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The Myth that all humans are 99.9 percent identical

Thread ID: 19771 | Posts: 3 | Started: 2005-08-22

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6KILLER [OP]

2005-08-22 19:07 | User Profile

[size=7][color=blue]The Myth that all humans are 99.9 percent identical[/color][/size]

In a recent scholarly publication entitled:

**[size=5][color=darkred]"Brain Dance: New Discoveries about Human Origins and Brain Evolution:[/color][/size] **

(University Press of Florida, 2002), the authoress, one "Dean" (her title, ** not name) Falk, reminds us that chimpanzees use "tools" to break open ** nut and that they use sounds to communicate in a somewhat limited ** fashion. She continues: **

"...they can enjoy tickling, but they cannot ask profound questions ** - they can never develop beyond the level of a young human child. ** Chimpanzees even have a sense of rhythm and can produce something ** that sounds like jazz. Anatomically, their brains resemble human brains ** to a substantial degree, but the frontal lobes are less developed, and ** so they cannot plan ahead in the same way. There is a difference in the ** amount of association cortex across the entire, so they are less able ** to put things together in a meaningful way ... " **

Interestingly I have in my possession MAINSTREAM works (circa 1850 - ** 1930) on race and anthropology that make precisely identical observations ** regarding the physiological and behavorial differences between the brains ** of Negroes and Caucasians ! **

Poltically correct "scientists" inform us that race is a "social-cultural construct", ** and all living humans are genetically "99.9 identical". No so ! These worthy ** "scientist" are allowing ideological dogmatism to get in the way of the facts. ** In a word, they are LYING to us, and probably to themselves as well. ** As a matter of fact human races exhibit genetic difference ranging from four ** to fifteen percent. Chimpanzees, "our closest living relatives" are said to possess ** a fifteen percent variance from humans gentically. Well, maybe not all 'humans' ** read on.... **

**(from 'Rafonda') **

Here is some research that gives a perspective on the claims that differences ** between human races are genetically insignificant. **

In Number of ancestral human species: a molecular perspective ** D. CURNOE*, and A. THORNE, (in HOMO Vol. 53/3, pp. 201-224) write: **

“Nuclear DNA ** Our analyses using 24 genetic distances provide an estimated speciation rate of ** 1-13 with a mean of 4 for all DNA distances (table 1). Some of the speciation rates ** in table 1 are <1. This results from the fact that some of the distances between ** humans and chimpanzees, when halved, are below those between Africans ** and Asians.” **

Just think about that: some of the genetic differences between Africans and ** Eurasians, are more than half as great as between the consensus human ** **genome and chimpanzees ! **

Compare the research cited above, in regard to the great difference between African ** and Eurasian nuclear and mtDNA, to the deceptive statements by Feldman, as ** **quoted in Discover magazine ( IMO… , posted on site). **

Next, consider how ‘racial’ differences, between Eurasians and sub-Saharan Africans, ** compare to the difference between modern humans and pre-human species of Homo. **

“We estimate the mean distance between H. sapiens and «terminal» H. neanderthalensis ** from 16 distances to be around 0.08%. This is a very small distance and is less than ** half the estimated genetic difference between living sub-Saharan Africans and Eurasians ** (Starr & McMillan 2001). The mean of 8 genetic distances between H. sapiens and H. ** neanderthalensis is 0.026-0.027. This is equivalent to the genetic distance between Papua ** New Guineans and Thais or Na Dene and Indonesians (Cavalli-Sforza et al 1994).” **

So, the difference between the modern human consensus genome, and H. neanderthalensis, ** is less than half the difference between s-S Africans and Eurasians. These are the differences : ** twice as much as the gulf between Hss and Hn , which Lewontin and the race-deniers call ** ‘trivial’! **

**What about the genetic distance to H. erectus ? **

“Homo sapiens and … H. erectus living about 0.3 Ma, … may have shared an ancestor ** around 1.5 Ma (a total divergence time of 2.4 million years). The distance between them as ** determined from the mean of 16 distances may have been around 0.19%. This is about ** equivalent to the estimated genetic difference between living sub-Saharan Africans and ** Eurasians of 0.2% (Starr & McMillan 2001). The mean of 8 other genetic distances ** between H. sapiens and H. erectus is 0.065-0.068. This overlaps the range of distances ** for living humans, with the lower estimate identical to the distance between «Bantu» and ** «Eskimo» (Cavalli-Sforza et al 1994).” **

