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From The Times

December 11, 2007

Why the human race is growing apart

Mark Henderson, Science Editor

Races have evolved away from each other over the past 10,000 years, according to new research that challenges standard ideas about the biological significance of ethnicity.

A genetic analysis of human evolution has shown that rather than slowing to a standstill it has speeded up, with different pressures on different populations pushing racial groups further apart. Scientists behind the findings suggest that European, African and Asian populations grew genetically more distinct from each other over several thousand years, as their environments took them down different evolutionary paths.

This would call into question the popular scientific view that race has little or no biological meaning, as the genetic similarities between ethnic groups greatly outweigh differences.

While this remains true – all humans share more than 99 per cent of their DNA – the new work indicates that variations tend to differ between races, and that these became more, not less, pronounced.

“Human races are evolving away from each other,” said Henry Harpending, Professor of Anthropology at the University of Utah, who led the study.

“Genes are evolving fast in Europe, Asia and Africa, but almost all of these are unique to their continent of origin. We are getting less alike, not merging into a single, mixed humanity.

“Our study denies the widely held assumption that modern humans appeared 40,000 years ago, have not changed since and that we are all pretty much the same. We aren’t the same as people even 1,000 or 2,000 years ago.”

The research is published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. If the trend towards increasing genetic diversity were to continue, it could lead ultimately to the development of different species. Most scientists, however, think this is now highly unlikely.

The research identified evolutionary currents only in past times. In the modern era, greater movement and gene flow between the continents has probably slowed or even reversed patterns of increasing genetic difference, making the evolution of separate human species virtually impossible.

Armand Leroi, Reader in Evolutionary Biology at Imperial College, London, said: “In principle, this could have led to speciation if it had continued. In practice, it has got to be the case that that cannot happen now. The reason is that this study has looked at largely separated populations in the past, but everything about human history since the Industrial Revolution weighs overwhelmingly against separation and thus against speciation too. Huge increases in gene flow are going to wipe this trend out.”

The study shows that over the past 5,000 years, new genetic variants have been emerging at a rate 100 times faster than in any other period of human evolution.

If this rate were to have remained the same since humans and chimpanzees diverged around six million years ago, the genetic difference between the two species would be 160 times greater than it is.

The scientists said this reflected the great increase in human populations over that period, which has allowed more beneficial mutations to emerge. Changes in the human environment, particularly the rise of agriculture, also created new selective pressure to which humans adapted.

Tribes and traits

— The research compared genetic information from four modern ethnic groups – Japanese, Han Chinese, Yoruba Nigerians and Utah Mormons of northern European ancestry

— Examples of traits that differ among the groups include the lactase gene, which allows people to digest milk into adulthood

— Most Europeans have this gene but it is absent in most Africans and Asians. This may reflect the ancestral importance of dairy farming in Europe

— Disease-resistance genes also differ. About 10 per cent of Europeans have CCR5, which confers some resistance to HIV, and which may have evolved to give resistance to smallpox

— Previous research by Professor Harpending has suggested that the above-average intelligence found among Ashkenazi Jews could be the result of selection in medieval Europe, where they tended to work in trade and finance. This, however, has been criticised by scientists.

Source: University of Utah, University of Wisconsin-Madison

I agree with Mike from Bristol. In fact he articulates what I was too mealy mouthed to say. "Outrageous" is right. Does anyone out there have a useful definition of "species"? And is this true "A lion can mate with a tiger and produce fertile offspring"?

David Gomm, Oxford, Oxon

"can't donkeys and horses produce offspring? they're not the same species are they?..."
They can produce offspring, but the offspring cannot then reproduce themselves.

This is an interesting argument, however "that different races will have disappeared within a few generations." is utter garbage. that's like saying that if we crossbreed all dogs then within a few generations there will only be one breed of dog. which is rubbish, life doesnt work like that. i mean, even if everone of different races interbred (which isnt exactly a realistic idea) there would still be fundamental differences between some, meaning that the speciafication of "race" would just become more refined.

