Judging A Book by It’s Cover: An Examination of Man’s Conflicting Histories

There are many reasons why the genetic histories of groups often conflict with their ethnohistories. An obvious reason would be due to the different levels of accessibility to the two different histories. Ethnohistory often surrounds a group, and is easy to absorb and accept. For example, I have several friends whose homes are decorated with various “identifiers” for their ethnohistories. If they believe they have an Irish background, they will have a banner from the town they identify with, or a shamrock salt-shaker. If they identify with Germany as the “mother-land,” then they will have posters from festivals and over-sized beer mugs, and other such cultural novelties. In these circumstances, it is easy to observe people’s perceived ethnohistories.

However, it is much more difficult to learn about someone’s genetic history by studying their environments. If you walk into the same houses described in the previous paragraph, you would find the same surroundings much less helpful when seeking the genetic histories of its inhabitants. After all, people do not wear their genes on the outside, with visible and identifiable genotypes for all to see and understand. Someone with German memorabilia could have a DNA sample taken, and receive the startling results that they are most recently of Turkish, Iranian or Welsh decent.

Another reason that genetic history is different from ethnohistory is due to individual biases, and social stigmas. Someone with a particular genetic background that is seen as socially less-acceptable than those around them may deny their genetics, and accept the more popular ethnohistory as their own. Given phenotypic similarities, a person could easily abandon their own true genes and claim to have others in certain circumstances. This would help them to assimilate into the more popular ethnohistory, and avoid possible rebuke for belonging to another.

An example of a genotypic social concern could be found in the Ashkenazi Jewish population. Certain genetic disorders, such as Tay-Sachs disease and cystic fibrosis have an uncommonly high frequency within the population in comparison to other population groups. This means that a couple who are both of Ashkenazi Jewish descent are more likely to produce offspring with one of the characteristic diseases than if one or both of the partners had been of a different descent. Even more troubling is the fact that carriers for certain diseases, cystic fibrosis for example, are asymptomatic. This means that the diseases lie on a recessive allele, and there is no outward sign that the person is a carrier. (DeMarchi et al., 1996)

Therefore, DNA screening is the only way to discern which members of the population carry the disease and which do not. Naturally, there is understandable reluctance to participate in the DNA screenings, for fear of being a carrier. If found to have the recessive allele, the person could then feel “exposed,” and subjected to social stigma. The stigma could have a damaging effect on the person’s personal life, and reduce their chances for marriage and reproduction. This stigma is an example of a reason people may deny their genetic histories, and exchange them for different ethnohistories.

Ethnohistories are also much more malleable than genetic histories. Although a person has no choice regarding their genetic history, they do have more freedom in regards to their ethnohistory. A person who moves to an area ethnically distinct to their native home could live their a number of years, marry someone from that area, have children, and consider themselves part of that ethnic group.

An interesting case regarding ethno vs. genetic history has been the subject of many an anthropological debate. Several African populations identify themselves as Jewish. Not only do they practice Judaism, but they consider themselves descendents of the biblical Jewish populations that migrated throughout the world during the old testament. This has been the subject of controversy for quite some time, since these populations do not phenotypically coincide with what is considered the Jewish “norm.” Although Jewish populations live all around the world, they are usually identified as having medium to dark skin tone, dark curly or straight hair, and could be placed predominately among “white” or “middle-eastern” phenotypic categories.

However, although there is a great deal of diversity among Jewish phenotypes, they are not typically associated with typical “African” phenotypes. However, there are several populations within the African countries that count themselves among the Jewish community, and claim a Jewish cultural background. However, given their phenotypes and geography, it is unlikely that they have a recent genetic connection to traditional Jewish populations.

For example, the Abayudaya people of Uganda are among the most devout followers of the Jewish faith. They practice from time of birth, giving them cultural practices unique to the more “traditionally” African populations. An example of this would be circumcision in male children, which takes place on the eighth day of life with the Abayudaya, a traditional Jewish practice. Their neighbors the Bagisu people however, circumcise their children after sixteen years. (Sand, 2001)

However, this is a complicated issue, because this difference between genetic and cultural identities is not complete among the African-Jewish populations. The most famous example of this concerns the Lemba people of southern Africa. The Lemba have claims to Jewish ancestry, like other populations discussed earlier. However, recent DNA testing discovered very interesting incites into the Lemba’s genetic history. The testing determined that 10% of the Lemba men carry a polymorphism on the Y-chromosome called the Cohen model haplotype. This haplotype is strongly associated with Jewish populations, and rare among non-Jews. Although this is not the case for all African-Jewish populations, this certainly adds an interesting chapter to the story of the struggle between genetic and cultural histories. This is a rare vindication of ethnohistory matching genetic history. (Sand, 2001) It is more often the case that a person will have genes that conflict with their personal identification.

Ultimately, every person would be surprised by their genetic history. This is due to the eventual genetic link of every human on the planet. This link is known as biological lineage coalescence. Human biological lineage coalescence hinges on two key principles. The first principle is the fact that every person has more direct relatives the farther back in time one examines. (Jackson 2004) For example, a contemporary of mine, age 21 would most likely have a pair of parents, two pairs of grandparents, and maybe a pair of great-grandparents. This means that barring siblings, aunts or uncles, that person would have about eight direct relatives. However, if one were to move back in time another generation, their great-grandparents would each have a pair of parents, adding four more direct relatives to the person’s lineage. This means that a person’s quantity of direct descendents increases exponentially as they move back in time.

The second principle of human biological lineage coalescence is the fact that the amount of humans on earth also decreases as one moves back in time. The fact that human populations have grown explosively through time into the present proves at the same time that there must be fewer and fewer humans moving in opposite temporal direction.

When you put these two principals together, the conclusion can be drawn that each person has more and more direct relatives as they go back in time, but all the while the amount of people on earth becomes less and less. The implication of this is that if one goes back in time far enough, they could see the direct relative/relatives of every current living person on earth.

Human biological lineage coalescence dictates that somewhere in the past we all have a common ancestor, meaning that all people are genetically related, in varying degrees. This means that the supposed “races” cannot exist, because no “race” is genetically distinct from any other, because we were all related at one point. Coalescence also helps the study of biodiversity, because it allows us to trace genetic lineages back in time, and try to pinpoint where in the genetic history the diversity emerged that lead to modern human populations.

Current data mapping mitochondrial DNA of modern human populations is consistent with this concept. When examining the genetic “compositions” of populations all over the planet, there is a seldom a “homogeneous” group – that is to say, there are no populations with genes from only one source. People with Asian phenotypes have African genotypes, and people with Scandinavian phenotypes have Siberian genotypes.

However, despite this global heterogeneity, discrepancies between ethno and genetic history continues, and is likely to continue as far into the future as humans themselves. This leads back to the beginning of the essay, in the idea that the two histories have different levels of accessibility. One’s ethnohistory comes primarily out of convenience and choice. The convenience of the ethnohistory is that a person often identifies with the ethnic group of their upbringing. They undergo enculturation from birth until adulthood, and their ethnic identity becomes as natural to them as breathing, eating, or any other biological process.

The choice aspect of ethnicity often comes later in life, when a person can choose to either accept their history, or set out to create a new one. However, unlike their ethnicity, a person’s genetic history involves neither convenience nor choice. Just as you cannot pick your relatives, you cannot pick your genes.

The inescapable nature of genetic history raises an interesting question: if we have no control over our genetic history, why bother to try and pair it with our ethnohistory? This of course does not mean to disregard genetic history. Since our genes determine who and what we are, they are still invaluable in several aspects of life, for example the medical field. Genetic history can determine whether a person has a higher risk for certain diseases, just like Tay-Sachs disease, or inflammatory bowel disease, another genetically-influenced condition. (Duerr, 1996)

However, just because genetic history often differs from ethnohistory, does that mean that the two need to conflict? People often find nothing but inner turmoil when they discover that their genes don’t match their ethnicity. Or they determine their genetic heritage, and begin to idolize the motherland, but are dismayed upon visiting that they prefer the land of their ethnic identity. But to have this struggle between the two histories is to deny the plasticity of one’s ethnicity. It is true that you cannot control your genetic history. The only way to do that would be to travel back in time, and prevent your ancestors from meeting and mating, and then you wouldn’t exist anyway. One’s genetic background should not interfere with their cultural/ethnic background. After all, ethnicity is an identifier, while genetics is merely a marker. As mentioned earlier, genetics has its place in a person’s life, just maybe not in their personal identification.

In the modern world especially, it is nearly impossible to match genetic history with ethnohistory.

Admixture that once resulted from entire population migration is now accomplished with plane tickets and hotel rooms. Migrations no longer need to be massive and pan-population for genetic information to be exchanged. With this increased rate of genetic diversity, one’s genes become less and less a reliable marker for who they are.

The irony of this is that it makes a case for the dynamic nature of genetics. Even though they are “fixed” in the respect that they cannot be changed in an individual person, genetic maps are changing constantly due to the rate of genetic exchange worldwide, and the ever expanding human population. What this means is that genetics are malleable at the macro level, and ethnicity is malleable at the micro level.

The crux of this examination is that a person needn’t rely on one factor or another to identify themselves. The plasticity of ethnicity and genetics allows for the freedom to identify oneself however they choose. Instead of conflicting histories, see complimentary histories. A person can determine who they are in any way they desire, whether it be with their country of origin, or that of their forefathers. A person could even migrate themselves, and begin to write a new history, for themselves and their descendents. As anthropologists, as people, we shouldn’t let our genetic and ethnohistories exaggerate our differences, but encourage our similarities, and our freedom to determine our own history, even if it means changing the future.

Throughout history there have been certain events that have catapulted the human species into a new era where this event provided opportunities to flourish if utilized properly. One of the vital components to our storied evolutionary history is the human species’ ability to adapt. Adaptation or in ability to adapt is responsible for every achievement and failure in all of history. Human’s ability to adjust and modify their behavior accordingly has helped not only small groups of people interact and even integrate with one another.

Now, when looked at in the spectrum of ancient history, the agricultural revolution that took place close to 10,000 years ago has been the root for most of the evolutionary success of the human species, and has laid the foundation for other such transformations to take place (Locay, 1989). Although it took a great amount of time to perfect, the persistence of the human species to get it correct is the most significant accomplishment to take place since the discovery of and control of fire.

The transition from a group of nomadic hunter and gatherers to sedentary farmers is one of the most prominent features of today’s society. Although on the surface it has changed a bit since that time, but it is easy to see that this has become a staple of the human species for thousands of years, where no change is anywhere in sight. The adjustment towards a more settled way of life had many negative consequences, because just like any new technology, there had to be some failures and obstacles in the way that humans had to endure before they were able to be more proficient at it.

Despite what most would consider is an increase in quality of life, and a positive jump in health, along with an increase in birth rates and a decrease in death rates, early practitioners of agriculture saw it so difficult that it brought on many stresses (Starling and Stock, 2007). The influence of agriculture on the gene flow patterns of the human species was drastic and extreme this not only helped the flow of genes be passed along to future generations at a more stable rate. The advent of agriculture farming is responsible for not only the passing of genes at a more stable rate, but also an increase in populations globally, and unlike most common literature available, the start of farming had a negative effect on the human species, which humans had to suffer through many tribulations in order to perfect agricultural practices.

The quote “proximity facilitates gene flow,” as one Anthropology professor puts it holds a lot of truth. The gene flow patterns in humans as a result of agriculture have been extremely successful and have lead to most of the diversity within the species that is seen today. Previously, under the hunting and gathering lifestyle human gene flow pattern was uniform without very many prospective chances to increase diversity. It would seem that for the most part that genetic drift would take place in very many instances, because of these groups, which can be observed as a small or tiny population would have not had any genetic diversity. This is because of the constant migration from one region to another in order to follow the food resources that they needed for subsistence; there were not enough resources to be able to maintain a larger population where an increase of genetic diversity could have been promoted.

The arrival of farming technology allowed for a number of these small groups to come together and form a large population, along with a possibility of being able to maintain a population that would increase overtime if needed. As these groups became larger, the gene flow increased thus genetic diversity increased because of a genetic contribution from a gene pool that was larger than ever before. As these populations grew larger because of the reproductive success these individuals were able to benefit from, this would lead to a genetic diversification that would help future generation flourish.

