• Question: How has our DNA divided us into groups such as: Hispanic, Caucasian, Asian and African american

    Asked by Grade-A-Under-A to John, Laura, Luke, Rob, Ruth on 19 Jun 2016.
    • Photo: Laura Finney

      Laura Finney answered on 19 Jun 2016:

      Before people started moved around in the last 500 years, populations were separated in terms of location due to oceans etc. and so they only ever reproduced with people from those areas. Evolution and natural selection meant that each region had different “races” according to what characteristics are better for that region in the world e.g. a different skin tone/facial features and what can be passed on. For over 100,000 years this has caused different populations of humans to evolve in different directions hence creating characteristics from each area of the world.
      These days people can move around easily and so africans have moved to america etc as you mentioned in your question.

      I hope that is helpful as this is quite a difficult topic to cover in such a brief little space 🙂

    • Photo: Luke Williams

      Luke Williams answered on 19 Jun 2016:

      It is also worth noting that race is partly/mostly/entirely a cultural boundary. There is a huge controversy as to whether race even exists, as scientifically speaking race does not. We are all classed as the same species and even the same subspecies Homo sapiens sapiens (modern human), but there is no actual definition for a race. Simply doesn’t fit in the biological terms.

      My belief is that if we had remained entirely isolated groups for some great period of time longer, we may have evolved into different species or perhaps only subspecies of human, if the environments were different enough to warrant this. I don’t know if this is a current theory or if it was happening slowly, as it is not my field, but that’s how I view things.

    • Photo: John Fossey

      John Fossey answered on 20 Jun 2016:

      The observed surface differences – and they really are just skin deep – come about from geographic isolation, random mutation and natural selection. The observed differences might have given some evolutionary advantage in the distant past but in today’s world we can ignore these simple visual differences and (for those that are fortunate enough to have clear vision) celebrate the visual capabilities we have to observe the diversity humanity enjoys.

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