Evolution of the Human Being

What does it mean that all humans are ultimately one large family? For a long time, it was common to categorize people into races, often based on skin color or origin. However, recent molecular biological analyses have shown that all humans share the vast majority of genetic variation. In fact, it is even possible that a European may be genetically more similar to an African than to a neighboring European. In this regard, humans are quite unusual. Most other species exhibit much greater genetic diversity, making the concept of races more applicable to them. For humans, racial classifications do not make biological sense.

Another important finding in molecular biology is that we still carry genetic variants from Neanderthals and other extinct lineages. This must be the result of occasional interbreeding between these lineages. This means that Neanderthals were essentially a different human race that eventually went extinct.