Now, in the case that the population increase is too much to handle from an agricultural standpoint, this revolution in technology has allowed for other members to migrate elsewhere where there are other resources so they can start all over again. This would allow small groups of people go on to expand into a larger population like the previous population that they were members that is completely dependent on the environment. Overall, this technology promotes migration but at a slower rate than the previous hunter and gatherer groups enhances the genetic diversity. This allowed the gene flow to become more stable and continuous, whereas previously the lifestyle did not necessarily discourage genetic diversity, but the focus was narrowed to the survival of the individual members of the group and reproductive success was more of a secondary priority (Brown,1999).

Agriculture, especially farming rearranged the priorities of populations all over the planet. They no longer had to shoulder the burden of living day to day thinking about when they were going to eat next, rather they had time to do other things, other than reproduction, they were finding out ways to manipulate their environment to yield as many crops and food as possible (Locay,1989). These populations were also dedicating their time to other things because now they were no longer out searching for game and other foods, they were able to use this time to organize themselves socially and develop into a more stratified society which as a result helped subtly encouraged the gene flow in a positive direction even further.

As populations grew at an exponential rate that was unlike any before, there had to be more organization amongst those members of society, as one source estimates that the human population grew 100 fold more than under the hunter and gatherer lifestyle that preceded it (Locay, 1989). The transition from the hunting and gathering lifestyle to a more sedentary and less migratory lifestyle was drastic. Instead of going out to search for food, farming provided a means for humans to manipulate their surroundings to supply food to them instead. This change in thought for the human species can been as one of the most significant in history. This meant that the dangers of searching for game would be reduced drastically, and that life expectancy would rise to a level that was unseen previously. The most important impact that farming has on the human species can be seen statistically, although it would be difficult to obtain any census data from any of these time periods about the birth and death rates. The transition to a farming lifestyle and the technological improvements that followed lead to a sharp decline in mortality rates in adults and children because the human species were no longer traveling at the rate they once were. The nomadic lifestyle became obsolete, thus the stable migration patterns allowed for an increase of the survival of children and the elderly (Locay, 1989).

Now, as one eloquent Anthropology professor from here at University of Maryland puts it “there’s no free lunch in evolution.” From that, the transition to agriculture had some negative consequences on the human species. Some of the consequences were manifested biologically; in order to adapt to this new lifestyle humans underwent some changes biologically. Early agriculturalist saw a decline in health because the transition of standards of living was so severe on the human body that it took many generations to be able to perfect the balance in diet between farming products and meat products (Starling and Stock, 2007).

One of the major changes that humans had to endure can be seen in the skeleton and the growth that the bones were going through with this new diet (Larsen, 1997). One the easiest crops that could be domesticated was maize, maize can be grown in less than ideal conditions. It also had the capability being able to be grown in large numbers, which made it a staple for the human diet because of its versatility. But maize is a crop with less than adequate nutritional value; it lacks a lot of vitamins and other nutrients that are vital to the human diet (Larsen, 1997). For instance, it lacked valuable amino acids, iron, and B-complex vitamins, which if depended on too much can actually be a hazardous to the health of an individual.

The agricultural lifestyle ushered in some of the first major infectious disease outbreaks. The sedentary lifestyle along with a propensity for malnutrition, and demanding labor all contributed greatly to some of the first outbreaks in humans (Armelagos and Harper, 2005). Since one of the requirements for not just agricultural societies, but any society for that matter had to be close to a water source, but unlike the hunter and gatherer lifestyle, where groups would eventually migrate to other regions, the agricultural standard of living made humans stay near the same water source. Since they were not necessarily sharing but actually competing with other organisms like mosquitoes for the same water source, humans became more susceptible to infectious diseases. Not only mosquitoes but other parasites and bacteria were vectoring infectious diseases as well which were responsible for diseases like small pox and influenza (Armelagos and Harper, 2005).

In addition, the domestication of animals contributed greatly to the susceptibility to diseases in humans. The domestication of pigs, cows, and fowl all lead to numerous zoonotic-bourne diseases that humans became exposed to during their everyday activities. The introduction of these diseases into the environment put a great deal of stress on the population, which lead to some instability within the skeleton, such as reduced bone thickness and reduced robusticity (Larsen, 1997). This was due to the fact that humans compromised their diet to be more reliant on farming products, whereas they were more reliant on food that helped would fight off infections. Previously, humans were consuming food that was more fit to fight off infections, coupled with the fact that humans were constantly migrating which limited their exposure to a degree of those same infectious diseases (Armelagos and Harper, 2005).

Also, growth rates were somewhat hindered because the lack of protein and iron that an agricultural diet brought on (Larsen, 1997). The increased consumption of rice and maize, while the decreased consumption of other foods rich in protein and iron lead to some skeletal changes. A good measure of health is bone thickness, the trade off in food consumption actually lead to a reduction in bone thickness which is one significant indicator that humans were not efficiently adapted to an agricultural way of life, because they were not able to sufficiently supplement their diet accordingly (Larsen, 1997). This deficiency in iron lead to other diseases like anemia, and other ailments that are associated with iron deficient diets like porotic hypertosis, which causes lesions in the orbital cavities in the skull (Larsen, 1997).

Also, the transition to farming saw the onset of more skeletal ailments, the labor intensive demands of agriculture saw a rise in osteoarthritis in a lot of the fossilized remains of individuals from this time period (Larsen, 1997). So, depending on the situation of any given individual, as they labored on season after season, there was a drop off in physical health. It would have been very difficult to be able to maintain their land accordingly to produce the amount needed for proper sustenance because of their deteriorating physical health. This in addition to the other mentioned conditions show that agriculturalists from this time period endured many hardships. Not only did they have to deal with the environmental demands of farming, but also the physical toll it took on their body.

Finally, the advent of agriculture when looked at in the proper context saw that many early farmers had many problems. They were able to manipulate the environment with their tools and new technology that allowed them to provide food at a rate that was not seen before. The effects on gene flow were something that would be observed as unparalleled in history. This allowed for more diversification within the human gene pool, which helped humans adapt a lot faster because it brought groups together to make large populations. And eventually gave birth to other large populations because of the exponential rate that the global population was experiencing. Also, the transition from a nomadic way of life to a sedentary way of life was a very arduous one because of its extreme differences in the way that they were approached. Although some would look at this as a positive, but those who were involved in the transition saw many difficult obstacles. Some of these obstacles ranged from infectious diseases, to non-infectious diseases, and degenerative conditions that made life extremely difficult. It took many generations for humans to perfect the proper agricultural techniques that would allow them to evolve into the next era without suffering deadly health consequences.

Humans have always bred animals to fit their needs and specifications. Different breeds of dogs came into being to perform different tasks and cows were bred to produce more milk than they would need to feed their young. Charles Darwin drew upon the experience of pigeon breeders in developing his theory of evolution. This idea of breeding the perfect species was also applied to humans in something called the eugenics movement. In the later 19^th century the scientist Francis Galton established a precedent to use biology for the “betterment of the human species” (Marks 1995). His main argument was that humans, like animals, could be “selectively bred for favorable traits” (Marks 1995). Galton proceeded to rank people based on the quality of their reputation. This ranking system supported the long-held assumptions that European white males were the pinnacle of the human species (Marks 1995).

The eugenics movement took off in the 1910’s with Charles B. Davenport leading the way. Davenport, along with many others, went into the general population and pointed out those that he considered to be “feeble-minded.” These people, more often then not, were sterilized in order to keep their so-called “bad genes” from continuing in the population. Cold Spring Harbor laboratory, which was founded by Davenport to carry out genetic research, helped perpetuate these ideas of “good” and “bad” genes among the American populace (CSHL 2008). The laboratory’s research in the beginning focused on gathering inheritance data to see what trends could be found through the generations. Anything that appeared in a higher rate in that genetic line was considered to be an inherited trait (Kelves 1985).

There is a saying: “The road to Auschwitz went through Cold Spring Harbor.” Joseph L. Graves was the first to use this phrase in his 2001 book The Emperor’s New Clothes: Biological Theories of Race at the Millennium in which he argues that the Nazis bent xenophobic and racist ideas to fit the eugenics mindset to justify their actions (Graves 2001). This simple phrase from Graves book reveals a lot about how humans view each other and highlights how closely related people are even in two unseemingly related places. This saying helps to demonstrate how genetically related humans are to one another. Those in Cold Spring Harbor started a process which resulted in the extermination that occurred in Auschwitz. Cold Spring Harbor was the catalyst of the eugenics movement but the Holocaust was the pinnacle; a time where eugenics moved from a scientific theory to a political program implemented by madmen.

Auschwitz is a town in Poland that housed a Nazi Concentration and death camp that murdered more Jews than any other Nazi camp. Over one million people, including Jews, Gypsies, and prisoners of war, were exterminated from 1942 until 1945 when Auschwitz was liberated. On top of being a death camp, Auschwitz was also a forced labor camp that opened in 1940. More than 400,000 people worked in the camp over the five years that it operated. Out of these 400,000 people over 50% died from the working conditions. All of these people who went to Auschwitz had one thing in common; they were deemed genetically unfit by the Nazis and could not be left to breed with the rest of the populace (Auschwitz 2008). By deeming these people unfit the Nazis were justifying their reasons for execution. There were certain characteristics, blond hair and blue eyes, that were considered physical markers of a genetically fit person. The problem with these assumptions is that there were Jews, and other “unfit” people, who fit these characteristics and could pass as Aryan. This is why eugenics is a pseudoscience; it is not a testable entity.

Cold Spring Harbor laboratory, also known as the Station for Experimental Evolution, received its funding from the Carnegie Institution of Washington and was opened in 1904 under the direction of Charles Davenport. Davenport’s research projects centered on heredity patterns of animals and later changed his focus of research to heredity patterns of human including eye, hair, and skin color. His research then tried to fit the broad range of genetic variation he found among humans into the simplistic Mendelian inheritance pattern (Kelves 1985).

Human genetics are too complex, and scientists know too little about human patterns of inheritance, to be simply broken down into Mendelian patterns of inheritance. Humans have the same phenotype that can be caused by several different genotypes and there is not sufficient knowledge for how the genotypes are influenced by external factors. For example, skin color is on a continuum. Simple Mendelian genetics cannot account for this continuum. Scientists are still not sure how all of the genes work together to create the skin pigmentation that is seen. In fact, they do not have a concrete idea of which genes are responsible for the differing levels of pigmentation.

“The road to Auschwitz went through Cold Spring Harbor.” What exactly does this phrase means? The road referred to in the saying refers to an intellectual one, not a figurative one. The concepts about genetic fitness that were accepted in Cold Spring Harbor paved the way for the thinking of the Nazis and their solution for these genetically unfit individuals. Cold Spring Harbor began the eugenics movement by trying to find the “perfect” phenotype. There was considerable political and social support for Davenport’s effort to find the “perfect” person because he wanted to exclude “the insane, mentally deficient, epileptic, and otherwise handicapped wards, not to mention prisoners and pauper” (Kelves 1985). In doing so, there would be great savings for both the government and private charities because of a reduced demand for hospitals, prisons, and poor relief. Davenport, and many others, believed the best way to prevent these people to continue proliferating in society was to stop them from reproducing. The most effective way to stop reproduction, according to American thought, was through sterilization. The Nazis, however, took a different approach to the same problem of preventing the unfit from reproducing. Instead of having to keep the unfit around until they all died off, the Nazis helped speed up the process; they killed those deemed unfit for society.

As much as the Nazis wanted to deny their relations to these unfit people, they have to realize that they are all related somehow and somewhere in their geneology. As we go back in time every person has more and more ancestors. This number increases exponentially as the number of generations increase. However, the actual number of people in the world decreases as we go back in time. There is no possible way for each person to have their own distinct set of ancestors. We all over-lap at some point in our genetic history; everyone is connected somehow (Jackson 2004). People in Cold Spring Harbor have some genetic connection to those in Auschwitz even if this connection has long been forgotten. By providing a justification for and thus facilitating these deaths half way around the world, they are murdering their own, granted very distant, kin. Allowing these murders means that they are just as responsible for the deaths of the Jews at Auschwitz as the people whose backyards contained the railroad tracks to the death camps. Biologically, everyone is related and connected. This means that those on one side of the world cannot distance themselves from the problems that are happening on the other side of the world.

