"The main error - assume that the races are very different": Column Stanislaus Drobyshevsky

What is race

People in different parts of the world differ from each other. And is not only color, but also a host of other indicators. The differences can be divided into two categories: biological and social.

Social - the language, religion, lifestyle, song and dance, the way to dress, develop housing, and so on. The totality of all social factors called ethnic group. The most important determinant of ethnicity - self-determination: to which ethnic group a person considers himself belonging to this he refers. (It also needs to agree with this other members of the ethnic group, but that's another issue.)

Biological part - it is our genes and how they are implemented in a specific environment. Biological signs may be congenital and acquired. For example, a hole in the ear of earrings - is a biological trait, but on the genes it does not depend in any way: in the newborn never be holes, no matter how much his parents nor his ears full of holes. A small part of innate biological characteristics related to racial features.

It is understood that not all innate biological traits - racial. Each person has one head, two arms and a spleen. it genetic signs, but did not race because of the population in this respect no different.

Race is a set of racial characteristics and their variability in the population. These features developed historically to a specific area and is distinguished by a particular group of people from nearby.

Racial genetic traits occupy only a few thousandths of a percent of the entire genome. From chimpanzees we differ by only 2% of the genes and race each other - much less.

How to manifest racial differences

Genetics appears ambiguous, it also affects the environment. Take the same skin color. There are genes that define it, but there is also the external conditions. Light-skinned people can tan, and black - pale. However, how can darken pale and also genetically determined. Much I sunbathingI have not be able to achieve the color of human skin from Central Africa. And how would a resident of central Africa or pale, he did not turn pale before my condition.

For the majority of racial characteristics differences even between the extremes miserable. For example, the size of the head and face the biggest differences between the races - 1-2 millimeters. Two brothers may no different than any of them - from the representatives of the other races.

But there is a subtlety: the race is determined by a combination of features is not a specific person, namely the population. Describing the race, we do not say that she had the skin color and the size of such a head. We say that the color of the skin - from so and so to so and so, with an average value, and head size - from such a low to such a high.

Home error - assume that race are very different. It's not like that at all.

More on that race influences besides appearance

External signs easy to identify, but to study them as a race are not very well - they are very dependent on the environment. Ideally, you want to look at the genome, but scientists do not yet know exactly which parts of the genome determine the race.

Nevertheless, racial characteristics and impact on physiology. For example, skin color depends on the production of melanin, the melanin related molecules involved in including the nervous system. There are medications that act on one race of people and do not act on those of another. Propensity to certain diseases and resistance to infections also vary between the races.

a stumbling block - the question of the level of intelligence. that intellectual abilities count for the race, we have to prove that they are just depend on genetics and clearly differ in different races.

In theory, natural selection on our intellect ancestors had to attend. But the problem is that it is necessary to prove, but we still have no single measure for the level of intelligence.

Of course, at the population level differences in mental ability is definitely there. You can always find a group of people in which the average level of intelligence will be higher or lower than in the neighboring group. The question is, to what extent these differences are significant.

In addition, the average level of intelligence in the group considered pointless - it is the average temperature in the hospital. There is a very large individual variation: any group of people, we find a complete fool, a cross and a genius.

As separation occurred on race

Resettlement from Africa

View Homo sapiens emerged in Africa, and although it must have been black, broad-nosed, thick-lipped and kinky people, they can not be called negroid in the modern version.

About 55 thousand years ago, people began to move. Along the way, they are mixed with Neanderthals and denisovtsami and settled on the planet: pretty quickly reached Australia and the Americas.

People were in a completely new environment: in cold Eurasia, North America and Greenland, mountains, deserts and forests. Contacts between groups, who settled in the different continents, have almost disappeared. And in each of these populations was its microevolution. This was the race formation.

However, the ancient people who lived by hunting and gathering, do not form stable complexes race. They lived in small groups and choose partners among those who live far away to avoid inbreeding.

More or less stable race could develop only in isolation: in the Andaman Islands, Australia, South Africa. But mostly it was a racial instability - Upper Paleolithic polymorphism, these processes are called the great Soviet anthropologist Victor Valerianovich Bunak.

The role of the productive economy

About 10 thousand years ago in some parts of the world people began to breed sheep, goats, cows, pigs and grow wheat, rye, lentils, soya beans - that someone was.

