The question whether human beings have a single origin or evolved as separate ‘races’ in distant parts of the globe is not entirely academic. Racists have taken the theory of separate races as fodder for the claim that some races are inferior to others — or even less than human. In 1987, a group of students at the University of California, Berkeley, suggested that it is possible to trace back the family tree of the whole human race to one original woman who lived in Africa about 200,000 years ago. The proof comes from the study of mitochondria, which serves as a kind of biological clock.

It has helped to transform our understanding of human history.

Analysis of the mitochondrial DNA in humans from all over the globe shows unmistakably that all humans on earth inherited it from one woman. In principle, all people should have the same string of DNA letters in their mitochondria. But in practice, mitochondrial DNA has steadily accumulated changes over the centuries because of copying errors and radiation damage.

The rate of change in mitochondrial DNA molecules has been calculated as 0.5 to 1 percent per line per million years. The mitochondrion is a tiny organelle found in all cells including the human reproductive cells. However, in the male reproductive cell (the sperm), it is found in the tailend, which powers the movement of the sperm in the vaginal tract before fertilization. And since it is only the head that enters into the female egg, the mitochondrion is left outside at the time of fertilization. That is, the fertilized egg inherits only the mother’s mitochondria and none of the father’s. Now, this mitochondrion has its own DNA, which orders the manufacture of some proteins. This DNA became an object of study because it is entirely inherited from the mother and so on backward through ages of history.

A group of biologists working on mitochondrial DNA at Berkeley looked at a sample of 147 people from various continents; 20 Black Americans, 2 Aboriginal Kung from South Africa, 21 Australian Aborigines, 26 New Guineans, Vietnamese, Laotians and Filipinos, 34 Asians from China, Indonesia and Tonga and 48 Caucasians from Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. Initially, they broke up the large mitochondrial DNA molecule into small fragments using restrictive enzymes, which attack the molecule at specified sites.

The fragments could then be identified and areas which had undergone a change could be easily recognized. Information about the specific differences between the mitochondrial DNA of the people in the study was fed into a computer program, which compared the extent and nature of these differences. The study showed that modern humans originated in Africa, that all humans are closely related and that all of them have derived from one original woman, whom they called Eve.

This overwhelming genetic evidence now indicates conclusively that modern man arose from a single root and that there is ultimately only one race, the human race. Characteristics such as the color of one’s skin, hair or eyes — things that some may think racially important — are no indication of intelligence or abilities. Rather, they are the results of genetic inheritance. Each group of human appears to be extremely different, yet underneath these differences there is fundamental similarity. Biologically speaking, there is no such a thing as a superior or an inferior race. All the contrived rationale for racism has come to nothing. That all men share the same basic anatomical and physiological features is common knowledge, and no physician would deny he could treat every man, regardless of race and color, with the same methods.

In 1962, Ashley Montague, a great biologist, penned these words regarding the human origins. “The physical differences which exist between the varieties of mankind are, from the anatomical standpoint, so insignificant that when they are properly evaluated they can be defined only in terms of a particular expression of an assortment of genes which are common to all mankind.” He continued: “Mankind has been painfully groping its way toward the understanding of one truth that all men are brothers, that there is one world, and that all men must live together in that world in peace and harmony — that man needs fraternity as he needs his daily bread.”

Perhaps one of the most authoritative scientific declaration on race were made by an international panel of anthropologists, doctors, anatomists and others who jointly produced four statements of race. The final statement emphasized the following three points:

• All men living today belong to the same species and are descended from the same stock.

• The division of the human species into “races” is partly conventional and partly arbitrary and does not imply any hierarchy whatsoever.

• Current biological knowledge does not permit us to impute cultural achievements to differences in genetic potential. Differences in the achievements of different people should be attributed solely to their cultural history.

The peoples of the world today appear to possess equal biological potential for attaining any level of civilization. There is evidence for uniformity of language too with regard to phonology, grammatical structure and vocabulary. This militates against a plurality of origins. Linguist Morris Swedish agrees that “the case for a single beginning is fairly strong.” Another expert in language, Joseph Roucek, abstracts the current trend of his discipline in similar terms: “Scholars speculate that most languages originated in one universal parent language.”

— Arab News Features 5 October 2003