Thursday, October 24, 2013

Honors Bio Blog 16/69 (Does Race Exist)

I very foolishly typed this up and printed it the night before...
Here it is on my blog...

Does Race Exist?

The reading that I did last night presented some very interesting and persuasive arguments. The primary argument that was in the document was that humans are not necessarily divided into the "races"that we previously assumed. In fact, both our divisions and whom we are more closely related to are extremely different than what we had previously thought. For example, the main indicators that humans currently use to determine which race they and others belong to are usually the skin colors and facial features of a person. These assumptions of race based off of these two minor codes in our genes prove to be extremely inaccurate indicators. 

If we hope to acheive an accurate understanding of whom we are more closely related to and which "race" we truly belong to we will have to dive deep into our genetics. Researchers often use small strands of DNA known as Alus, which are extremely unusual because they serve no purpose but to randomly copy themselves into human DNA in random places. The Alus can be used to identify how closely related humans are to one another. Essentially, although on the surface it may appear that two people look very similar and therefore must be the same "race", they can actually be more unrelated than two people who look extremely similar to each other. Human beings incorrectly define "races" based off of different visisble physical characteristics; however, when humans are examined at a much more microscopic level the lines between different "races" become blurred. That's right! We are talking about blurred lines!





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