Race is a group of people historically formed in certain geographical conditions, possessing some common hereditary-determined morphological and physiological characteristics.
Racial characteristics are hereditary, being adaptive to the conditions of existence/survival.
Three main races:
Mongoloid (Asia) 1. Skin is dark, yellowish. 2. Straight, coarse black hair, narrow eyes with a fold of the upper eyelid (epicanthus). 3. Flat and fairly wide nose, lips are moderately developed. 6. Most people are of average or below average height.
→Steppe landscape, high temperature, sudden changes, strong wind.
Caucasoid (Europe) 1. Light-skinned (to absorb sun rays). 2. Straight or wavy light brown or dark brown soft hair. Gray, green or brown eyes. 3. A narrow and strongly protruding nose (to warm the air), thin lips. 4. Moderate to heavy development of body and facial hair.
Aussie-Negroid (Africa) 1. Dark skin. 2.Curly dark hair, brown or black eyes. 3. Wide nose, thick lips. 4. Tertiary hairline is poorly developed.
→High humidity and temperature.
Racial differences of the 1st order are morphological (skin color, nose, lips, hair).
Racial differences of the 2nd order: adaptation to the environment, isolation in vast areas due to sharp boundaries between continents, social isolation (endogamy, separation of a group), spontaneous mutation (for example, head indicator, blood composition, composition of bone tissue).
The problem of the number of major races is still actively debated. In almost all racial classification schemes, at least three general groups (three large races) are necessarily distinguished: Mongoloids, Negroids and Caucasians, although the names of these groups may change. The first known classification of human races was published in 1684 by F. Bernier. He identified four races, the first of which is common in Europe, North Africa, Western Asia and India and to which the indigenous people of America are also close; the second race is common in the rest of Africa, the third in East Asia, and the fourth in Lapland.
K. Linnaeus, in the tenth edition of the System of Nature (1758), described four geographical variants within the species Homo sapiens, which he introduced: American, European, Asian, African, and also proposed a separate variant for Lapps. The principles of identifying races were still unclear at that time: in the characteristics of races, K. Linnaeus included not only signs of appearance, but also temperament (people of America are choleric, European people are sanguine, Asian people are melancholic and African people are phlegmatic) and even such cultural and everyday traits as cut of clothes, etc.
In similar classifications by J. Buffon and I. Blumenbach, the South Asian (or Malay) race and the Ethiopian race were additionally distinguished. For the first time, it was suggested that races arose from a single variant due to settlement in climatically different regions of the Earth. I. Blumenbach considered the Caucasus to be the center of race formation. He was the first to use the method of anthropological craniology to build his system.
In the 19th century racial classifications became more complex and expanded. Within large races, small ones began to stand out, but signs of such a separation in the systems of the 19th century. often served as cultural traits and language.
The famous French naturalist and naturalist J. Cuvier divided people into three races based on skin color: the Caucasian race; Mongolian race; Ethiopian race.
P. Topinar also distinguished these three races by pigmentation, but determined the width of the nose in addition to pigmentation: light-skinned, narrow-nosed race (Caucasian); yellow-skinned, medium-broad-nosed race (Mongoloid); black, broad-nosed race (Negroid).
A. Retzius introduced the term “cranial index” into anthropology, and his four races (1844) differed in the combination of the degree of facial prominence and the cephalic index.
E. Haeckel and F. Müller based the classification of races on the shape of hair. They identified four groups: tuft-haired (lophocoms) - mainly Hottentots: woolly-haired (eriocoms) - blacks; wavy-haired (euplokoma) - Europeans, Ethiopians, etc.; straight-haired (euplokoma) - Mongols, Americans, etc.
Three main approaches to classifying races:
a) without taking into account origin - there are three large races, which include 22 small ones, some of which are transitional, depicted in the form of a circle;
b) taking into account origin and kinship - highlighting signs of archaism (ancient) and evolutionary advancement of individual races; depicted as an evolutionary tree with a short trunk and diverging branches;
c) based on the population concept - based on data from paleoanthropological studies; The essence is that large races are huge populations, small races are subpopulations of large ones, within which specific ethnic entities (nations, nationalities) are smaller populations. The result is a structure that includes hierarchy levels: individual - ethnicity - small race - large race.
I. Deniker's classification system is the first serious system based only on biological characteristics. The groups identified by the author, almost unchanged, although with different names, passed into later racial schemes. I. Deniker was the first to use the idea of two levels of differentiation - identifying first the main and then minor races.
Deniker identified six racial trunks:
group A (woolly hair, wide nose): Bushman, Negrito, Negro and Melanesian races;
Group B (curly or wavy hair): Ethiopian, Australian, Dravidian and Assyrian races;
group C (wavy, dark or black hair and dark eyes): Indo-Afghan, Arab or Semitic, Berber, Southern European, Ibero-Insular, Western European and Adriatic races;
Group D (wavy or straight hair, blondes with light eyes): Northern European (Nordic) and Eastern European races;
group E (straight or wavy, black hair, dark eyes): Ainos, Polynesian, Indonesian and South American races;
group F (straight hair): North American, Central American, Patagonian, Eskimo, Lapp, Ugric, Turco-Tatar and Mongolian races.
Among the European races, in addition to the above, Deniker identified certain subraces: northwestern; sub-Nordic; Vistula or eastern.
Race is a group of people united on the basis of their mutual kinship, common origin and some external hereditary physical characteristics (skin and hair color, head shape, structure of the face as a whole and its parts - nose, lips, etc.). There are three main races of people: Caucasian (white), Mongoloid (yellow), Negroid (black).
The ancestors of all races lived 90-92 thousand years ago. Starting from this time, people began to settle in territories that differed sharply from each other in natural conditions.
According to scientists, in the process of the formation of modern man in Southeast Asia and neighboring North Africa, which are considered the ancestral homeland of man, two races arose - southwestern and northeastern. Subsequently, from the first came Caucasoids and Negroids, and from the second - Mongoloids.
The separation of the Caucasoid and Negroid races began approximately 40 thousand years ago.
Displacement of recessive genes to the outskirts of the population range
The outstanding geneticist N.I. Vavilov in 1927 discovered the law of the emergence of individuals with recessive traits beyond the center of origin of new forms of organisms. According to this law, in the center of the species' distribution area forms with dominant characteristics dominate, they are surrounded by heterozygous forms with recessive characters. The marginal part of the range is occupied by homozygous forms with recessive traits.
