Biological Races among Humans FAQ

http://wiki.majorityrights.com/race

This FAQ is current as of [see bottom right for date]. It will be revised and updated depending on newer studies and feedback.
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      Frequently Asked Questions about Biological Races among Humans
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            What is a biological race or subspecies and how is it determined?
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            How many races or subspecies exist among humans?
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            At least 5 races?
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            What is the race of racially-mixed people?
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            How well do self-identified ethnicity or "socially constructed racial categories" correspond to genetic reality?
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            How appropriate are terms such as Caucasoid, Mongoloid, Negroid, Australoid, etc.?
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            What are some common race denial arguments?
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                  The racial classification schemes proposed by different authors have been inconsistent with each other
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                  Inconsistent classification trees/patterns depending on the trait chosen
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                  Races blend into each other and hence are not non-overlapping discrete entities
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                  So-called human races can successfully reproduce with each other
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                  The existence of clinal variation
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                  Human populations have been separated from each other over too short a time period to develop racial differences
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                  The majority of variation among humans is found within populations and only a minority between populations
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                  Two randomly selected individuals from different populations can be closer to each other than either individual is to a random co-ethnic
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                  When one considers the apportionment of diversity, the proportion of human variation that lies between populations is too low to justify the division of humans into biological races
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            Why do people deny the existence of biological races among humans?
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            Why are you obsessed with race? What is your agenda?
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            Don't you think that belief in race will lead to racist horrors?

I don't understand how it can be concluded that all races have developed more or less equally.

When I refer to different races I essentially mean populations that historically have tended to interbreed in relative geographic isolation from one another and which occupy relatively unique environmental niches that pose their inhabitants with relatively unique survival challenges in turn.

They have tended to live in relative exclusion for long enough that the particular set of genotypic frequencies for many traits tend to be unique among their own interbreeding community and must have obviously developed as a result of pressures of natural / social selection unique to their population's geographic niche and ecosystem (by which races tend to be defined over). It seems almost inevitable this would be the case. And our genetic makeup influences almost every aspect of us, clearly. We can obviously observe differences in appearance, and genes governing outward appearance are relatively few in number comparatively to the total number of genes that play a vital role in organizing the processes and structure of the human body, so it seems very likely that modifications to genes governing more fundamental biological processes would have also been modified between said interbreeding communities.

So I'd be willing to bet that the tendencies of the sets of traits of certain races make them more of an asset on the whole to modern societies than others, so on average certain races are indeed superior to one another and if it ever came to choosing, for example, between two candidates for a job, barring any other differences between their apparent skill in the field, I would be better off making an educated guess as to which candidate belonged to the race better suited for the position / functioning in modern society.

An organism is essentially the interaction, complex in organization, between the all the proteins transcribed by one's DNA. You must look at the races the sum of all the genes interacting, and certain races tend to have higher genotypic frequencies for particular, relatively unique sets of genes.

I will however concede that our standard definitions of races may be inadequate.

Now, human diaspora over the Earth is no more than 50,000 years ago. In most cases, it is around 10-20,000 or less.

And considering cultural evolution happens at a far more accelerated rate than biological evolution, differences in culture will have masked completely any biological differences, so one cannot judge from historical interactions (without the supplement of carefully controlled testing) between races whether one is truly superior to another in one capacity or another racially. For example, the reason Europeans pwned the rest of the world was because they happened to migrate to the lands ideal for agriculture of sorts to support a massive population, as well as an abundance of ores of all sorts to greatly advance their understanding of mettalurgy and develop the tools of world conquest. Almost all parts of the world have had their empires, the earilest superpowers, advanced societies for their time, being in the middle east and southern asia, followed by the fertile crescent, followed by china and northern asia and south america, followed largely by europa and the North America and the mid east again (for a while).

Now Afrika:
Concerning the range of genetic variation in the African continent between populations of humans. I suppose this would likely be because humans originated in Africa. If Africans have all of the genetic variation seen in all other peoples, I suppose this would support the "Out of Africa" theory, right?
Remember that the mose successful individuals in evolutionary terms are those able to adapt to change best. So it can indeed be said that originally Afrikan peoples that migrated out of Afrika will have been subject to new environmental conditions that would have tended to select for the fittest individuals, thus it can be argued that non-Afrikans probably tend to be comparatively genetically superior.
This may be a contributing reason why the Afrikans simply have not been able to create as advanced Empires as the rest of the world at any time, as their populations have remained relatively unchallenged.

In addition, one can also infer from from the different niches different 'races' have tended to live in to speculate what comparative innate genetic advantages each has. I’d be willing to bet populations that live in colder, barren areas where they are forced to be predatory and cannot forage for foods have certain types of intellectual strengths suited to making them better at survival in those areas. I'm not saying this makes them smarter than any other race, simply they may tend to be innately better at some cognitive tasks than others.

On a separate note, I believe the primary reason that mixed race people seem to have a higher incidence of attractiveness and success is that the only time someone will step over a racial boundary is for a really attractive (hot / successful) member of another race. Your average white guy will tend not to be attracted to a black woman, for example. It tends to be engrained in our brains that people who look significantly different we tend to approach them suspiciously, rather than being attracted. This is because in the past it benefited us not to be too open to potentially rival tribes. These tendencies manifest themselves in children of mixed race couples tending to originate from two attractive individuals.