So, modern Eurasians and s-S Africans are about as genetically distant as modern humans ** are from H. erectus! The authors say erectus and modern humans may have shared a last ** common ancestor about 1.5 million years ago. Notice how that fits with the data on fossil ** mtDNA included on chromosome 11 (see Australian Ancestry ) which also implies that ** African erectus and Eurasians had diverged for more than a million years, before [on my view] ** hybridization between Eurasian sapiens and tropical erectus produced the indigenous populations ** **of Africa and southern Asia. **

Even authors who have, in the past, minimized the importance of racial genetic distinctions ** are now admitting that the shibboleths, ‘race is a social construct’ and ‘we are all the same ** **genetically’ , are just plain wrong. As one reviewer wrote, **

“New support for the existence and significance of group, or racial, differences in medicine comes ** from several contributors to the [then] current Nature Genetics , a leading journal of genetics. This ** already widely noted issue is devoted to the question of whether inherited differences between ** groups should be considered in medical research and treatment, and though various authors deny ** the relevance of such differences, Sarah Tishkoff (University of Maryland) and Kenneth Kidd ** (Yale) in “Implications of biogeography of human populations for race and magazine ” report that ** racial differences indeed exist, while Joanna L. Mountain and Neil Risch, both of Stanford, in ** “Assessing genetic contributions to phenotypic differences between among ‘racial’ and ‘ethnic’ ** **groups,” recognize racial disparities and regard them as important for medical treatment.” **

The reviewer comments that, “The careful (and sometimes cautious) findings of these scholars ** may seem all too obvious, but they are an important corrective, in an authoritative source, to ** efforts to use such recent advances in genetic knowledge as the Genome to obscure the fact and ** the importance of racial differences.” The reviewer continues, writing of a recent Stanford study ** **that … **

“…has found a very close correlation between individuals' racial self-identification and the evidence ** from their DNA. In Genetic Structure, Self-Identified Race/Ethnicity, and Confounding in Case- ** Control Association Studies , which appears in the February 2005 issue of the American Journal ** of Human Genetics , a dozen researchers report that the way the 3,636 individuals studied classified ** themselves racially tallied almost perfectly with their racial type as indicated by 326 signposts in their ** DNA: only 5 participants volunteered a racial identity at variance with that indicated by their genetic ** **material. **

Intriguingly, the study also determined that the DNA of self-identified African-American and Hispanic ** participants, despite their substantial genetic admixture from other racial groups (and despite their ** historical tendencies to identify with other racial groups), jibed with their expressed racial membership ** as often as did those of whites and East Asians. The largest of its kind to date, the Stanford study ** focused on four major racial groupings (white, East Asian, African-American, and Hispanic) and ** was conducted in fifteen locations in the United States and Taiwan. Study leader Neil Risch, ** currently a professor at the University of California at San Francisco, believes that the demonstrated ** ability of prospective patients to accurately specify their group DNA can save time and money ** otherwise spent on painstaking individual genetictesting. … Without knowing how the participants ** had identified themselves, Risch and his team ran the results through a computer program that ** grouped individuals according to patterns of the 326 signposts. This analysis could have resulted ** in any number of different clusters, but only four clear groups turned up. **

And in each case the individuals within those clusters all fell within the same self-identified racial ** group.” Risch said, “people’s self-identified race is a nearly perfect indicator of their genetic ** **background, contradicting the race-as-social-construct view”. **

I commend those authors for having the courage to tell even a little of the truth about this ** PC-censored topic. A paper by Deka, et al., titled: Population genetics of dinucleotide (dC-dA)n. ** (dG-dT)n polymorphisms in world populations (Am J Hum Genet. 1995 Feb;56(2):461-74) is ** both pertinent and long-ignored. **

“We have characterized eight dinucleotide (dC-dA)n.(dG-dT)n repeat loci located on human ** chromosome 13q in eight human populations and in a sample of chimpanzees. Even though there ** is substantial variation in allele frequencies at each locus, at a given locus the most frequent alleles ** are shared by all human populations. … The microsatellite loci examined here are presentand, with ** the exception of the locus D13S197, are polymorphic in the chimpanzees, showing an overlapping ** distribution of allele sizes with those observed in human populations.” **

