I believe I have a record that can prove I am not a racist but I do take issue with many geneticists who claim that race is irrelevant because we all differ from one another by a minute amount of our DNA. For example, Richard Hayer of the Center for Genetics and Society said “modern science reveals that genetic differences are trivial and that ‘race’ is an almost meaningless descriptor”. Whereas he was correct in his first statement he is decidedly wrong in his second. The notion of separate interbreeding populations forming distinct ethno-cultural gamodemes is a very valid concept for understanding Protosociety. As a social concept to understand Protosociety, the spatial distribution of human variation is clearly significant, despite the ideologues of the west coast of the USA who rightly see genetic variation within the global population as continuous – missing the point that Cultures are separated on their differences not their similarities and that physically each geographic area did show a unison of characteristics that led earlier anthropologists to define human variants. These variants were not significant, and probably did not exist during Archaeosociety and are breaking down since Eusociety commenced. However, during Protosociety they developed and were important concepts influencing people and even today accepting such differences can have decidedly important benefits to health and education and the general well-being of all of humankind.
The problem seems to me to be related to the modern education of bio-scientists.: one flaw is that they do not seem to understand TAXONOMY. The older generation had a strong background in both taxonomic theory and practice, and understood that taxa are separated primarily by differences not similarities. A useful taxonomy of humankind does use a variant-based hierarchy; and the resultant classification is based upon a unison of measurable and visible physical traits. To deny this is bowing down to political correctness: to use it as the basis for racism is both unethical and evil. It is for this reason that I continue to use the geographically based, physical gamodeme classification. for humankind. As I have said elsewhere:
“The combination of various geographical effects was evident in the isolation of the cultural gamodemes that formed the traditional interbreeding populations of Homo sapiens by the end of the Pleistocene Epoch [11,500 years ago]. By this time the archaeosociety of the hunter-gatherer was being replaced regionally by protosociety as agriculture developed”, Hart, 2008, p73.
THE CLASSICAL CLASSIFICATION OF HOMO SAPIENS
Homo sapiens var africanensis and the African Cultures.
Homo sapiens var caucasensis and the European Cultures.
Homo sapiens var mongolensis and the Asian Cultures.
Homo sapiens var australensis and the Australasian Cultures.
Homo sapiens var Khoisanensis and the Southern African Cultures.
An interesting observation by Geoffrey Miller in the Economist: “The World In 2010” is that “The looming crisis in human genetics” is precisely the problem that genetic studies are showing how we are all a product of out physical gamodeme. I believe this is something we should embrace, for the good of humanity, not shun as incorrect.