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I didn’t say anything about race. The word is useless, imprecise. There’s no canonical Swede or Arab? You don’t say. As I mentioned no one who looks like a Swe

I didn’t say anything about race. The word is useless, imprecise. There’s no canonical Swede or Arab? You don’t say. As I mentioned no one who looks like a Swede existed 5,000 years ago. That there is overlap between population characteristics does not mean they are identical. Some populations don’t overlap though. Healthy Pygmy and Maasai adult men do not overlap in height distribution. If you restrict your sample of Swedes to those with all ancestors born in Sweden in 1800 and do a similar restriction for Congolese there will be no overlap in skin color.

TameAntelope 5y ago
You definitely keep on talking about race. "Swede" is a race. "Arab" is a race, as you use it. There absolutely were ancient people who shared genetic traits (and therefore some expressed characteristics) with modern Swedish people. There literally must have been, that's how genetics work, and 5,000 years is barely a blink, genetically. What you are conflating (among many, many things) are environmental impacts on human maturation with genetics, and in exactly the same way that the eugenicists of the early 1900s were attempting to do. Every single thing you've said so far has been thoroughly debunked in the ensuing 100 years. You are spouting old, racist tropes, and I assume don't even know it. But maybe you do know it, and maybe that's the point.
- barry-cotter 5y ago
  > There absolutely were ancient people who shared genetic traits (and therefore some expressed characteristics) with modern Swedish people. There literally must have been, that's how genetics work, and 5,000 years is barely a blink, genetically. That’s kind of my point. 5,000 years ago there were no people who looked like Swedes. Now there are because of selection pressures. A new genotype came into existence by working on standing variation and some de novo mutations. If we agree that selection pressures can radically change the appearance of a people then there’s not much to disagree on. Evolution can work on many things apart from physical appears. Different places have different selection pressures, with the obvious consequences.
  - TameAntelope 5y ago
    > 5,000 years ago there were no people who looked like Swedes. Now there are because of selection pressures. 100% false. You need to realize that. 5,000 years is not enough time to do anything significant, genetically.
    - User23 5y ago
      It absolutely is if there is a severe population bottleneck that selects for some trait in the survivors.
      - TameAntelope 5y ago
        ...which has never happened in human history. Bottlenecks? Yes. Bottlenecks that selected specifically for a specific gene? No.
        barry-cotter 5y ago
        Tibetans and Andeans both have adaptations for living at high altitudes. The Tibetan ones are better because they come from Denisovans, predating the existence of modern humans. There’s been massive positive selection on lactose persistence. 5,000 years ago no human adults could digest lactase. The differences in diabetes among human populations track closely with length of time they have been using agriculture.
        TameAntelope 5y ago
        That is not an example of a bottleneck, nor is it an example of a genetic adaptation occurring recently, as both happened more than ten thousand years ago. And none of this has anything whatsoever to do with the cultural concept of race. There are people who are not "Tibetans" who have this genetic adaptation, and there are "Tibetans" who do not have this genetic adaptation. Further, the pairing of this genetic trait with other genetic traits does not exist. Having this genetic trait does not make you more likely to have a set of other genetic traits, and none of the genetic traits add up to a specific "Tibetan" set of features or traits, all of which you would need to have to be called "Tibetan". There is no such thing as "genetic race".

TameAntelope 5y ago

You definitely keep on talking about race. "Swede" is a race. "Arab" is a race, as you use it. There absolutely were ancient people who shared genetic traits (and therefore some expressed characteristics) with modern Swedish people. There literally must have been, that's how genetics work, and 5,000 years is barely a blink, genetically. What you are conflating (among many, many things) are environmental impacts on human maturation with genetics, and in exactly the same way that the eugenicists of the early 1900s were attempting to do. Every single thing you've said so far has been thoroughly debunked in the ensuing 100 years. You are spouting old, racist tropes, and I assume don't even know it. But maybe you do know it, and maybe that's the point.

barry-cotter 5y ago
> There absolutely were ancient people who shared genetic traits (and therefore some expressed characteristics) with modern Swedish people. There literally must have been, that's how genetics work, and 5,000 years is barely a blink, genetically. That’s kind of my point. 5,000 years ago there were no people who looked like Swedes. Now there are because of selection pressures. A new genotype came into existence by working on standing variation and some de novo mutations. If we agree that selection pressures can radically change the appearance of a people then there’s not much to disagree on. Evolution can work on many things apart from physical appears. Different places have different selection pressures, with the obvious consequences.
- TameAntelope 5y ago
  > 5,000 years ago there were no people who looked like Swedes. Now there are because of selection pressures. 100% false. You need to realize that. 5,000 years is not enough time to do anything significant, genetically.
  - User23 5y ago
    It absolutely is if there is a severe population bottleneck that selects for some trait in the survivors.
    - TameAntelope 5y ago
      ...which has never happened in human history. Bottlenecks? Yes. Bottlenecks that selected specifically for a specific gene? No.
      - barry-cotter 5y ago
        Tibetans and Andeans both have adaptations for living at high altitudes. The Tibetan ones are better because they come from Denisovans, predating the existence of modern humans. There’s been massive positive selection on lactose persistence. 5,000 years ago no human adults could digest lactase. The differences in diabetes among human populations track closely with length of time they have been using agriculture.
        TameAntelope 5y ago
        That is not an example of a bottleneck, nor is it an example of a genetic adaptation occurring recently, as both happened more than ten thousand years ago. And none of this has anything whatsoever to do with the cultural concept of race. There are people who are not "Tibetans" who have this genetic adaptation, and there are "Tibetans" who do not have this genetic adaptation. Further, the pairing of this genetic trait with other genetic traits does not exist. Having this genetic trait does not make you more likely to have a set of other genetic traits, and none of the genetic traits add up to a specific "Tibetan" set of features or traits, all of which you would need to have to be called "Tibetan". There is no such thing as "genetic race".