The human race is extremely interconnected and the actions of one population can affect another. This is proven in the Cold Spring Harbor/Auschwitz connection. They are separated by time and geography but are related by the common idea of creating the perfect human race. We must remember that our actions affect others not only through time but also through space. This does not mean, however, that if Davenport had not started the modern eugenics movement that the Holocaust would not have occurred. Another person, or force, could have led to the same results. Also, Davenport should not be blamed for what happened in Europe during World War II. He invented the concept but he was not responsible for the Nazis carrying out his ideas to the extreme that they did.

Today we have the past eugenics movement to use as an example for our future. Unfortunately, there still seems to be some lessons left to still be learned. People still do not seem to understand that there is still much about genetics that is not understood. Even though large parts of the human genome have been decoded, it does not mean that scientists know which genes are responsible for many of the complex traits that are expressed in humans. For example, some scientists have found genetic markers that could be linked to homosexuality. The media grabbed hold of this and “simplified” it for the public: they misrepresented the data. What was discovered was not the gene that causes homosexuality but a genetic marker that could indicate a gene causing homosexuality. Scientists still do not know what other factors, including environment and diet, could lead to homosexuality as a phenotype. The markers that scientists have found are very different from discovering the actual genetic basis of human sexual orientation. At this point in time, scientists are unable to find the actual section of the DNA strand that codes for homosexuality, if it exists.

Human variation is a complex phenomenon to understand and the complexity of human variation must be kept in mind when deciding what defines perfection. Variation occurs naturally and is what keeps a species evolving. If a species stops evolving it will become extinct. Eugenics searches to reduce this variation and, overall, makes the human species weaker. There are many definitions of perfection that change based on social standard. These social standards must be separated from what makes a person biologically fit. This is the line that eugenicists are blurring; they believe that social standards and biological fitness are the same thing.

The topic of eugenics and specific selection of offspring has and always will be a very sensitive area of discussion. Dating back to the eugenics movement in the early 1900s, with the advent of biological determinism factors and studies of phrenology, the subject has crept into society and in the past, public policy. For years, following the work of anthropologists and criminologists of the “positivist school,” many criminals, the insane, and any other person deemed unfit to contribute beneficially to society were sterilized and marginalized (Marks 2008). Many believed that the eugenics movement would help solve crime and eliminate the “weaker” points of society by limiting reproduction to those who were “fit” for it. One researcher, Lombroso, went so far as to call criminals, “evolutionary throwbacks,” suggesting that they were humans who had not yet fully evolved (Horn 2003). He even offered specific physical characteristics and descriptions which these “throwbacks” would fall under. Although many in our society like to think that eugenics has disappeared, it is still very much an issue in the daily lives of many in the world. The Holocaust affected the lives of millions upon millions of people, as Hitler and the German army attempted to create a “superior” race. Issues of racism and “inferiority” can still be felt today, some 50 or more years after the Civil Rights movement. Despite the education of more and more people regarding race and typological topics, genocide in the Sudan and Serbia have shown the ignorance still looming in today’s world. Eugenics is a very powerful issue and must be addressed, identified, and stopped.

Eugenics is basically the monitoring of reproduction so as to influence human hereditary traits through some type of intervention (Marks 1995). The term “eugenics” originated in the 19^th century. However, for hundreds of years before the consistent use of eugenics, the concept of monitored reproduction had been discussed by scholars. Plato often wrote about monitoring mating between humans, the Spartans killed their weakest males, and even the 12 tables of the Roman law allowed a father to kill his deformed children (Marks 1995). In the early 20^th century, eugenics began to flourish as a way to keep the “unfit” from reproducing via sterilization mechanisms. Scientists ranging from Galton to Davenport to Grant believed in the usefulness of eugenics to eliminate “feeblemindedness” and “bad genes” from the population (Marks 1995). The movement itself influenced immigrant legislation and has resurfaced and shown itself consistently over the course of the last 100 years.

The main force propelling the Eugenics movement was centered on racism. The movement occurred in the heart of the Jim Crow era, when much of the country was still segregated, and hysteria over the “immigrant invasion” was sweeping the nation. Racism is based primarily off of fear, fear of the unknown, fear of new people, fear of change, fear of disturbing normal routines, fear of losing power, and so forth. However, it is the power issue which jumpstarted racist ideology and eventually eugenics.

For years, archaeologists sought to study the lives of those in power. They taught and explained history from the perspective of the ruling elite. In the mindset of “survival of the fittest,” anthropologists and archaeologists used their findings to separate white colonial powers from those determined to be the “other.” Unfortunately, the scientists partaking in archaeological investigations often came from the same society and ethnic background as those they portrayed to be “superior (Marks 1995).” As a result, they brought with them biases and prejudices which undoubtedly skewed their findings. In the past, race has been used to justify the conquests and colonial dealings of the countries in power. It was applied in an attempt to separate ethnicities and people with phenotypic markers apart from each other in order to delineate power and secure wealth and privilege for those in control (Marks 1995). For as long as humans have existed, they have been attempting to ascertain whether the physical differences between themselves and others are simply physical, or representative of something deeper. From Linnaeus, and his classification system, to Blumenbach and Morton, racial studies have often led to socio-cultural consequences for those not shown in a favorable light (Mielke et. al 2006). Cranial measurements, physical observations, ridiculous postulations and so forth, all done at the hands of “scientists,” have created divisions among people all under the name of “race.”

In essence, race is a social construct (Marks 1995). It is simply a way of establishing ethnic and social group statuses as biological entities in a biological classification scheme (Blakey 1999) As shown in genetic studies, there is more diversity within races then between them (Mielke et. al 2006). Therefore, the past actions of archaeologists regarding native cultures and people had no legitimate foundation or substance. However, it still led to a severe misinterpretation of many cultures, a lack of education for those being taught, and created an air of ignorance still felt today. Often, when archaeologists in the past came across sites with profound technological achievements or creations at which they marveled, they found a way to attribute the findings to Europeans or whoever was currently in power. For example, when Europeans came across the ancient stone ruins in Zimbabwe, instead of attributing it to the work of the natives, they instead took it as a sign of past European settlement (Trigger 1996). Even when staring actual artifacts and sites in the face, archaeologists still portrayed those who were considered to be in the lower rungs of the hierarchy in the greater sociological landscape, as unable to create such wondrous monuments and generate the technological capabilities to match up with their European societies.

During the Nazi reign and their persecution and mass murder of Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, and so forth, the work being done to create the “perfect” Aryan race was based largely off of the Eugenics movement in America and its racist ideologies. In America, work was being done by Charles Davenport and Harry Laughlin perpetuating the Eugenics movement (Marks 1995). Based on their studies, the Eugenics movement flourished from the 1910s to the 1930s. The movement, which sought to “purify” humanity of unfavorable traits and characteristics, sterilized many people thought to be “feebleminded” or having “bad genes.” Davenport was often caught urging Americans to “fall in love intelligently,” suggesting that they should be careful with whom they mate so as to see that the “unfavorable” characteristics and traits of a population did not continue to be propagated in future generations (Marks 1995). Unfortunately, the entire movement was subjective, based on what an individual considered to be bad hereditary traits. In the United States, the movement was often directed toward minorities, specifically African-Americans, based largely off of racist ideals and ignorance. The laboratory in Cold Spring, New York was home to the Eugenics Records Office, where both Davenport and Laughlin worked on “improving” humanity (Eugenics Records Office). Davenport was able to secure the office in Cold Spring by persuading one of the locals to fund the program, on the basis of the study of human traits in a quantitative fashion (Eugenics Records Office). Although eventually the office was shut down, when officials discovered the details behind the research being conducted, the studies done had tremendous impacts on legislation. Laughlin was even called before Congress to testify on matters related to the sterilization of immigrants (Eugenics Records Office). Later on, the work done went on to influence some of the immigrant laws passed after the 1930s, subjecting immigrants to IQ tests and forcing the sterilization of others. When the Nazi’s in Germany were formulating their “final plan” for the extermination of millions of non-Aryan people, they looked to America and its Eugenics movement for support. Claiming that they too were searching for a way to purify the human race, the Nazi’s used the work of Davenport and Laughlin to justify their conquests, murders, and experiments conducted upon various Jews, Gypsies and homosexuals in Europe. After WWII ended, anthropologists began to recognize the full extent of their work and began to call for a change in the studies being done and the overall mindset of the discipline. After hearing and learning about the atrocities committed by the Nazis, they understood how their work had contributed to the genocide and sought to repair the damages it had created.

Often, it is thought that the eugenics movement did not take hold in the United States. It is hidden and kept from public knowledge, so as to bury the shameful past of racist scientists. However, the eugenics movement hit hard within the U.S., leading to one of the most heinous experiments conducted in the name of “science.” One of the most graphic examples of eugenics in the United States was seen in the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment. Based on the actions taken during the Tuskegee experiment, it is clear that both the eugenics movement and the experiment parallel each other in many ways. Having laid out the historical background of eugenics, ties between the eugenics concept and the Tuskegee atrocities are readily apparent. During the “experiment,” scientists working for the government claimed to be attempting to determine the history of the syphilis disease. They used hundreds of black males as subjects, many of which were uneducated farmers (Brunner 2003). The plan they created involved not telling the males what disease they had or the seriousness of it. They did not provide them with any treatment and prevented them from getting treatment elsewhere (Brunner 2003). As a result, not only did many of the men die from a lack of care, but the disease was contracted by their wives, and also passed to their children at childbirth. In essence, the black males were used as human lab rats, upon which the “scientists” worked. Knowing the severity of the disease, not only did they not provide any medicine or treatment, but they were waiting for the men to die, in order to examine their bodies and then gain an understanding of the disease, post mortem (Brunner 2003). It is of no coincidence whatsoever that these heinous acts occurred at the same time that eugenics was flourishing. They saw these uneducated black males as “feebleminded” and their lives were of no value to the program’s scientists and leaders. As the Eugenics movement attempted to do, they were attempting to ascertain how to remove the unwanted traits from the population. Whether or not the subjects lived or died was not of optimal concern for the scientists. The programs were done in the name of “science,” much like eugenics, but in every aspect both the eugenics movement and the Tuskegee experiment were closer to pseudosciences. The Tuskegee experiment and Eugenics were used once again to subject those who were deemed to be “inferior” to the whims of the powerful. The unfavorable traits were selected from the population, and the “scientists” sought ways to remove them, whether or not that would lead to the death of the patients. Eugenics and the Tuskegee experiment had no regard for the rights and lives of the individuals upon which they acted. They considered their lives to be valueless, since they had unfavorable traits, were of minority descent, and considered to be at the bottom rungs of society. They both displayed no regard for human life and countered the very reasons why science is performed.

Racist ideology often attempts to pin the “superior” groups’ genes against those believed to be the “other.” Many put forth claims of being “pure blooded,,” and fully homozygous. However, if efforts were made to track every human’s biological lineage, evidence of admixture would eventually be seen. As the now widely accepted “Out of Africa” model suggests, the cradle of humanity was Africa, from which all modern homo sapiens originated, eventually migrating out. All humans, regardless of skin color or any other physical characteristic, have descendants who originally evolved in Africa. In order to eventually attain the large population sizes seen in today’s society, admixture had to have happened.

Admixture constitutes for a lot of the genetic diversity seen throughout the world. When people from different geographical areas, with different genetic backgrounds, phenotypes, and so forth come together and mate, they exchange genetic information resulting in the “tweaking” of the next generation’s genetic makeup. When they mate, the process of meiosis allows for the exchange of genetic information via crossing over and recombination. As a result, the daughter cells created during meiosis are not identical to the parent cells. When the gametes fuse after reproduction, the daughter cells, containing the mixed genotypes fuse and thus produce a new individual. The principle of Mendelian genetics, with the law of segregation and the law of independent assortment furthers the variation and change that a population can undergo over generations. In the end, all humans can be shown to be connected. The problem has always been accepting this fact.

After the civil rights movement in the United States, scientists began to propose the concept of studying humans at the population level, rather than within racial categories. As they began to learn more about admixture and genetic diversity, scientists eventually began to come around and understand how ignorant and generalizing their past works were. When it was shown that more diversity existed within populations than between, the concept of human biodiversity changed for the better, with the acknowledgement that all people are people. Even the concept of the heterozygous individual was embraced, throwing aside the former concept of the ultimate human, being purely homozygous. As scientists began to learn more about mutations, diseases, and the immunity resulting from some heterozygotic traits, (perhaps sickle-cell protecting against malaria) viewpoints began to change. With these advancements, the concept of biological races began to be thrown off and true human biodiversity began to be appreciated.

