[rectang]

In fact, punctuated equilibrium is quite compatible with what you describe as "the dogma that we are all the same".

Punctuated equilibrium theory was proposed in the early 1970s by Stephen Jay Gould, who also wrote The Mismeasure of Man, a critique of biological determinism.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punctuated_equilibrium

[like_any_other]

Yet punctuated equilibrium does not apply to cabbage, dog breeds, wolf varieties, and countless others. There are 37 subspecies of wolf, 10 of brown bear (yes, only brown bear. Other bears have their own subspecies each), and 47 red fox subspecies. Man alone is the great exception, unaffected by geographical separation and restricted gene flows.

> biological determinism

That term itself is a strawman - the argument is not that biology and genes fully determine behavior and life outcomes, merely that they affect it. As an aside, not only was Mismeasure of Man debunked (the skull measurements were not biased [1,2]), attacking craniometry in the era of genetics is like attacking alchemy. He should spend his time attacking PCA plots of the human genetic distribution [3]. Of course he does not, because he would prefer people remained ignorant of that.

It's sad that 166 years after On the Origin of Species, we still haven't accepted that we are not immune to natural selection.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mismeasure_of_Man#Reassess...

[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/14/science/14skull.html

[3] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Principal_compon...

[BigTTYGothGF]

> Of course he does not, because he would prefer people remained ignorant of that.

That's certainly one hypothesis, but here's an alternative one that I'd like you to consider: he's not doing that because he died in 2002. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Jay_Gould)

> Man alone is the great exception, unaffected by geographical separation and restricted gene flows

Extant bears have never invented the wheel, wolves spend more time eating horses than domesticating them, and despite what you might see on certain corners of the internet there has never been a vulpine Columbus. (To clarify, humans move around a whole lot more than most animals)

[like_any_other]

> he died in 2002

Cavalli-Sforza, Menozzi and Piazza measured genetic differences between human populations using the fixation index in 1994 [1]. He was not ignorant of genetics, he just chose to shift attention to craniometry instead. And even now that we have far better tools and knowledge, people choose to focus on outdated arguments instead, because they give the answers they want. E.g. by bringing up Gould when his work is no longer relevant.

> To clarify, humans move around a whole lot more than most animals

By what mechanism do you think the visible physiological distinctions between human populations arose? Clearly humans don't (or haven't up to very recently) moved around enough to even them out.

You think those are the only traits that haven't been evened out?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixation_index#Genetic_distanc...

[BigTTYGothGF]

> By what mechanism do you think the visible physiological distinctions between human populations arose?

Genetic drift, mostly, with some founder effect mixed in.