Sure, have a candid discussion with many geneticists and they'll tell you the same thing, if the same rules we apply to animals were applied to humans we would have multiple taxa of humans. I'm not the only or first person to say it. When I was at university some of my lecturers would openly say it, some would awkwardly avoid the topic and others would play political correctness.
What gets published is obviously more delicately chosen than what gets discussed in the laboratories and staff rooms over a few beers. Obviously geneticists are wary of stating facts too bluntly it will get them called a Nazis and end their career prospects. The journals won't publish it because they don't want their journal to be the subject of international condemnation. Of course, you will find people on both sides, there's little in the world of genetics which isn't controversial
Perhaps I'm a little cynical, I never shy away from saying that I was disillusioned when I saw how much political correctness, dollars and cliqueyness stood in the way of actual science (not primarily talking about human genetics, and that wasn't my main area of interest).
You misunderstood what I meant about humans having a higher level of phenotypic variation relative to their genetic variation (probably my fault for not explaining it well enough). I was saying it was the case in spite of the unusual situation with humans, not because of it. Dogs provide a fairly good parallel, although they're a more extreme example than humans. Of course, as with anything to do with genetics and taxonomy dogs have been the subject of heated debate, but these races/breeds originate far more recently than humans did (it was done by humans after all) and the domestic dog population has always been far lower than the human population, and the dog breeds have been mixed together far more than many of the human races have. Dogs are probably the best example of an animal where the morphology has deliberately and artificially been modified, and you list some others, all guided by human intervention. Humans have never had that happen, yet great variation exists. There are certainly examples of animals which have both less genetic and phenotypic variation than human races, but get classified as different species (I gave examples earlier and could list many more). IIRC, the ICZN fairly recently ruled to include all domesticated animals under the same species as their wild species of origin, but before that happened, even dogs were hotly debated taxonomically (and some still argue that they should be split into Canis lupus/dingo/familiaris for memory). You can give examples of artificially altered species, but can you give an example of any natural species with as much or more phenotypic variation as humans without having been split into multiple taxa? I can't think of any.
I actually found it very amusing in my genetics lectures in second year, when we were told by one of the politically correct guys that humans were all the same species, yet later in the same lecture he listed populations which had become reproductively isolated before Homo sapiens had come into existence, which by his own definition made it is impossible for all humans to be the same species (I won't repeat his data here because people will accuse me of pushing it as an evil agenda, and I don't fully agree with all of it).
Again I'll point out that I don't agree with the way taxonomy is handled, I am a great example of a lumper, and the general genetics world learns towards splitting. But that being the way it works whether I like it or not, if the same splitting style of taxonomy used on everything else was used on humans, we'd have multiple taxa. There's absolutely no secret or ambiguity among geneticists and taxonomists that double standards and inconsistencies are deliberately used to engineer taxonomy as desired. And obviously it's engineered with humans to lean towards 'we're all the same'.
Because of the inevitable results which would occur (imagine if humans were listed as, say, four different species with a total of 20 subspecies - those groups would form alliances, it would cause great conflict, and then there would be great protests which would cause even more violence between various factions for and against separatism and competition) the mainstream published data for humans will continue to push the 'we're all totally the same, uh huh, the difference isn't genetic, no way' stance. It's probably for the best.
And once again, I'll labour the point to ensure I don't get accused of being a white supremecist and say I am a lumper, if I had my way we'd be using a system more like what we use for humans when dealing with animals. I am not advocating that we split humans up into multiple taxa, just pointing out the double standards. I no longer live in a western country and assuming I don't move back to one in a hurry my kids will probably end up being half breeds, which I don't see as a bad thing.
What gets published is obviously more delicately chosen than what gets discussed in the laboratories and staff rooms over a few beers. Obviously geneticists are wary of stating facts too bluntly it will get them called a Nazis and end their career prospects. The journals won't publish it because they don't want their journal to be the subject of international condemnation. Of course, you will find people on both sides, there's little in the world of genetics which isn't controversial
Perhaps I'm a little cynical, I never shy away from saying that I was disillusioned when I saw how much political correctness, dollars and cliqueyness stood in the way of actual science (not primarily talking about human genetics, and that wasn't my main area of interest).
You misunderstood what I meant about humans having a higher level of phenotypic variation relative to their genetic variation (probably my fault for not explaining it well enough). I was saying it was the case in spite of the unusual situation with humans, not because of it. Dogs provide a fairly good parallel, although they're a more extreme example than humans. Of course, as with anything to do with genetics and taxonomy dogs have been the subject of heated debate, but these races/breeds originate far more recently than humans did (it was done by humans after all) and the domestic dog population has always been far lower than the human population, and the dog breeds have been mixed together far more than many of the human races have. Dogs are probably the best example of an animal where the morphology has deliberately and artificially been modified, and you list some others, all guided by human intervention. Humans have never had that happen, yet great variation exists. There are certainly examples of animals which have both less genetic and phenotypic variation than human races, but get classified as different species (I gave examples earlier and could list many more). IIRC, the ICZN fairly recently ruled to include all domesticated animals under the same species as their wild species of origin, but before that happened, even dogs were hotly debated taxonomically (and some still argue that they should be split into Canis lupus/dingo/familiaris for memory). You can give examples of artificially altered species, but can you give an example of any natural species with as much or more phenotypic variation as humans without having been split into multiple taxa? I can't think of any.
I actually found it very amusing in my genetics lectures in second year, when we were told by one of the politically correct guys that humans were all the same species, yet later in the same lecture he listed populations which had become reproductively isolated before Homo sapiens had come into existence, which by his own definition made it is impossible for all humans to be the same species (I won't repeat his data here because people will accuse me of pushing it as an evil agenda, and I don't fully agree with all of it).
Again I'll point out that I don't agree with the way taxonomy is handled, I am a great example of a lumper, and the general genetics world learns towards splitting. But that being the way it works whether I like it or not, if the same splitting style of taxonomy used on everything else was used on humans, we'd have multiple taxa. There's absolutely no secret or ambiguity among geneticists and taxonomists that double standards and inconsistencies are deliberately used to engineer taxonomy as desired. And obviously it's engineered with humans to lean towards 'we're all the same'.
Because of the inevitable results which would occur (imagine if humans were listed as, say, four different species with a total of 20 subspecies - those groups would form alliances, it would cause great conflict, and then there would be great protests which would cause even more violence between various factions for and against separatism and competition) the mainstream published data for humans will continue to push the 'we're all totally the same, uh huh, the difference isn't genetic, no way' stance. It's probably for the best.
And once again, I'll labour the point to ensure I don't get accused of being a white supremecist and say I am a lumper, if I had my way we'd be using a system more like what we use for humans when dealing with animals. I am not advocating that we split humans up into multiple taxa, just pointing out the double standards. I no longer live in a western country and assuming I don't move back to one in a hurry my kids will probably end up being half breeds, which I don't see as a bad thing.
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