This law is closely related to the anthropological observations of N.I. Vavilov. In 1924, members of the expedition under his leadership witnessed an amazing phenomenon in Kafiristan (Nuristan), located in Afghanistan at an altitude of 3500-4000 m. They discovered that most of the inhabitants of the northern mountainous areas had blue eyes. According to the prevailing hypothesis at that time, since ancient times northern races were widespread here and these places were considered a center of culture. N.I. Vavilov noted the impossibility of confirming this hypothesis with the help of historical, ethnographic and linguistic evidence. In his opinion, the blue eyes of the Nuristans are a clear manifestation of the law of the entry of owners of recessive genes into the outlying part of the range. Later this law was convincingly confirmed. N. Cheboksarov on the example of the population of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The origin of the characteristics of the Caucasian race is explained by migration and isolation.
All of humanity can be divided into three large groups, or races: white (Caucasoid), yellow (Mongoloid), black (Negroid). Representatives of each race have their own distinctive, inherited features of body structure, hair shape, skin color, eye shape, skull shape, etc.
Representatives of the white race have light skin, protruding noses, people of the yellow race have cheekbones, a special shape of the eyelid, and yellow skin. Blacks, who belong to the Negroid race, have dark skin, wide noses, and curly hair.
Why are there such differences in the appearance of representatives of different races and why are each race characterized by certain characteristics? Scientists answer this as follows: human races were formed as a result of adaptation to different conditions of the geographical environment, and these conditions left their imprints on representatives of different races.
Negroid race (black)
Representatives of the Negroid race are distinguished by black or dark brown skin, black curly hair, a flattened wide nose and thick lips (Fig. 82).
Where black people live, there is an abundance of sun, it is hot - people's skin is more than enough irradiated by the sun's rays. And excessive radiation is harmful. And so the body of people in hot countries has adapted to excess sun over thousands of years: the skin has developed a pigment that blocks some of the sun's rays and, therefore, saves the skin from burns. Dark skin color is inherited. Coarse curly hair, which forms a kind of air cushion on the head, reliably protects a person from overheating.
Caucasian (White)
Representatives of the Caucasian race are characterized by fair skin, soft straight hair, a thick mustache and beard, a narrow nose and thin lips.
Representatives of the white race live in the northern regions, where the sun is a rare guest, and they really need the sun's rays. Their skin also produces pigment, but at the height of summer, when the body, thanks to the sun's rays, is replenished with the required amount of vitamin D. At this time, representatives of the white race become dark-skinned.
Mongoloid race (yellow)
People belonging to the Mongoloid race have dark or lighter skin, straight coarse hair, sparse or undeveloped mustache and beard, prominent cheekbones, lips and nose of medium thickness, almond-shaped eyes.
Where representatives of the yellow race live, there are frequent winds, even storms with dust and sand. And local residents tolerate such windy weather quite easily. Over the centuries they have adapted to strong winds. Mongoloids have narrow eyes, as if on purpose so that less sand and dust get into them, so that the wind does not irritate them, and they do not water. This trait is also inherited and is found among people of the Mongoloid race and in other geographical conditions. Material from the site
Among people there are those who believe that people with white skin belong to the superior races, and those with yellow and black skin belong to the inferior races. In their opinion, people with yellow and black skin are incapable of mental work and should only do physical work. These harmful ideas are still guiding racists in a number of third world countries. There, the work of blacks is paid lower than that of whites, and blacks are subjected to humiliation and insults. In civilized countries, all peoples have the same rights.
Research by N. N. Miklouho-Maclay on racial equality
The Russian scientist Nikolai Nikolaevich Miklouho-Maclay, in order to prove the complete inconsistency of the theory about the existence of “lower” races incapable of mental development, in 1871 settled on the island of New Guinea, where representatives of the black race - the Papuans - lived. He lived for fifteen months among the island-chan, became close to them, studied them
In the main and minor features of external appearance and internal structure, people are very similar to each other. Therefore, from a biological point of view, most scientists consider humanity as one species of “homo sapiens”.
Humanity, which now lives on almost all land, even in Antarctica, is not homogeneous in its composition. It is divided into groups that have long been called races, and this term has become established in anthropology.
The human race is a biological group of people similar, but not homologous, to the subspecies group of zoological taxonomy. Each race is characterized by a unity of origin; it arose and was formed in a certain initial territory, or area. Races are characterized by one or another set of bodily characteristics, relating primarily to the external appearance of a person, to his morphology and anatomy.
The main racial characteristics are the following: the shape of the hair on the head; the nature and degree of development of hair on the face (beard, mustache) and on the body; hair, skin and eye color; shape of the upper eyelid, nose and lips; head and face shape; body length, or height.
Human races are the subject of special study in anthropology. According to many Soviet anthropologists, modern humanity consists of three large races, which are in turn divided into small races. These latter again consist of groups of anthropological types; the latter represent the basic units of racial taxonomy (Cheboksarov, 1951).
Within any human race one can find more typical and less typical representatives. In the same way, races are more characteristic, more clearly expressed and differ relatively little from other races. Some races are intermediate in nature.
The large Negroid-Australoid (black) race is generally characterized by a certain combination of characteristics that are found in the most pronounced expression among Sudanese blacks and distinguish it from the Caucasoid or Mongoloid large races. Racial characteristics of Negroids include: black, spirally curled or wavy hair; chocolate brown or even almost black (sometimes tan) skin; Brown eyes; a rather flat, slightly protruding nose with a low bridge and wide wings (some have a straight, narrower one); most have thick lips; very many have a long head; moderately developed chin; protruding dental part of the upper and lower jaws (jaw prognathism).
Based on their geographical distribution, the Negroid-Australoid race is also called equatorial, or African-Australian. It naturally breaks down into two small races: 1) Western, or African, otherwise Negroid, and 2) Eastern, or Oceanian, otherwise Australoid.
Representatives of the large Euro-Asian, or Caucasian, race (white) are generally characterized by a different combination of characteristics: pinkishness of the skin, due to translucent blood vessels; Some have lighter skin color, others darker; many have light hair and eyes; wavy or straight hair, moderate to heavy development of body and facial hair; lips of medium thickness; the nose is rather narrow and strongly protruding from the plane of the face; high nose bridge; poorly developed fold of the upper eyelid; slightly protruding jaws and upper face, moderately or strongly protruding chin; usually a small width of the face.
