For human races to be considered valid biological groupings, the genetic diversity within the group would have to be _________ the genetic diversity between groups.

Question

A.  lower than
B.  equal to
C.  higher than

Clarify Question
· What is the key concept addressed by the question?
· What type of thinking is required?

Gather Content
· What do you already know about human races?

Choose Answer
· Given what you now know, what information and/or problem solving approach is most likely to produce the correct answer?

Reflect on Process
· Did your problem-solving process lead you to the correct answer? If not, where did the process break down or lead you astray? How can you revise your approach to produce a more desirable result?

Answer 1

A.  lower than

Clarify Question
· What is the key concept addressed by the question?
        o This question addresses human races.
· What type of thinking is required?
        o This question is asking you to analyze the information given, using logic, to dissect the problem and determine the answer.

Gather Content
· What do you already know about human races?
        o Humans have differentiated in their characteristics as they have spread throughout the world. For example, northern Europeans often have blond hair, fair skin, and blue eyes, whereas Africans often have black hair, dark skin, and brown eyes. These traits may play a role in adapting the particular populations to their environments.
        o All humans are capable of mating with one another and producing fertile offspring. The reasons that they do or do not choose to associate with one another are purely psychological and behavioral (cultural).
        o The number of groups into which the human species might logically be divided has long been a point of contention. Some contemporary anthropologists divide people into as many as 30 “races,” others as few as three.
        o The characteristics used to define the races are usually not well correlated with one another, and so the determination of race is always somewhat arbitrary. Indeed, if one were to break the human species into subunits based on overall genetic similarity, the groupings would be very different from those based on skin color or other visual features.
        o In humans, it is not possible to delimit clearly defined races that reflect biologically differentiated and well-defined groupings. Relatively little of the variation in the human species represents differences between the described races. The human racial categories do a very poor job in describing the vast majority of genetic variation that exists in humans.

Choose Answer
· Given what you now know, what information and/or problem solving approach is most likely to produce the correct answer?
        o Human races are not valid biological groupings. The reason is simple: Different groups of people have constantly intermingled and interbred with one another during the entire course of history. This constant gene flow has prevented the human species from fragmenting into highly differentiated subspecies.
        o To be a valid grouping, each race would have to have less genetic variability within it that between races. But in fact, this is not the case.

Reflect on Process
· Did your problem-solving process lead you to the correct answer? If not, where did the process break down or lead you astray? How can you revise your approach to produce a more desirable result?
        o The question required you to analyze the information given, using logic, to dissect the problem and determine the answer.
        o Did you recognize that the human races are not valid biological groupings, because there is so much genetic overlap between them? People of different races may have less genetic variability than people of the “same” race.