Re: Human genetic diversity in Africa

From: Brett Aubrey (brett.aubrey_at_shaw.ca)
Date: 02/22/05 

Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2005 01:25:14 -0500 (EST)

"AN Other" <unchecked_address@hotmail.co.uk> wrote in message
news:cv7sk7$30mt$1@darwin.ediacara.org...
> Hi. I was chatting to an acquaintance who claimed that the genetic
> diversity of black Africans was greater than the genetic diversity of
> all other human races. I found this puzzling, and asked why this was
> true. He was not able to supply me with an answer, saying he could
> not remember. Is this true?

 I recall reading this on several occasions but am unable to recall details.
However, googling on < "genetic diversity" Africa > yields 138,000 hits and
I suspect you'd be able to find many more detailed answers within those
links. A quick look provides some responses around your question, such as:

http://www.science.psu.edu/alert/Tishkoff1-1999.htm
Genetic diversity in Africa is extremely high, even between closely related
or located groups and much higher than diversity in other human populations.

http://www.learner.org/channel/courses/biology/textbook/humev/humev_5.html
The out of Africa hypothesis also predicts that there will be more genetic
diversity within the African population than within the other populations.

http://serc.carleton.edu/introgeo/earthhistory/humanrace.html
The greatest physical and genetic diversity among humans is among the people
who live in Africa today (Relethford and Harpending, 1994 ).

And from LL and F Cavalli-Sforza's book, The Great Human Disporas (1995):

The biggest difference in the [genetic] tree is between Africans and
non-Africans... Pg 119.

And Page 123 has a table indicating the separation of peoples with the line
of "Africa and the rest of the world" indicating the greatest genetic
distance. The text preceding the table similarly reads: "The index of the
four comparisons of genetic distance among human populations sets the
maximum distance known, that between Africans and non-Africans, as 100".

Hope this helps. Regards, Brett.

Relevant Pages

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  • Re: africans have greatest genetic variation
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  • Re: africans have greatest genetic variation
    ... Africans have more genetic variation than anyone else on Earth, ... Given the fact that modern humans arose in Africa, ... had more genetic diversity than people who stayed in one area all the time. ... any given village in Africa is said to contain more ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Human line nearly split in two
    ... africa were a small subset of teh original population, ... environments, then you'd expect more diversity in the tiny population. ...
    (uk.philosophy.humanism)