Human Race(s)

 

Amy Marion

Tested Studies in Laboratory Teaching, 2017, Volume 38

Abstract

What exactly is “race”? Is race best defined as a social, a geographical, or a biological concept? Is race strictly a cultural characteristic? How should we define race or distinguish one racial group from another? More importantly, should we distinguish people by race? Students begin this experiment by calculating the genetic diversity within and between three subspecies of chimpanzees to demonstrate how DNA sequences can be used to identify the relationships between organisms. The hypothesis that human races are biologically different from each other is evaluated using mitochondrial DNA to determine the genetic relatedness between people of different geographic origins. Phylogenetic trees are used to visualize the relationships first among subspecies of chimpanzees and then among humans from different regions of the World.

Keywords:  bioinformatics, phylogeny, human race

University of Houston (2016)