Encyclopedia of Race and Racism

The human race is remarkably homogeneous; far more so, in fact, than most mammalian species. Genetic evidence suggests that Homo sapiens was a very late offshoot from the other great ape lines. Assuming, as seems most probable, a single point of origin, it is clear that small, and therefore in‐bred, groups of humans separated from each other at a sufficiently early stage for different races to appear. Skin colour is the most immediately noticeable of these differences, but there are also differences in physique, susceptibility to certain diseases, and (a thorny topic) some evidence of differences in intellectual abilities. Most...