Re: [tied] irrelevence of race

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...> wrote:

>
> I read somewhere that some Native American tribes were highly
> specialized (that would be genetically, you need enzymes

(=proteins)

> to digest) with respect to the food they ate, eg. including a
> particular species of maize. And once they go off that food and

start

> on European food they go pop and get overweight, as many of them

are

> today. The only similar European example I can think of is the
> inverse correlation between the length of time since agriculture

was

> introduced and the incidence of gluten intolerance in the

population.

I believe lactose tolerance in adults is another good example.

> Also, it occured to me once, a type of resistance built in one

group

> of people might work enzyme-wise, thus genetically, in different
> ways, if the groups were separate at the time they were exposed to
> this new environmental factor. Which means that once they cross-
> breed, even if both groups are resistant to a certain type
> of 'potential poison', their offspring might not be (since not all
> the genes required for the set of enzymes might have been
> transmitted).

A good point. There have been several good points re population
genetics raised in the responses to the original question, but I
think we should also bear in mind that genetic variation alone does
not equate to the concept of racial types alluded to in that
question. That concept relates specifically to genes which affect
external appearance, and it is good to remember that there does not
have to be a close correlation between the transmission of such genes
and the transmission of genes for beneficial metabolic traits or
disease resistance (unless the two sets of genes coincidently lie
very close together on a chromosome, or if the beneficial trait also
directly influences appearance too, e.g. light pigmentation to
enhance vitamin D production).


Ned Smith