[daveguy]

None of what you said refutes the fact that genetic diversity is just as different within two people of the same ethnicity as it is between different ethnicities.

You listed a handful of traits from a handful of genes. And from that you make an argument about relative distributions of entire genomes of entire populations. Do you realize the fact that brothers are genetically similar compared to a stranger in no way implies the similarity or difference of entire populations?

Even the traits you mention are just a handful of physical traits. There are about 20,000 protein encoding genes and 180,000 non-encoding. Protein encoding genes code for the structures in our body. The other 180,000 genes code for all kind of dynamics -- the rna that turns genes to proteins, how proteins are expressed in different cells to make them different cells, how relative expression levels change in response to external stimulus, etc. So, the set of genes to consider is clearly all 200,000 genes and not just the 20,000 protein encoding genes much less the handful of protein encoding genes responsible for something like eye color.

Unfortunately for racists but fortunately for the vast majority, the world is a great big melting pot with all the different ethnicities producing all kinds of variety. So much that the blend complexity long ago surpassed any tiny set of visible trait uniformity.

I honestly don't know how so many people fall for these simplistic illogical racist arguments. But it makes me happy to know that racists are about 200,000 years to late to shove the entire human race into tiny little boxes based on physical traits.

[pfdietz]

> None of what you said refutes the fact that genetic diversity is just as different within two people of the same ethnicity as it is between different ethnicities.

Note, however, that this does not imply there are not significant genetic differences between different ethnicities. Differences that are selected for will be cloaked in a sea of non-significant differences.

[daveguy]

Definitely. I'm not saying there aren't average differences. We literally see different physical traits. But physical traits are a minute fraction of all the complexity that is the human genome. And all of those physical traits are always mixing fluidly between and within groups.

My point is, there are clearly wide swaths of genetic traits that we have in common with any other ethnicity compared to what may be the average of a broad distribution. Humans are inherently mosaic.

Personally I believe it's why our species is so resilient. But that's a stronger statement, so just a belief.

[pfdietz]

Yes, and there are also wide swaths of genetic traits that we have in common with other species. But it would be senseless to propose we're the same as chimpanzees. The point is it doesn't take much in the way of genetic differences, as a fraction of the total genome, to make a very large difference in phenotype.

[daveguy]

Well, if the phenotype or trait due to any random gene was the differentiation between race, species, or anything else besides that specific trait, you might have a point in support of OP. But unfortunately for racist ducks there are so many differences, and similarities, that have nothing to do with hair color or height. Any given swath is it's own mosaic of combinations, no matter what we label it.

[pfdietz]

I read what you wrote there several times and can't make heads or tails of what you're trying to say. Are you claiming genetic differences aren't why species are different? Are you claiming chimps and humans don't share most of their (protein coding) genes? Are you attacking a strawman where you think the people you are attacking are claiming specific single gene differences are why they claim races are genetically different?

I'll add that "racist ducks" is a bad sign there, since arguments about facts don't have anything to do with motivation, and bringing up motivation is an ad hominem argument. "Argue like this and you are a bad person."