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Are humans only one species or Africans, Asians, Europeans, Mongolians etc are different species? They differ drastically in appearance.

ManuRaj
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    This sounds like a Biology SE question to me. – Sean Duggan Aug 23 '16 at 11:53
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    I'll suggest that the only reason they seem to "differ drastically" is because we're so focused on differences in appearance, thus ignoring the similarities. Jared Diamond, in his book The Third Chimpanzee, argues that any reasonable outside observer would classify Human Beings (all of them) and Chimpanzees as the same species. – Mark Aug 23 '16 at 12:13
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    @mark where does Jared make that argument? He suggests that we be in the same *genus* but I don't see where he thinks we should be in the same *species*. –  Aug 23 '16 at 12:47
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    I recall reading that human beings, for a large mammal, has an incredibly narrow genetic profile. Mostly due to a population "neck" back about 70,000 years ago. So while our external appearances my be diverse, our genetics are all very similar. – JasonR Aug 23 '16 at 12:54
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    @Mark I.e. he says that an extraterrestrial zoologist would classify humans as a third *species* of Chimpanzee (sometimes used as a collective noun for the entire *Pan* genus). The other two species being *Pan troglodytes* and *Pan paniscus*. We would be *Pan sapiens*. –  Aug 23 '16 at 12:55
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    @Dawn - Oops, you're right! Thanks for pointing that out. – Mark Aug 23 '16 at 13:13
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    [Welcome to Skeptics!](http://meta.skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/1505/welcome-to-new-users) We want to focus our attention on doubtful claims that are widely held or are made by notable people. No-one is claiming that there is more than one species of humans alive today. Please [provide some references](http://meta.skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/882/what-are-the-attributes-of-a-good-question/883#883) to places where this claim is being made. – Oddthinking Aug 23 '16 at 13:24
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    The use of the word mongolian being seperate from Asian here reminds me of that dreadful 19th century 'Racial science' classification where they split everyone into Caucasoid, Negroid and Mongoloid. – BorderlineBaguette Aug 23 '16 at 15:57
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    Almost a dupe of http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/399/is-race-a-discredited-scientific-concept-in-biology – Sklivvz Aug 23 '16 at 21:34
  • A tortoiseshell looks very different to a siamese cat... but they're still the same species... outward diversity has no bearing on genetic diversity –  Aug 25 '16 at 05:16
  • am new here. my doubt was genuine. might be my wordings not correct. I just meant that (eg:) a Chinese guy and a Ugandan guy are so different in appearance. Hence wished a scientific clarification. Now after reading above comments I guess the difference is because of environment? What really caused such noticeable difference in appearance, even though the genetics are similar or same? – ManuRaj Aug 28 '16 at 04:45
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    @ManuRaj: Humans really aren't that different in appearance, at least compared to other animals. We are highly tuned to those appearance differences so they stand out, but lots of others animals vary much, much, much more within a species than we do. And although there are genetic differences underlying a difference in appearance, they are pretty small. Overall humans are much less genetically diverse than most other mammals. – TheBlackCat Aug 29 '16 at 00:57
  • Re: appearance, these are all the same species: http://hubpages.com/animals/7-Worlds-Weirdest-Looking-Dog-Breeds – ceejayoz Sep 06 '16 at 21:00

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There is only one human species today, although there were more in prehistoric times. Whether they differ in appearance "drastically" is a subjective opinion, but maybe you are looking for a different term? Someone indigenous to Europe and Asia may have slightly different features, but they are not as physiologically distinct as, say, apes and orangutangs.

rougon
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