Why different anatomical features across a border?

[noquacks]

People,

We have 3 arbitrary "races" of H Sapiens, Negroid, Caucasian, Mongoloid (according to sociologists ). Around the world's regions though, we see more than 3 different types of body features which the races are based on. Far east we see Asians as mongoloid (China, Japan, Pacific islands, etc), but just next door in India, we see people with different colors and facial features.  Which race are they? Same thing in Europe, mostly Caucasian but just in N Africa (Libya, Algeria, etc) we see  what many would call Arab, not Caucasian, nor Negroid. 

The India/China border mystery is most puzzling to me. How could evolution of man explain that difference in facial anatomical features when evolution knows no borders?  Another example is Russia/Mongolia. Why Russians are Caucasian but just cross the political border and in Mongolia you get Mongoloids? How can evolution explain that? 

Thanks, people. 

Edited October 21, 2021 by noquacks

[iNow]

Have you considered using terminology that didn’t fall out of favor due to being ignorant and discriminatory well over 60 years ago?

[noquacks]

23 hours ago, iNow said:

Have you considered using terminology that didn’t fall out of favor due to being ignorant and discriminatory well over 60 years ago?

Yes, I did. You though may be ignorant of sociology. I do not discriminate, and I am not a racist. And neither did you offer suggestions, rather resorted to brazen insult to massage your ego. And that goes for the 2 likes that applauded your post. Do you have anything to offer which can shed light on anything related to my post? Or are you not so informed on evolution?

[swansont]

Look at any species that has subpopulations; sometimes this results in speciation if the populations remain isolated and enough time passes.

But you are correct in one thing; it’s my understanding that the races are arbitrary.

[iNow]

47 minutes ago, noquacks said:

You though may be ignorant of sociology

I’m ignorant of many things, including some parts of sociology. It’s been quite a few years since those few semesters when I took classes and performed experimentation in that area, but I suspect I’m not quite as ignorant as you imagine. 
 

48 minutes ago, noquacks said:

rather resorted to brazen insult to massage your ego

Wait, I did what where now?

51 minutes ago, noquacks said:

Do you have anything to offer which can shed light on anything related to my post?

I’m sure I have many illuminating things to contribute, but I found your post so full of offensive terms that I’ve chosen instead to illuminate that. 

53 minutes ago, noquacks said:

Or are you not so informed on evolution?

I’m informed enough to know that terms negroid, mongoloid, and related others aren’t used by anyone who matters or is worth my time. 

[CharonY]

On 10/21/2021 at 5:12 PM, noquacks said:

People,

We have 3 arbitrary "races" of H Sapiens, Negroid, Caucasian, Mongoloid (according to sociologists ). Around the world's regions though, we see more than 3 different types of body features which the races are based on. Far east we see Asians as mongoloid (China, Japan, Pacific islands, etc), but just next door in India, we see people with different colors and facial features.  Which race are they? Same thing in Europe, mostly Caucasian but just in N Africa (Libya, Algeria, etc) we see  what many would call Arab, not Caucasian, nor Negroid. 

The India/China border mystery is most puzzling to me. How could evolution of man explain that difference in facial anatomical features when evolution knows no borders?  Another example is Russia/Mongolia. Why Russians are Caucasian but just cross the political border and in Mongolia you get Mongoloids? How can evolution explain that? 

Thanks, people. 

The general point that iNow made stands, the racial groups you mentioned were developed during the enlightenment period (Blumenbach, I believe) and arose from the Linnaean idea of classifying, well, everything. The problem of course was that these ideas were not  entirely scientific (as biological knowledge was limited) and perhaps worse, were heavily influenced by existing ideas on human populations, which were heavily influenced (or developed) into an imperialistic view of humankind. We now know that populations below the species level are mostly defined by the geospatial grouping (i.e. whatever can mix in a given area, tends to do so) as well as the fact that these 19th century ideas of grouping folks does not really fit what we know about human diversity. Many genetic studies have now shown, for example that African populations have the highest genetic diversity, which is basically expected from the out of Africa model. Fundamentally we find higher divergence between African population than, say between European and African population. As such the old 19th century classification you refer to does not make sense. So if we wanted to create subpopulations of the human species and have roughly equal distance between groups, it would not make sense to put all Africans in one group. Rather, they would be several groups and Europeans as well Asians would only be one of the subgroups.

However, as Swansont already pointed out, classifications below the species levels are mostly arbitrary various degrees. Often they are used to create certain groups rather than a means to track actual genetic diversity. Especially in humans that would be difficult as there is a lot mixing and the way we use "race" in common usage rarely follows biology. Terms like black and white for example are more historic than anything else. Which is why folks like Barrack Obama are often considered black (which is a legacy of the one drop way of thinking about race).

[iNow]

6 minutes ago, CharonY said:

The problem of course was that these ideas were entirely scientific

*weren’t

[CharonY]

10 minutes ago, iNow said:

*weren’t

Oops. Corrected. Thanks for the catch!