The tree and the net

This chapter examines two major spatio-temporal narratives embedded within human population genomic science. It explores what these narratives say about the evolution and history of humanity as a whole, and what their political implications are. One major narrative is embedded in a theory of evolution which explains how human populations developed in specific – often continent-sized – environmental niches, shaped by the classic evolutionary mechanisms of natural and sexual selection, endogamic mating, genetic drift, founder effects, and population bottlenecks. The chapter discusses the implications and affordances of the narratives in terms of the claims that can be made about human unity and diversity. It looks at the more directly political and policy-relevant – what Kirtsoglou and Simpson would call chonocratic – dimensions of the human futures that derive from these claims about unity and diversity, taking as an example the problem of racial disparities in health outcomes, which some people believe genetics can help to resolve.

Combinatorics · Geometry · Net (polyhedron) · Tree (set theory) · Computer Science · Mathematics · Race, Genetics, and Society

• Late Pleistocene human population bottlenecks, volcanic winter, and differentiation of modern humans

  Open Access•H Ambrose, Stanley H Ambrose•Journal of Human Evolution•1998

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