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Genetics and Race
Genetics and Race
"Who says that your blood is redder than his?"
Sanhedrin 74a
A SHARED BIOLOGY
Despite our physical differences, every human being is constructed of the same elements:
  • We each have approximately 60,000,000,000,000 (60 trillion) cells in our bodies.
  • We each have approximately 593 miles of blood vessels in our bodies through which 5.5 liters of blood flows.
  • We each have 206 bones in our bodies and 48 square feet of skin.
HUMAN DIVERSITY
Human beings are more diverse than any species on the planet. Certain differences are cultural; for example, we speak different languages, we practice different customs, and we dress differently. These differences, though, can be bridged easily; after all, people can learn a foreign language, adopt new customs, and change their clothing styles. Other differences, however, are biological; for example, our skin color, facial features, and hair type. These inherited differences cannot be changed easily. Historically, these and other physical differences were used to classify humans into separate racial groups. Unfortunately, some people thought that racial distinctions reflected group differences in moral character and intelligence. These ideas led to racial prejudice.
IS RACE AN ILLUSION?
Beginning in the 1970s, scientists rejected the idea that humans could be divided into racial groups based solely on observable traits, such as skin color and facial features. Instead, they recognized that biological similarities and differences between human groups are determined by genetic information transmitted from generation to generation through DNA molecules found in chromosomes.

Every cell in your body has a nucleus (the command center) with 46 chromosomes-23 from your father and 23 from your mother. Each chromosome contains DNA, a chemical strand of genes that acts like the body's instruction manual, directing each cell's development. For example, there are genes that determine height, eye color, hair color, nose shape, skin color, and hundreds of other physical characteristics.

Of the 100,000 genes in each cell in the human body, only six control the chemical responsible for skin color. This means the genes responsible for the hereditary differences between the traditional races are extremely few when compared with the vast number of genes common to all human beings regardless of the race to which they belong.

SPIRITUAL DNA
Geneticists confirm that the DNA of any two humans is 99.9 percent the same; and yet, in a world with six billion people, no two look or act alike. Centuries before scientists discovered that there is an underlying unity amidst the diversity of humanity, Judaism taught this eternal truth. Bereishit (Chapter 1, verse 27) describes that all humans are made betzelem Elokim, in the image of God; in other words, we share the same spiritual DNA. And yet, the mishnah, Sanhedrin 4:5, recognizes that God is also responsible for the glorious diversity of humankind: “…But the Ruler of Rulers, the Holy One…has stamped every person with the seal of Adam, the first person, and yet not one of us is like our fellow.”

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Learn more about how scientists are exploring our genes and DNA at the Human Genome Project website: http://www.genome.gov/10001772