Within the large Caucasoid race (white), three small races are distinguished by hair and eye color: the more pronounced northern (light-colored) and southern (dark-colored), as well as the less pronounced Central European (with intermediate coloring). A significant part of Russians belong to the so-called White Sea-Baltic group of types of the northern small race. They are characterized by light brown or blond hair, blue or gray eyes, and very fair skin. At the same time, their nose often has a concave back, and the bridge of the nose is not very high and has a different shape than that of the northwestern Caucasoid types, namely the Atlanto-Baltic group, whose representatives are found mainly in the population of the countries of Northern Europe. The White Sea-Baltic group has many common features with the last group: both of them constitute the northern Caucasoid small race.
Darker-colored groups of southern Caucasians form the bulk of the population of Spain, France, Italy, Switzerland, southern Germany and the countries of the Balkan Peninsula.
The Mongoloid, or Asian-American, large (yellow) race as a whole differs from the Negroid-Australoid and Caucasoid large races in the combination of racial characteristics characteristic of it. Thus, its most typical representatives have dark skin with yellowish tints; dark brown eyes; hair black, straight, tight; On the face, a beard and mustache, as a rule, do not develop; the body hair is very poorly developed; typical Mongoloids are very characterized by a highly developed and peculiarly located fold of the upper eyelid, which covers the inner corner of the eye, thereby causing a somewhat oblique position of the palpebral fissure (this fold is called the epicanthus); their face is rather flat; wide cheekbones; the chin and jaws protrude slightly; the nose is straight, but the bridge is low; lips are moderately developed; Most are of average or below average height.
This combination of characteristics is more common, for example, among the northern Chinese, who are typical Mongoloids, but taller. In other Mongoloid groups one can find less or thicker lips, less tight hair, and shorter stature among them. The American Indians occupy a special place, because some characteristics seem to bring them closer to the greater Caucasian race.
There are also groups of types of mixed origin in humanity. The so-called Lapland-Urals include the Lapps, or Sami, with their yellowish skin but soft dark hair. By their physical characteristics, these inhabitants of the far north of Europe connect the Caucasoid and Mongoloid races.
There are also groups that at the same time have great similarities with two other, more sharply different races, and the similarity is explained not so much by mixing as by ancient family ties. Such, for example, is the Ethiopian group of types, connecting the Negroid and Caucasoid races: it has the character of a transitional race. This appears to be a very ancient group. The combination of the characteristics of two large races in it clearly indicates very distant times when these two races still represented something single. Many inhabitants of Ethiopia, or Abyssinia, belong to the Ethiopian race.
In total, humanity falls into about twenty-five to thirty groups of types. At the same time, it represents unity, since among the races there are intermediate (transitional) or mixed groups of anthropological types.
It is characteristic of most human races and type groups that each of them occupies a certain general territory on which this part of humanity historically arose and developed.
But due to historical conditions, it has happened more than once that one or another part of the representatives of a given race moved to neighboring or even very distant countries. In some cases, some races completely lost contact with their original territory, or a significant part of them were subjected to physical extermination.
As we have seen, representatives of one or another race are characterized by approximately the same combination of hereditary bodily characteristics related to the external appearance of a person. However, it has been established that these racial characteristics change during an individual's life and in the course of evolution.
Representatives of each human race, due to their common origin, are somewhat closer related to each other than to representatives of other human races.
Racial groups are characterized by strong individual variability, and the boundaries between different races are usually blurred. So. Some races are connected with other races through imperceptible transitions. In some cases, it is very difficult to establish the racial composition of the population of a particular country or population group.
The determination of racial characteristics and their individual variability is made on the basis of techniques developed in anthropology and with the help of special tools. As a rule, hundreds and even thousands of representatives of the racial group of humanity being studied are subjected to measurements and examination. Such techniques make it possible to judge with sufficient accuracy the racial composition of a particular people, the degree of purity or mixedness of a racial type, but do not provide an absolute opportunity to classify some people as one or another race. This depends either on the fact that the racial type of a given individual is not clearly expressed, or due to the fact that the given person is the result of a mixture.
Racial characteristics in some cases vary noticeably even throughout a person’s life. Sometimes over a period of not very long time the characteristics of racial divisions change. Thus, in many groups of humanity over the past hundreds of years the shape of the head has changed. The leading progressive American anthropologist Franz Boas established that the shape of the skull changes within racial groups even over a much shorter period, for example, when moving from one part of the world to another, as happened among immigrants from Europe to America.
Individual and general forms of variability of racial characteristics are inextricably linked and lead to continuous, although usually little noticeable, modifications of the racial groups of humanity. The hereditary composition of the race, although quite stable, is nevertheless subject to constant change. We have so far talked more about racial differences than about similarities between races. However, let us recall that the differences between races appear quite clearly only when a set of characteristics is taken. If we consider racial characteristics separately, then only very few of them can serve as more or less reliable evidence of an individual’s belonging to a particular race. In this regard, perhaps the most striking feature is spirally curled, or, in other words, kinky (finely curly) hair, so characteristic of typical blacks.
In very many cases it is completely impossible to determine. what race should a person be classified as? So, for example, a nose with a rather high back, a bridge of medium height and medium-wide wings can be found in some groups of all three major races, as well as other racial characteristics. And this is regardless of whether that person came from a biracial marriage or not.
The fact that racial characteristics are intertwined serves as one of the proofs that the races have a common origin and are blood related to one another.
Racial differences are usually secondary or even tertiary features in the structure of the human body. Some of the racial characteristics, such as skin color, are largely related to the adaptability of the human body to the natural environment. Such features developed during the historical development of mankind, but they have already lost their biological significance to a large extent. In this sense, human races are not at all similar to subspecies groups of animals.
In wild animals, racial differences arise and develop as a result of the adaptation of their body to the natural environment in the process of natural selection, in the struggle between variability and heredity. Subspecies of wild animals as a result of long or rapid biological evolution can and do turn into species. Subspecies features are vital for wild animals and have an adaptive nature.
Breeds of domestic animals are formed under the influence of artificial selection: the most useful or beautiful individuals are taken into the tribe. The breeding of new breeds is carried out on the basis of the teachings of I.V. Michurin, often in a very short time, over just a few generations, especially in combination with proper feeding.
Artificial selection did not play any role in the formation of modern human races, and natural selection had a secondary importance, which it has long lost. It is obvious that the process of origin and development of human races differs sharply from the paths of origin of breeds of domestic animals, not to mention cultivated plants.
The first foundations of a scientific understanding of the origin of human races from a biological point of view were laid by Charles Darwin. He specially studied the human races and established the certainty of their very close similarity to each other in many basic characteristics, as well as their blood, very close relationship. But this, according to Darwin, clearly indicates their origin from one common trunk, and not from different ancestors. All further development of science confirmed his conclusions, which form the basis for monogenism. Thus, the doctrine of the origin of man from different monkeys, i.e. polygenism, turns out to be untenable and, consequently, racism is deprived of one of its main supports (Ya. Ya. Roginsky, M. G. Levin, 1955).
