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Title: The History and Geography of Human Genes : (Abridged paperback edition) by Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza, Paolo Menozzi, Alberto Piazza ISBN: 0-691-02905-9 Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr Pub. Date: 05 August, 1996 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $47.50 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.75 (8 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: A review of everything
Comment: Cavalli-Sforza presents the nearest approximation possible to the correlation of all measurable human genes, markers and attributes. You might think of the work as the "unified field theory" for evloutionary biology, culture and linguistics.
While the heft even of the abridged version is imposing, the component parts are manageable for those who already have basic statistical knowledge or who are willing to pay attention to the author's explanations. The world's populations are addressed in geographic chunks, and then at various appropriate points, more general conclusions drawn from the pieces.
Given the advances in genetic research acheived since publication, the model may ultimately prove more valuable than the particular contents...but for this decade the contents are fascinating.
Rating: 4
Summary: Good Book, but Martel is Wrong
Comment: The book provided a great deal of information about genetic distances and the relationships between populations. However, Mr. Martel's review includes lies and these lies must be addressed. First of all, the native North Africans were not "very blonde" or "nordic". In fact, the ORIGINAL population was as black as their rock art depictions of themselves (which just so happen to span the Sahara and date back nearly 10000yrs). Many of these Ancient Saharans were, however, completely abosorbed by an incoming of migrants from the Middle East. Perhaps these migrants are the people Mr. Martel is speaking of??? At any rate, with the dessication of the Sahara, most of the original Saharans (blacks) migrated South into The Sudan. In fact, they can still be found in West Africa today. They (especially the Fulani and Dogon) can be recognized in person as easily as they can be recognized in the Ancient Saharan depictions drawn by their ancestors.
Thus, despite Mr. Martel's comments to the contrary, the admixture seen in North Africans today is not so much the result of slaves (modern admixture) as it is the result of both modern admixture as well as ancient admixture - admixture which took place LONG before the Arabs ventured anywhere near the region. As for the Egyptians, they were from the same stock as the rest of North Africa and they almost always depicted themselves as brown and intermediate between and separate from both the white people of the North (Europe), the light skinned Semites (Middle East), and the darker, more Sudanese people of the South (Nubia).
Mr. Martel is not completely wrong in so far as SOME of these Middle Eastern migrants had blonde hair and light eyes (a few individual Lybians were depicted this way). But, such features were most probably seen at the same rate theyre seen in Middle Easterners and North Africans today. Neither people, however, are "Nordics", and to assume they descend from Nordics based on hair color alone is ridiculous. Blondism occurs in Aborigines... are we to believe they descend from Nordics as well? Somehow, I think not.
Rating: 4
Summary: Very interesting, but...
Comment: In this book, a group of Italian researchers present their study of the repartition of a sample of human genetic sequences, based on data they collected between 1978 and 1986. This is certainly very interesting for the study of human races, even if based on only a sample of sequences, many of them being not relevant for races. Although the authors acknowledge that some scientists were able to identify and classify the majors races, they pretend the concept of race is a failure because there is much intra-class variation for some DNA sequences within given races (by saying this they already implicitly recognize the existence of given races.) This is however the fallacy of strawman - attacking a caricatured enemy - for the concept of race never meant that there would not be great inner variation for specific sequences, but only that it is possible to cluster and classify human groups and that such classification should correspond to a higher degree of common ancestry for individuals of the same cluster, as the races are the result of micro-evolution. And given that we now know that most of the genome is not used, that the active genes are a very small proportion, the intra-class variability makes sense, as these genes are not expressed and thus not submitted to the selection of evolutionary pressure. It is enough to find some sequences clusters that correspond to the existing races to show that different races indeed exist, which the authors actually do (something confirmed recently by the result of the genome projects, finding that inter-races distance is 0,1 of the genome, something enormous given that most of the genome is not expressed, and that the distance between humans and monkeys is 1%, the difference between human races being then 10% of the differences between humans and the closest animals.) Besides, the same intra-classes variability is also observed among animal races and vegetal varieties, yet no scientist will say that this makes the concept of animal race or vegetal variety useless. Anyway, this misconception allows the authors to get a green light from the politically correct thought police and avoid censorship.
