are we all related

[The Believer]

are all human beings related biologically and genetically? Do all human beings come from the same ancestors? if so then are we all biological brothers and sisters of the same parents who were the ancestors of all human beings? so if i marry some girl does it mean that i am marrying one of my relatives?

[Moontanman]

are all human beings related biologically and genetically?

Yes, this is demonstrably true...

 

Do all human beings come from the same ancestors?

Yes, I can recommend a good video on this exact subject if you wish to watch it.

 

if so then are we all biological brothers and sisters of the same parents who were the ancestors of all human beings? so if i marry some girl does it mean that i am marrying one of my relatives?

Yes, if you go back about 2500 years everyone alive then every where was the ancestors of everyone alive today or no one alive today.

[The Believer]

Yes, this is demonstrably true...

so if we all come from the same ancestors and all human beings are genetically related then why do we have different races of people like asian, caucasian, black, white, brown etc? if we all have a common ancestor then shouldn't we all be looking the same, having same features, color, race etc? if we all are related then why dont we ever see a case where a white caucasian couple gives birth to two or three children, one looking like a caucasian, one like chinese and another black?

[Moontanman]

so if we all come from the same ancestors and all human beings are genetically related then why do we have different races of people like asian, caucasian, black, white, brown etc? if we all have a common ancestor then shouldn't we all be looking the same, having same features, color, race etc? if we all are related then why dont we ever see a case where a white caucasian couple gives birth to two or three children, one looking like a caucasian, one like chinese and another black?

 

 

I know we are supposed to use videos sparingly but these two are spot on the subject and explain it much better than i can. The idea is that certain characteristics occur in certain populations and tend to persist in the geographical areas they are endemic to and the local gene pool.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyknbCLys_8

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71piW8lSxw4

Edited October 18, 2013 by Moontanman

[Ophiolite]

are all human beings related biologically and genetically? Do all human beings come from the same ancestors? if so then are we all biological brothers and sisters of the same parents who were the ancestors of all human beings? so if i marry some girl does it mean that i am marrying one of my relatives?

In addition to the above, when you run over a rabbit with your car you kill one of your relatives; when you eat a tomato you consume one of your relatives; when you disinfect a counter top you kill millions of your relatives. All life on Earth has a common ancestor. You, and the E.coli in your gut, are the product of three and half billion years of survivors.

[Moontanman]

This is a case of a African couple giving birth to a blonde blue eyed baby.

 

http://www.essence.com/2010/07/21/black-couple-gives-birth-to-white-baby/

 

A Nigerian couple living in the U.K. couldn't believe their eyes when their newborn baby girl was born blonde and blue-eyed. "The first thing I said was, 'What the flip?' " Ben Ihegboro told the U.K's The Sun "We both just sat there after the birth staring at her for ages -- not saying anything." Ben and Angela Ihegboro named their baby, Nnamchi, meaning "beauty of God" because they believe she is a "miracle baby." Doctors say they don't believe Nnamchi is albino, although they think she may have a mutated version of the condition. Experts offer two other possible theories: that she might either be the result of a genetic mutation or her parents have a long dead relative with light skin genes. While baby Nnamchi's Nigerian immigrant parents may not know of any White ancestry, there is still the possibility of it existing in their bloodline. "We are all of us genetic mixtures to some extent, and occasionally you'll have a convergence of the pale versions of these genes in African-Americans and African-Caribbeans who have a mixed black and white ancestry," Oxford University human genetics professor Bryan Sykes told The Sun. Doctors are also puzzled by baby Nnamchi's blonde hair. "The hair is extremely unusual, said Professor Sykes. "Even many blonde children don't have blonde hair like this at birth." The Ihegboro's other two children Chisom, 4, and Demebi, 2, bear a striking resemblance to their parents. Angela says big brother Chisom is certainly confused by his beautiful little sister. "Our boy keeps coming to look at his sister and then sits down looking puzzled, she said. "We're a Black family. Suddenly he has a White sister."

 

Another good take on the subject, but the essence of it is that we are all related and quite recently, no more than a a few thousand years ago.

[The Believer]

All life on Earth has a common ancestor.

Well thank you for giving me that information. I have got one more query. I know this is matter of another topic but still I would like to ask it here, if all life on earth has a common ancestor then who is the ancestor of that "common ancestor"? I mean where from that "common ancestor come from"? I hope it did not pop up magically out of nothing.

[Moontanman]

Well thank you for giving me that information. I have got one more query. I know this is matter of another topic but still I would like to ask it here, if all life on earth has a common ancestor then who is the ancestor of that "common ancestor"? I mean where from that "common ancestor come from"? I hope it did not pop up magically out of nothing.

The process is called abiogenesis, no magic involved although we do not have a complete understanding of the process at this time we do have some good data and hypothesis. It's quite possible we will never know for sure but the idea of a bacteria suddenly appearing is not what happened...