Brown Streak, Edinburgh,

This research offers new data that breaks with accepted theory and leads to a new hypothesis. Accepted theory has been that evolution slowed approximately forty thousand years ago as the protections of society limited selection pressure. Differences between the races were thought to be legacy genetics from founder effect of populations that developed in isolation before forty thousand years ago.

The new data turns old theory on its head. The races apparently evolved during the past forty thousand years as the pace of evolution sped up 160 fold faster than before. The differences between the peoples are all new mutations that developed during this recent past. The differences between the peoples include physical, metabolic, mental, and behavior traits that are obvious and documented.

Differences between peoples are destined to magnify at ever increasing rate in response to exposure to different environments. Advantage goes to the people who access the diversity of all continents.

KGB, San Diego, California

Numerous species can produce fertile offspring with other species:
http://terriermandotcom.blogspot.com/2006/05/inbred-thinking.html
(...)
What is true for ducks is true for a lot of animals. Not only will individual animals often travel great distances to find unoccupied territories, they may also cross the species barrier as they do so. A wolf will mate with both a dog AND a coyote, while finches leap across the species barrier at the drop of a hat. A spotted owl will freely mate with a barred owl, while most amazon parrots freely cross breed. A lion can mate with a tiger and produce fertile offspring, and an African elephant can cross breed with an Asianelephant. A muskellunge will cross with a northern pike, and a sunfish will cross with a bluegill. Trout and salmon species readily hybridize. Many species of hawks and falcons will also cross the species line, while a buffalo will cross with a cow.
(...)

steve r , san jose ,

thos scientis must make the test on differents ethnic from all afrika non only on yuruba.they must make on nomade people .like somalia or foulani who animal husbandry ;sheep farming. to see what. and the to make on norwegian and see because the fisher. ..i think the just want to the superior than afrikan

jean, abidjan, civ

This kind of half baked drivel leads to eugenics. We saw that in national socialism in Gemany, a racist ideology based on Darwinist theories of natural selection and favoured races. (remember the terms Master Race and unter menchen: Subhuman ) Reject evolutionary ideology once and for all, it leads to racism as at some point one f'avoured race' will deem itself more highly evolved than another! The full title to Darwin's book was: "The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection: Or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life" If you are not favoured you are history! Compassion, decency, mercy, goodness, even the latest equality legislation have no place in evolutionary theory. These articles show the bankruptcy of evolutionary science, chemical evolution is impossible and the innumerable transitional forms that should be observed in the fossil record are just not there. Lets have a proper debate on the issue, not this type of one sided propaganda.

Alan, Luton,

I thought that the functional definition of a species, for animals at least, is concerned with the ability of individuals within a population to produce fertile offspring through their reproductive mechanisms. Is this old hat or is Jane H actually proposing that the Khoi-San peoples are genetically so diverged from other members of our species that they/we would not be capable of such a feat?

David Gomm, Oxford, Oxon

The Mormons have a meticulously researched ancestry; it is part of their religion to keep such records. The implication is that America has a very ethnically mixed population, but the samples chosen for this study can be certified to be purely European by blood.

Keith, San Francisco, USA

The reason the whites that were studied are Mormons from Utah is because they have a population large enough that inbreeding is unlikely. Also, they tend to marry within their own community. Therefore, genetic influences from other races is limited. They also keep excellent genealogy records.

Jody, Waterloo, Nebraska, USA

The lactose gene issue has a lot to do with genes carried over from generations past. So my feel is that it is more of a symptom or curable problem so to speak with the aid of medication. A separate species would inidicate that milk could not be consumed...furthermore, we all had the need to drink milk to survive from our birth. A new species would not have the need for milk from birth.

NomanPan, HOUSTON, USA

Max Christian,
Take a walk and look around you. Living in Korea, you should understand that unless South Korea (as well as virtually every other non-western society on earth) starts allowing mass immigration from far flung regions of the world, they will keep their racial distinctiveness a lot longer than a few generations. Even then, it will take longer than a few generations for human races to dissappear. I live in southern California (one of the most diverse regions on the planet since at least "a few generations" ago) and there are still plenty of mono-racial people.

