Race? Quotes

“There are three major genetic observations that have been made about the diversity of people living on the African continent. First, Africa shows more genetic diversity than the other continents. Second, most of the genetic variation outside of Africa is a subset of the variation found within Africa. Finally, genetic diversity decreases with increasing distance from Africa.”
― Ian Tattersall, Race?: Debunking a Scientific Myth

“In all of these papers, we find the key words admixture and expansion used over and over again. In other words, no matter how much Homo sapiens explores and moves about, we like to mate with whatever other people we meet up with.”
― Ian Tattersall, Race?: Debunking a Scientific Myth

“In fact, Wilson and King showed that the difference in the average protein-coding gene sequences of chimps and modern humans was about 1 percent. In other words, the proteins that we use in our day-to-day biology are nearly identical to those that chimpanzees and bonobos use.”
― Ian Tattersall, Race?: Debunking a Scientific Myth

“THE “AUSTRALOPITHS” At 4.2 million years ago, in northern Kenya, we find the first evidence of a hominid species called Australopithecus anamensis. This is the first member of our family whose fossil leg and foot bones speak directly of upright bipedality. Its jaws and teeth were also comfortingly similar to the next-in-time Australopithecus afarensis, a hominid whose fossils are widely known in eastern Africa between about 3.6 and 3.0 million years ago. Most famously represented by the 3.2-million-year-old partial skeleton “Lucy,” from Hadar in Ethiopia,”
― Ian Tattersall, Race?: Debunking a Scientific Myth

“A people is what is seen before the eyes or what history reveals; a race is what is looked for and is often assumed.” Here was one of the first explicit intimations that race might be an intellectual rather than a biological construct.”
― Ian Tattersall, Race?: Debunking a Scientific Myth