Colour Me Purple

A major aspect of our debates on many issues are those relating to race and the associated colours of skins. These are discussed often in relatively simple terms and assume differences or aspects that are often assumed or supported by either limited science or other evidence.

In the mean time the geneticists work on in their laboratories etc. trying to unpick the human story and year on year making advances in what is known and is evident in the DNA. This article deals with Africa and the Africans and suggests it may have been more complicated than we think.

There has been a long history of theorising about who humans are, where they came from and how they relate to one another. Our problem today is that we are carrying a lot of baggage from the past in the shape of ideas and assumptions that have not stood up to close DNA investigation.

What is a larger problem is the malign influences of some of these.

The trouble is that politically we are stuck with old ideas and opinions that influence policy and debate. Given the way this is going it could be that the science may be one of the casualties.

Call it the Copernicus Syndrome.