Darwin the Man of His Times • Hacker News Board

Re: Darwin the Man of His Times

#11

Post by leonvoss » Tue, Jan 06, 2026, 4:45 PM UTC

hydrogen7800 wrote: post #4

like_any_other wrote: post #3

> I cringed while reading his many comparisons between people of different regions, as if they were species of finches Wasn't exactly that one of the most revolutionary insights of his theory? That humans evolved and are governed by the same forces of natural selection as other animals? It is amusing that, 166 years after On the Origin of Species, that part is still controversial.

Between species, not within species.

There are approximately 3 different human species, if you use the same distance measures that give us dog, wolf, and coyote (which can all interbreed).

Re: Darwin the Man of His Times

#12

Post by sdwr » Thu, Jan 08, 2026, 5:19 AM UTC

hydrogen7800 wrote: post #6

like_any_other wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The concept of 'species' only exists within the human mind [1]. In nature, there are only slowly accumulating mutations, until two populations become differentiated enough that we arbitrarily assign them different taxa. In fact, that is the central thesis of the aptly-named On the Origin of Species. [1] And there are plenty of species that we consider distinct, that can and do interbreed and bear fertile offspring.

The quote you are responding to is a reaction to scientific racism. Forgive me if I'm misinterpreting you, but you said that you find it amusing that this is still controversial.

Isolated populations "drift" genetically, which is how species form in the first place. Discriminating against people based on those differences sucks, sure, but it's still the ground truth.

Re: Darwin the Man of His Times

#13

Post by hydrogen7800 » Thu, Jan 08, 2026, 12:28 PM UTC

sdwr wrote: post #12

hydrogen7800 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The quote you are responding to is a reaction to scientific racism. Forgive me if I'm misinterpreting you, but you said that you find it amusing that this is still controversial.

Isolated populations "drift" genetically, which is how species form in the first place. Discriminating against people based on those differences sucks, sure, but it's still the ground truth.

It does suck, but the differences on which discrimination happen do not map to actual genetic variation.[0]

[0] https://bioanth.org/about/aaba-statement-on-race-racism/

Re: Darwin the Man of His Times

#14

Post by cubefox » Thu, Jan 08, 2026, 12:51 PM UTC

hydrogen7800 wrote: post #13

sdwr wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isolated populations "drift" genetically, which is how species form in the first place. Discriminating against people based on those differences sucks, sure, but it's still the ground truth.

It does suck, but the differences on which discrimination happen do not map to actual genetic variation.[0] [0] https://bioanth.org/about/aaba-statement-on-race-racism/

Pretty sure there are genetic clustering algorithms which show that perceived race groups approximately correspond to measured race clusters. For example, random East Asians are more closely related to each other than to random West Europeans.