/sci/ - Science & Math

Within the last thirty years or so, genetic determinism has become en vogue again. But everyone with some knowledge in biology knows that DNA codes for proteins and that in eukaryotic organisms, DNA can be spliced which gives rise to the possibility that a single gene codes for more than one gene.
Genetic determinism also ignores epigenetics, the influence of the environment on the cell and its DNA processing. Thus, the argument that IQ, mental illness etc. are "genetic per se" becomes a non-sensical assertion.

>>11883419
Typing in some words in the internet, preferably not google, will yield you pictures like this one.

Different studies tend to deliver different estimations for genetic distance and divergence. Usually the distance is measured in terms of base differences, sometimes restricted to coding parts which tend to diverge less (yielding the 99.9 % similarity part), sometimes including non-coding segments, which, because they're not actively pro-selected for (or so it's assumed. We know non-coding dna has functions too), alter gradually and linearly. Including all base segments (regardless of their function) will actually increase the genetic distance considerably. Because it is often not readily clear what parts of the DNA are actually studied, most studies cannot really be compared with each other. Thus you get a wide range of possible estimations when it comes to the assumed genetic distance between black and white (going from 0.05 % to over 1 %). Most studies pinpoint it to around 0.15 %. The same is true for any other sub-group.
>>11885216
Also the fact that most studies can't be compared with each other means that you get varying and more often than not bad estimations of when two hominid groups started to diverge.