Human genetic diversity: Lewontin's fallacy.

@article{Edwards2003HumanGD,
  title={Human genetic diversity: Lewontin's fallacy.},
  author={A. W. F. Edwards},
  journal={BioEssays : news and reviews in molecular, cellular and developmental biology},
  year={2003},
  volume={25 8},
  pages={
          798-801
        }
}
  • A. Edwards
  • Published 1 August 2003
  • Biology
  • BioEssays : news and reviews in molecular, cellular and developmental biology
In popular articles that play down the genetical differences among human populations, it is often stated that about 85% of the total genetical variation is due to individual differences within populations and only 15% to differences between populations or ethnic groups. It has therefore been proposed that the division of Homo sapiens into these groups is not justified by the genetic data. This conclusion, due to R.C. Lewontin in 1972, is unwarranted because the argument ignores the fact that… 

Figures from this paper

Genetic Characterization of Human Populations: From ABO to a Genetic Map of the British People

The evolution of methods used to study human polymorphisms and the resulting contributions to the understanding of human health and history is the subject of this Perspectives.

The background and legacy of Lewontin's apportionment of human genetic diversity

  • J. Novembre
  • Sociology
    Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B
  • 2022
Lewontin's 1972 article ‘The apportionment of human diversity’ described a key feature of human genetic diversity that would have profound impacts on conversations regarding genetics and race: the

Celebrating 50 years since Lewontin's apportionment of human diversity

The contributions in the special issue investigate the background, legacy and ongoing salience of ‘The apportionment of human diversity’ and consider the paper’s scientific contribution and broader social relevance, also examining it in relation to some of Lewontin's other writings.

Evidence for gradients of human genetic diversity within and among continents.

The results show that when individuals are sampled homogeneously from around the globe, the pattern seen is one of gradients of allele frequencies that extend over the entire world, rather than discrete clusters, and there is no reason to assume that major genetic discontinuities exist between different continents or "races".

Philosophy of Race Versus Population Genetics: Round 3

It is argued that new genetic data adequately demonstrate that statistically significantly differentiated human subgroups (aka biological races) do exist and that the analytical methods used to reconstruct the history of these human clusters are themselves, in part, social constructs.

Dodging Darwin: Race, evolution, and the hereditarian hypothesis

Implications of the apportionment of human genetic diversity for the apportionment of human phenotypic diversity.

A Population-Genetic Perspective on the Similarities and Differences among Worldwide Human Populations

A series of questions about human population-genetic similarities and differences are posed, and a collection of answers obtained provides an introductory perspective for understanding key results on the features of worldwide human genetic variation.

Genetic Basis of Human Biodiversity: An Update

In many cases, crucial information about human demographic history has emerged from multidisciplinary analyses, which have stressed the importance of cultural, as well as geographical, barriers in causing local divergence of populations.

The Genetic Reification of "Race"?: A Story of Two Mathematical Methods

Two families of mathematical methods lie at the heart of investigating the hierarchical structure of genetic variation in Homo sapiens: diversity partitioning, which assesses genetic variation within
...

The Apportionment of Human Diversity

It has always been obvious that organisms vary, even to those pre-Darwinian idealists who saw most individual variation as distorted shadows of an ideal. It has been equally apparent, even to those

Genetic Structure of Human Populations

General agreement of genetic and predefined populations suggests that self-reported ancestry can facilitate assessments of epidemiological risks but does not obviate the need to use genetic information in genetic association studies.

The history and geography of human genes

  • R. Cann
  • Biology
    The Journal of Asian Studies
  • 1995
The author examines the history of human evolution in Africa, Europe, and Asia through the lens of genetic, archaeological, and linguistic information.

Analysis of evolution: evolutionary rates, independence and treeness.

Inference of population structure using multilocus genotype data.

A model-based clustering method for using multilocus genotype data to infer population structure and assign individuals to populations that can be applied to most of the commonly used genetic markers, provided that they are not closely linked.

The Genetic Basis of Evolutionary Change

Come with us to read a new book that is coming recently. Yeah, this is a new coming book that many people really want to read will you be one of them? Of course, you should be. It will not make you

Statistical Methods for Research Workers

This book has done more than any other to popularize the use of modern statistical methods and maintains its place as the standard work on its subject for the ordinary scientific worker.

A METHOD OF CLUSTER ANALYSIS.

The present system was designed originally; to identify, in a homogeneous callection of questionnaire or inventory items or of tests, groups of items which can be scored as subtests, or groups of testsWhich can be combined to yield globa1-trait scores, but it may well be applicable to other problems.