Some people may believe that humans have reached their peak in evolution. They believe that there are no more necessary changes needed in our genes because survival of the fittest and natural selection don’t apply to us anymore, however we are still evolving, it may not seem obvious but there are a lot more recent changes than more people realise. One recent change that had occurred was blue eyes, “Blue eyes seem to have appeared in people who lived more than 9,000 years ago,” (J. Hawks, p.g 2) Although, there are more changes than just blue eyes, like the lactase mutation. The lactase mutation had begun roughly 7,500 years ago but in different regions of the world the mutation has only begun roughly 5,000 years ago. (J. Hawks. “Still Evolving”). …show more content…
This adaptation triggers the social classification of race and these humans are looked at and treated differently because they are a different “race”. “Human "racial" diversity is a result of people in a geographic area intermarrying, being exposed to a number of biological processes, and adapting slowly to local environments.”(Eugenie C. Scott. Evolution And Origin Races). “As noted earlier, geographically localized populations--as result of adaptation, migration, and chance--tend to have some characteristic physical traits” (Carol Mukhopadhyay, Rosemary C. Henze. How real is Race? P.g 4) The authors discuss how a population evolves/adapts to their environment when they migrate, for example when they migrate north, the pigmentation in their skin lightens so they could absorb more vitamin d from the sun. The adaptation in human pigment began when they started migrating. This may not be a recent adaptation like blue eyes but still is an adaptation that occured later in human
Race is a socially constructed divider based on physical differences such as skin tones, but are not limited to facial features, body features, accents, etc. There are not separate genes, traits, or characteristics that define any single group from another group. Police once walked up to Korematsu to ask if he had seen a “short Asian man”, adding stereotypes to the classification, when the police were looking for Korematsu. Korematsu had surgery performed so his eyelids would have less folds to look more, white (I would say American, but Korematsu is American and that changed nothing). Hence, this touchy subject of race is what makes it so much harder to discuss.
Since people moved around and spread their genes, our genetics are non-concordant, which means that they are not determined by one gene. If the colonial view of race was true, then everybody in the same race would have the same exact genes, but in reality, you're more likely to have more genetic similarities with somebody outside your race than within your race. Race is a construct that was made by colonial rulers in order to gain power over their subjects, but it still has very real consequences for those it has been used against. Race is a social construct that is still being used to maintain power over groups of color, although the time of colonization has come and gone and scientific advancements have come on to prove it untrue.
Racial formation is the process by which humans classify other human beings based on what they look like and where they come from. To racialize someone is to categorize someone; however, race is not natural, and is in actuality a product of sociohistorical processes. Because racial classifications are manmade, it is pivotal to consider the context and time period of racial systems because they change with history. They are a social construction rather than a biological reality, meaning they can be created, destroyed, and transformed. These processes can be observed when we look at how the Irish, who were initially subject to intense racial discrimination, adopted “whiteness,” or how the Chinese, who were also limited to strenuous physical labor, became the model minority.
I have seen the unique place in the organic world occupied by the human species, the profound physical, as well as moral, differences separating it from all kinds of living creatures. Race, technically, refers to differential concentrations of gene frequencies responsible for traits. They are separated from one another, on the basis of certain biological characteristics. Principle races are Caucasoid, Mongoloid, and Negroid. Most educated folks would settle for the actual fact that the planet isn’t flat which it revolves around the sun.
Furthermore a study by the Genetic Society of America, weakens the myth that race is caused by genetic differences by stating that there is a “larger Genetic Differences Within Africans Than Between Africans and Eurasians” meaning “blacks” are more genetically similar to “whites”
The beginning of the book highlights the importance of race. Race was invented and assigned to individuals solely on their outward appearance. Most Americans unconsciously accept race as a product of Mother Nature. In reality, it has nothing to do with your genetics.
This partition between races ‘consists of identifying
While some argue that race is a biological concept, many have rejected that view and instead view race as a social construct. This revised viewpoint stems from the
According to the film race is a biological "myth" and as outdated as belief that the sun revolved around the earth. Race is a concept that was invented to categorize the perceived biological, social, and cultural differences between human groups. Based on modern genetic science that can decode the genetic puzzle of DNA there is no significant genetic or biological differences between the races. Race is an artificial construct imposed by the ruling classes to justify first slavery and then segregation. One of the main findings concerning the genetic make-up of the students in the course was that skin color really is only skin deep.
Race and ethnicity are two terms which are used interchangeably in every day conversation, however, there is a distinction between the two. Race is a categorization of people who have been singled out as inferior or superior, often on the basis of phenotype – observable physical characteristics such as skin color, hair texture, eye shape, or other selective attributes. Race is a social construct and has been known to change with historical and political events. Contrarily, ethnicity does not necessarily provide visual clues, instead, ethnicity is categorized on the basis of a shared common culture and includes elements such as language, norms, customs, religion, music, art, literature. Ethnic Groups are developed by their unique history
Among anthropologists it has become increasingly clear that the concept of race having a biological basis is fundamentally flawed. There a number of flaws with this concept of race. One issue is that features attributed to race, such as skin color, very across the globe in a clinal fashion rather than in uniform groups. Another issue is that there is more in-group variation within races than there is variation between races. Finally, human variation is non-concordant.
SOC 100 - Midterm Essay In the U.S., we were taught to categorize people into different “racial groups” such as White, Black, Asian, and so on, based on physical features, including skin color, hair texture, shapes of lips, and more. However, race is socially and not biologically constructed. According to the textbook, sociologists described race as a human invention which was shaped by social forces present in a time and place of its creation. There are three main arguments for why race is created and designed by society.
Race, nationality and ethnicity Race and ethnicity are seen as form of an individual’s cultural identity. Researchers have linked the concept of “race” to the discourses of social Darwinism that in essence is a categorization of “types” of people, grouping them by biological and physical characteristics, most common one being skin pigmentation. Grouping people based on their physical traits has lead in time to the phenomenon of “racialization” (or race formation), as people began to see race as more of a social construct and not a result or a category of biology.
But when it comes to us evolving, many scientists believe that we have stopped. They claim we are close to the end of human evolution because of all the genetic engineering and medicinal use, that is causing us now not to evolve naturally by natural selection, and survival of the fittest but by our own means. But at the same time, with all the evidence that scientists like Elisabeth Bolund of Uppsala University in Sweden show, one could argue that we are still evolving. This evidence being that between 4 and 18 percent of the variations among individuals in lifespan, family size and ages of the first and the last childbirth are influenced by genes.
Throughout history social scientists have been trying to examine the different parameters of race in terms of phenotypic characteristics, and cultural behaviors regarding the different groups that society construct’s. legally judges have had different rulings regarding the categorization of different ethnicities and groups within the United States. Many philosophers such as Kwame Appiah, and Scientists such as Dr. James Watson have had opposing arguments on the topic of race and whether it exists or not. In order to do so we need to examine the different definitions of race, and analyze them in order to see how race is a social construct, where people’s notions of race and their interactions with different races determine the way they perceive