers try to recognize and respond to babies' bodily needs and enable them to urinate and defecate in an appropriate place (e.g. a toilet).
> Keeping babies clean and dry without diapers is standard practice in many cultures throughout the world. While this practice is only recently becoming known in industrialized societies, it remains the dominant method of baby hygiene in non-industrialized ones.
> The terms elimination communication and natural infant hygiene were coined by Ingrid Bauer and are used interchangeably in her book, Diaper Free! The Gentle Wisdom of Natural Infant Hygiene (2001).
I actually know quite a few (a bit hipster) German parents who tried it with good success rate (at least they claim that). It doesn't have to be perfect, but you train regularly with nursing / waking up that the baby urinates with every nursing/waking up. This is possible from day one and they catch on quickly to it.
Sure. But did ALL regions change? And did they change to the same destination? When the environments differed so much? It is easy to see how answers (or the questions themselves) could be politically contentious.
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