From: Platt Holden (pholden@sc.rr.com)
Date: Wed Jun 16 2004 - 22:28:10 BST
Hi All,
MSH quotes from the American Anthropological Association's Statement on
"Race" (May 17, 1998).
> Conventional geographic "racial" groupings differ from one another
> only in about 6% of their genes.
Compare this to a Reuters news item about a report attributed to Asao
Fujiyama of the RIKEN Genomic Science Center published in the May 26, 2004
issue of Nature:
"Genetically, chimpanzees are 98.5 percent identical to humans."
Hmmm. Something does'nt compute.
Anyway, after reading what Pirsig had to say in LIla about the objectivity
of anthropology, I take their pronouncements with a grain of salt. In the
passage MSH presented, human differences were attributed to cultural
influences. Apparently the author or authors were oblivious to the battles
raging between the proponents of nature vs. nurture. The natures, like
Edmund O. Wilson, Daniel C. Dennett and Richard Dawkins appear to be
winning. Their claim? Such human traits as intelligence, temperament,
emotional responses and levels of aggression are genetically determined.
This is not to suggest that I in any way endorse Cosmotheism which, from
one reading of their beliefs on their website, can only be described as a
cult, an opinion I have no interest at all in explaining or defending.
I simply want to point out that the statement on race by the anthropology
bunch isn't the only much less the final word on the subject.
Best,
Platt
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