Ethnicity and human biology

Stanley Garn's book, Human Races (1965), captured the essence of the new genetic concept of ethnic groups as populations which share the same gene pool, shaped by natural selection. Since then new genetic traits, especially DNA polymorphisms, have been employed to build upon his vision. They have proven useful in the forensic sciences, medicine, and the human biology of adaptation, migration, evolution, and phylogeny. Some diseases like sickle cell anemia are controlled by single genes concentrated in a large ethnic group; their alleles are valuable for understanding human biology. Other conditions with a marked genetic component, such as diabetes, heart disease, and osteoporosis, predominate in certain ethnic groups. The new molecular biology tends to support the migration of farmers from west Asia into Europe in the Neolithic, the isolation of the Basques, and the early entrance of people into the New World. Some DNA data also favor the debatable hypothesis of the development of humanity in Africa and its subsequent dispersal. In many cases linguistic distance parallels genetic distance as language tends to influence gene flow. Apolipoproteins, with alleles unique to one major population group, are useful markers of admixture as well as significant for cardiovascular health. The Gullah-speaking Black people of coastal Carolina are distinctive and close to African ancestors in language, culture, and biology, including genetic markers. Modern research confirms that race (by any name) is quantitative rather than qualitative, relative rather than absolute, and dynamic rather than static. © 1994 Wiley-Liss, Inc.