
Originally Posted by
Lemur
Hmm, I wonder what field your friend is in, 'cause in the area of medicine/pharmaceuticals, racial differences are acknowledged, researched and worked with every day. The differences between ethnic groups are not large, but they are real, and medicine has to deal with them.
Going back to your bulldog/husky comparison, one of the places where that analogy falls flat: inbreeding (or "in-line" breeding, as the dog folks euphemistically put it). Many generations of small-population inbreeding were required to achieve the distinctive look of a bulldog or a dalmation or what-have-you. This is one of the reasons purebred dogs have so many more health problems than mutts. It's also the reason you see such distinct personality differences between breeds.
Now if forty-foot-tall aliens took us as pets, divided us up according to gross facial and bodily characteristics, and then did ten to fifteen generations of inbreeding for aesthetic effect, you'd see something similar. Short of that, however, the analogy breaks down.
Bookmarks