Is there a genetic basis for race?
This extremely simple question is important in an objective sense because we wish to understand scientifically the human genetic and cultural heritage. But it is one that has been made difficult to tackle because of all the emotional baggage it drags along with it. Some people fear that studying this question (or worse, actually knowing the answer to it) could lead to harmful biases or discrimination.
While I am sensitive to these fears, I would point out that we already have plenty of racial bias. Learning more about our genetic similarities and differences can hardly be implicated in any future problems we encounter. Luckily, many scientists agree, and have pursued a biological avenue in parallel with the anthropological and archaeological methods that are usually employed to study early humans. And indeed, these genetic mappings point toward an inescapable conclusion:
We cannot tell the difference between any so-called "races" at a genetic level.
What? you say. Surely there is a difference between a Norwegian and a Nigerian. No one would mistake one for being a native in the other's home territory. And any average-sized Westerner who has travelled to China or Japan appreciates that the average size there for humans is notably smaller. (Nor has such a person escaped the sideways glances they get on the subway car for looking so different from average).
No one is saying that humans don't look different. Or that people in sunny places don't need more melanin (on average; there are even some exceptions to this general rule of darkness and lightness). What the evidence does say is that no matter how hard you look, you cannot find a set of genes that exists in Nigerians but not in Norwegians, or vice versa. You can find genes that are more common in one group than the other, but nothing is unique to the point where you could take a genotype and accurately predict the person's "race."
We are more alike than we are different, the world over.
Now, that is not to say that it's not worthwhile to study genetic differences between humans. This information is useful for tracing out the routes by which humans came to cover the Earth over many tens of thousands of years of migration. The other theme of the book is to attempt such a tracing, and here we also find some interesting conclusions.
First, humans came out of Africa. There is little doubt, in the face of many overlapping pieces of evidence, that human life arose only once, in Africa. From there, all the peoples of the world were created by migration, genetic divergence, and subsequent remixing with nearby groups. Sure, North Asians look different from Europeans, and from sub-continental Indians, but at one time, we all looked African. (And now, Africans from different areas can look strikingly different). This divergence is a natural process that occurred over a couple hundred thousand years.
Second, humans didn't just fan out. They fanned back in, and all around. In other words, mixing is the norm. Anytime two groups of humans have come into contact (by normal movement, or even by war), they have eagerly mated. Humans like to mate. Cultural conventions be damned; star-crossed lovers have existed since the beginning of human time-- and they had children. That's how genes from Nigeria can easily be found in Norwegians.
Olson does a cogent job of weaving together the story of human migration and development. You will learn fascinating things like the tale of "mitochondrial Eve" who gave all of us the cell structures that process energy, and the isolated group of Cohen's (the top-ranked Jewish clan, charged with the highest religious functions) that still lives in central Africa. Some sections are speculative, and Olson labels them as such; he is careful to alert the reader to the degree of confidence in each piece of data or theory. There is a highly speculative section on linguistics, however, and the book would have been better without it.
Overall, the message is a needed one. Race is a figment of our perception, and does not exist genetically. Humans came from Africa, and did not somehow evolve simultaneously in different places. People mix easily, making us all mongrels-- our similarities far outweigh our differences. What we will do with this information is far from clear, of course. Nature also made us creatures of clannishness. We prefer our own to others, and will make up reasons why the others are "other." But at least we are becoming more and more sure of how inaccurate such biases are. The book ranks a "+".
Copyright © Kim Allen 2003