Population who have switched to agriculture, rapidly grew in numbers. Growing food - a time consuming activity, but, in contrast to hunting and gathering, guaranteeing food: you can store up grain in the pit-store and eat it all winter.

The increased group of people began to settle again. The first to do this the inhabitants of the Middle East - the territory of today's Israel, Jordan, Syria, Turkey, Iran, Iraq. They moved in the direction of North Africa, North India and Europe. Along the way, the ancestors of Caucasians displaced Aboriginal people - hunters and gatherers - and partly mixed with them. In different areas of the percentage displacement and mixing it was uneven. For example, farmers expelled from Southern Europe 90% of local hunters and gatherers. So that the present population of the region - the descendants of those immigrants from the Middle East.

In the North, cows and pigs did not survive, the grain grew poorly because breeds and varieties were not yet adapted to the cold climate. So that migration of farmers in this direction was slowly - at least appearance adapted to the harsh conditions of varieties and species. 90% of modern Scandinavian population - descendants of hunters and gatherers from Central Europe, which under the pressure of farmers migrated to the North.

Similar stories have occurred in Asia and Africa. But in some places, global settlement could occur for geographical reasons. For example, agriculture in America occurred twice or even more: in Central, South America and maybe even North. Between the centers of economic development have geographical barriers, and although the population in different parts of America have reached a high level of development, they could not settle far. Therefore, North American and South American population is not to unify the racially as it was in Eurasia and Africa, and Americanoid Indian race is very heterogeneous.

cross-breeding

Cross-breeding - is to obtain offspring from the mixing of different ethnic groups and races. The effect of race formation has existed at all times, even with the era of Australopithecus. But the closer to the present, the more people travel and the greater the value of cross-breeding takes. Its effect depends on the amount and proportions of mating populations. For example, in North America the ratio was 2 to 98, where 2 - Indians, and 98 - Caucasians. That is, cross-breeding had virtually no impact on the population: the Indians were too few and they were quickly destroyed. And in the central South America arrived Europeans actively took marry indigenous women. Therefore, mixing of the Portuguese and the Indians were in a ratio of almost 50 to 50, and so to get a modern Hispanics.

Cross-breeding and are now creating a new race in front. Genetics - a tricky science, where everything is not very linear. Therefore, when different groups are mixed, their racial characteristics are not averaged - the result is something new, sometimes even surpassing parental options on severity. As a rule, in the first generations of mestizos there is a strong variety. And after some time, the result can be "ustakanilos" - and so will the new race.

Why race change

Any race is changing. If modern Caucasians compared to those that were in the XIV century, there will be differences between them. Many signs have time to change for various reasons.

1. Adaptation

Some signs of change because they are helpful or harmful to the given conditions. The same color in different conditions are not equally useful. The sunny climate close to the equator much ultraviolet, which is a lot of ways to damage DNA and cause mutations. The frequency of skin cancer in light-skinned people in tropical countries, is thousands of times greater than in black, so dark the color is useful. Melanin protects the deeper layers of the skin from ultraviolet radiation, and no mutation occurs.

Yet in northern conditions the skin a dark color can be harmful, because a certain amount of UV light we need to stand out in the body of vitamin D. This means that the Nordic countries have a fair skin is more profitable. But, for example, the Eskimos live where six months - night and half - day. In addition, they are constantly in warm clothes. Then I do not understand what the color of the skin is more profitable. In such circumstances, it may be any, and vitamin D may be prepared with a meal, for example, from fish or venison. (By the way, in the tropics vitamin D was prepared from larvae of beetles and wood).

These adaptive traits in humans is not very much. For example, broad nose, thick lips, long mouth, a long narrow skull - a sign peculiar inhabitants of the tropics, the body is easier to cool them. In the north - on the contrary: a narrow nose, short jaw, thin lips and a stocky addition, in order not to lose heat quickly and keep warm.

2. sexual selection

This selection of external parameters that are like or dislike partners and mates. One of the few such signs, which can be attributed more to the race and - growth of facial hair. There is a race in which he is strong (the Ainu, Caucasians), weak (Mongoloids) and average (Negroid). This suggests that the ancestors of the Ainu women and Caucasians bearded men like and women-ancestors of the Japanese and Chinese - is not.

3. Founder effect and bottlenecks

founder effect occurs when a small group separated from the large and moves into new territory. In this situation, the specific features of the individual are very weighty: individual features of those who moved, - the founders - are transmitted to their descendants.

