Mixed Blood essays

Mixed Blood essays The question of race has been a long debated topic that still has not been answered. Jeffrey Fish embraces this issue in his writing entitled, "Mixed Blood." The document opens by proposing the question of "What is race?", then breaking it down into smaller factions. The two lesser questions that are formed instead are: "How can we understand the variation in physical appearance among human beings? How can we understand the kinds of racial classifications applied to differences in physical appearance among human beings?" The preliminary hypothesis determined is that race is a myth and does not really exist. Yet, Fish chooses to expand on various possibilities that may lead to other conclusions. Over the millenniums, evolution of man has been slow, but very significant. Through different means of mutation, natural selection, and genetic drift, the human species has come to numerous modifications. Although, the concept of genetic drift is what intrigues the minds of most individuals. The concept of adaptive value seems to appear as a major role in physical differences. For instance, the first settlers of the New World all had different characteristics depending on the environment they lived in. Those that stayed further North, such as the Eskimos, usually had short, rounded bodies with light faces. These features were developed due to the weather. The rounded figures were to help insulate their bodies and as a result of little or no sunlight the skin color of these people were often very light. In contrast to this are the settlements of cultures South near the Equator. Indians from Central America to South America held dark complexions and thin frames as a result from the exposure to intense heat. For these reasons a consistent biological approach can not be assessed on terms of skin color or body size. Rather now we have simply broken the human species into three distinctions of Caucasoid, Mongoloid, and Negr...