Well Mr Lethologica it seems as though you will not be moved from what I view as your anthropocentric position. I don’t blame you there is some succour in that against the bleak hypotheses of natural selection. I hope you are right in your view that there is 'something different about us a species' that will hopefully not lead to extinction and/or the life or death strife inevitably involved with speciation. You remind a little of Dawkins when he said something along the lines of 'we must fight our evolutionary impulses'. Can't stand the man so apologies if that is not an exact quote. Anyway I wish you well in your 'evolutionary optimism'. Thank you for the discussion.

Wholly social construct. Race has been used to separate people by language, land and in recent years pigmentation. It has no meaning except in a descriptive sense dependant on the accepted delineation. Species is more robust but still falls apart when trying to decide whether Neanderthals are the same species as Home Sapiens. As these two races could interbreed and produce viable productive offspring the best we can say is that they were different races.

Hey Toocool

"Every single species that has ever existed has arisen from an existing species"

What makes us so different? And if you don't want to call it race, call it divergence or protospecies. Whatever you like, just explain to me clearly why we are different and why we will remain different.

There is only one species of human, Homo Sapiens. Therefore there is only one human race. Read books on Physical Anthropology to confirm this. Any differences among humans do not mean that there is more than one race. These differences can be obvious, like skin color, but all humans(male and female pairs, of course) can mate and produce viable offspring, therefore we are one species and one race. Differences are attributed to culture, language, religion, ethnic group, but all these are actually matters of perception.

@Lethologica on genetic engineering.

You are correct that genetic engineering and eugenics are great from a biological prospective. It would greatly enhance our gene pool if we could prevent unwanted genes, such as genetic diseases to be passed down. The same goes for genetic engineering. We could have stronger, healthier and smarter descendants because of it. However, it is not the biological or technical issues that cause genetic manipulation of humans to be unethical. It's the social and moral aspects. If human genetic manipulation becomes available, its use would benefit certain groups over others. In our current society, namely the rich would be able to make greater use of the technology, creating a superior higher class. This would create a severe social unbalance in society. A couple months ago, I watched the movie Gattaca, which explores the idea of social stratification created by the use of genetic manipulation, which made an interesting point.
Morally, the question needs to be asked: Do we have a right to decide what someone's life will be before they're even born? If someone was to be born with a disability, they would live their life very differently than if they were completely healthy. One could argue that they would be an entirely different person without the disability. Should we be allowed to wrought that much change on a person's

Actually, biologically, I think it is potentially very dangerous for the species if shortsighted genetic engineering leads to less genetic variation (because no one is born with undesirable genes anymore). Less genetic variation means less chance that we have immunes for a new disease for example.

I like that someone brought up malaria because it's a good example to prove my point: immunity for malaria is actually caused by a genetic 'disease' that causes red blood cells to be a different shape (don't know the English terms, sorry). It's been referred to as a disease because this shape is much less efficient at doing one of the main things that red blood cells do: transporting oxygen. As such, if you live in the Netherlands, just to name a random place on earth (:P) you probably don't have this genetic variation because it's extremely rare due to selective pressure: you are at a distinct disadvantage compared to other individuals of the species.
However, we found out that this shape is also immune to malaria. This is why almost every person with ancestors in malaria territory will have this variation: simply put, if you're not immune, you're likely not getting old enough to procreate.

So it's an absolute blessing for that, but as long as my future child never visits malaria territory, I wouldn't want to give my child that disadvantage.

Now say we hadn't figured out the immunity-thing yet and wanted to help all those poor people with this 'disease', making sure their children don't get it, so they still healthy..

Well, then we just helped all those children get malaria.

The fact that a genetic variation exists should be a strong consideration: if it were really all bad, why would it be around in any significant number?

@ fulhamish We may have all originated from the same species but I think you will find trying to share your DNA with a duck, a daffodil or deinococcus radiodurans will be exceedingly difficult. And even if you did your offspring would not be able to reproduce.

@fulhamish: You're not reading my position carefully. For species *in general* (not just humans), intraspecies population boundaries aren't set in stone, and evolutionary divergence is not monotonic under conditions of varying reproductive isolation. It's not just humans who might be affected by developments in genetic engineering. And the fact that we *can* tentatively construct biological classifications of humans, as we do for other species, doesn't mean the way we *do* talk about race is solely/primarily derived from or dependent on those classifications. None of this is either fundamentally optimistic or fundamentally anthropocentric, except insofar as the way we talk about race is *already* anthropocentric--and failing to acknowledge existing anthropocentrism isn't logical, even if it's convenient for your argument.

@Peregrine Falcon: First, there absolutely are biological or technical issues that affect the ethics of human genetic manipulation. However, it was never my contention that all the ethical issues are contingent on biological/technical issues, and I absolutely agree that genetic manipulation will have both classist aspects and ethical issues of control over the offspring. Again, I simply don't think those concerns will stop it from happening. I mean, think about all the things we *already* do, and even take for granted, that (a) fundamentally alter our offspring's lives and (b) favor rich kids over poor kids. Gene manipulation is an especially direct expression of those ethical concerns, but it's hardly a unique one. Ethical concerns will influence the pace and direction of developments in gene manipulation, but that's not the same thing as stopping it.

@steephie: The hypothetical I suggested specific to the malaria/sickle cell allele was that someone developed a version that didn't produce the sickle cell anemia phenotype in homozygotic individuals. However, I agree that genetic homogenization is another concern with human gene manipulation.

Lethologica. Would it help to take the word race right out of our discussion. I will if you will - it carries too much baggage. let's confine ourselves to talking about proto-species would that assist?

Definition: The preexisting type from which other species evolved.

I mean, I trivially agree that the human species has distinct populations with some level of genetic variation; moreover, as far as I can tell, the point of the discussion was precisely to talk about the word 'race' and the baggage it carries. So there's not much in the way of points of difference for us to consider, and not much our consideration would contribute to the thread.

FWIW, though, there isn't necessarily a privileged 'preexisting type' that doesn't change while other populations split off and speciate. This is close enough to truth for *some* species, but most species are evolving whether or not intraspecies divergence is occurring at the level of reproductively isolated populations. I'm not sure if that's what you mean by 'preexisting type', though.

@"You are correct that genetic engineering and eugenics are great from a biological prospective. It would greatly enhance our gene pool if we could prevent unwanted genes, such as genetic diseases to be passed down."

Basically what steephie said, but i would put it differently. From a biological perspective, getting rid of genes weakens the gene pool. The more diversity the better capable a species is of adapting to environmental change. Humans may be different in that we've already spread beyond our African savana habitat and cultivated land (symbiotic relationship with plants and farm animals) which has allowed us survive and thrive... We adapt based on our culture and brains being more plastic rather than our genetic diversity. This kind of cultural adaptability mutates and spreads much faster (successful ideas, including one like genetic engineering, spread through human culture faster than any genetic adaptation could)

So in theory, pruning out genetic 'weaknesses' actually serves to weaken our gene pool. But adaptable humans are relying more on our brains and memes than our genes to survive. So culture may be more important than anyway...

What would be really nice is if we had the diverse toolbox without the accompanying defects like genetic diseases. That's a Hard Problem (TM), though.

The word race, if not used in the context of a foot race or car race, should not be in any discussion in any language. There are no proto species of human, nor any subspecies. Humans will not evolve into two or more species because a group will never be isolated long enough. People move around the globe so much our gene pool will remain diversified, and yet we'll stay homo sapiens.