Understanding the Differences Between Human Variation and Race

Geographical isolation in the past has caused a variation in skin color; natural selection selected specific skin pigments depending on environmental factors. Early humans who moved to Europe were introduced to a place that had less sunlight than their former place of residence. Overtime, light skin (skin with lower levels of melanin) was selected for since there were not as many UV rays that the skin needed protection from. But, what was wrong with having dark skin in Europe? How is extra melanin a disadvantage in this case? One thing to remember is that even though the sun can provide UV rays, sunlight is also a great source of natural vitamin D (Jablonski; Kirchweger). Vitamin D helps bones absorb calcium and is particularly essential for developing embryos in pregnant women. The adaptation for lighter skin was important because the skin needed to absorb as much sunlight as it could in order to receive optimal amounts of vitamin D (Kirchweger). However, too much vitamin D can be fatal. So as high amounts of melanin protected the skin from excessive UV rays in Africa, they also protected it from excessive vitamin D (Kirchweger).

Anthropologists and geographers have studied and overtime come to the conclusion that distribution of skin color is not random. Darker skin color has been found to typically come from near the equator and lighter skin colors are typically coming from closer to the north and south poles. Over the years, researchers have found that darker skin colors has protected the

Race is a classification system used to categorize humans into large and distinct populations or groups by anatomical, cultural, ethnic, genetic, geographical,

What were some of the economic and political motivations that lead to the idea of race and racial genetic differences?

What if we lived in a world where there were no races? What if people were not discriminated against because of the color of their skin or because they are different from what we see as acceptable? This is what Kwame Anthony Appiah tries to examine in his essay “Race, Culture, Identity: Misunderstood Connections.” Appiah tries to point out that “American social distinctions cannot be understood in terms of the concept of race.” (102) That America is made up of so many different races that no race is the more superior or in other cases inferior to one another. America is defined by its cultural diversity; it is what makes America the nation that it is. It is the reason that we as Americans have freedoms other people

This article written by Mark Nathan Cohen, who is an anthropology professor in the State University of New York; talks about how race does not define human diversity. In the article, he also mentions that in school students learn the definition of race based on “biological variation” and not based on their culture. The professor Cohen says that studies on human family tree that were based on their genetic analysis of traits do not show any relation of who those traits belong to. He gives an example by stating that even skin color is not a god indicator of who it relates to because the “traits occur independently in several different branches of the human family.”

This is interesting to me in that though everyone looks different, we are al vary similar at a the DNA level. Our differences are not so great. There are two historical perspectives on race and ethnicity among geneticist. One is that is a cultural and historical construct with no biological significance, meaning that there is entirely unique to a particular ethnicity. The other argument is that there are biological differences between different ethnicities. As the human genome was being sequenced, different frequencies of genes variants related to disease susceptibility, drug metabolism, and environmental response were found among different populations (). Even though there is a small difference in DNA from person to person, there is some biological distinction. The variations of these genes tend to be similar among certain

The PBS series “Race: The Power of an Illusion” effectively works to expose race as a social construct and deconstructs the false notions that race is a biological marker. The series first discusses that all human beings originated from Africa but dispersed about 70,000 years ago to various places in the world. As a result of this migration, people were spread to different locations throughout the world with different environmental conditions that affected their physical traits. It was many years after the migration in which people began to display these new physical traits such as slanted eyes, fair skin, and differing hair textures. While the series notes the physical changes that occurred during the migration it also emphasizes that race while it may seem apparent in skin color and other physical features has no real biological basis.

The question that seems to be an ongoing topic of discussions is whether or not biological differences has any scientific validity when relating to race. The concept of race was established over the years based on physical features and variations of skin tone. These variations stem from environmental conditions causing slight variations in our genome. The essence of Homo sapiens is the same with slight variations in the DNA strands know as alleles. These variations are what cause physical differences that make up what we have defined over the years classified as different races. The variations have not evolved enough to prevent reproduction amongst the races.

The lines between variations and what the different races mean is socially constructed. The fact that we consider races to be "social groups" is constructed. There are groups of people out there with blue eyes and brown eyes, but we don't consider them to be social groups, nor do we just a person's culture or make assumptions about a person based on eye color. We don't have to make race an important feature, but it seems like many people

Race is not a biological reality because there are no indications of some biological DNA that would have a certain outcomes of a race. The variation in skin tone comes from the mix of certain races. For example, the mix of black and white would result a skin color of Latino. However, the mix of white and yellow (Asians) will most likely result a child having more essential characteristics of white people. It is impossible to classify humans into races because human is making a new race every single moment from the combination of two people who come from different races. Light skin and dark skin have a lot to deal with the temperature, latitude and langtitude of the region. It could be characterized by a regions, instead of ethnic groups. Race

The English term ‘race’ is believed to originate from the Spanish word raza, which means ‘breed’ or ‘stock’ (Race). People use race to define other groups, this separation of groups is based largely on physical features. Features like skin color and hair don’t affect the fundamental biology of human variation (Hotz). Race is truly only skin deep, there are no true biological separations between two ‘racial’ groups. Scientifically speaking, there is more variation between single local groups than there is between two large, global groups; the human variation is constantly altering (Lewontin). The majority of today’s anthropologists agree that race is a form of social categorization, not the separation of groups based on biological

Race distinguishes the physical characteristics of a person such as skin color, skin tone, or hair color as well as a tendency to develop certain diseases. Red-haired people are usually of the Irish race and can trace Irish ancestry in their families. Of course, black skin tones are considered of the Negro race. And then, people with olive or brown skin can be Indian, Native American Indian, Muslim, Mexican, or any other numerous races. Some races tend to have a tendency to have certain diseases than others.

What does influence skin color variation is the size and distribution pattern of melanosomes as well as other factors.

We often connect ourselves to the world through our appearances. One of the first characteristics we notice about another human is the color of their skin. It is unavoidable, as the largest organ of the body, it covers and highlights our individual features and forms a protective wall against the elements. There is no escape from the social repercussions our pigmentation causes no matter what range of the very broad spectrum of color we fall into. I have never thought so much about the genetic and social evolution of skin and its properties until I read Nina Jablonski’s Living Color: The Biological and Social Meaning of Skin Color. This book encompasses, in great detail, how our skin has evolved, adapted and mutated throughout time and in what