What are the main characteristics of the “homo sapiens” species, which are characteristic of all modern human races without exception? The main, primary features should be recognized as a very large and highly developed brain with a very large number of convolutions and grooves on the surface of its hemispheres and the human hand, which, according to Engels, is an organ and a product of labor. The structure of the leg is also characteristic, especially the foot with a longitudinal arch, adapted to support the human body when standing and moving.
Important features of the type of modern man include the following: a spinal column with four curves, of which the lumbar curve, which developed in connection with upright walking, is especially characteristic; the skull with its rather smooth outer surface, with a highly developed cerebral and poorly developed facial regions, with high frontal and parietal areas of the cerebral region; highly developed gluteal muscles, as well as thigh and calf muscles; poor development of body hair with a complete absence of tufts of tactile hair, or vibrissae, in the eyebrows, mustache and beard.
Possessing the totality of the listed characteristics, all modern human races stand at an equally high level of development of physical organization. Although in different races these basic species characteristics are not developed in exactly the same way - some are stronger, others are weaker, but these differences are very small: all races completely have features like modern humans, and not one of them is Neanderthaloid. Of all the human races, there is not one that is biologically superior to any other race.
Modern human races have equally lost many of the ape-like features that Neanderthals had and have acquired the progressive features of “Homo sapiens.” Therefore, none of the modern human races can be considered more ape-like or more primitive than the others.
Adherents of the false doctrine of superior and inferior races claim that blacks are more like monkeys than Europeans. But from a scientific point of view this is completely false. Blacks have spirally curled hair, thick lips, a straight or convex forehead, no tertiary hair on the body and face, and very long legs relative to the body. And these signs indicate that it is blacks who differ more sharply from chimpanzees. than Europeans. But the latter, in turn, differ more sharply from monkeys with their very light skin color and other features.
Dr. Don Batten and Dr. Karl Wieland
What are "races"?
How did different skin colors come about?
Is it true that black skin is the result of Noah's curse?
According to the Bible, all people living on Earth descended from Noah, his wife, three sons and three daughters-in-law (and even earlier from Adam and Eve - Genesis 1-11). However, today there are groups of people called “races” living on Earth, whose external characteristics vary significantly. Many view this state of affairs as a reason to doubt the truth of biblical history. It is believed that these groups could only have arisen through separate evolution over tens of thousands of years.
The Bible tells us how the descendants of Noah, who spoke the same language and kept together, disobeyed the Divine command « fill the earth» (Genesis 9:1; 11:4). God confused their languages, after which the people split into groups and were scattered throughout the Earth (Genesis 11:8-9). Modern methods of genetics show how, after the separation of people, variations in external characteristics (for example, skin color) could develop in just a few generations. There is compelling evidence that the different groups of people we see in the modern world were not isolated from each other over vast periods of time.
In fact, on Earth "there is only one race"- a race of people, or the human race. The Bible teaches that God « from one blood... produced the entire human race" (Acts 17:26). The Holy Scripture distinguishes people by tribes and nations, and not by skin color or other features of appearance. At the same time, it is quite obvious that there are groups of people who have common characteristics (for example, the notorious skin color) that distinguish them from other groups. We prefer to call them "groups of people" rather than "races" to avoid evolutionary associations. Representatives of any nations can interbreed freely and produce fertile offspring. This proves that the biological differences between the “races” are very small.
In fact, the differences in DNA composition are extremely small. If you take any two people from any corner of the Earth, then the differences in their DNA will normally be 0.2%. Moreover, the so-called “racial characteristics” will amount to only 6% of this difference (that is, only 0.012%); everything else is within the range of “intra-racial” variations.
“This genetic unity means, for example, that a white American who is noticeably different from a black American in phenotype may be closer in tissue composition to him than another black American.”
Fig. 1 Caucasian and Mongoloid eyes differ in the amount of fat layer around the eye, as well as the ligament, which disappears in most non-Asian infants by six months of age.
Anthropologists divide humanity into several main racial groups: Caucasoid (or “white”), Mongoloid (including the Chinese, Eskimos and American Indians), Negroid (black Africans) and Australoid (Australian Aborigines). Almost all evolutionists these days accept that different groups of people could not have had different origins- that is, they could not have evolved from different types of animals. Thus, proponents of evolution agree with creationists that all groups of peoples descended from a single original population of the Earth. Of course, evolutionists believe that groups such as the Australian Aborigines and the Chinese were separated from the rest by tens of thousands of years.
Most people believe that such significant external differences could develop only for a very long time. One of the reasons for this misconception is this: many believe that external differences are inherited from distant ancestors who acquired unique genetic properties that others did not have. This assumption is understandable, but essentially incorrect.
Consider, for example, the issue of skin color. It is easy to assume that if different groups of people have yellow, red, black, white or brown skin, then there are different skin pigments. But since different chemicals imply a different genetic code in the gene pool of each group, a serious question arises: how could such differences develop in a relatively short period of human history?
In fact, we all have only one skin “dye” - melanin. This is a dark brown pigment produced in each of us in special skin cells. If a person does not have melanin (as in albinos - people with a mutational defect that prevents melanin from being produced), then their skin color is very white or slightly pinkish. The cells of “white” Europeans produce little melanin, while those of black-skinned Africans produce a lot; and in between, as is easy to understand, all shades of yellow and brown.
Thus, the only significant factor determining skin color is the amount of melanin produced. In general, no matter what property of a group of people we consider, it will, in fact, be simply a variant comparable to others inherent in other peoples. For example, the Asian eye shape differs from the European one, in particular, in a small ligament that slightly pulls the eyelid down (see Figure 1). All newborns have this ligament, but after six months of age it remains, as a rule, only in Asians. Occasionally, the ligament is preserved in Europeans, giving their eyes an Asian almond-shaped shape, and vice versa, in some Asians it is lost, making their eyes Caucasian.
What is the role of melanin? It protects the skin from ultraviolet rays of the sun. A person with a small amount of melanin under the strong influence of solar activity is more prone to sunburn and skin cancer. Conversely, if you have too much melanin in your cells and you live in a country where there is not enough sun, your body will have a harder time producing the required amount of vitamin D (which is produced in the skin when exposed to sunlight). A lack of this vitamin can cause bone diseases (for example, rickets) and some types of cancer. Scientists have also discovered that ultraviolet rays destroy folates (folic acid salts), vitamins necessary for strengthening the spine. Melanin helps conserve folate, so people with dark skin are better suited to living in areas with high levels of ultraviolet rays (tropics or high altitudes).