An article published in the American Journal of Human Biology entitled, “Issues in Evolutionary Medicine” by Stephen C. Stearns, addresses the topic of selection arenas, and the discarding of offspring (Stearns 2005). Stearn provides very good evidence contradicting the foundational points of the Eugenics movement. Although not the intent of his paper, he indirectly topples the eugenics idea, explaining how the human body itself provides its own filters to weed out the “weak” and “unfit.” Thus, in effect he shows Eugenics to be completely unnecessary, not solely from a human socio-cultural perspective, but also from a scientific standpoint, which many proponents of Eugenics claimed supported their movement. As told by Stearn, humans, specifically women, have mutation and atresia filters which block all but 0.005% of oocytes from filtering through, and potentially being fertilized (Stearns 2005). In essence, Stearn claims that data has shown that humans developed a mechanism for screening zygotes with poor immune systems. The zygotes identified as unable to provide a positive function are eliminated (Stearns 2005). Spontaneous abortions are a second and third set of such filters in the selection arena. They have the ability to eliminate offspring with high rates of disease (Stearns 2005). As Stearn suggests, knowledge of these mechanisms could have severely affected the eugenics movement. The movement was based upon a fear that these “defective” genes would build up in the population and affect not only people at the individual level, but cost society as a whole as well. However, would the movement still have taken off if its proponents were provided with information hinting at the filtering of genes? Perhaps, knowing that a mechanism was already in place, blocking more than 99.99% of mutational deficiencies, early in the development of the fetus with a minimal cost, would have hindered the movement and prevented the horrific events following it (Stearns 2005). Unfortunately, society will never know the possible outcome of prior knowledge regarding selection arenas. One can only hope that information about eugenics and its errors will continue to spread, so as to prevent any further atrocities.

The missteps and mistakes of the past are heavily rooted in the racist ideals and the resultant eugenics movement which affected the lives of so many throughout the world. Fear, ignorance, and the thirst for power propelled many into the top rungs of society, while subjecting many more to the margins of society, poverty, and at times, death. The work of scientists helped justify the gross discriminations and kept the tide of racism flowing well into the 20^th century. However, with new discoveries, approaches, and mindsets in the scientific fields and in the greater societal landscape, the world is beginning to change. Unfortunately, there are still great strides to be made in order to end the mass murders still occurring around the world, the racist groups and ideas still finding their way into our cultures, and the prejudices still being felt due to quests for power, insensitivity, and the lack of proper education and knowledge. The errors of the past must be brought to the forefront in order to address and finally ameliorate the inequalities still readily apparent in today’s society. It is the hope of discussions such as this one, to quash the inequities and disparities still ravaging the lives of so many. Without such discussions, the world may never fully be able to learn from the mistakes of the past. It is the responsibility of those in academia today to take the reigns from those preceding them and build upon the great progress they have made. One cannot let their work end in vain, as many gave their lives with the hopes of providing a better life for all those to come. In a sense, those who came before us are still working to change society. For it is through their struggle that today’s people have been inspired to reexamine the present and will look to ensure a better future for all. Only time will tell if their great struggles will finally reach the promise land they so hopefully envisioned.

The eugenics movement gained influence during the twentieth century in the United States. It presented the idea that unfit phenotypes could be removed from society through breeding and sterilization programs. Although these programs originally targeted individuals considered unfit because of mental handicaps or criminal behaviors, some interpreted the basic concept more broadly and applied the basic concept to racial and ethnic groups. At the same time, the idea of races is forever changing because of the different beliefs and values of the researchers studying human variation. The study of eugenics is forever entwined with the idea of human races, and can be seen in events throughout history of the world.

As the composition of a population changes, the amount of human biodiversity in that population changes as well. For instance, the migration of peoples can have a culling effect on the moving population, but can also introduce new alleles into the populations already present in the area the migratory group moved into, assuming that the migratory group breeds with the local population. If a group of people travel from Asia into Europe and settle in the area of Spain, the descendants of that group would have a unique cultural identity, possibly creating another ethnicity. Over time, the ethnicity could be turned into a new race because of changing notions of what constitutes a race. For example, Carolus Linnaeus touches on the idea of biological races in System of Nature when he examines the four geographical subdivisions of “white Europeans, red Americans, yellow Asians and black Africans” (Marks, 50). Johann Friedrich Blumenbach changed the names of the races he characterized multiple times before settling on “Caucasian, Mongolian, Ethiopian, American and Malay” (Marks, 54) As one can see, the names of the races are loose terms that encompass large amounts of people on different continents. The names of the races changed because of the biases of the researchers. Races can be construed from the geographical locations of groups, or out of the physical characteristics of a people. Notably, descriptions of the races often favor the race of the researchers, while the other races are less favorably characterized. As a result, the race categories often changes because of who is defining them and the intellectual thinking of the time period.

Although Francis Galton coined the term eugenics, Charles Davenport established the eugenics movement in America during the early 1900s. He promoted the idea of feeblemindedness; a social, behavioral or intellectual defect that needed to be prevented from spreading throughout the population. From this, eugenics laws were created pertaining to who could immigrate into the States and who would be forcibly sterilized for undesirable traits. Some eugenicists believed that the unfit should be sterilized and isolated from the rest of society while others believed these individuals should be completely removed from society through extermination (Marks, 83). Henry Goddard was one of the people who supported the isolation of the unfit in institutions. He illustrated the heredity of feeblemindedness through The Kallikak Family study. This study illustrated how the offspring of a feebleminded woman and a man all inherited the feebleminded trait, while the offspring of a ‘normal’ woman and the same man had no feebleminded gene (Marks). Today, modern eugenics practices are geared toward understanding the human genome and the prevention of diseases in populations, as well as limiting the growth of the population is certain overpopulated areas. In a sense, eugenics is the attempt of creating perfection among mankind.

It was from these ideas that Hitler gained inspiration for the racial cleansing of Germany. He believed that the Aryan race was far superior to other races, and that the elimination of these inferior races would be the best in the long run for the world. Hitler merely put eugenics into practice on a wide scale, gartering negative attention because he was targeting specific races and treating them inhumanely. The Nazi regime put up posters that showed the flags of other countries that had some sort of sterilization legislation, including the US and Great Britain (Hardt). These posters showed the public in Europe that Germany was not alone in eugenics legislation. The eugenics movement died out from the massacre of the Jewish and many other populations. The public was appalled by the events of the Holocaust and, as a result, the idea of bettering society through the isolation of the unfit became less popular. This is a good example of how interlaced eugenics and races are; because Hitler was stereotyping people and exterminating those that fit certain descriptions because he thought they would pollute the better races. It is unfortunate that the United States tried to ignore the situation for so long because the government wanted to avoid being pulled into the war. The US probably also did not want to get involved because of their own eugenics legislation and did not wish to look hypocritical. It is impossible to say that if Davenport and his colleagues had not presented the idea of eugenics that the events of World War II would not have happened. I believe that Hitler would have found other scientific research and manipulated it to support his views.

Between 1932 and 1972, the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment undertook the task to understand the natural course of syphilis if left untreated. The experiment denied hundreds of underprivileged African American male treatment for the disease, and did not inform them about why they were participating in the experiment. The foundation of this study was the belief that certain races were more susceptible to diseases because those races were the weaker ones. The researchers only selected poor African American men to study the course of the disease and the medical outcomes in different races (Dorr). Although the researchers were not directly studying racial hygiene and not purposefully culling the inferior race, they still withheld treatment from hundreds of individuals. These men focused on a race they deemed less desirable, and, under poor study conditions, subjected the men to inhumane treatment by refusing to treat the disease, despite penicillin having been proven to help cure syphilis. This could have been considered an attempt to remove a certain gene from the population. It is ironic that this study took place during the same time as the Holocaust, yet there was no public outcry at the actions of these men like there was toward the evils that Hitler supported. I believe Hitler distracted the public attention away from anything that was happening at home, which could have contributed to the US’s reluctance to join the war effort. Also, the study probably did not gather national attention because it did not appear that the researchers wanted to intentionally kill the men that participated in the experiment.

It is interesting to note that several other European countries had sterilization laws in place during the 1930s, including Denmark and Sweden. In both countries, the forced sterilization of the mentally handicapped was common because people believed the handicapped were not capable of making the decision to be sterilized on their own. By the 1960s, thousands of people had been sterilized under the guise of medical reasons, which eventually became social reasons. Despite the majority of the population not caring about the sterilization, some people spoke out against the laws because they restricted free choice. The protesters were ignored by the governments because they were considered too liberal (Dikotter).

Despite the noble intentions of eugenics, the practice of creating a perfect individual will always shun the phenotypes that were not selected. Eugenics aims to improve society, but it “is actually threatening mankind with total stagnation,” meaning that by attempting to remove all diversity from a population, mankind would cease to grow and evolve (Hen). Also, what is considered perfect varies from individual to individual because of their cultural background and personal views. Would believing that the perfect man would be Caucasian be considered racist against all the other races? Or is it just the fact that the environment one is raised in results in a preference toward one’s own race? When examining those questions, one must what defines a race. Many factors affecting the number of biological races can include researcher bias and the attitudes of the time period in which one is examining. These factors work in conjunction to define the compositions of the races and ethnicities of the world, and what each person sees as ideal.

All humans are originally from Africa, according to the Out of Africa model, but it would be impossible for someone to track their own family history back that far. It was only a matter of a couple hundred years ago that the world population would not cover the number of ancestors each individual on earth now would have had at the time. Considering the fact that Homo sapiens had spread all over the world 10,000 years ago, and had begun moving thousands of years earlier without any written or spoken language, it would be impossible to track your personal lineage back that far. Despite this, most cultural groups have some sort of a creation story to explain how the world came about and how their people got to where they reside. Since it is now possible to determine a specific location of origin, creation stories can be proven or unproven based on DNA evidence.

Most people have made a family tree of some sort at some point in their lives, whether it is something small for an elementary school project or a giant tree going back as far as your family knows. Some families can trace farther back than others. While some people can only trace their family back a couple of generations, such as the descendants of slaves, there are others who can trace their family back hundreds of years, such as royalty, who generally keep very good records so they always know who is supposed to be the rightful heir to the throne.

Even if a person’s DNA did generally match their family tree, a person’s genes are not just from the past couple hundred years that we can track. They come from our entire genetic history. Mitochondrial DNA can be traced back through the maternal line very far back, since recombination happens slower in mitochondrial DNA than in nuclear DNA. Even if a family can only trace their background to a certain location, like Europe, they could still have genes from somewhere like Africa or Asia.

Almost every culture has some sort of story explaining where they came from. These can be either about how the whole world came about, including land, animals, and people, or specifically about where their people come from. The Navajo, or Diné, creation story says that they have been on their land since the beginning of time (Martin 2008), as does the Aboriginal Australian “Dreamtime” stories (Australian Museum 2004). The Jews, Christians, and Muslims all have the same creation story, the story from the book of Genesis from the Old Testament about Adam and Eve. The Falasha of Ethiopia (“Falasha” 2008) and the Lemba (Davis 2004) of Africa trace their roots back to Israel.

The Navajo creation story starts with four gods coming to the people, the White Body, the Black Body, the Blue Body, and the Yellow Body. They tell the people that they will return in twelve days, and on the morning of the Twelfth Day the people bathe and the women dry themselves with yellow cornmeal and the men try themselves with white cornmeal. When the gods returned, the Black Body and the Blue Body each carried a sacred buckskin, and the White Body carried two ears of corn, one white and one yellow. One buckskin was laid down, a yellow eagle feather with the yellow ear of corn and a white eagle feather with the white ear of corn was laid on top of it. On top of that, the gods laid the other buckskin with the feathers sticking out the side. Another group of gods called the Mirage People came and walked around the group while the wind was blowing. They walked around the group four times and the feathers were seen to be moving. They then lifted off the top buckskin and there were the first man and first woman lying there. The yellow ear of corn had become the woman and the white ear had become the man. (Martin 2008)

It is most likely that the Navajo were not able to trace their lineage back further than a certain point, so when passing down the stories of their origin, the stories became about how the gods and goddesses created humans and gave their fathers the land where they live.

