It should be noted that like
creationism, the notion of polygenism related by the user
Wagstaff, i.e. that modern man is in fact multiple species corresponding to 'race' is non or anti-scientific for the following reasons:
- 'Race' does not correspond very well to genes except in a superficial way not sufficient to qualifiy as speciation.
- Studies of current human genetic population show thru the method of cladistics that all living humans are descended from a woman who lived in North Africa about a hundred thousand years ago.
- The common definition of what constitutes distinct species are not satisfied/are contradicted by the human races, i.e. ability to productively interbreed, essentially the same genome, etc.
Some confusion may result, since the
Linnaen catagorization of species does not reflect the modern biological definition of the term and superficial judgement bears little relation to the underlying scientific truth. For example, the modern dog which has been bred by humans from the wolf into a fantastic variety of different apparent forms is nonetheless a single species (even in the Linnean system).