A person is born with a genetically determined ability produce melanin in a certain amount, and this ability is activated in response to sunlight - a tan appears on the skin. But how could such different skin colors arise in a short time? If a representative of a black group of people marries a “white” person, the skin of their descendants ( mulattoes) will be "medium brown" in color. It has long been known that mulatto marriages produce children with a wide variety of skin colors - from completely black to completely white.
Awareness of this fact gives us the key to solving our problem as a whole. But first we need to become familiar with the basic laws of heredity.
Heredity
Each of us carries information about our own body - as detailed as a drawing of a building. This “drawing” determines not only that you are a person and not a head of cabbage, but also what color your eyes are, what the shape of your nose is, and so on. At the moment the sperm and egg merge into a zygote, it already contains all information about the future structure of a person (excluding such unpredictable factors as, say, exercise or diet).
Much of this information is encoded in DNA. DNA is the most effective information storage system, many times superior to any sophisticated computer technology. The information recorded here is copied (and recombined) through the process of reproduction from generation to generation. The term "gene" means a piece of this information containing instructions for the production of, for example, just one enzyme.
For example, there is a gene that carries instructions for the production of hemoglobin, the protein that carries oxygen in red blood cells. If this gene is damaged by mutation (a copying error during reproduction), the instructions will be incorrect - and, at best, we will get defective hemoglobin. (Such mistakes can lead to diseases such as sickle cell anemia.) Genes are always paired; Therefore, in the case of hemoglobin, we have two sets of codes (instructions) for its reproduction: one from the mother, the second from the father. The zygote (fertilized egg) receives half of the information from the father's sperm and the other half from the mother's egg.
This device is very useful. If a person inherits a damaged gene from one parent (and this dooms his cells to produce, say, abnormal hemoglobin), then the gene received from the other parent will be normal, and this will give the body the ability to produce normal protein. In the genome of each person there are hundreds of errors inherited from one of the parents, which do not appear, since each of them is “hidden” by the activity of another - a normal gene (see the booklet “Cain’s Wife - Who is She?”).
Color of the skin
We know that skin color is determined by more than one pair of genes. For simplicity, we assume that there are only two such (paired) genes, and they are located on the chromosomes in places A and B. One form of the gene, M, “gives the order” to produce a lot of melanin; another, m, – little melanin. According to location A, there can be paired combinations of MAMA, MAmA and mAmA, which give the skin cells a signal to produce a lot, not very much or little melanin.
Similarly, according to the location of B, there may be combinations of MVMV, MVmB and mBmB, also giving a signal to produce a lot, not very much or little melanin. Thus, people with very dark skin color may have a combination of genes such as MAMAMMV (see Figure 2). Since both the sperm and eggs of such people can contain only MAMB genes (after all, only one gene from positions A and B can enter a sperm or egg), their children will be born only with the same set of genes as their parents.
Consequently, all these children will have very dark skin color. In the same way, light-skinned people with the mAmAmBmB gene combination can only have children with the same gene combination. What combinations can appear in the offspring of mulattoes with dark skin with a combination of MAMAMBmB genes - who are, for example, children from the marriage of people with the MAMAMBMB and mAmAmBmB genes (see Figure 3)? Let's turn to a special scheme - the “Punnet lattice” (see Figure 4). On the left are the genetic combinations possible for a sperm, on the top - for an egg. We select one of the possible combinations for the sperm and consider, going along the line, what results from its combination with each of the possible combinations in the egg.
Each intersection of a row and a column records the combination of genes of the offspring when a given egg is fertilized by a given sperm. For example, when a sperm with the MAmB genes and an egg mAMB fuse, the child will have the MAmAMBmB genotype, like his parents. Overall, the diagram shows that such a marriage can produce children with five levels of melanin content (shades of skin color). If we take into account not two, but three pairs of genes responsible for melanin, we will see that the offspring can have seven levels of its content.
If people with the MAMAMVMV genotype - “completely” black (that is, without genes that reduce melanin levels and lighten the skin at all) marry among themselves and move to places where their children cannot meet lighter-skinned people, then all of them the descendants will also be black - a pure “black line” will be obtained. Likewise, if "white" people (mAmAmBmB) marry only people of the same skin color and live in isolation without dating darker-skinned people, they will end up with a pure "white line" - they will lose the genes needed to produce large amounts of melanin, which provides dark skin color.
Thus, two dark-skinned people can not only produce children of any skin color, but also give rise to different groups of people with a stable skin tone. But how did groups of people with the same dark shade appear? This again is easy to explain. If people with the MAMAmBmB and mАmAMBMB genotypes do not enter into mixed marriages, they will produce only dark-skinned offspring. (You can check this conclusion yourself by constructing a Punnett lattice.) If a representative of one of these lines enters into a mixed marriage, the process will go backwards. In a short period of time, the offspring of such a marriage will demonstrate a full range of skin tones, often within the same family.
If all the people on Earth now freely intermarry, and then for some reason split into groups living separately, then a whole host of new combinations could arise: almond-shaped eyes with black skin, blue eyes and black curly short hair, and so on. Of course, we must remember that genes behave in much more complex ways than in our simplified explanation. Sometimes certain genes are linked. But this does not change the essence. Even today, within one group of people one can see traits usually associated with another group.
Figure 3. Multicolored twins born to mulatto parents are an example of genetic variations in skin color.
For example, you can meet a European with a wide, flat nose, or a Chinese with very pale skin or a completely European eye shape. Most scientists today agree that for modern humanity the term “race” has virtually no biological meaning. And this is a serious argument against the theory of the isolated development of groups of peoples over long periods of time.
What really happened?
We can reconstruct the true history of groups of people using:
- information given to us by the Creator Himself in the Book of Genesis;
- the scientific information stated above;
- some considerations about environmental influences.
God created the first man, Adam, who became the progenitor of all people. 1656 years after the Creation, the Great Flood destroyed all of humanity, with the exception of Noah, his wife, three sons and their wives. The flood radically changed their habitat. The Lord confirmed His commandment to the survivors: to be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth (Genesis 9:1). Several centuries later, people decided to disobey God and united to build a huge city and the Tower of Babel - a symbol of rebellion and paganism. From the eleventh chapter of the book of Genesis we know that up to this point people spoke a single language. God disgraced disobedience by confusing the languages of men so that men could not act together against God. The confusion of languages forced them to scatter throughout the Earth, which was the intention of the Creator. Thus, all "groups of people" arose simultaneously, with the confusion of languages during the construction of the Tower of Babel. Noah and his family were probably dark-skinned—they had the genes for both black and white).