This study compares the genetic distances of eight human populations (Samoans, North Amerindians, ** South Amerindians, New Guineans, Kachari [Mongolids], Germans, more generalized Caucasians, ** and Sokoto: sub-Saharan Africans from Nigeria) to each other and to chimpanzees. The data were ** analyzed two ways - with Nei's standard genetic distance, and with modified Cavalli-Sforza distance. **

Using Nei's method, the Nigerian-chimp distance was 1.334 +/- 0.375, by far the closest value. ** By the Cavalli-Sforza method, the Sokoto Nigerians were again the closest to chimps (0.539) by a ** large margin. The farthest were again the South Amerindians (0.712), with the Germans (0.680) and ** general Caucasians (0.667) being a very close third and fourth behind the South Amerindians as well ** **as Samoans (0.711) and North Amerindians (0.697). **

So, while the two methods give slightly different orders, in both cases the Nigerians are by far the ** closest group to the chimps. Once again, given the first method, these sub-Saharan Africans were at ** 1.334 while all the other groups ranged from 1.527-1.901, and given the second method they were ** at 0.539 while the other groups ranged from 0.643 (Kachari again) to 0.712. Thus, based on these ** **data, the sub-Saharan African group is genetically closest to chimps. **

Finally, there have been numerous publications asserting that modern humans are 99.9% genetically ** identical. EVEN if that were true, there are so many loci in the human genome that a tenth of a percent ** of them would be MILLIONS! As one of the authors (quoted below) observes, “that could explain ** differences” … NO doubt! **

**However, that 99.9 figure is WRONG. As posted September 8 th , 2004, in World Science : **

“New research casts doubt on the widely accepted belief that humans are 99.9 percent genetically ** identical. That statement has been used to argue that race isn't real. But two new studies suggest that ** **percentage is too high, researchers say … **

“The 99.9 percent number is pure nonsense,” wrote Michael Wigler, of Cold Spring Harbor ** Laboratory, New York, in a recent email. “I will not say anything more about it.” … **

Wigler is a co-author of one of the two studies, which is published in the July 23 advance online ** edition of the prestigious research journal Science . In it, the researchers wrote that they were ** surprised to find large-scale differences in human DNA. “There is considerable structural variation ** in the human genome [genetic code], most of which was not previously apparent,” they wrote . **

Wigler’s group sampled DNA from 20 people from around the world. They detected 76 major ** differences among the people, differences known as copy number polymorphisms. This means that ** **some sections of genetic code are repeated, but the numbers of repetitions vary among people. **

This “could explain why people are different” … said Scherer, whose team reached similar ** findings to those of the Cold Spring Harbor group. **

“At first we were astonished and didn't believe our results because for years we had been ** taught that most variation in DNA was limited to very small changes,” Scherer said. But later, ** he added, he learned Harvard University researchers were making similar observations, so ** the groups combined their data and reached the same conclusion. **

The Cold Spring Harbor team found that these changes affected the code for 70 genes . ** These included genes involved in Cohen syndrome - a form of mental retardation - as well ** as brain development, leukemia, drug resistant forms of breast cancer, regulation of eating ** and body weight. **

That [99.9%] figure has become one of the most prominent pieces of their [“race-isn't real” ** proponents] argument since about four years ago, when the number came out from scientists ** associated with the Human Genome Project, a 13-year program to map the human genetic ** code. **

Lander - a researcher who has been quoted in published reports giving the 99.9 percent figure, ** and who works with the Whitehead Institute in Boston - didn’t respond to phone calls and ** **emails requesting comment for this story. His secretary said he was abroad. **

Also unreachable was Craig Venter, chairman of the Institute for Genomics Research in ** Rockville, Md., U.S.A. He was president of a company whose research produced the 99.9 ** percent figure in 2001, Celera Genomics. He didn't return phone calls or repeated emails. ** ... ** Miami University’s Jon Entine, author of, “Taboo: Why Black Athletes Dominate Sports and ** Why We’re Afraid to Talk About It,” wrote, in an email: **

“Rats are about 95 percent the genetic equivalent of humans. These are ridiculous statements, ** although technically accurate. The use of the 99.9 percent figure by the popular press and ** **scientists is, frankly scandalous. ” **

BlueBonnet

2005-08-23 05:42 | User Profile

interesting read.

RowdyRoddyPiper

2005-08-23 07:25 | User Profile

Does anyone else get a touch of "survivor guilt" when they read about the Neanderthals going extinct? :unsure: