Under the guise of eugenic improvement and racial purity, and what the implementation of eugenic measures could supposedly do to improve human societ… - Daniel J. Fairbanks

To understand who we are as a species, and why we vary as we do, we must examine our genetic diversity in the context of a common African origin, followed by intra- and intercontinental diasporas that transpired over a period of tens of thousands of years, culminating in an era of major migrations that reshuffled the worldwide human genetic construction over the past several thousand years and is still underway. Last, we must recognize that today’s human population is far larger, more diverse, and more complex than it ever has been. We are all related, more than seven billion of us, recent cousins to one another, and, ultimately, everyone is African.

A significant minority of people fully reject human evolution, opting instead for the belief that humans were specially created with no prior evolutionary ancestry less than ten thousand years ago. Such beliefs are often infused with a non-scientific perception of different races and how the supposedly originated. And, in spite of overwhelming scientific evidence and changing social norms, a relatively large proportion of people still cling to past traditions of white supremacy and racism.

Throughout the past several centuries, people have used the term race to describe groups of people in much the same way it was used in past centuries to describe groups of animals. People with ancestry from a particular region of tend to share certain inherited similar features, resembling their parents. However, the children of parents with substantially different ancestral backgrounds often have an appearance that is intermediate between that of their two parents, and in subsequent generations, the offspring may vary. In part because of the obvious similarities between animals and humans for how traits are inherited, and in part because of cultural, political, and religious traditions, notinos of racial purity and superiority have surged and ebbed yet persisted, crossing the boundaries of culture, geography, politics , and time. They are still with us today, and some of the most insidious actions based on notions of racial supremacy happened not long ago.