This average color is the most universal: it is dark enough to protect against skin cancer, and at the same time light enough to provide the body with vitamin D. Since Adam and Eve had all the factors that determine skin color, they probably also had dark-skinned, brown-eyed, with black or brown hair. In fact, most of the modern world's population has dark skin.
After the Flood and before the construction of Babylon, there was a single language and a single cultural group on Earth. Therefore, there were no obstacles to marriages within this group. This factor stabilized the skin color of the population, cutting off extremes. Of course, from time to time people were born with very light or very dark skin, but they intermarried freely with the rest, and thus the “average color” remained unchanged. The same applies to other characteristics, not just skin color. In circumstances that allow for free interbreeding, obvious external differences do not appear.
For them to manifest themselves, it is necessary to divide the population into isolated groups, eliminating the possibility of crossing between them. This is true for both animal and human populations, as any biologist knows well.
Consequences of Babylon
This is exactly what happened after the Babylonian Pandemonium. When God made people speak different languages, insurmountable barriers arose between them. Now they did not dare to marry those whose language they did not understand. Moreover, groups of people united by a common language had difficulty communicating and, of course, did not trust those who spoke other languages. They were forced to move away from each other and settled in different places. This is how God’s commandment was fulfilled: “Fill the earth.”
It is doubtful that each of the newly formed small groups contained people of the same wide range of skin colors as the original one. Carriers of dark skin genes could predominate in one group, and lighter skin in another. The same applies to other external signs: the shape of the nose, the shape of the eyes, and so on. And since now all marriages took place within one language group, each such trait no longer tended to the average, as it had previously. As people moved away from Babylon, they had to deal with new and unusual climatic conditions.
As an example, consider a group heading to cold regions where the sun shines weaker and less often. Black people there lacked vitamin D, so they got sick more often and had fewer children. Consequently, over time, light-skinned people began to predominate in this group. If several different groups headed north, and members of one of them lacked the genes that provide light skin, that group was doomed to extinction. Natural selection operates on the basis already existing signs, but does not form new ones. Researchers have discovered that, who in our days have already been recognized as full-fledged representatives of the human race, suffered from rickets, which indicates a deficiency of vitamin D in the bones. In fact, it was the signs of rickets, plus evolutionary prejudices, that for a long time forced Neanderthals to be classified as “ape-men.” "
Apparently, this was a group of dark-skinned people who found themselves in a natural environment that was unfavorable for them - due to the set of genes which they initially had. Let us note again that so-called natural selection does not create new skin color, but only selects from already existing combinations. Conversely, a group of fair-skinned people stranded in a hot, sunny region would likely suffer from skin cancer. Thus, in hot climates, dark-skinned people had a better chance of survival. So we see that environmental influences can
(a) influence the genetic balance within one group and
(b) even cause the extinction of entire groups.
This is why we currently see a correspondence between the most common physical characteristics of the population and the environment (for example, northern peoples with pale skin, dark-skinned inhabitants of the equator, and so on).
But this doesn't always happen. The Inuit (Eskimos) have brown skin, although they live where there is little sun. It can be assumed that initially their genotype was something like MAMAmBmB, and therefore their offspring could not be lighter or darker. The Inuit eat mainly fish, which contains a lot of vitamin D. Conversely, the indigenous people of South America living near the equator do not have black skin at all. These examples once again confirm that natural selection does not create new information - if the genetic pool does not allow you to change skin color, natural selection is not able to do this. African pygmies are inhabitants of hot regions, but they are very rarely exposed to the open sun, because they live in shady jungles. And yet their skin is black.
The Pygmies provide a prime example of another factor influencing human racial history: discrimination. People who deviate from the “norm” (for example, a very light-skinned person among blacks) are traditionally treated with hostility. It is difficult for such a person to find a spouse. This state of affairs leads to the disappearance of light skin genes in black people in hot countries and dark skin genes in light skinned people in cold countries. This was the tendency of groups to "purify".
In some cases, consanguineous marriages in a small group can cause the re-emergence of almost extinct characteristics that were "suppressed" by ordinary marriages. There is a tribe in Africa all of whose members have severely deformed feet; this trait appeared in them as a result of consanguineous marriages. If people with hereditary short stature were discriminated against, they were forced to seek refuge in the wilderness and marry only among themselves. Thus, over time, the “race” of pygmies was formed. The fact that the Pygmy tribes, according to observations, do not have their own language, but speak the dialects of neighboring tribes, is strong evidence in favor of this hypothesis. Certain genetic characteristics could prompt groups of people to consciously (or semi-consciously) choose where to settle.
For example, people genetically predisposed to denser subcutaneous fat layers were likely to leave regions that were too hot.
Common memory
The biblical story of the emergence of man is supported not only by biological and genetic evidence. Since all of humanity descended from the family of Noah relatively recently, it would be strange if the tales and legends of different peoples did not contain references to the Great Flood, even if somewhat distorted during oral transmission from generation to generation.
And indeed: in the folklore of most civilizations there is a description of the Flood that destroyed the world. Often these legends contain remarkable “coincidences” with the true biblical story: eight people saved in a boat, a rainbow, a bird sent in search of dry land, and so on.
So what's the result?
The Babylonian dispersion fragmented a single group of people, within which free interbreeding took place, into smaller, isolated groups. This led to the appearance in the resulting groups of special combinations of genes responsible for different physical characteristics.
The dispersion itself must, in a short time, have brought about the appearance of certain differences between some of these groups, commonly called "races." An additional role was played by the selective influence of the environment, which contributed to the recombination of existing genes to achieve exactly those physical characteristics that were required in given natural conditions. But there was and could not be any evolution of genes “from simple to complex,” because the entire set of genes existed. The dominant properties of different groups of people arose as a result of recombinations of an already existing set of created genes, taking into account minor degenerative changes as a result of mutations (random changes that can be inherited).
Originally created genetic information was either combined or degraded, but never increased.
What did false teachings about the origin of races lead to?
All tribes and peoples are descendants of Noah!