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis

 

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/abioprob/originoflife.html

[Strange]

so if we all come from the same ancestors and all human beings are genetically related then why do we have different races of people like asian, caucasian, black, white, brown etc?

Evolution!

 

if we all have a common ancestor then shouldn't we all be looking the same, having same features, color, race etc?

Do you look exactly like your parents?

 

if we all are related then why dont we ever see a case where a white caucasian couple gives birth to two or three children, one looking like a caucasian, one like chinese and another black?

I have known families who have had one white and one black child (with the same parents). There are even cases of this where both parents were "white".

[The Believer]

Do you look exactly like your parents?

 

I don't look exactly like my parents but i do share some of my features with them like my eye color, nose structure, facial structure etc. I resemble my parents.

I have known families who have had one white and one black child (with the same parents). There are even cases of this where both parents were "white".

But such cases are very very rare. We dont see such cases in abundance. If evolution is the reason why we have so many races then why dont we have such cases everywhere everyday in abundance all around us? Has the process of evolution stopped after giving birth to those races?

[Phi for All]

Genetically, there are no "races" within the human population. Environmental pressures, mutations and natural selection account for many of the differences in skin color and other things you might identify as "racial" qualities. But something like 85% of genetic variations are individual variations; only 15% are differences between populations. Humans are actually much more homogenous than most other animal species.

[Strange]

 

If evolution is the reason why we have so many races then why dont we have such cases everywhere everyday in abundance all around us?

Because evolution is (usually) very slow and it can take many generations for significant changes to occur in a population. (And note that evolution is about the population niot individuals.) There are exceptional examples where a new species is created in a single generation, but these are very rare.

[ewmon]

On "races" ... Do you think that, maybe, the rather common xenophobic idea of us-versus-them caused people to take spouses from within their own "tribes" (or whatever), and we ended up with "breeds" (that is, "races"). The more the "breeds" were distinguishable from one another, then the greater the xenophobia, resulting in more inbreeding, etc, etc. Could geographic isolation also have played a role, such as the Sahara Desert isolating sub-Saharan Africans from the rest of the world, or the Indian Ocean isolating Aborigines from rest of the world, etc? It seems to me that inbreeding would not be effective until humans developed settled (or isolated) civilizations because, to me, nomadic life would continue to cause inter-tribal mixing (that is, "mongrels"), thus no us-versus-them xenophobic mentality.

 

I guess I'm saying ...

 

technology → settlements → xenophobia → interbreeding → breeds/races

[Moontanman]

so if we all come from the same ancestors and all human beings are genetically related then why do we have different races of people like asian, caucasian, black, white, brown etc? if we all have a common ancestor then shouldn't we all be looking the same, having same features, color, race etc? if we all are related then why dont we ever see a case where a white caucasian couple gives birth to two or three children, one looking like a caucasian, one like chinese and another black?

To a great extent dark and light skin can be explained by the latitude the people live at. The further north you go the less sunlight you get year round and the less vitamin D your body can make and the this affects reproductive success so light skinned people do better in the long term than dark skinned peoples. This effect is enough to prevent the genes for dark skin from enduring in populations in more northerly latitudes while light skinned people do not do as well in lower latitudes due to skin damage from too much sun light exposure. But other traits such as hair texture occur independent of skin color and can spread freely through the population. You do see light skinned people with kinky hairs and dark skinned people with straight hair and all variations in between... The most important fact is that human populations are not completely isolated from each other and gene flow continues unabated through out the human population with certain genes being favored in different areas for various reasons...

I don't look exactly like my parents but i do share some of my features with them like my eye color, nose structure, facial structure etc. I resemble my parents.

Everyone should resemble their parents but still have variation, we can all trace our ancestry back to people who do not resemble us very much as well...

 

But such cases are very very rare. We dont see such cases in abundance. If evolution is the reason why we have so many races then why dont we have such cases everywhere everyday in abundance all around us? Has the process of evolution stopped after giving birth to those races?

Evolution is ongoing right now but humans are not isolated populations, gene flow occurs over time ad those genes that allow better success at breeding tend to be selected for but there is to much similarity between people to say we are different in any really meaningful way due to that constant gene flow...

[Ultermarto]

Even more amazing is that all DNA-based organisms are supposed to be from the single and same common ancestor.

[Ringer]

But such cases are very very rare. We dont see such cases in abundance. If evolution is the reason why we have so many races then why dont we have such cases everywhere everyday in abundance all around us? Has the process of evolution stopped after giving birth to those races?

Change all your questions to dogs and you may be able to understand the concept of how races can and do develop from common ancestors. The main answer is that races (breeds in dogs) are an artificial construct based on a continuous phenotype that doesn't even have strict boarders. Dog breeds even tend to be much more defined and have much stricter boarders, and even those are fairly artificial.