The Indigenous Australian people have many different stories about their creation. “The Dreaming” or “Dreamtime” stories range in topics from creation stories to moral tales to the creation of specific, often sacred, landforms such as rivers or mountains. One of the Dreamtime creation stories is about the origins of Eaglehawk and Crow, two groups which many aboriginal tribes descend from. It begins when there is no land, no people, no plants. The ancestral spirit, named Guthi-guthi, wanted to make a special place for people and animals to live, so he created the land. After creating the land he noticed that, since there was no water, nothing could grow. He went to Mt. Mirana to call on the water serpent, Weowie. Weowie was trapped in the mountain and could not hear Guthi-guthi until he broke the mountain open to release Weowie. After that, anywhere Weowie went, there was a stream or lake. When he was finished, he went back to Mt. Minara, where he still remains. But Guthi-guthi wanted more water to run down the middle of the land, so he called on Old Punda, the Cod, to drag water across the land to create the Darling River. Then Guthi-guthi put the two tribes, Eaglehawk and Crow, on the land. (Australian Museum 2004)

Since these Dreamtime stories began being told, the indigenous Australians claim that their people have been there since the beginning of time. There is now scientific information strongly suggesting, though not undoubtedly proving, that the first Homo sapiens arrived on the Australian continent anywhere from 40,000 years ago to 70,000 years ago. Taking into account this information, the Australian Aboriginal people now say that their people have been in Australia for 40,000 years ago rather than forever.

Some groups decide not to believe modern scientific theories on things like evolution because they conflict with their creation story. The Lakota Sioux of the Black Hills in South Dakota reject the theory that the Native American Indians migrated to North America by crossing the Bering Strait, and instead insist that they were created on their lands and have always been there. (Davis 2004)

There is a group of people in Ethiopia called the Falasha, also called the Beta Israel. They are known in Ethiopia as one of the only groups that practices Judaism rather than Christianity or Islam. Their personal tribal history describes their origins as one of four things. They could be one of the Lost Tribes of Israel, namely the Tribe of Dan, the descendants of Menelik I, the son of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, the descendants of Ethiopian Christians that were converted to Judaism, or the descendants of Jews from Israel that fled after the fall of the First Temple in 586BCE for Egypt and settled in Ethiopia (“The History of Ethiopian Jews.”) This story about their origins has an impact on their everyday lives. The most accepted story of their origins seems to be that they are the descendants of Menelik I. They are not exactly like other Jewish groups, but do practice many Jewish traditions such as circumcision, some dietary laws, and general guidelines on cleanliness (“Falasha” 2008). According to Lucotte, et al. it is far more likely that they were Ethiopian Christians that were converted to Judaism, rather than Jews coming from Israel. In studying the Y chromosome of 38 Falasha Jews and 104 non-Falasha Ethiopians, Lucotte determined that the two haplotypes that are in significant frequency in Jewish populations are completely absent in both the Falasha and the non-Falasha Ethiopians. This shows that although their cultural history is specific in saying that they are the descendants of Menelik I or the descendants of one of the lost tribes of Israel, their genetic history reveals something completely different.

Another tribe very similar to the Falasha is the Lemba. They are a group of black South African Jews claiming that they, like the Falasha, are descendants of one of the Lost Tribes of Israel, though they are not specific as to which one. They say that their ancestors were Jews who fled from Judea 2,500 years ago and traveled south into Africa and eventually settled in South Africa and Zimbabwe. The story says that they are the descendants of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. Like the Falasha, they practice a variation on Judaism that includes many similar rituals and practices. Some of these include observing the Sabbath, male circumcision, saying particular words during rituals, though the meanings have been lost, and some rules regarding food, such as not eating meat killed by others. (Davis 2004)

There have been multiple genetic studies on the Lemba. An anthropologist named Tudor Parfitt went to South Africa to give a lecture on the Falasha when he met several Lemba men. After hearing their story, he wanted to study their DNA. He was then able to obtain samples from 49 Lemba men so that he could study their Y chromosomes. The results showed that 50% of the Y chromosomes had origins not in Africa, but in the Middle East. In a later study, he used 136 samples from Lemba men. The Y chromosome was analyzed and showed a strong similarity with the Middle East. (Davis 2004) Their story specifically says that they went through a city or town called “Sena,” the location of which has been lost, however there is a city called Sena in Yemen. It can be presumed that they went through this Sena in Yemen on their way to Zimbabwe and South Africa. Even though the results can not show that they specifically descend from people of Judea, they do show that they have ancestors that were from the Arabian Peninsula, and these results are enough to make the Lemba people happy with the results and have a “new sense of Jewishness” (Davis 2004).

Most groups of people have had the DNA of members of the group tested. Some have had at least portions of their cultural stories confirmed, even if the results are not definitive, like the Lemba. Some groups of people may be unwilling to have their DNA tested, for fear of the results conflicting with their cultural histories. These are groups that have specific stories about where their people came from, such as the Falasha, saying that they descend from Menelik I, rather than groups that have very general creation stories about how the land or the people were created, such as the Navajo or the Australian Aboriginal people. Before it was possible to trace a person’s history through DNA, specifically mitochondrial DNA and the Y chromosome, cultural histories were all people had to explain where they came from. Now when it is possible to pinpoint a specific, though not definitive, location of origin, narratives of specific origins can easily be proven or unproven based on DNA

Eugenics is the improvement of the human race by manipulating heritable traits to produce “better” humans. The goal of eugenics is to create healthier and more intelligent humans and to control and prevent the occurrence of heritable diseases and disabilities. There has been great controversy about the morality and ethics of eugenics. This is due to the ways of conducting eugenics, of which there are many.

From ancient times to post-WWII, eugenics was practiced by selective breeding. Just as we breed animals with favorable traits (dogs, cats, fish, horses, etc.), it is believed by eugenicists that the same can be done with human beings. Long before the theory of eugenics through selective breeding was developed in the 1860’s and 70’s by Sir Francis Galton; ideas of it were long since developed and put into practice. In ancient Greece, the philosopher Plato believed that the reproduction of human beings was a matter that should be controlled by the state. Plato stated in his work The Republic, that this would be achieved by assessing the quality of a person and allowing that person to mate with another person of equal quality to produce offspring of that quality. Basically, a “high quality” male would only be allowed to mate with a “high quality” female to produce “high quality” children who would in turn produce more “high quality” or even “higher quality” offspring which would improve the quality of the entire population over time. Plato however realized that this wouldn’t work because “high quality” couples could still end up producing “average” or “low” quality offspring. In Sparta, infanticide was practiced was practiced as a means of selective breeding. A newborn infant was inspected by city elders and put through trials to determine his/her fate. If the infant was judged to be weak or deformed in any way, the infant was left to die in a chasm (not thrown in one like in the movie 300). Spartans did this as a way of ensuring that only the strongest and fittest would survive to reproduce for the betterment of the Spartan population.

In the late 1800’s, Sir Francis Galton developed the basic ideas of eugenics. He argued that “genius” and “talent” were heritable traits in humans and that selective breeding could be used to breed more talented and intelligent humans just like we do with animals (horses, sheep, dogs, cats, etc.) to breed ones with desirable traits. Basically his idea was that just like you can end up with a breed of dogs that are great runners through selective breeding, you can end up with humans that are improved in morals, intellect, and personality by selective breeding as well. Galton believed that less intelligent people were producing more offspring than the more intelligent people. He didn’t propose any methods of selection but instead hoped that social morals would change in a way that people would see the importance of being careful about breeding. Galton coined the term “eugenics” in 1883 after the greek word “eugenes” which means good or well born (1). In 1904 he formally defined eugenics as “the science which deals with all influences that improve the inborn qualities of a race; also with those that develop them to the utmost advantage.” (1).

Eventually, eugenics came to refer to the selective breeding of humans with the intention of creating offspring possessing desirable traits. Eugenics ended up being divided into two categories: positive eugenics and negative eugenics. Positive eugenics was about increasing the rate of reproduction of those with desirable heritable traits. Negative eugenics was about decreasing or at least discouraging the reproduction of those with undesirable heritable traits. Examples of negative eugenics range from segregation to genocide. Eugenics has developed a bad reputation due to history being full of examples of eugenics being taken too far and resulting in unfortunate consequences.

The most notorious example of eugenics gone wrong is perhaps the eugenics programs of Nazi Germany during WWII. During the 1930’s and 40’s, the Nazis sterilized hundreds of thousands of people they deemed as both mentally and physically unfit. From 1934 to 1937, roughly 400,000 people were sterilized (1). The Nazis also attempted to maintain the “purity” of their race by exterminating the “undesirables” of the German population and the populations of conquered nations. These “undesirables” were not just those who had physical and mental impairments but also Jews, Gypsies, Jehovah’s Witnesses and homosexuals. This genocidal program is well-known as “The Holocaust”.

In the U.S., eugenics programs began as early as the late 1800’s. Around that time, deafness was determined to be hereditary and that deaf parents would be likely to produce deaf children. It was suggested that boarding schools for the deaf could be possible breeding places for deaf humans and controlled immigration was proposed as a possible solution. In 1896, many states made marriage laws that forbade anyone who was “epileptic, imbecile or feeble-minded” from marrying (1). Researchers during this time were investigating the idea that mental illnesses like schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and depression were heritable traits. The findings from their studies were used as support for state laws that not only prohibited the marriage of the mentally ill but also forced the mentally ill to be sterilized so that their mental illness won’t pass on to the next generation. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld these laws in 1927 and weren’t abolished until the middle of the 20^th century. By the year 1945, 45,000 mentally ill people in the U.S. had been sterilized by force (1). Overall, 60,000 U.S. citizens had been sterilized.

In Japan during the Showa era, governments implemented many eugenic policies. In 1948, the Eugenic Protection Law was created to enforce sterilization on criminals that supposedly had “genetic predisposition to commit crime” (1), patients with genetic diseases (such as total color-blindness, hemophilia, albinism, etc.), and those with mental illnesses like schizophrenia, manic-depressive disorder, and epilepsy. The Leprosy Preventions Laws of 1907,1931, and 1953 allowed patients at sanitariums to be segregated and forced to have abortions or be sterilized as punishment for supposedly “disturbing peace” (1). In 1945, the Showa regime ordered local government offices to create prostitution services for allied soldiers in an attempt to preserve the “purity” of the “Japanese race”.

In Canada, the Sexual Sterilization Act went into effect in 1928. This act allowed the sterilization of those found to be mentally deficient by the Alberta Eugenics Board. People were assessed for mental deficiency using IQ tests. The tests were in English which was problem for new immigrants to Canada because many didn’t have mastery of the English language. This caused their scores to be low and they were marked as being mentally deficient even though they weren’t. As a result, many immigrants were sterilized under the Sexual Sterilization Act because they were unfairly labeled as being mentally deficient. The Sexual Sterilization Act was eventually repealed in 1972.

It’s because of these and other examples in the past that eugenics has been given a bad reputation. Marian Van Court had said about eugenics in regards to the public’ “Most people draw a blank when they hear the word, or it conjures up images of swastikas and jack-booted Nazis.” (2). Eugenics can be and is being used for good and is helping in the betterment of other human beings. This is happening in many countries today. The examples presented below are “negative” eugenics but the results and goals of these eugenic policies are positive.

On the island of Cyprus there is a screening policy (that includes prenatal screening and abortion) that requires couples to be tested for the hereditary blood disease thalassemia before they get married. The goal of the screening policy is to reduce the occurrence of thalassemia on the island. Since the program’s implementation in the 1970’s, the ratio of children born with thalassemia went from 1 out of 158 births to approximately zero.

In the nation of Israel, the screening program called “Dor Yeshorim” is being implemented in certain Jewish communities. Dor Yeshorim is a program that aims to reduce incidence of Tay-Sachs disease Cystic Fibrosis, Fanconi anemia, and other heritable diseases. At the state’s expense, the public is encouraged to have genetic tests done to diagnose the diseases before the birth of a baby. If the unborn child is diagnosed with one these diseases, the pregnancy may be terminated but is subject to consent. In some Jewish communities, matchmaking is still practiced but now requires the couple to undergo Dor Yeshorim for Tay-Sachs. Couples who are homozygous for Tay-Sachs end up giving birth to an infant that doesn’t live for very long. To prevent such tragedy from happening, if the both the man and woman that were matched are both carriers of Tay-Sachs, the match is usually broken off. The ultimate goal of Dor Yeshorim is to eliminate the occurrence of homozygosity so that heritable diseases like Tay-Sachs never occur. (Dor Yeshorim was founded by a rabbi who lost four kids to Tay-Sachs. He founded it with the goal of preventing the same tragedy from happening to other people (1)).