The Bible makes it clear that any "newly discovered" tribe certainly goes back to Noah. Therefore, at the very beginning of the tribe's culture, there was a) knowledge of God and b) possession of technology advanced enough to build a vessel the size of an ocean liner. From the first chapter of the Epistle to the Romans we can conclude about the main reason for the loss of this knowledge (see Appendix 2) - the conscious renunciation of the ancestors of these people from serving the living God. Therefore, in helping the so-called “backward” peoples, the Gospel must come first, not secular education and technical assistance. In fact, the folklore and beliefs of most “primitive” tribes preserve memories of their ancestors turning away from the living Creator God. Dan Richardson of Child of Peace has shown in his book that a missionary approach that is not blinded by evolutionary prejudices and seeks to restore the lost connection has in many cases brought abundant and blessed fruit. Jesus Christ, who came to reconcile man who rejected his Creator with God, is the only Truth that can bring true freedom to people of any culture, of any color (John 8:32; 14:6).
Annex 1
Is it true that black skin is the result of Ham's curse?
Black (or rather dark brown) skin is just a special combination of hereditary factors. These factors (but not their combination!) were originally present in Adam and Eve. There are no instructions anywhere in the Bible that black skin color is the result of a curse that fell on Ham and his descendants. Moreover, the curse did not apply to Ham himself, but to his son Canaan (Genesis 9:18,25; 10:6). The main thing is that we know that the descendants of Canaan had dark skin (Genesis 10:15-19), not black.
False teachings about Ham and his descendants have been used to justify slavery and other unbiblical racist practices. African peoples are traditionally believed to be descended from the Hamites, as the Cushites (Cush - son of Ham: Genesis 10:6) are believed to have lived in what is now Ethiopia. The Book of Genesis suggests that the dispersion of people across the Earth occurred while maintaining family ties, and it is possible that the descendants of Ham were, on average, somewhat darker than, for example, the family of Japheth. However, everything could have been completely different. Rahab (Rahab), mentioned in the genealogy of Jesus in the first chapter of the Gospel of Matthew, belonged to the Canaanites, descendants of Canaan. Being from the clan of Ham, she married an Israeli - and God approved of this union. Therefore, it didn't matter what "race" she belonged to - all that mattered was that she believed in the true God.
The Moabite Ruth is also mentioned in the genealogy of Christ. She confessed her faith in God even before her marriage to Boaz (Ruth 1:16). God warns us against only one type of marriage: God's children with unbelievers.
Appendix 2
Stone Age people?
Archaeological finds indicate that once upon a time there were people on Earth who lived in caves and used simple stone tools. Such people live on Earth to this day. We know that the entire population of the earth came from Noah and his family. Judging by the book of Genesis, even before the Flood, people had developed technology that made it possible to make musical instruments, engage in agriculture, forge metal tools, build cities, and even build such huge ships as the Ark. After the Babylonian Pandemonium, groups of people - due to mutual hostility caused by the confusion of languages - quickly scattered across the earth in search of refuge.
In some cases, stone tools could be used temporarily until people equipped their homes and found deposits of the metals necessary to make the usual tools. There were other situations when a group of immigrants initially, even before Babylon, did not deal with metal.
Ask members of any modern family: if they had to start life from scratch, how many of them would be able to find an ore deposit, mine it and smelt the metal? It is clear that the Babylonian dispersion was followed by technological and cultural decline. Harsh environmental conditions may also have played a role. The technology and culture of the Australian Aborigines is quite consistent with their way of life and the needs of survival in arid areas.
Let us at least recall the aerodynamic principles, knowledge of which is necessary to create various types of boomerangs (some of them return, others do not). Sometimes we see clear but difficult to explain evidence of decline. For example, when Europeans arrived in Tasmania, the technology of the Aboriginal people there was the most primitive imaginable. They did not fish, make or wear clothes. However, archaeological excavations have shown that the cultural and technological level of previous generations of aborigines was incomparably higher.
Archaeologist Rhys Jones claims that in the distant past they were able to sew elaborate clothing from skins. This is in stark contrast to the situation in the early 1800s, when Aboriginal people simply threw skins over their shoulders. There is evidence that in the past they caught fish and ate it, but stopped doing this long before the arrival of Europeans. From all this we can conclude that technical progress is not natural: sometimes accumulated knowledge and skills disappear without a trace. Followers of animist cults live in constant fear of evil spirits. Many basic and healthy things - washing or eating well - are taboo among them. This once again confirms the truth that the loss of knowledge of God the Creator leads to degradation (Romans 1:18-32).
Here's the Good News
Creation Ministries International is committed to glorifying and honoring God the Creator and affirming the truth that the Bible tells the true story of the origins of the world and man. Part of this story is the bad news of Adam's violation of God's command. This brought death, suffering and separation from God into the world. These results are known to everyone. All of Adam's descendants are afflicted with sin from the moment of conception (Psalm 51:7) and share in Adam's disobedience (sin). They can no longer be in the presence of the Holy God and are doomed to separation from Him. The Bible says that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23), and that all “shall suffer the punishment of everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power” (2 Thessalonians 1:9). But there is good news: God did not remain indifferent to our misfortune. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”(John 3:16).
Jesus Christ, the Creator, being sinless, took upon Himself the guilt for the sins of all mankind and their consequences - death and separation from God. He died on the cross, but on the third day he rose again, having conquered death. And now everyone who sincerely believes in Him, repents of their sins and relies not on themselves, but on Christ, can return to God and remain in eternal communion with their Creator. “He who believes in Him is not condemned, but he who does not believe is already condemned, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.”(John 3:18). Marvelous is our Savior and wonderful is salvation in Christ, our Creator!
Links and notes
- Based on variations in mitochondrial DNA, attempts have been made to prove that all modern humans are descended from a single foremother (who lived in a small population approximately 70 to 800 thousand years ago). Recent discoveries in the rate of mutation of mitochondrial DNA have sharply shortened this period to the time frame specified by the Bible. See Lowe, L., and Scherer, S., 1997. Mitochondrial Eye: the plot thickens. Trends in Ecology and Evolution, 12 (11):422-423; Wieland, C.,1998. A shrinking date for Eve. CEN Technical Journal, 12(1): 1-3. creationontheweb.com/eve
For more than a century, various expeditions of anthropologists have been working in various parts of the globe, studying the diversity of humankind. Tribes have been studied in the most inaccessible areas (in tropical forests, deserts, highlands, islands), and as a result, modern humanity has been studied in morphological and physiological terms, perhaps better than any other biological species. Research has revealed the exceptional diversity of physical and genotypic characteristics of human populations and their fine adaptation to living conditions. Research has also shown that although modern humanity belongs to one single species Homo sapiens, this type is polymorphic , since it forms several different intraspecific groups, which have long been called races.
