Human Races

My Professor's Suggestions / Critics

Since long distance travel was less prevalent when humans first evolved

- This comment was made in regards to my quote that humans have been in conflict with each since the dawn of time.

According to whom

? - This comment was made when I said Boa's assessments are widely believed to be true and common knowledge by scientific community.

Need to Define

- Suggestion was made to define narrow sense hertiability.

Jantz and Sparks are just saying cranial shape is genetic. Natural selection can bring about different frequencies of skeletal shapes in different regions without necessarily being "races"

- That comment was made in regards to my assertion that Corey and Jantz disagree with my assessment that genetically humans are a lot more similar than different.

I agree with your conclusion, but you could have found better sources for this paper (for example, I didn't want non-journal internet sources). Plus, I wasn't convinced that Jantz and Sparks believed in biological races.

I didn't find how you related the articles to one another (i.e. you never said why its relevant to compare a genetic study on race to an article seeking retest of the earliest studies in American Anthropology). I read like concepts thrown together.

The above two paragraphs were final comments on the overall article made by the professor.

The paper is written below.

The goal of this paper is to compare different articles that support or disapprove differences in humanity. Ever since the start of humanity, we have been at conflict with each other on the basis of skin color. People used "skin color" as a means to justify wars, slavery, genocide, and many other atrocities throughout humanity. There are those who support the theory of differences in humanity, and those who see it as nothing more than a political construction to exploit people. In this, we will look into articles that support the belief that there are different races in humanity and how they arrived to that conclusion and the various methods they used. We will also look into articles that disapprove human races theory. We will compare and analyze the methods they used to achieve their theory that human races are nothing more than culture construction and the physical differences they have are due to geographical differences.

We will now examine an article from Today's Science - Races in the Genes, which disapprove the differences between human races. The article states that the genetic differences between human races are negligible and that the differences between 2 people of one country could be as varied as difference of two people from different parts of the world.

According to a study published in the journal Science, there are 5 different groups in humanity throughout the world. The five major groups are Africans, Europeans and Middle Easterners, East Asians, Melanesians (South Pacific Islander), and the American Indian populations. All the major different groups correspond to different geographical regions of the world. Genetically, humans are more similar to each other and the differences that exist are due to their different geographical locations (Rosenberg et al 2004).

The study reached its conclusion that humans are genetically similar through the use of Human Genome Project. The human genome project goal was to study all human genes in DNA, store that information in databases, improve tools for data analysis, transfer related technologies to the private sector, and address the ethical, legal and social issues that may arise from the project.

The study conducted examinations of different human populations for the Human Genome Project. They examined over 1000 individuals from 50 different countries - The Basques and Italians from Europe, Bedouins and Palestinians from the Middle East, Sindhis and Kabashes from Central and Southeastern Asia, Mongolians and Japanese from East Asia, Melanesians and Papuans from Oceania, and Colombians and Mayans from the Americas.

The team found out that the genetic variations among were people were irrelevant and that it did not even allow scientists to distinguish different human populations. Therefore, you won't be able to tell what country or geographical location a person comes from by examining the genetic differences. It also found out that only 5% of genetic variations could be linked to different geographical factors.

Now that we have found that the differences between human races genetically are irrelevant, we will now examine findings of Corey S. Sparks and Richard L. Jantz who disapproved a widely accepted belief that environment can affect cranial form. Their new findings have found that Boas' assessment regarding environmental factors were statistically inaccurate.

Corey S. Sparks and Richard L. Jantz investigated Boas' assessment that human body responds to changes in environment. What they have found was that the findings of Boa were statistically inaccurate. Franz Boas published study in 1912 that said that environment could modify cranial morphology extensively. He studied American born and European born immigrants and came to the conclusion that prolonged effect of the environment on cranial form is significant. Boas' findings were based on the analysis of anthropometrics data collected between 1909 and 1910. These new findings are important because, Boas' assessments are widely believed to be true and common knowledge by the scientific community and used for refuting racist anthropological arguments.

Sparks and Jantz used modern statistical and quantitative genetic framework to achieve accuracy of their findings. The data they used consisted of head and face measurements on over 8000 individuals of various European ethnic groups. By using pedigree information contained in Boas' data, narrow sense habitability was estimated by the method of maximum likelihood. In addition, a series of t tests and regression analysis were performed to determine statistical validity of Boas' original findings on differentiation between American and European-born children and the prolonged effect of the environment on cranial form. Results indicated the relatively high genetic component of the head and face diameters despite the environmental differences during development. Their results pointed to very small and insignificant differences between European and American-born offspring, and no effect of exposure to the American environment on the cranial index in children. These results contradicted Boas' original findings and demonstrated that they may no longer be used to support arguments of plasticity in cranial morphology (Sparks Corey and Jantz Richard 2004).

Corey and Jantz used data from Boas anthropometrics measurements taken from 1909 to 1910 on approximately 13,000 European-born immigrants and their American-born children in New York area. To replicate Boas findings the team used uni-variate t tests and least-squared regressions. These tests were used to assess differentiations in the three raw cranial variables and the cranial index between same-age European and American-born children. Least-squares regression is used to test the effect of the duration of environmental exposure on the cranial index. Boas claimed that there were dramatic effects on cranial form depending on the time of exposure to the American environment. For the European-born children, age and environmental exposure were both entered into a multiple-regression model, and type II sums of squares were used to test for the partial regression effects. A two-factor ANOVA model with interaction was used to test for ethnic group and birthplace on all cranial variables and the cranial index.

The team found out that all significant differences were in Hebrew sample, with general reduction in cranial index in American-born children between 7 and 14 years of age. The team also found out that there was slight increase in cranial index in response to duration of American residence in Scottish males. The team assessed that predominant trend in the data suggested a much more significant effect of age on the cranial index rather than of duration of American residence, which suggested an overall stability of the cranial index in response to changing environment and failed to support the propositions of Boas, results of ANOVA also showed that Boas assessments were in error.

According to the study, "Uncritical acceptance of his findings has resulted in 90 years of misunderstanding about the magnitude of plasticity. Reanalysis of Boas' data not only fails to support his contention that cranial plasticity is a primary source of cranial variation but rather supports what morphologists and morphometricians have known for a long time: most of the variations is genetic variation" (Sparks Corey and Jantz Richard 2004).

The study showed that the environmental changes had little impact on cranial dimensions relative to familial and ancestral effects. In America, both blacks and whites have been living here for more than 150 years, but they failed to have a common cranial morphology. If environmental impact played an important role, similarities in cranial form should have emerged. What the study says is that differences in humanity are not just responses to environment, but ancestral. The differences between American born and European born are negligible if they were to be compared to different human groups.

In conclusion, after examination both articles I believe that the human differences are more geographical. Although the findings of Corey and Jantz refute my assessment, I believe that genetically all humans are a lot more similar. According to the journal Science, the genetic differences between human groups are negligible, and that only 5% of genetic variation could be linked to geographical factors. This leads me to believe that the differences in human are due to environmental changes and that they are cultural and political construct used to exploit people.

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