skepticalbip
Contributor
- Joined
- Apr 21, 2004
- Messages
- 7,304
- Basic Beliefs
- Everything we know is wrong (to some degree)
The fact that Native Americans migrated here from Asia was known long before it was further verified by DNA. How did they do that if not by distinguishing characteristics?Absurd claims; those migrations all left clear and well known markers in the mitochondrial pattern of all descendents who have ancestry tying them to it. Those markers are, however, present regardless of apparent "race" and do not correspond predictably to other factors. Like cranial features, which correspond to a lot of things, some genetic and some environmental. I guarantee you that crania, though they can help rule out or make probable determinations of ethnicity if there are already suspects, can seldom assign a "race" with suitable accuracy. You can guess, because the human genome differs geographically (no one denies this) but not within giant, consistent racial pools like those you are imagining. For instance, a rural South African and an Ethiopean, both "black" to an American, likely differ from one another genetically to a much greater degree than the Ethiopean does from you. Genetic variability makes a lot of clusters of unique genes, but those clusters are usually vary small and local, and have no special compulsion to match social and political categories. A lab would likely be to confirm that someone was African by heritage, for instance, if they had gene sets commonly found on that continent. But that doesn't make them genetically identical, or even similar, to other Africans, let alone other people commonly described as "Blacks". They will be asking "where in the world are these genes most commonly found"? Not "in what race are these genes always found?" And bones are even more of a toss-up, considering the plurality of factors that can affect their growth and morphology, only some of which factors are heritable.
Surely you are not claiming that if there are no such identifiable distinctions. Assume that there are four archeological digs around the world and they each come up with 5000 year old skulls. Each packs up 250 skulls and ships them back to their university for study. Somehow, when they got back to the university all 1000 skulls get mixed up in the same large crate. Now all they know is that some were from the dig in Mongolia, some from the dig in Congo, some from the dig in Scotland, and some from the dig is Australia. What do you think the chances are that some anthropologist at the university can correctly sort and identify which dig each and every skull originated? If you think that they can easily sort them then how can you possibly claim that there are no distinguishing differences? It would only be distinguishing characteristics that would make sorting possible.
There are certainly distinguishing differences and there are a hell of of lot more commonalities. But the fact that we all have much, much more in common than we have differences does not mean that there aren't differences.
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