Race, Caste and Breed

Most people agree that all humans belong to the same species -- but some insist that we belong to different "races". This is often done in a flippant manner, without defining what is "race" in a biological sense. There are many "average" differences between Tamil Brahmins as group and a Kashmiri Brahmins as a group. Can these average differences be used to categorize them as belonging to different races (in a biological sense)? If not so, then what is the threshold of "biological difference" that would place a person in one "race" rather than in another? Biology has NOT found such a definable threshold. 

What about dog "breeds"? Why are these breeds NOT called dog "races"? Different breeds of dogs have huge differences in external appearance, size, intelligence etc (much more so than between African humans and Caucasian humans). Yet, all dog breeds are biologically grouped in the same biological category. Whereas different groups of bats that are near identical in average appearance, size, intelligence etc are grouped under different biological categories.

When the genome structures of two groups are so different that they cannot mate and produce offspring (or viable offspring), they are classified as belonging to different species. THIS criterion is what puts the two closely related (and similar looking) groups in the same genus, but in different species.

Indeed, there is an ongoing endeavor at the moment called the Barcode of Life project, which aims to sequence all living organisms based on the genes they share and don't share -- thus producing a species "bar code." The key is that the gene sequence must vary greatly among species but not vary much within species. 

All humans and all dog breeds belong to the same species because there is hardly any difference in the genetic "bar codes" -- never mind the uneven clustering of some gene alleles within certain groups. If we are so similar in genes (sharing the same genome), how can we define another biological category such as "race"? Biology finds no need for this -- much to the political unhappiness of those who need some "scientific", if not "moral", justifications of racism and the caste system.

It is certainly curious how domestic dogs ("created" by human breeders from the wild gray wolf -- Canis lupus -- which is the common ancestor of all dogs) can take on such a dramatic variety of forms. But among dogs, which are well known for their hybrid (or mongrel) varieties, different breeds can mate and have viable offspring, so they are all found under the umbrella of a single species, Canis familiaris.

Dogs are highly unusual in their variation, from the Chihuahua to the Great Dane. (Recently, body size was found to be largely explained by variants of a single gene among dog breeds). And left to nature, there would be no "pure-bred" dogs left in the world in another 50 years. Dog breeds are carefully maintained through artificial segregation and denial of free mating opportunities. 

As for humans, while there have been periods in our history in which groups of people have been isolated from others creating small distinct populations (called "races" in sociology), there is no true barrier between people and the re-mixing of genomes has been commonplace world-wide. Groups of humans from different sociologically categorised "races" are biologically closer to each other than are different pure-bred dogs are! 

Which is why biology regards all dogs and all humans to be belonging to SAME biological categories. Even "breed" is a sociological category, artificially maintained by humans with special interests. 

Pure-bred dogs normally would not survive in nature -- as they lack the "overall fitness" (compared to the mongrel crossbreeds) needed to find their own food or mates; and to escape from predators and diseases. Some dog pups have heads so large that they cannot be delivered by the mother the normal way -- and must rely on human vets to do a Caesarian section as the only way to come out of the womb!

There are reasons to accept that "pure-bred" humans (within races/ castes etc) would fare no better!


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