The book follows with an exposition of their data analysis method. The main issue is the distance measure for the genetic data, something new for me. Otherwise, they use standard methods of data mining / pattern recognition : design of classification trees, and clustering with principal component analysis (PCA, for which the authors use the PC acronym).
Then, after 60 pages, come their results, which make the rest of the book, 300, p, that is most of it. It is way too much to review in detail, I will make general comments.
Globally, when dealing with the main racial groups, their findings are corroborations of what was already known or supplementary information. The PCA gives a mapping corresponding to the main racial groups (Africans, Australoids, Mongoloids, Euripids.) .After 200 000 years of existence (at about -200 000), our African ancestors start to move northwards and evolve into the common ancestor of the non-African races. 100 000 years later, at -110 000, occurs the split between the Australoids and the Eurasian. And then at -80 000 the split between Mongoloids and Euripids, Europeans appearing very lately, at -20 000.
In the remaining 200 pages, the authors deal with each local populations, proceeding continent by continent, and comparing the local races together. Interestingly, they add a lot of environmental and cultural information. But here they miss the most relevant, namely the history and anthropology that is relevant to the given population, which makes them miss important considerations and analysis. For example they seem to believe that the Basque are an ancient Indigenous population, failing to know the well established facts that they arrived very late (in the 8th century) and are believed to have come from the Caucasus. It would have been interesting to compare the Basques with the populations of the Caucasus, instead of comparing them with the native Western Europeans. Or they fail to know that the native populations of North-Africa (Berbers, Kabyls, etc.) were very blond and tall Nordic people, as is attested by the Egyptian, Greek and Roman antic sources, as well as by their Arabs conquerors. And when the Spanish conquered the Canari Island, the Berbers (Ganches) they found there were also Nordics. The genetic change of the North-African population occurred after the Arabs imported many African (Negroids) slaves, as they did in many other places, like Egypt, Palestine, etc. This the authors ignore, speaking only of the Arab genetic influence (which was probably insignificant.) It would have then relevant to compare the North-Africans with the Nordics and with the Negroids, and see how close they are to each, and the same for those Berbers populations in the mountain who did not so much racially mix and often have light hair of eyes. To their credit, the authors find out with their genetic analysis that the North-Africans have Caucasoid ancestors.
In conclusion, this book is a mine of interesting data analysis. It would have been though quite better if the authors had teamed up with historians competent in the field of racial history, or with true anthropologists (anthropology having becoming ethnology.) Let's hope that the next similar book, which will exploit the data of the human genome, will be able to improve this. Anyway, human diversity, as long as intermixing does not destroy it, is a thrilling subject that illuminates history, as this book shows.
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Title: Genes, Peoples, and Languages by Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza, Mark Seielstad ISBN: 0520228731 Publisher: University of California Press Pub. Date: 07 May, 2001 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
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Title: The Great Human Diasporas: The History of Diversity and Evolution by Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza, Francesco Cavalli-Sforza, Sarah Thorne, Heather Mimnaugh ISBN: 0201442310 Publisher: Perseus Publishing Pub. Date: October, 1996 List Price(USD): $22.00 |
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Title: Mapping Human History: Discovering the Past Through Our Genes by Steve Olson ISBN: 0618091572 Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Co Pub. Date: 15 May, 2002 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
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Title: The Journey of Man: A Genetic Odyssey by Spencer Wells ISBN: 069111532X Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr Pub. Date: 01 January, 2003 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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Title: The Origin of Language : Tracing the Evolution of the Mother Tongue by Merritt Ruhlen ISBN: 0471159638 Publisher: John Wiley & Sons Pub. Date: August, 1996 List Price(USD): $18.95 |
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