Friday, 25 November 2005

Genetic basis for caste ?

What do you think ? The evidence is anecdotal and subjective, but I've always seem to notice a physical similarity in people of the same caste. I'm thinking that hundreds and possibly thousands of years of strict marriage within caste has resulted in subtle DNA differences.

If you have the time, read the following academic research paper entitled "Genetic Evidence on Origins of Indian Caste Populations" (pdf file).

http://jorde-lab.genetics.utah.edu/elibrary/Bamshad_2001a.pdf

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

So this is where you've been hiding ?? Stop posting Darwinian style articles, and put a few jokes on ! ;)))

J.

EmCee said...

mmm...that sounds interesting, albeit controversial. I didn't have time to read the whole report...I mean granted, India has a lot of people from various backgrounds, stemming thousands of years, and the theory of the Aryans incorporating pre-existing Indians into the Hindu tradition has a lot of stock with historians. But, I don't know...the population of India is so enormous, it seems like a huge sample would have to be taken to do this kind of research...interesting post