We tend to racially categorize people based on skin color. But aren't there really only four races. Caucasian, African, Asian and Hispanic? I read somewhere, long time ago, that there are four races based on the shape of the skull. Thoughts?
Hispanic means "spanish speaking" and isn't a race. The western hemisphere native/first nation people came from Asia thousands of years ago, if that's who you are referring to. They are descended from asians and other eastern europeans that existed over 10000 years ago. Did you read about skull shapes in Mein Kampf?
In all seriousness though, the different shapes of skulls isn't the best thing to go off of because there are so many factors that go into play when it comes to how those shapes evolved. Even within a population, the skull shapes vary. Animals that are said to live in colder climates versus their counterparts in warmer climates typically have a smaller brain due to the heat generated. When it comes to evolution, figuring the factors that went into it would be a never ending search. As for how race is classified, most people focus on skin color because it is the most notable.. but race is simply sharing similar characteristics. Skin color is but one characteristic and if you base it off of skin color.. why ignore all the other characteristics? People with blue eyes could be considered their own race.. people with red hair could be consider their own race.. just like how people with white skin are considered their own race. So to me, when it comes to race.. it is kind of pointless to differentiate because if you divided the people up by skin color, you should be dividing them up by all the other physical features too. Then you're going to have races and subraces and subsubraces. People with white skin and blue eyes would be their own race when compared to white people with brown eyes.. People with white skin, blue eyes, and black hair would be their own race when compared to people with white skin, blue eyes, and red hair.
according to anthropological studies there are 5 races... 1) Mongoloid (Asian and American Indian) 2) Caucasoid (European) 3) Australoid (Australian and oceanic) 4) Negroid (east African black) 5) Capoid (south African black) but i think in like the 60's the United Nations opped to not use the term "race" anymore and has since used the term "ethnic group", and theres like 5000 of them around the world...i guess to be more broad
Lol no, no hitler youth for me i read it on some evolutionary website or something, this was too long ago to remember I thought Hispanic referred to the people that came to when the Spanish/Portugese had babies with the natives Americans (Asians).
Its all splitting hair really. Scientifically speaking, the distinction between two black people could be even more pronounced than a white and black person. It's all just labels for categorizing. I personally draw the line at the ability of individuals in a population to breed and sustain the population. For example, donkeys and horses can breed to make a mule. But the mule cannot breed at all. Horses and donkeys cannot intermingle to form a population. Different dogs and wolves however, can breed with eachother continuously and form a population of wolfdogs. They would be classified as on population with a lot of biodiversity, hence one "race" Categorizing humans into race is like categorizing different parakeets into races based on color. Its just subjective labeling -yuri
There has to be more. Take Pygmies for example, they have evolved separtely from other African tribes. After just reading up on them a little on Wikipedia, it's disheartening to discover the current atrocities against these people. It's like I'm sitting front row watching the extinction of an ethnic group of people. \tReports of genocideThe BBC in 2004 reported that <blockquote>In 2003, Sinafasi Makelo, a representative of Mbuti pygmies, told the UN's Indigenous People's Forum that during the Congo Civil War, his people were hunted down and eaten as though they were game animals. In neighbouring North Kivu province there has been cannibalism by a group known as Les Effaceurs ("the erasers") who wanted to clear the land of people to open it up for mineral exploitation.<sup>[21]</sup> Both sides of the war regarded them as "subhuman" and some say their flesh can confer magical powers.<sup>[22]</sup> Makelo asked the UN Security Council to recognise cannibalism as a crime against humanity and an act of genocide.<sup>[23]</sup> </blockquote>According to Minority Rights Group International there is extensive evidence of mass killings, cannibalism and rape of Pygmies and they have urged the International Criminal Court to investigate a campaign of extermination against pygmies. Although they have been targeted by virtually all the armed groups, much of the violence against Pygmies is attributed to the rebel group, the Movement for the Liberation of Congo, which is part of the transitional government and still controls much of the north, and their allies.<sup>[24]</sup> The Pygmy population was also a target of the Interahamwe during the 1994 Rwandan Genocide. Of the 30,000 Pygmies in Rwanda, an estimated 10,000 were killed and another 10,000 were displaced. They have been described as "forgotten victims" of the genocide.<sup>[25]</sup> The current Rwandan Pygmy population is about 33,000, and is reportedly declining.<sup>[26]</sup> By one estimate, the total number of Pygmies killed in the civil wars in Congo and Rwanda is 70,000.<sup>[25]</sup>
lol yeah, I was joking about Mein Kampf. The head shape comment made me think of the head measuring to find true aryans. Hispanic refers to New World Spanish speakers, mainly those in Latin America (really Mexico, Puerto Rico and Central America). Etymologically it goes way back and kind of goes into what you're saying as during ancient Roman times the area of Iberian Peninsula was called Hispania. That was like 2400 years ago and ended when the Moors took over the area around 1300 years ago. I just realized that while today "hispanic" refers to a spanish speaker, Spanish actually comes from the name 'Hispania" so weird full circle there.
I was under the impression, from DNA testing companies, that there are the following categories of races: Native American East Asian Indo-European African
Aren't native Americans just Asians? There are supposedly more than one African race. Including the two "unmixed" races, basically two tribes in Africa tht never "mixed" with any other ethnic groups. Not to forget indigenous Australians.
I think that the groups I mentioned are generalizations, and all of the sub-groups are mixtures or subsets of those. DNA research now suggests that the Native Americans did not come from Asia.. The scientists compared the DNA of Native Americans to the DNA of people in specific parts of Siberia, and the evidence shows that they are related.
One interesting fact is about the DNA relationship between white (Indo-European), Asian, and African races. Whites are much closer, genetically, to those of African descent, than Asians.