Scott Novak, Mira Loma, USA, California

can't donkeys and horses produce offspring? they're not the same species are they?...

rob, london, uk

One word; minefield.

Politically, socially and morally.

Interesting though.

Jez W, Leeds,

Jane H, I wake up this morning next to someone of another ethnicity from myself. She got me some water, we joked about our hangovers and finding excuses to miss work... we may not have been looking at our best but one thing is for sure - she didn't seem remotely like another species!

Having said the above, the idea that we will blend in a few generations into one mixed-race mass is simply ridiculous. Genuinely multi-racial communities with significant numbers from a variety of ethnicities (no group larger than 50%) are predominantly limited to half a dozen large mainly western cities.

Dave, Beijing, China

Sir,
I can read two distinct statements here.

"Why the human race is growing apart"

and

"The research identified evolutionary currents only in past times. In the modern era, greater movement and gene flow between the continents has probably slowed or even reversed patterns of increasing genetic difference, making the evolution of separate human species virtually impossible."

So, with Globalisation leading to massive intercontinental population movements within recent history e.g. European colonisation, which is it?

SC, London, United Kingdom

How gullible are we supposed to be?
The research shows variation because of a divided population, it does not show new genes. There is no new information alongwith the mechanisms to invoke that new information, ergo there is no evolution simply variation within species.
Speciation, where interbreeding is no longer possible, caused by divided populations featuring a subset of the genes of a previous population is 'de'volution, not evolution and gives less genetic information, less variation and a weaker creature. This is the case despite small advantages as with sickle cell anaemia.

Les, Ramsgate, Kent

Why cant the report tell us what the evidencer for this is? What are the basic assumptions. If you adopt the right assumptions to begin with you can prove almost anything is happening. I'd love for the professor to say exactly how humanity has changed in the last 1200 years.

JohnW, Oldham,

The 'Hottentot Apron' mentioned by Jane in the windy city is actually caused by the females of that tribe constantly physically stretching out their labia throughout their lives. It has nothing to do with genetics or evolution.
And becoming able to handle lactase as an adult simply means that you never lost the ability as a child, not that it has suddenly developed in one race, we all have that ability to begin with.
What these geneticists are talking about is 'inbreeding' not natural selection, or rather, un-natural selection, hillbillyism!!

Ian, London,

Jane H, Chicago writes: By the standards applied to other animals, at least some human groups should already be defined as separate (although today extensively hybridized) species.

Rubbish! The offspring of different species are sterile. That is not the case with human "races". Are you another one of those people who fish for pc opinions as evidence of a Grand Liberal Conspiracy to deny genetic differences.

Robert Menzies, Bristol , UK

Prof. Harpending does sound a little oblivious to current trends. Perhaps he has his own agenda, but clearly it should be acknowledged that increasing numbers of people have roots in more than one part of the world and more than one ethnicity. I wonder why the bit about the human race growing apart in this articleâ€™s title wasnâ€™t in quotation marks?

cassandra, London,

Max,

The global percentage of mixed race children that will be born 'within a few generations' will tend to zero compared to the full population of the planet. China has a population of over a billion, as does India - are you suggesting that soon every Chinese or Indian person is going to have the opportunity to breed with someone from Korea, America or Luxemburg?

I think I will go with the distinguished professor of Anthropology, who has dedicated his life to researching such subjects rather than your wifes somewhat depressing view that the human race will settle into a single, homogenous race in the next couple of generations.

I would recommend 'Guns, Germs, and Steel' by Jared Diamond as a good introduction to exactly what has caused the human species divergence into the rich diversity of races that we see today, not to mention the timescales we are dealing with. If evolution is as fast as you think it is, kids would be born today with Playstation compatible hands!

Peter, Cardiff, UK

Sadly Max does not appear to have thought his comment through. Basic anthropoligical studies refute this claim and show that mixed race children are very much in the minority of virtually every ethnic group. Professor Harpending may well be right, we dont know. Certainly the point about lactose intolerance is very interesting.

