subspecies standards

[Richard Worth]

Hi all,
A time ago, back when I was in high school and before political 
correctness ran rampant, I distinctly remember our biology textbook 
discussing human evolution and it was the only place I had seen 
mention of human subspecies or "races".  There were five. 
Caucasoid(generally white/Euro descent), Negroid(black/African 
descent), Mongoloid(East Asian descent) and two others seldom 
mentioned, the Bushmen of the Kahlahari(sp?) who were not considered 
negroid, and the Aboriginese of Australia.  Apparently, these groups 
all had significant distinctions that set them apart but still all 
equal as humans.  Like Erik, I'm not trying to start any wars (peace 
:-), just state what I remember from a textbook which was probably 
printed in the late 70's to early 80's.  Anyone else remember such a 
classification?  I apologize for this being "in thread" but "off 
leps".  Wait, I can fix that!

Field report:
Haven't seen a lep for roughly a week as it's been cold and it's 
pouring felines and canines. We are getting much needed rain and 
snow, though. I did see a micro land on my car window while driving 
last week.  As I sped up, he slowly walked around in a circle and 
stopped when faced into the wind.  Hung on up to 50mph!  Then I let 
it off at the next light as it flew away.

Cheers,  Rich
on a very blustery day in the PNW


>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Erik Runquist" <erunquist at hotmail.com>
>Subject: subspecies standards
>
>snip

>>However, weare not willing (and justifiably so) to designate 
>>subspecies for modern humans (although we did for Neanderthal man). 
>>After all (and I'm
>>brushing
>>  with VERY BROAD strokes here for illustrations sake), don't
>>  spatially-separated peoples sometimes possess unique phenotypes (skin,
>>  hair,
>>  eye color, etc come to mind)?  Peoples of, say, African decent GENERALLY
>>  possess darker skin, hair, and eyes than those of say eastern Asian or
>>  Caucasian decent, right? I would contend that these features would stand
>>up
>>  to the 75% avian criterion that has been noted by Mike Gochfeld.  This
>>has
>>  nothing to do with the superiority of one group over another (we all know
>>  what can happen when those beliefs are supported), and I am certainly
>>  frightened whenever we begin labeling other humans.  However, skin or
>>hair
>>  color are artifacts of one's heritage and the random mutations (some of
>>them
>>  adaptive, some of them mal-adaptive, some of them neutral) that chanced
>>upon
>>  their progenitors.  Should we not label these theoretical Leps or other
>>  "lower organisms," as different subspecies because we know better than to
>>do it for humans?

and Ron wrote: (snip)

>.....  At the same time we know that the term
>"races" has been and is in use widely.  You used it yourself - "Caucasian".
>So as long as we say/place people in three "racial" grouping that is
>acceptable (though not very politically correct).  Why - as the term race
>is not acceptable as a zoological technical term.   It is because  "the
>Caucasian subspecies"  is totally taboo because it is a utterly politically
>incorrect phrase - and not because it is an inaccurate zoological term.  In
>the realm of nomenclature "subspecies" only exists on paper as a term of
>placement in a tree diagram or ladder sub-sequent in a listing.  Outside of
>nomenclature none of _our_ rankings terms have meaning or even existance.
>
>..... In fact once really, really, understood we might actually want 
>the terminology as
>it points to us all being total equals and totally one - yet proudly
>"racially" (subspecifically) unique.  A diverse yet unified people of
>earth.

Richard A. Worth
Oregon Department of Agriculture
Plant Division
rworth at oda.state.or.us
(503) 986-6461

 
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