Despite the good that can come from eugenics, it still remains a topic of controversy. Eugenics is more controversial now with the advent of genetic engineering, more advances in our understanding of the human genome, and advances in technology. In the not so distant future, humanity will have the knowledge and understanding of the entire human genome and the technology to manipulate it. Parents may have the means to create “designer babies” meaning they will be able to alter their unborn child’s characteristics (physical, behavioral, psychological) to almost whatever they choose, from eye-color to athletic ability or even the child’s level of apprehension ( ie: ranging from cautious to bullheaded). Genetic engineering in the future will be able to treat physical and mental impairments or even prevent them from occurring before a person is born not to mention preventing an heritable disease from being passed down to future generations. This is all well and good but just what exactly are the moral and ethical implications of this? Do we have the right to essentially “design” human beings? How will genetic engineering affect the overall human gene pool? Which traits should be labeled “desirable” and which traits should be labeled “undesirable”?

One concern is that the implementation of eugenic policies could result in the loss of genetic diversity. For instance, let’s say a population of people is all genetically engineered before birth to be as healthy and as physically fit as everyone else. If every person in the population had the same level of health and same immunities or resistances to known diseases or viruses, then all of them would be equally vulnerable to any new form of disease or virus that emerges. Variations in our genes may make us susceptible to certain diseases, but may also make us immune or resistant to other forms of disease. What diseases or viruses we are vulnerable to or resistant to varies from person to person and population to population to varying degrees. Some people in a population may be vulnerable to a certain disease and die off while others in the population may be resistant and survive to produce offspring. This is only possible because of genetic variation in the population. Genetic variation gives at some members of a population a chance at survival and a chance for the species as a whole to survive. If a population had no genetic diversity in it, that population would be at great risk of extinction due to enhanced vulnerability to new forms of disease or reduced ability to adapt to environmental changes. Supporters of eugenics however argue that any eugenic program implemented would make only minor changes in the gene pool in any one generation. If any problems did result, they say there would still be plenty of time to reverse the damage.

Another concern about eugenics is figuring out exactly which traits are to be deemed “desirable” and which are to be deemed “undesirable”. Recall that in the past, many nations regarded mental illness as an “undesirable” trait and forcibly sterilized those individuals who suffered from mental illness or where simply labeled as mentally ill due to their lack understanding of the English language. Right now there is no agreement on which traits are desirable or undesirable. What’s considered a “desirable” trait to one person may be considered “undesirable” to another. Autism is considered to be an undesirable trait by some, but by others it’s considered to be a form of neurodiversity and should be allowed to exist. Should genetic engineering be used to fix the genes that cause autism? The question of which traits are desirable and undesirable becomes even more delicate in terms of behavioral traits. Behavioral traits such as intelligence, alcoholism, schizophrenia, depression, sexual behavior and orientation, criminality, etc, are targets of modification through genetic engineering (1). Let’s take homosexuality as an example. From a eugenic viewpoint, it could be said that homosexuality is an undesirable trait because homosexual couples cannot bear children and thereby can’t contribute to the gene pool, passing on genes to future generations for the purpose of genetic diversity. It can also be said that this trait shouldn’t even be allowed to be passed down to future generations because if more people were homosexual, less and less children would be born and would lead to the degradation or extinction of the human race. From a humane viewpoint, it could be said that homosexuality is a choice and that people have the right to choose to be homosexual or not because it’s their lives and one else’s they should be allowed to live them how they see fit. Also a homosexual couple can bear children or pass on their genetic legacy by means of donations to sperm banks and artificial insemination.

Perhaps the greatest problem with designating desirable and undesirable traits is that once it’s done, it will place labels on people, designating them as inferior or superior or normal. For instance, let’s say that a person is verified to have low intelligence due to his/her genes. People readily and all too easily assume “low intelligence” means “stupid” or “retarded” which it doesn’t. That person will then be looked on as inferior to others which will make his/her life miserable and end up being pressured to be “fixed” (have his/her genes altered) to be like everyone else. Why should this person be changed? Just because he/she has low intelligence, but that doesn’t mean he/she can’t live a normal life. Why should this person have to change the nature of who he/she is? However, wouldn’t it be a good thing if all human beings had high levels of intelligence? Wouldn’t the human race as a whole be better off? Wouldn’t that person live a better life if he/she was genetically modified to have higher intelligence? He/she would no longer be seen as inferior to anyone else and probably be able to grasp concepts and understand things as well as “normal” people. However, he/she would be less unique, less distinct from everyone else than before, not just in mental ability but genetically as well.

The greatest question in terms of the implementation of eugenics by genetic engineering or any means is: Do we have the right to or should we be essentially “designing” human beings? Should we just let evolution take its course or should we take matters into our own hands and direct our evolution? As stated before, the goal of eugenics is the improvement of the human race. This pretty much means creating a human race that is smarter, faster, healthier, tougher, stronger, and more resilient than before. That really doesn’t sound bad at all. Who wouldn’t want a world where everyone is in good health and doesn’t have to suffer from physical or mental impairments, where people continually get better and better? A proponent of eugenics, Marian Van Court had said:

“Most of us want to give our children as much as our parents gave us, preferably more. We want them to have the best possible education, and every advantage we can afford. We also hope to leave them a better world than the one we were born into. However, the most important legacy we can bequeath to our children is their own biological integrity: good health, high intelligence, and noble character. These traits go a long ways towards insuring their personal happiness and well-being. Taken collectively, these traits constitute the ability of a population to maintain and advance civilization – the most precious of human gifts – for without civilization, chaos reigns, “might makes right,” and suffering abounds.(2)

Good health, high intelligence, and noble character are qualities that everyone believes are good to have. Indeed it probably would be a better world if more people had all these qualities. The problem is how to go about doing it. Francis Crick said in 1963: “by simply taking people with the qualities we like, and letting them have more children…”(3). That’s the general idea of how to go about doing it, selectively breeding humans with desired traits so that you’ll end up with a population of humans with desired traits. Of course we’ve seen throughout history the complications of this and how it ended up for worse more often than for the better. The advent of genetic engineering will give eugenicists better control, precision, and ability for accomplishing the goal of creating better human beings and lessen human suffering, but should human beings have such ability, such power. Are we smart and wise enough to use this power responsibly? Joshua Lederberg in 1963 said:

“I think that most of us here believe that the present population of the world is not intelligent enough to keep itself from being blown up, and we would like to make some provision for the future so that it will have a slightly better chance of avoiding this particular contingency.”(3).

This quote helps to illustrate the dilemma with eugenics. We would like to create a human race that is intelligent, wise, and compassionate enough to wield great power like weapons of mass destruction) responsibly. The only way to do this is by implementing eugenics, which is great power. The catch is, we the current human race have to be intelligent, wise, and compassionate enough to use great power (like eugenics) responsibly in order to achieve the goal of creating a human race like that. Currently we the human race overall are having trouble with that.

We have seen throughout history how eugenics has been misused and has caused a lot of harm. We have also seen how today it’s being used to do a lot of good and how it can do even more good. Joshua Lederberg said in 1963: “ do we not still sinfully waste a treasure of knowledge by ignoring the creative possibilities of genetic improvement?” (3). Whether eugenics is good or bad depends on one thing and one thing only: how we go about doing it.

When analyzing the genetic differences between populations, it is important to realize that there is no real way to determine definite categories for specific populations. Presently, there is still a lingering concept that it is possible to designate people into racial groups or ethnic groups, but these categories are often more fluid then they may seem. Anthropologists, both biological and cultural, have narrowed down specific aspects of people's genetics and culture which are pivotal to the classifications which are present in society; however, they must all be analyzed with scrutiny since they can not always be true to the definite biological or ethnic group. Though groups can be perceived on different grounds it is important to realize that they are mostly a misapprehension in the minds of those who hold them. Through an examination of rise of race, the attribution of environmental factors, the transference of language, and the rise of agrarian society; it is possible to discern the realities of how different aspects in the rise of civilization have contributed to the skewed modern view of population groupings.

The apportionment of human biodiversity and the number of modern human biological races vary drastically during modern times. This is attributable to many different factors. For the most part, race is attributable to social or cultural constructs (Thompson and Hickey 2005). The ancient Egyptians had a book called the Book of Gates, which identifies the four main races which were perceived by the Egyptians. Their race classifications were based on physical features, such as skin tone, as well as tribal and national identities. These classifications were loosely derived from the idea of a nation-state, meaning that everyone within a specific country is of the same type, both physically and culturally. However, for many of the Classical societies, like Greece, China and Rome, race was really based on culture, so long as people were willing to accept a specific culture, they were accepted into the civilizations as true members. Biological differences were realized, but those were believed to be based on environmental determinism, that the phenotypic variations were based on people's home environments.

As the Abrahamic religions begin to take hold, scripture begins to be the main source of scientific knowledge. In Medieval times, the Christian church attributed races to the three sons of Noah, producing distinct Semitic (Asian), Hamitic (African), and Japhetic (European) peoples. This was based on the belief that the people of the world are all descendents of the Noah's sons, since the great flood had destroyed the world and they were the only ones left. This classification leaves out any reference to Native American peoples, since they were not known to have existed; however, this problem arose during the Age of Exploration. Originally, the Native Americans were thought to be some of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel, who had migrated to such a far off place - this was quickly disregarded though. With the Age of Exploration came the need to create the idea of a race, since the Europeans wanted to justify their subordination of different peoples. Believed to have stemmed from their own European cultural differences, the Europeans began to pick out each other's specific cultural traits and attribute that to biological means and phenotypic characteristics. It was easier for the Europeans to make distinctions between themselves than it was between those of other phenotypes. They therefore began to classify based on appearance alone, a staunch deviation from how "races" used to be classified.

Appearances were not longer perceived as natural, environmental adaptations; rather, there was an intrinsic genetic formula, which could therefore be stratified. The Europeans thought that the adaptations to the cold environment were the best, because they perceived the cold as the harshest environment. As a result, anyone who was not thusly adapted was considered less superior. This is the state which epitomized the 19^th and 20^th Centuries, the belief in European superiority over all other races (Darwin 1871/1874). The Europeans classified their genetic variation as more diverse than anyone else, since Caucasians perceive diversity in term of hair and eye color and not actual, physiological facial differences. In a modern society, it is possible to see why this would lead to racial discrimination, based on an inability to distinguish people based on facial features. Though cultural differences were taken into account for the Caucasian "race", it was not extended to any other. Ideas like this have allowed people to create their own ethno-histories, to make themselves more distinct than those who are perceived as different. For a long time many, even within the field of science, had rejected the idea of the Out-of-Africa model proposed for the rise of man. Another theory which was being proposed was the Multi-Regional Hypothesis, which stipulated that early human populations developed independently in different cradles of civilization. A problem with this theory was that it still required an original Out-of-Africa model, on which to base its argument. Out-of-Africa remains the most practical model for human migration and scientists tend to refer to the model as fact (Jackson and Lieberman 1995).

Ethnic groups commonly decide that their ethnic group has a specific ethno-history, but often times these descriptions are not founded genetically. This is tremendously dependent on the people's culture and their own view of themselves and, in some cases, how they are taught by their religion. For example, Native Americans believe that they rose from the earth and that they have always been in the Americas and were not migrant populations (Erdoes 1985). However, genetic analysis has proven that a large portion of their genotype actually comes from central Asia, and that they have a few of the Asian phenotypes. Also, archaeological evidence has suggested that before a certain time, the Americas were uninhabited and that there was a large migration about 25,000 years ago into the Americas (Fagundes 2008). These two pieces of evidence would seem to be overwhelming evidence to believe that the Native American populations came from Asia, but the Native Americans do not see it that way. They still believe, as per their religion, that they were born of the earth which they inhabit and that they have always been in that spot. In this way it seems that many people deny their genetic history because of their cultural norms and religious dictation.