Race(fr. race- “genus”, “breed”, “tribe”) is a historically established intraspecific grouping consisting of populations Homo sapiens, characterized by similarities in morphophysiological and mental properties. Each race is distinguished by a set of hereditarily determined characteristics. Among them: skin color, eyes, hair, features of the skull and soft parts of the face, body size, height, etc.
External features of the structure of the human body were the main criteria for dividing humanity into races.
Modern humanity is divided into three main races: Negroid, Mongoloid and Caucasian.
Races of man |
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Negroid race |
Mongoloid race |
Caucasian |
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There are two large branches - African and Australian: the blacks of West Africa, the Bushmen, the Pygmy Negritos, the Hottentots, the Melanesians and the aborigines of Australia |
indigenous people of Asia (with the exception of India) and America (from the northern Eskimos to the Indians of Tierra del Fuego) |
population of Europe, the Caucasus, southwest Asia, northern Africa, India, as well as the population of America |
Negroid race characterized by dark skin color, curly, spirally twisted hair (on the head and body), a wide and slightly protruding nose, and thick lips. The Negroid race includes the blacks of West Africa, Bushmen, Pygmy Negritos, Hottentots, Melanesians and aborigines of Australia. There are two large branches of the Negroid race - African and Australian. Groups of the Australian branch are characterized, in contrast to the African branch, by wavy hair type.
Mongoloid race characterized by dark or light skin, straight and fairly coarse hair, a flattened face shape, prominent cheekbones, protruding lips, a narrow palpebral fissure, a strong development of the upper eyelid fold and the presence of an epicanthus, or “Mongolian fold.”
Epicanthus - a fold of skin in the area of the corner of a person’s eye, covering the lacrimal tubercle; It is especially strongly developed in children and women and occurs more often in women than in men.
The Mongoloid group includes all the indigenous populations of Asia (with the exception of India) and America. The Americanoids are distinguished as a special branch in the Mongoloid race, i.e. indigenous people of America (from northern Eskimos to Tierra del Fuego Indians). They differ from Asian Mongoloids in two features - significant protrusion of the nose and the absence of epicanthus, which brings them closer to Caucasians.
Caucasian characterized by light or dark skin, straight or wavy soft hair, a narrow protruding nose, light (blue) eye color, thin lips, a narrow and wide head. Caucasians inhabit Europe, the Caucasus, southwestern Asia, northern Africa, India and are part of the population of America.
Within each race distinguish small races , or subracess (anthropological types) . For example, the Caucasian group includes the Atlanto-Baltic, Indo-Mediterranean, Central European, Balkan-Caucasian and White Sea-Baltic. Within the Mongoloid - North Asian, Arctic, Far Eastern, South Asian and American. There are also several subraces within the Negroid race. According to the concept, which does not take into account origin, large races are divided into 22 small ones, some of which are transitional.
The very existence of transitional races testifies to the dynamism of racial characteristics. Transitional small races combine not only morphological characteristics, but also the genetic characteristics of large ones. Social factors and environmental features have determined the differences between races and their subraces in connection with human settlement around the globe.
Racial characteristics are hereditary, but at present they do not have significant significance for human life. Therefore, now representatives of different races often live in the same territory. But in the distant past, when the influence of social factors was still small, of course, many of the characteristics characteristic of a particular race were an adaptation to certain physical, geographical and climatic conditions of the external environment and were developed under the influence of natural selection.
N For example, the dark coloring of the skin and hair of the inhabitants of the equatorial regions of the Earth arose as protection from the burning effect of the ultraviolet rays of the sun. The blacks of Africa have developed a high, elongated cranium, which is heated less than a round and low one. Curly hair, which creates an air layer around the head, has developed as protection against overheating when exposed to hot sun rays; thick lips, a wide nose, and elongated body proportions with low weight emerged as ways to increase body surface area, useful for thermoregulation (heat loss) in hot climates. The type with wider body proportions relative to volume developed in climate conditions with significant negative temperatures. The flat face of the Mongoloids with a slightly protruding nose turned out to be useful in conditions of a sharply continental climate and strong winds; moreover, the smooth, streamlined surface is less susceptible to frostbite.
Many morphological characteristics of races serve as evidence that the natural environment, its abiotic and biotic factors had a great influence in race formation. Like the entire living world, in man during the period of his formation, external conditions caused variability and the appearance of various adaptive properties, and natural selection preserved the most successful adaptation options. Adaptive properties of the race were manifested not only in appearance, but also in human physiology, for example, in the composition of the blood, the characteristics of fat deposition, and the activity of metabolic processes.
These differences arose in connection with the settlement of people in new habitats. It is believed that Homo sapiens formed off the eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea and in northeastern Africa. From these areas, the first Cro-Magnons settled in Southern Europe, throughout South and East Asia up to Australia. Through the northeastern tip of Asia they came to America - first to the west of North America, from where they descended to South America.
Foci of race formation and ways of dispersal of races: 1 - the ancestral home of man and resettlement from it; 2 - center of disorganization and dispersal of Australoids; 3 - center of race formation and settlement of Caucasians; 4—center of race formation and settlement of Negroids; 5 - center of race formation and settlement of Mongoloids; 6.7 - centers of race formation and settlement of Americanoids
Races began to form during the process of human settlement of different territories of the Earth about 40-70 thousand years ago, i.e., even at the stage of the early Cro-Magnon man. At that time, many racial characteristics had great adaptive significance and were fixed by natural selection in a certain geographical environment. However, with the development of social relations (communication, speech, joint hunting, etc.) and the strengthening of social factors, the influence of the environment, as well as the pressure of natural selection, ceased to be a shaping force for humans. Despite the emergence of numerous racial differences in morphological and physiological characteristics, reproductive isolation between human races did not occur. There are also no differences between races in intellectual potential and mental abilities.
Active movement around the planet and the resulting joint settlements of many people in the same territories have shown that the isolation of human races, their morphological, physiological and mental differences as a result of mixed marriages is reduced and even lost. This serves as convincing confirmation of the unity of the species Homo sapiens and proof of the biological equivalence of all human races. Racial differences concern only the characteristics of morphology and physiology, but they are variations of the single heredity of man as a species.
Despite the diversity of races of modern man, they are all representatives of one single species. The presence of fertile marriages between people of different races confirms their genetic non-isolation, which indicates the integrity of the species. Unity of the species Homo sapiens is ensured by a common origin, an unlimited ability to interbreed between people of different races and ethnic groups, as well as the same level of their general physical and mental development.
All human races are at the same biological level of development.