Daniel Andrews, London, England

What amazes me is how most of the world is completely WRONG...mankind is not evolving he is devolving...Darwin was a charlatan and a liar.

unlearned, London, England

Um, Max, you are basing that assertion on what exactly? Zero knowledge and 100% political correctness. There is far too much political correctness in the field of genetics. That human population groups share "over 99%" of their DNA is meaningless. We also share around 99% of our DNA with chimps. We share a fair amount with trouts and daffodils. That tells us precisely nothing about the small genetic changes that exist between different groups of humans and their significance.

I get the feeling sometimes that scientists try to clamp down on this sort of research because they fear what they might find. It's time to set aside the politics and put science to work to answer these legitimate questions objectively.

David Pritchard, Madrid, Spain

Asking a Mormon, with Mormonism's history of racism, to undertake a study of racial differences is akin to asking Hitler for his views of Jews.

ray greenwood, charleston, wv, usa

just to make things easyer, in the USA there is a whole Christian museum about evolution and such. The story there is that we all come from two white people: Adam and Eve. There you have it!

robert, vancouver, bc

Thank the world for cheap air travel! The populations are mixing fast enough to not worry whether this is true or not.
Funny they tested mormon whites and not americans which include african, south american, and asian in their population to see if environment had a real affect. But at least the university of Utah is admitting notions of evolution, and the world being more than 6,000 yrs old. Now that IS progress!

Matt, Antibes, France

Mike,

canids (coyote, dingos, wolves, jackals, dogs) can interbreed and have fertile offsprings, despite they are classified in different species.

Giorgio, venice,

why are we so scared to say that people are different? it's not racist. different races evolved to cope with the evolutionary pressures of their environment; what's racist about that? it's this out of control polical correctness, which tries to force evryone to be the same, that is racist.

rudy, london,

I'm with Mike. Cross breeding produces a stronger gene pool (and better looking children) so let's do it and leave the Mormons to their ever weakening fascist gene pool.
And Jane, do not imagine that the genetic changes required for a cow to have 2 stomaches is anything like a gene not being turned off until later in life to enable young adults to drink milk in areas where milk is abundant. This does not change the species.

Rosbif, Antibes, France

Jane H.

Having quite different biological features is often a feature of speciaction, but in itself it means nothing whatsoever. If two groups of animal can interbreed and produce off-spring which can interbreed, they are of the same species. It really is that simple.

"In no animal other than humans would specimens with distinct functional physical organs, with distinct feeding abilities, or even with the major differences in human skull shape, be allowed within one species assignment."

This is an outrageous statement, and I challenge you to give an example of a SPECIES other than humanity which is capable of breeding with another SPECIES, in the same we are capable of breeding between the ethnic groups, and in so doing produces healthy off-spring which can themselves inter-breed. As I understand it there are none, and so the assigment of all humans as the same species is wholly consistent with all such assignments of all known species. To suggest otherwise is inflammatory.

Mike, Bristol,

Their is a stigma of racism attached to genetic diversity, and for good reason given humanity's history.

However, in the cramped confines of the modern world, it is this very diversity that *may* save us from virulent biological epidemics.

A worry might be that any future genetic 'cleaning' of humans may create common strands that would provide opportunities for these epidemics to spread.

Mark, Woking, UK

What is the relevance that the whites they studied are Mormons from Utah?

Pete Moss, Reading, UK

By the standards applied to other animals, at least some human groups should already be defined as separate (although today extensively hybridized) species.

For example, the adult milk digestion adaptation mentioned -- while genetically a simple mutation -- is functionally as radical an alteration of an animal's ability to exploit food resources in an environment, as was the development of multi-chambered stomachs in ruminants such as cows.

Other species-level differentiations include the two different organ structures developed for sand protection of the female parts in, respectively, the indigenous Khoi-San peoples of southern Africa and Australian Aboriginals.

In no animal other than humans would specimens with distinct functional physical organs, with distinct feeding abilities, or even with the major differences in human skull shape, be allowed within one species assignment.

Jane H., Chicago, USA

â€œHuman races are evolving away from each other,â€ said Henry Harpending, who clearly has not thought this through very carefully. My six-month old child, whose mother is Korean, understands better than Mr Harpending that different races will have disappeared within a few generations.

Max Christian, Seoul, Korea