During World War II, it was the main assertion of the Nazis that they were part of the Aryan race. The ideology was that the Germans were a part of a distinctive, superior race which displayed specific characteristics. The problem with this is that the Aryan "race" has its origins in the East, around the area of Iran and Northern India. This population was tied together by a common language thread, which made its way into Europe much later on in history after much cultural change. Linguists and historians say that when the language family had reached Europe, it had become the Indo-European language family and was not longer considered as tied to the Indo-Aryan language family. The Nazis were using a linguistic tradition, from which they were far removed, as the basis for their racial classification. The people to whom the Nazis were equating themselves were not even indigenous Europeans.

In some cases the ethno-histories of some groups have been debated only to have been proven by DNA analyses. For example, the Ashkenazi (European) Jewish population for a long time has been subject to claims that they are not in fact Semitic peoples as they believe they are according to religious tradition. It was argued that the once great Kingdom of the Khazars, which was known for its mass conversion to Judaism, is the ethnic origin for the Ashkenazi Jews. This theory has been incorporated into many anti-Semitic works in a ploy to de-legitimize the Jewish heritage of Ashkenazi Jewry (Goodrick-Clarke 2002). The Ashkenazi Jewry have continued to assert their Jewish heritage based on the notion that they had been exiled from Judea to Europe by the Romans and then expelled further east as Christianity took hold of the Roman Empire. Recent studies have begun to indicate that there may be proof for the latter. A study conducted by Seldin, et al. on groupings of European population suggests that the Ashkenazi Jews group more with southern European than with the northern European communities in which they lived (Seldin 2006). Using a genome-wide Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) panel, they were able to discern the more recent inculcation of the Jewish population into Europe from the Near East. Such cases express the difficulty in assessing which claims of ethno-history are indeed accurate.

When analyzing the situation it is possible to see why trying to look at both the genetic history and ethnic history would be difficult. Genetics and ethnicities change at different rates, and it can be said that this is an example of mosaic evolution. Certain traits evolve at different rates, just as culture changes at a different rate than genetics. Some traditions are adopted to perpetuate certain agendas and create a false national unity, to which the genetics do not connect. It all depends on how someone feels towards their culture or the genetics. For a person whose culture is more important, the genetic information could be disregarded because their belief in their cultural tradition is too strong to be broken, even if it has been argued against by genetic data. One thing is for sure though; cultural traditions will always change and diffuse in a different way than genetic information will. While mutual culture can help spread the genetics across space, it does not mean that it will have to move at the same rate, or together. They are still two mutually exclusive elements. However, aspects of culture, language for example, can help examine the flow of genetic information between populations.

Language can be linked to genetics in many ways. Specific-Mate Recognition Systems, as described by Marks, can be better characterized in laymen's terms as culture (Marks 1995). Each species has different ways of recognizing its own kind through the five senses, as well as other cues, including culture. As humans began to think more abstractly, we began to develop more analytical aversions against the "other." It no longer specifically meant an aversion towards those of a different species; "other" extended to those who the different group saw as different. Complex language is one of the main forms of culture which distinguishes us from other animals; our different languages separated us into separate groups. Those who were not seen to have a specific linguistic tradition were seen as the "other." Despite definite reproductive capabilities, association with those outside of a specific linguistic tradition was seen as taboo because it was seen as foreign. In addition to language, this idea is true to all aspects of culture.

Language is seen as one of the most fundamental parts of culture since it is the primary form of communication. One may be more inclined to learn about another's culture if they were being spoken to in a way that they could understand. It is still the case today. Language barriers are still very present in today's society, it is very apparent when a new immigrant tries to express something in their newly learned language to a fluent speaker of that language. This creates an aversion to the person based on language lines alone; one is more likely to connect with another if they are from the same linguistic tradition because it is easier to relate to one another. This creates insular communities restricting the gene flow and admixture within an otherwise interbreeding species. Language in human societies has replaced the more primitive forms of Specific-Mate Recognition Systems. It is only when the two populations begin to learn the other's language that the two populations can begin to interbreed. However, if a linguistic tradition becomes more fractioned, it creates more distinct groups. This was the case after the fall of the Roman Empire, when Latin became split into the many different Romance languages.

The patterns of genetic transference between populations and inbreeding depression in stagnant populations can be attributed to many causes, including that of linguistic history. As languages converged and diverged, so did the genetic make-up of the people who spoke the languages. Empires, such as that of the Assyrians and Romans, were able to bring large amounts of people under their hegemony and, in turn, were able to spread their language to their subordinates. This opened up the empires to genetic exchange across cultures and geographical regions. As they fell, the cultures reverted back to a fractioned state and only associated with those of the same linguistic tradition. Also, it is believed that the first language of acquisition sets a framework in the way a person analyzes their everyday situations. Depending on the analytic or symbolic nature of the language, it can influence people to have a predisposition to connect with people of similar language types then others, which in turn will affect mating practices. Language follows a specific pattern of movement based on the sharing of resources, especially in the case of agriculture. An agrarian society brings humans together, because it is only when people work together that they can survive as a species. In this way a shared language emerges, which causes the genetic transference between people in the society with that language.

Agriculture was another one of the significant influences of gene flow between populations. The early human societies were based on kinship ties, where bands and tribes formed small tight groups (Erdal and Whiten 1996). There was very little deviation from the group because other people were unfamiliar and therefore seen as hostile. The reason for this perceived hostility was the fact that these early societies were primarily hunting and gathering societies. All the bands and tribes across the globe were in a war with each other over the resources strewn about the landscape. Not only did this separate the early human population physically, but also genetically; as enemies are not seen as potential mates. However, this inbreeding came to a halt with the first agricultural societies. Agriculture out-competed hunting and gathering as the new way for sustenance, since it was more reliable and did not require constant movement from place to place. With agricultural development come the first urban areas, since the new farming techniques could produce enough food to support large populations. As tribes came into contact with these new urban areas, the kinship ties that used to separate them were no longer as polarizing as they once were. This influx of new people from different areas came along with their genetic material, causing a conglomeration of the genes from all of the once distinct tribal kinship groups. The influx of many different genes from different population facilitates gene flow and increased admixture.

Another factor which is also extremely important is that sedentary societies tend to have more children. Marks states, “settled, agrarian societies are invariably accompanied by an explosive rise in population” (Marks 1995). What this means is that not only is there going to be a massive incoming of different genes expected, but that these genes will be spread at a much higher rate in these societies. In hunter-gatherer societies, the mother, who was the primary care giver, would be distracted from her food procurement when she was pregnant, nursing, or caring for their children. Therefore, the women in these societies were not able to have as many children because it would impede their everyday activities. Women did not have these kinds of pressures in agrarian societies because such societies became very stratified, and usually had specific gender roles. Since the women would no longer have to worry about food procurement as much, so they had more time to focus on the family.

The agrarian society also took away the ideas of patriarchal or matriarchal kinship and established a wider "kinship" society. There was no longer a focus on the immediate family but rather the perpetuation of the people as a whole. Once land for farming was found, it was imperative to protect it as well as possible, so the entire community was seen as a family; concordantly, people would intermarry from their previously segregated groups. As the societies became more complex, the monarchies would intermarry with others from different kingdoms, creating further genetic flow between populations. Agriculture as a whole was able to bring together the nomadic early human groups, which were initially very insular communities and were able to establish a society in which gene flow and admixture was very possible. It is a fact of life that food brings people (genes) together and agriculture did just that.

It is impossible to make distinct population groupings based simply on people's genetic material. Every being inherits a specific genotype from their parents; it goes through a filtering process based on the culture and environment in which the individual is raise. There must be recognition of the fluidity of such classification as race and ethnicity because they cause racism and prejudice. Though in the field of medicine it is important to analyze one's ethnic background it should not be the basis for social discrimination. This essay set out to prove these very statements and through the analysis of many factors in is possible to see how a specific genotype can go through many filters to get to the expressed genotype as it is perceived by others. The idea of Biological Lineage Coalescence stipulates that further back in time there were fewer people on Earth, therefore, people begin to share more ancestors. The importance of this idea cannot be stressed enough, since the more people accept this idea, the less expressions of divisions will be made and the more awareness of cohesiveness will be realized.

For the majority of animals it is comparatively easy to study the effect of evolution and natural selection on their populations as opposed to humans. Animals, in general, lack at least what any researcher would deem a complex culture or society, and for the most part act on natural instinct to survive and reproduce. On the other hand, human beings do possess a culture that affects nearly every aspect of a person’s life, including the expression or diversity of their genetic code. When studying humans in biological anthropology, it is not enough to simply examine a person’s genes and their associated phenotypic expression, or to study genetic patterns and change over time. Any researcher must take into consideration the environment in which that person lives, including their cultural environment and what role that may play in the expression of traits or decisions a person has made. Accounting for all of these factors is not always an easy task to accomplish. The necessity of studying both the cultural and biological aspects of anthropology comes into play in almost every topic in biological anthropology, including the study of diseases, traits and genetic drift.

Distinguishing between traits resulting from natural selection versus those resulting from cultural preferences can be difficult, but it can be done with some degree of certainty. Before being able to distinguish between the two, it is very important to first understand how culture and human behavior interact with the biological makeup of humans. There are very few traits or behaviors that humans exhibit which are not first filtered through cultural selection. This fact is especially important given recent research that has been performed regarding gene expression and the effects of environment and culture on the phenotype. Even if natural selection did play some role in the frequency of an allele or gene in a given population, it is possible that the trait this allele “codes for” may never be observed or recognized because some other cultural factor has played a role in altering the expression of that allele. Celiac Disease is an example of a disease caused by such a gene. This disease damages the small intestine and can prevent a person’s body from absorbing nutrients from food, however it only does this when the body is exposed to gluten, which is commonly found in wheat products (Clearinghouse). It is very possible that the genes for this disease could have a higher frequency in a culture that does not consume gluten, or consumes a very small amount of it. However, it is still difficult to say whether or not this disease is under natural or cultural selection. It may be a cultural preference not to consume gluten-containing foods, however it may also simply be due to the fact that a particular culture does not have access to any foods containing gluten, which could be argued as natural selection for the disease. In cases such as this, more anthropological research is required in order to figure out whether it is under natural or cultural preference.

There are certain traits whose source can be more easily distinguished than Celiac Disease. Any lethal genetic mutations or combinations are clearly under natural selection. Examples of these include mutations in the genes of a fetus, or homozygous recessive lethals which often kill the person who had them before birth or before they reach a certain age. Many of these genes do not exhibit any traits in the phenotype of a carrier; thus they are not under any sort of cultural pressure. These are examples of pure natural selection.

Ultimately, it seems that there are fewer and fewer traits that are not entirely independent of culture. As scientists and anthropologists discover more about the human genome and the effects of the environment on the phenotype, it seems that culture plays more of a role than many believed previously. Only in the most severe cases, such as recessive lethals, or in isolation from certain environmental factors like the gluten example, does nature act independent of culture.

Even seemingly random events such as genetic drift can be rooted in human culture. Genetic drift can occur due to differences in language, which is a creation of culture. A population can also experience genetic drift due to a variety of cultural influences such as exile or a result of religious persecution or religious lifestyles. As with the various diseases or phenotypic traits that can be rooted in genes or culture, genes can be affected by culture or natural processes at a higher level as well.

Human beings are naturally social creatures, and the ability to communicate with another person is something that is crucial to gene flow. Studying linguistics along with anthropology may allow researchers to better understand patterns of genetic drift. When two people have a different language, this can insinuate a few things. First, that these people are most likely, at the very least, members of a different culture even if they are geographically close to one another. Different languages can also imply geographic distance and a lower chance of the two populations interacting and reproducing. Even if members of distinct populations meet, there is a tendency for those populations to select mates from within rather than outside their own group. This does not rule out between population mating, but it does limit it to a certain extent. With that said, it cannot be assumed that simply because two populations spoke a different language they did not mix, or even that two populations that speak the same language do mix.

Through linguistic history it may be possible to study genetic distances, and it is in fact necessary to study the linguistic aspect as well as the biological. According to Sokal (1987), language can be used to detect the separation of a population, and this method is possible because you can assume that common languages come from a common origin, which would then be reflected in genetics, and that languages that are farther apart will most likely result in a larger genetic distance. A language barrier can play a large role in preventing admixture and widespread reproduction between two populations, and based on Sokal’s assumption this can help us study populations and potentially identify when they have diverged. Sokal (1987) studied the genetic and taxonomic distances in 3466 samples of human populations in Europe based on allele frequencies and cranial variables to compute genetic distances along with matrices of geographic and linguistic differences. Sokal (1987:1725) found that “the results of this study show conclusively that there are genetic differences between populations in Europe when these are grouped by language families.”

