A species is a group of animals that can interbreed freely amongst themselves.Darwin got as far as declaring that the different races were not different species; but he definitely engaged the idea that there were such things as races, and that they must have some sort of biological origin. Just because he was eliminating distinctions between humanity and the rest of the animal kingdom, it only makes sense within his theory to apply the same rules.
Some species contain subspecies – populations within a species that differ from each other with different physical traits and their own breeding ranges.
Northern giraffes have three subspecies that usually live in different locations to each other, while red foxes have the most subspecies – 45 known varieties – spread all over the world.
Humans have no subspecies.
If we really applied the same rules, we would cash out our non-scientific notions of 'different races' in terms of subspecies. Then you would have one human species that can interbreed freely amongst itself; but different subspecies whose different traits arose in different ranges (and often just because of Darwinian natural selection, which favored darker skin or eyes in this environment and lighter skin or eyes in that one).
But of course that cannot be done now for the reverse reason that it could not be done then. Now we have a social imperative to pretend that there are no differences at all instead of the social imperative to pretend that the differences were essential and insurmountable. This is called "progress," but in terms of intellectually accepting the consequences of Darwinian theory it leaves us in exactly the same place.
Anthropology 201, 1971, I was taught "There are no races, there are only clines." This was thought politically necessary at a Southern college even then, even though it is not true.
ReplyDeleteThere are three arguments you will encounter that races do not exist: 1) There are a small group of marginal cases which do not fit neatly into categories. A terrible and deceptive argument used in many other contexts. Because there are debatable cases, your honor, we must conclude that no distinctions exist. Because dusk exists, it proves that night and day have no real meaning.
2) The concept of races was only invented in the age of exploration, after Europeans encountered people from other continents for the first time. It's just made up for political reasons. This is historically false, but even if true it would be irrelevant. Europeans had never seen marsupials either, but that doesn't mean those animals are not different.
3) You are a bad person for even thinking races exist, except as a political category of disfavored classes. The usual social argument when the intellectual ones have been exhausted.
Keep the list. You might even pin it to your bookmarks with The Atlantic, the New Yorker, and the Washington Post.
I have to be honest. I read that article, didn't really see anything in it that I hadn't heard before, and fail to understand how any of it "proves" Darwin's theory of Evolution. Maybe someone can explain it to this simpleton?
ReplyDeleteWell, I'll explain what I think the "underlying issue" is with both "races" and taxonomy in general. As stated a species "is a group of animals that can interbreed freely amongst themselves." All well and good. Except by that definition, dogs are wolves are coyotes... they're all one species. Except they're not. They're one Genus, "canis", but their species are "familiaris", "lupus", and "latrans" respectively. Same with bears. Grizzlies are brown bears are Kodiaks are polar bears. They interbreed in the wild. And even lions and tigers can interbreed (though they do not do so in the wild, but that may be lack of access). Horses, donkeys, and mules... etc.
ReplyDeleteWhich means that the definition of species is incorrect, our chosen breakdowns for those groups of animals are incorrect, or (my belief) life doesn't tend to break down into neat little boxes the way we'd like it to.
@ MikeD - an excellent point. I almost pursued that line of reasoning myself. Assumptions and definitions matter.
ReplyDeleteIt's definitely the case that the logic of the model breaks down if you look at it very closely. Consider the process of evolution itself: say a wolf gives birth to a genetically mutated animal that is the first in the line that will eventually become a dog. Are you going to say that the child is a different subspecies than its parents? It's not a dog yet, anyway; it's just one mutation along the way toward eventually creating a dog.
ReplyDeleteSo is it it's own subspecies? No, because it's part of a population with identifiable characteristics and a physical range.
Somehow the transition occurs and you end up with a dog and a wolf, which are members of two different subspecies. But where did that transition occur?
It's one of those vagueness problems we were discussing the other day. There's clearly a wolf at one end, and clearly a dog at the other, and they're in two different subspecies according to our method of classification. The first mutation you can describe as a mutation that's still part of the subspecies; the last mutation before the pure dog you can describe as a mutant that's still part of the dog subspecies (but note how weird it is to declare the parent the mutant, rather than the child that is actually the dog).
That middle part of the range, though... well, maybe it's another subspecies! Or maybe we just don't know or just can't be sure; only all of the animals we encounter today are presumably somewhere along a similar line, passing from a different kind of animal their parents once were into a mew kind of thing their distant children will someday be.
The truth will come out in a few years. Generally, they are missing a few clues as to what is going on.
ReplyDeleteHumanity is a combination of two factors. Time compression through to Relativity or Dimensional difference in how fast time passes. The natural theory of evolution can modify DNA triggers, but this does not lead to new species.
New species are the result of genetic tinkering and transfer from other realms.
This combination of genetic manipulation with "natural" evolution, is what causes the problems.