An Essay review of "A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived," by Adam Rutherford
Racial History through a microscope
As seen through the microscope of the gnome project, circa 2000, the history of the human race presents a much more subtle and nuanced picture of the effects of migration and interbreeding on the evolution and meaning of human differences.
Rutherford's graphic depiction of complex migration patterns over the past 200,000 years, not only shows dramatically and conclusively that homo sapients are all children of Africa. But also that migration and interbreeding patterns are dense, extremely convoluted and complex.
Arguably, the eugenicists' hope a century ago was that race, as defined by genes, would be the holy grail for explaining (or explaining away) the meaning of all human differences. And while it is obvious that this hope went badly awry, suffice it to say that the science of genes on display at least since the year 2000, gives us a very different story of genetic differences than that taught for the past half millennium. But that work is nowhere near completion yet. Much more is sure to come.
The confounding complexity of interbreeding and migratory patterns may never be completely sorted out altogether. However, on the issue of race (chapter 5), a consensus has emerged, with no ambiguity: Biologically there is no such thing as race. No "race gene" has been found so far in the human genome.
Which of course is not a new finding. Puzzling study results over the last three decades had begun trickling in. Raising red flags when in-group genetic differences among non-African races consistently began showing up as much smaller than their respective differences with Africans. However, even more puzzling was the fact that the converse was not true. Genetic variation among Africans remained consistently larger than with any other racial group?
There could be only one answer to this double-barreled skewed conundrum.
And Rutherford's research here resolves it all cleanly and dramatically: Not only did homo sapiens migrate out of Africa (where they evolved to populate the rest of the world). But also, and more importantly, it was only two-percent of Africans that migrated out.
In short, the tightly interbred multi-racial modern world we see today, evolved directly from the two-percent of Africans that migrated out of Africa.
Little wonder then that there would be studies showing less genetic variation within the races created from this migrated two-percent of Africans, than of the ninety-eight percent of Africans that remained on the continent.
The author's findings are so well documented and air-tight that it leaves no wiggle room (or cover) to those who wish to still maintain that skin color is a difference-defining biological parameter. It simply is not.
Further to this point, Rutherford's data show that eighty-five percent of human variation, by blood groups, is seen within the same racial groups. Of the remaining 15 percent, only 8 percent is accounted for by differences between one racial group and another.
To drive a final nail into the coffin of biological racism. He reports that only two genes in our gnome appear that are due entirely to geographic adaptation: skin color and lactose intolerance.
Which, when transposed across time into our modern day race-based context, introduces the absurdity that since skin color and lactose intolerance lie on the same genetic plane. Maybe hatred of people unable to digest cow milk should be equivalent to hating them for having a larger amount of melanin in their skin? Four stars
(Article changed on Aug 23, 2023 at 7:35 AM EDT)