These results are not very surprising, as language barriers logically do prevent high levels of gene flow. However, this does not mean that people who speak different languages never interacted with one another throughout history. As Sokal (1987) said, they may have been one population at one point, and then some sort of genetic drift occurred which led the populations to split and become two separate populations, and over time they developed their own languages. Evidence of such an event like this occurring may be able to be found in genetic and linguistic comparisons, however such an event is not necessarily due to culture. The reasoning behind the genetic drift must still be studied to discern whether it was natural or cultural. On the one hand, perhaps some natural disaster simply prevented interaction between the two populations; on the other, it may have been due to cultural differenced or the language barrier discussed previously.

A world-wide study concluded that linguistic phyla have a pattern of clustering that is congruent with genetic clusters, and thus linguistic evolution has corresponded to genetic differentiation (Ward, Redd, Valencia, Frazier and Paabo 1993). Languages diverge when populations stop interacting with each other - which inevitably reduces the amount of gene flow and leads to more genetic differences – but the reason for the lack of interaction could be due to natural or cultural processes. This evidence highlights the importance of a holistic study of genetic drift that combines biological and other cultural or linguistic studies. With written histories, cultural reasons for populations to diverge may be discerned, however in the absence of such records both cultural and natural reasons should be explored.

Culture’s effect on genetic drift can be seen in various groups, an example of which is the Old Order Amish. A study done on Ellis-van Creveld syndrome, which is characterized by postaxial polydactyly of the hands, short stature with shortening of forearms and lower legs, and a chance of congenital heart malformation, found that the syndrome was present in an extremely high rate in the Old Order Amish of Lancaster, Pennsylvania (McKusick). The Amish are descended from a group of founders from the Rhineland in Germany and only marry within the community, which has created a founders effect which can be seen through Ellis-van Creveld syndrome. Unlike some genetic drift or founders effect which can occur due to natural disasters or other random, natural events that occur, this Amish example is strictly due to cultural preferences. The Amish make a conscious decision to marry within their group, even today when they are surrounded by many other groups of people. In this case, it is easier to distinguish between what genetic drift occurred due to a “natural” process as opposed to as a result of cultural decisions, but this may not always be the case. Natural disasters or things such as the plague can also cause founders effect in populations, and the Amish example stands in contrast to those occurrences. For older populations that do not keep detailed genealogical records, it may very well be impossible to determine why their genetic drift occurred, even when it is possible to determine that it did occur.

Biological anthropology encompasses many scientific and medical issues, however it is still a study of people, and this inevitably involves studying the cultural aspects as well. This process also involves distinguishing whether or not the cultural aspects have an effect on the biological and to what extent. This increases the complexity in biological anthropology as opposed to other, more straightforward sciences. While in some cases making this distinction is a simple task, in others it can be much more difficult and require more extensive research.

In a perfect world we could tailor make drug treatment to each individual. But more and more, scientific discoveries suggest this to be impossible – or at least very far off in the future. In this analysis, it is suggested that groups are too similar and individuals too different for “race” to be an effective scientific tool.

Consider the fact that a large portion of the human genome shares a high homology with that of a banana’s. This is because all of the molecular machinery need for mitosis, meiosis, the cell cycle, DNA replication, DNA repair, pathogen recognition, and all the other vital life functions are all essentially the same [1]. In fact, any one person is more closely related to a tree in their backyard than a gram-positive bacterium is related to a gram-negative bacterium. This suggests that the diversity among humans is miniscule, and therefore, the phenotypic diversity of humans is also extremely insignificant. This idea is reinforced by the evidence that all humans come from a very small founding population (probably with origins in Africa) [2]. Because we are such a young species, the taxonomic differences caused by genetic differences are insignificant.

The phenotypic diversity that is readily visible on any given individual is only representative of a very small portion of the genotypic diversity of the population [3]. This suggests that the visual phenotype of an individual is an extremely unreliable measure of their genotype. Taxonomic differences between populations, however, are not necessarily always genetic. It is important to note that cultural practices can have huge impacts on taxonomic differences. Diet can affect body composition, cultural body decorations can change biological morphology, and lifestyles can have huge impacts on morphology.

Despite the fact that phenotypic traits are ambiguous and close to meaningless, many scientific articles correlate self-identified “race” with risk of disease. In fact in 2007 Pub Med reported that more than 113,000 articles published used classical ideas of race to correlate groups to disease [4]. So, if the racial classification system is so unscientific why do researchers continue to use it? The Definition of race is subjective and changes within cultural views and geographic locations, and these research articles rarely define what each racial category means. It is therefore unclear as to what the term “race” implies. Do these scientists suggest that the disease in question has a genetic component or a socio-cultural component? “Race” can mean both.

It is important to note, however, that recent advances in genetic technology and understanding suggest there may be more genetic diversity within modern humans than previously thought. These studies do not refute the fact that extremes within a population are more different than the averages of two different populations. They do, however, suggest that humans are more genetically diverse than we realized. It seems that inversions and copy number variations in the human genome contribute more to human genetic diversity than previously thought [5]. But even so, taxonomic differences still make up a relatively small portion of these differences and it is still unclear how these genetic differences affect human populations. All of this suggests that groups are too similar to distinguish and that individuals are too different to group together.

Unfortunately, some patterns of disease burden are strongly associated with the culturally constructed idea of “race.” These classifications are sometimes useful, but in many cases these patterns are only apparent because of socio-economic disparities. The idea that medicine can be “personalized” through race designation is dangerous because it inhibits development of real scientific criteria, may lead to misdiagnosis, and prevents the generation of solutions to the underlying socioeconomic problems. Here it is suggested that “race” can be used in scientific inquiry only if it is not preconceived to be the primary cause of it.

Human papillomaviruses (HPV) is a good example of external problems contributing to disease burden. The socioeconomic inequalities of the HPV-related disease burden have been well established. Researchers associated with the American Cancer Society report that at least 80% of all incidents of cervical cancer occur in poor and underserved populations, and incidence rates are about 60% higher among black women compared to non-Hispanic white women [6]. Other populations of women with unusually high diagnosis rate include: Hispanic women near the US Border, White women in the rural east coast and rural New England, and Native American women in the northern plains and Polar Regions [7].

In a recent report of the Journal of Gynecological Oncology researchers confirm that most women who fail to get screened, or who have screening problems that lead to disease development, are women with social, cultural, or economic constraints [8]. Rural and poor urban women usually fail to get screened [9, 8]. Failure to participate in screening is a multifaceted trend. Personal fear, embarrassment, or lack of knowledge can impede proper screening. Cultural factors also play a role – including religious beliefs, traditions, or age. Systemic dynamics – like poverty, lack of insurance and geographic isolation – also hinder the ability of many women to perform the repeated tests required in a screening program [7, 8].

It has recently been shown by researches at the Genomic Models Research Group at the University of Maryland, that computer technology can be used to take a more systematic – and more scientific – approach to health disparities. Using a program called Ethnogenetic Layering scientists have been able to weed though what is relevant and what is not [10]. This technique uses information from many national and local resources to “layer” patterns of social footing, economic standing, cultural practices, historical movements of people, as well as phenotypic traits. By itself this method has demonstrated that racial groups are very unscientific, and that the use of what the researchers call “microethnic groups” are much more effective at explaining lifestyles. It is interesting that this work is being done by anthropologists and not by the health community at large.

In a recent report of the American Journal of Human Biology, the Maryland group demonstrated that using Ethnogenetic Layering they could find meaningful associations between the historical movements of populations and disease disparities [11]. Investigators first established that there was a health disparity in the Maryland Chesapeake Bay Region where African American women were holding the majority of the Breast Cancer Disease burden. Researchers used Ethnogenetic Layering to analyze all possible reasons for this health disparity, and concluded that a major (but not necessarily the only) reason was because of a historical relationship between the Chesapeake African Americans and the African people living in the Bight of Bonny – who also show an increased risk to breast cancer. The researches found that historical records showed that during the slave trade people from the Bight of Bonny where heavily trafficked to the Maryland Chesapeake area. In contrast to the HPV example, these results suggest that in some cases groups of people are indeed more susceptible to certain diseases.

The techniques being used by these researchers are far from being certain. However, they are a step in the right direction. These two cases demonstrate that health disparities can be due to both cultural/historical realities and genetic factors stemming from the origin of the population (as seen as race). Therefore, it is up to scientists to start evaluating the assumption that race can be used as a maker for disease. How can we as scientists solve real problems if our underlying assumptions lead us to the wrong solution?

Historically many populations tend to stay where they are. Even many modern populations tend to stay put because it provides stability. In fact, researchers have found that in the United States admixture between Caucasian and non- Caucasian populations has been relatively small [12]. However, in developed and developing countries, the increased chance of admixture through the movement of people should not be overlooked – especially when people are categorized in microethnic groups. Movement may be due to job requirements, natural disasters, or personal adventure – among others. The use of any technology to analyze human populations must be continually updated.

This suggests that if medicine is to become “personalized” there must be something other than racial groupings to facilitate it. In addition the fallacy of the living ancestor comes into play. We may be able to correlate genetic factors in two related groups but the people of the “indigenous” group should not be considered the ancestor of the other population.

The concept of race is not scientific. The medical field uses “race” as a way to describe a genetic component that has not been discovered. But skin color is an extremely poor indicator of physiological differences. Even Darwin expressed doubts about characterizing people: “It may be doubted whether any characteristic can be named which is distinctive of a race and is constant”. The concept of race is inherently unscientific because it is not defined. In fact, when they are defined – as seen with the use of Ethnogenetic Layering by anthropologists at the University of Maryland – the concept of race seems to disappear, being replaced by subgroups that share both genes and socioeconomic environments.

Race is also unscientific because in many cases it is self identified. This practice contributes to inconsistency. Over their lifetime, people may change their world view or change the group they identify with. There is nothing wrong with this, but it tells us nothing about their biology.

The paradigm that there may be a link between race and a disease is dangerous because a physician may see a patient as being in a certain racial class and therefore dismiss a correct diagnosis based on the appearance of the patient [13]. Similarly, a drug that may have potential to help a person may not be used simply because that person is not part of the target population.

As demonstrated above, diseases and responses to medication are not always genetic. The ways in which cultural and environmental conditions affect drug responses is virtually unknown. Even individual personalities and attitudes can affect the drugs actions [13]. Therefore, one of the largest problems that can be seen with using race as an indicator for disease is that it allows the socio-economic contributors to be overlooked. Blaming the disease on faulty genetics takes away from the necessity to address social disparities leading to disease.

BiDil is a race based drug targeted to African Americans with heart failure. But by mid 2006 it was evident that sales were not as great as expected. It turns out that in this case, the idea of race based medicine was more economic than scientific. The drug BiDil did not show ineffectiveness in other groups. It was simply more statistically significant in African Americans. In fact, doctors will often prescribe this drug for “white” patients that do not respond well to other drugs [14]. This demonstrates the illusion that is race based medicine. A good physician will still use this drug as an option in other patients. But because this drug is known as a race specific drug, there runs the risk that patients will not get it because they do not categorize themselves with that group.

There seems to be some who confuse the genetic identity that leads to disease and cultural identity that leads to disease. According to Dr. James P. Evans, director of adult genetics at the University of North Carolina, ancestral origin probably plays a small role, but environmental factors like nutrition and social standing probably contribute most to racial disparities of disease burden [15].

This is not to say that there are no legitimate arguments that race may be an indicator of risk for a particular disease, however, the idea of race is profoundly unscientific. It is bad science, and bad medicine, to use the undefined idea of race instead of concrete biological mechanisms. Many scientist are now using the much less loaded term “content of ancestry” to describe differences in populations [15]. Dr. Evans suggests that dismissing the idea that some diseases may be linked to a group having specific ancestry is also too extreme. It would be best to have specific genes, but having an indicator like ancestry is better than nothing [15].

Medicine is not an exact science. And with the mixture of peoples and cultures in an ever smaller world the assumptions of race are becoming less useful. I believe it is okay to use the ancestry of a person to investigate illness, but it is far more important to 1) find the underlying biological mechanisms that contribute to disease and 2) improve socio-cultural problems that lead to most disease burden disparities.