Population bottleneck effect as well, occurs only when the disasters. There was a large group of people, then happened to them something bad: hunger, epidemics, war. Most of the dead, and those who by chance survived, suffered their symptoms further.

Most of the world's population has always lived in small groups and resettled as well. Therefore, these effects - the founder and bottleneck - always greatly influenced our evolution.

How many races there in the world

It depends on what is considered the races. Separation of large races are held in the school: the Caucasians, Mongoloid, Negroid, and amerikanoidy Australoids. There numerically small races that nevertheless differ significantly from the others, and can be up to 200. These include, for example, the Kuril race (Ainu) and the South African Bushmen.

There is also a difficulty in learning the material. For example, in Indonesia several hundred islands, and each island may have its race, but practically not studied. If we examine the entire Indonesia, Central and South America, Central Africa, we would find More n-th number of races, which are now not known, because anthropologists to them simply do not reached.

The main problem with counting the races that they do not have clear boundaries. On this subject there is a wonderful story, which is described by Maclay. Some Italian inspired example of Russian ethnographer and anthropologist, decided to move to the island in Melanesia to the Papuans. Locals he was immediately robbed, beaten and wanted to kill. As a result, he survived because he was rescued and sheltered at a good old man. The Italian has lived on the island for several years and, of course, a little wild.

Once the European ship arrived to the island. Papuans happily went to his boat and began trading. Sailors from the ship noticed that one person in the boat behaves differently than the rest: no trades and just looks plaintively. It turned out that this was the Italian who was afraid of the votes cast, in order not to annoy the Papuans. Sailors eventually lifted him on board and saved.

A chip of this story is that the Europeans in appearance can not distinguish Italian from the Papuans, as he sat naked in the same boat as them.

The boundaries between the races in fact there is no intermediate populations very much. Where to draw the line and how many of them can be, for example, between Caucasians and Mongoloids? You can select one, and can be three or 25. How many boundaries come up, as they will be, because you can from village to village to go and observe the changes.

What science says about race mixing

Everything that we have said before, does not refer to the present, but to an era when people generally lived in small groups. Now, 70% of people on the planet is inhabited by a large city. And one of the main problems rasovedeniya - the existence of modern metapopulation. The fact that the population of a large city can not be called a population. Someone comes, someone goes, someone seems to be living here, but the marriage will not enter into - because it came to work, and in his native country already has a family. Therefore, it is unclear how to analyze the racial composition of modern cities.

This movement to the new way of life going on the last couple of centuries. What he will be the consequences of racially - is unclear. There is a theory that all people of mixed uniformly and are the same. I do not believe it, because the conditions are different on the planet, transport still not ideal, moreover, there is social isolation: religious, political, linguistic.

All evenly mixed, you need the same climate, the opportunity to get to any point of the earth at any time and complete understanding.

I believe that there are new options for races. Some will emerge, some - to dissolve in the other. Especially sad is that now it is little studied, although a host of modern methods of research, including genetics. But in the West rasovedenie prohibited for reasons of political correctness, while Russian scientists do not have the financial capacity to ride around the world. But we try.

Disappearing race

There is a wonderful island of Tasmania, it is located just south of Australia. To the ancient people were about 20 000 years ago. Almost 18 000 years the island was isolated even from Australia, which was itself in isolation from the rest of the world. And there Tasmanian Tasmanian race.

In the XIX century on the island of the British arrived. In those days, they used a new open land in two ways: to refer to prisoners or grown sheep. Tasmania, in principle, is great, and for that and for another, but still more for sheep. And for some 30 years, the British almost completely exterminated the Tasmanians, race disappeared. Clear example of genocide.

There is another option when one race is dissolved in another. For example, a beautifully Ainu lived in the Kuril Islands, while in the south, to the territory of Korea, the Japanese did not come and did not displace them. By the XVIII-XIX centuries in most parts of Japan by the Ainu people have nothing left, although it is believed that they influenced the culture: in the Japanese place names have borrowed from the Ainu language.

Ainu partially melted in Russian, partly - in Japanese. Although there are more Ainu settlements likely to keep ethnicity no. He gradually disappearing, and the only thing that keeps it until afloat - a racial bias of Japanese who are reluctant to mix with the Ainu.