Anyone here watched National Geographic

[Sickko]

On Sunday night?

They had a two hour programme about the mapping of genes etc and the result was that at a gene level, science does not recognise race as we are all within less than half a percent the same.

AMAZING

Not sure I agree or understand most of what was being said (yes I will admit that) as they did not have a lot of answers to things like why and how did early man move from Africa which is where they agree human being originated but random testing of over 30,000 people from all over the world and all different races showed some interesting results.

Of the over 2million (or was it billion) markers on our DNA, they said it took only a few to determine things like skin colour, texture of hair, eye colour and nose shape for example.

I am sure they will repeat it soon as Sunday's showing was the Premier.

[Stonigut]

I missed it but it sounds very interesting. I will have to make sure I catch it next time. Africa has the widest variety of everything from bio-hdiversity to culture, civilization, languages and diversity of people from the smallest the pygmies to the largest and tallest the Dinka of the Sudan, from the darkest to literally tone of the fairest the Berber of north Africa or the widest spread of skin color variation in any continent (the Indian subcontinent comes pretty close with the Dravidian stock versus the Aryan stock as well).

The human gene pool is also the widest as every Y and X has it's origin in Africa as there are people in Africa with the same Y and X of every other place on earth and the opposite is not true. So it may be true that a particular tribe in Kenya may be closer related to say a tribe out of central Russia that it is as close to another tribe in even the same region of Africa however to other people they may look exactly the same, can you imagine the 500 year old dead set focus on skin color as a separator of people may come to an end as "that emperor has been shown to have absolutely no clothes on at all" it had no basis it was a deadly system aimed at entrenching one regional origin against another to justify economic gain. Absolutely amazing.

What i woulda love to see is all our sprinters tested Y & X and see how closely related they all are, that might be very interesting, there may be a common ancestor 300 years ago responsible for 50% of our gold medalists.

[Sickko]

Interesting points...

what they said was that everyone alive today has a common African grand father or grand mother from some 50,000 years ago.

One Afro-American guy was surprised to find he had been put in the European pool surrounded by 'white people'.

[Stonigut]

That is no surprise at all, maybe for him it was and especially for African Americans who really don't fully realize their varied ancestry, well who i know it is really true for is white americans who not only have black ancestry from 50K years ago but the possibly 50% of them that have African ancestry in the last 300 years. This is not talked about in the US at all, it is like it does not exist, I can count on my one hand the amount of "white americans" who have ever said, hey I know that I am part black, and that my family has a significant black connection relatively recently, of course most people have no idea who or what their great grandparent looked like so it is not a topic that is discussed, however when it come time fi talk bout Indian ancestry, everybody and them mother is part Cherokee or Kiowa, Apache or something, yes you learn this within two to five minutes of meeting some people, a very hypocritical part of the culture.

I am not sure if you saw that there are 6 US presidents that were known to have a strong African connection in their family, but this was downplayed pretty strongly in thier biographies etc. In some cases it was even brought up on the campaign trail but it surprisingly never stopped those guys from being presidents in some of the toughest times in American history.

[Islandman]

Didn't see that particular program but its a topic I follow fairly closely. What you have said sounds close to my understanding of the topic.

One thing I have mentioned before on this thing about us all being 99% the same DNA though, it is a bit overstated in my opinion. Yes it might be statistically true but the 1% can have significant consequences. As a comparison, we have more than 95% of our DNA in common with chimpanzees. I would like to think that I am VERY different physically and mentally from a chimpanzee.

[Yuttie]

actualy 99.9%. there is no such thing as race in science. If your worried about a champanzee, how do feel about a sponge? Your DNA structure is 60% similar to the DNA of a sponge.

Regarding sickko's curiousity as to how human's were disperesed all over the world, that is a result of the plate tectonics/continental drift.

[Mosiah]

God bless the American college system!

And the Science Channel! I saw that on Sc last weekend!

[Stonigut]

Yow mi bredrin plate tectonics happened millions of years before humans existed, humans were much more recent and dispersed over the world pretty much the same way nomads move in search of better food, grazing land and over hundreds of years move probably moved probably a few hundred miles, over time a dispersal, running away from bad man/roughneck tribes looking to eat them, take their women or just looking for a better way of life meant constantly moving and looking for a better safer place. One interesting group that I actually met a few people while in Lapland were the Sami and Lappish people whose origin it is said (DNA analysis)is in Spain but over thousands of years were pushed to the northern edge of Europe to avoid competing with tougher, more agressive tribes. The same is also true for the Celts who dominated Europe prior to the invasion of the central Asian tribes, basically the Germanic tribes, like the Goths and the Vandals etc they basically pushed an advanced but not very warlike tribe like the Celts all the way to the edge of France and then into Britain and finally into Ireland where they still are today mostly strong on the western coast of Ireland, Wales and in western France.

The same seems to be true of the Bantu expansion to the east into Pgymy land and across the path of the southbound central sudanic tribes, which I believe may be the very origin of the Hutu and Tutsi conflict with the Tutsi being the remnants of the central sudanic group the tall and more streamlined features as opposed to the Bantu origin Hutu who were shorter, thicker not as streamlined in facial features, originating out of the Cameroon area, basically most of us (African descent) in the new world are from this group. The clash of these two migratory groupings has been going on for over 2000 years. This is a long standing feud with very fundamental implications, that both groups feel the other are the not the best if you know what I mean. It is this kind of antagonism that drove migration around the world.

[Yuttie]

elaborate on Jamaican origins mi bredgin. I never went into the microgentics, just the macro(Ghana).

[Islandman]

I agree that race is a cultural concept and not scientific.

My point though was that our physical (not racial) differences may be small statistically but still significant in how it affects our individual capabilties in everyday life.

[Islandman]

The sad reality though is that even if we all had the same skin color humans would have found some other way to differentiate themselves from each other and claim superiority. Big head, long hair, something, anything. Just a dark side of human nature I think.

BTW Stonigut, the man come from St Thomas, or you is just a Paul Bogle-ite?

[Sickko]

My only draw back with this programme is that the more Jamaican and Black American who watch this programme will go "ah ha told you I had indian in my blood!'

[Sickko]

This NOT what Mosiah told me that you look like at all... LOL!

[Sickko]

What they guessed was that during the Ice Age the freezing of oceans between continents and other lands as well as the lowering of the ocean depth allowed people to walk across the expanses and when the ice melted, they were 'stranded' in the new lands

[Mosiah]

Yuhseeit! Black people are so happy to find some other blood in their veins. Anything to prove dat dem cyaan suh badlucked to have 100% African blood.

Whey dem say? Out of Many, One People!