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Evolution Of The Races
This week at work I found myself encased in the state of being stunned by a stunning statement from a colleague – a decidedly not stunning colleague – who stated his statement thusly, and with utmost sincerity:
"The problem with evolution is you have to question how the different races evolved from different types of apes at the same time."
This statement, sincerely stated, subsequently – and quite suddenly – stunned me into a state of stupefaction. I humbly confess that my mouth dropped open for several seconds and I beg the forgiveness of the intelligent people of the world for my lack of an immediate rebuttal and/or attack with an axe.
I gathered my wits swiftly from where they had spilled out over my desk and educated him (through the power of mocking) for several moments until he left. Then I did the thoroughly modern thing and Twittered the event. I received a reply almost immediately from GorillaSushi (that I then didn’t spot until it was far too embarrassingly late to respond) which claimed that he himself was a direct descendant of the spider monkey.
I did not find this particular statement to be as stunning or even, really, mildly surprising. He has, after all, eight arms and a love of bananas, a trait shared by the simian in question if memory serves.
Nevertheless – and fortunately as far as this post goes – this got me thinking. Was there something in this bizarre notion of racial evolution being linked to varying species? The obvious answer of "careful now, there’s probably an axe attack imminent you buffoon, racial characteristics are clearly genetic adaptations to environment" seemed just a little bit too obvious for my liking.
So, while I embark on funding requests to further examine this question I have begun compiling some likely test candidates among the world’s people and creatures. I’ll need to be careful to avoid offending any creatures.
Race: The Swiss
Description: Drawn to geometry and mathematics; the simple triangles of a Toblerone, the round holes in their cheese, the large numbers of their bank accounts and the sums of money therein. Likes to claim neutrality but certainly wouldn’t mind running the whole show so long as there was no physical risk, despises cuckoos and has fostered a national industry designed to incarcerate the animals within the madness-inducing, always-ticking tombs of miniature clocks.
Most Likely Evolved From: Crows. Intelligent, drawn to shiny things, cautiously aggressive, long-running feud with cuckoos over nesting rights.
Race: Canadians
Description: Tolerant. Very tolerant. Maybe too tolerant. Who else would willingly live in close proximity to Americans and allow the French to cohabit? Fine with solitude, has a fondness for maple leaves, not easily embarrassed by Celine Dion.
Most Likely Evolved From: Sloths. Slow, but deliberately so, laid back, funny-looking faces, loves trees, big fans of Dion’s 1997 album "Let’s Talk About Love".
Race: Officials
Description: Officials is the generic racial term that incorporates several sub-species including referees, umpires, traffic wardens, and the police. A need to control, possesses a physical inability to actually do that over which it desires to officiate, has a penchant for dressing in black or accentuating with the colour, loves the sound of its own voice.
Most Likely Evolved From: Moles. Effectively blind, toxic saliva, sharp and pointy teeth and claws, makes up for lack of vision and subsequent lack of appreciation for beauty by burrowing under lawns and stamping its own authoritative seal of disapproval wherever it sees fit in the form of dirt hills, looks fabulous in black, widely regarded as a pest despite occasionally doing some good, keen member of subterranean debating team.
Race: Goths
Description: Selfishly introspective, drawn to the dark and fantasy, unhappy with themselves, desires to express their uniqueness, convinced nobody else understands them or has been through what they’re going through or is wearing almost identical clothing and makeup, fond of vampires, dreadful children’s entertainers.
Most Likely Evolved From: Pigs. Will eat anything, loves caking itself in mud, skin burns under too much sun, tastes lovely, reads Anne Rice novels, writes terrible poetry.
Gotta say I’m with you on the Goths. Obviously that particular portion was especially well researched.
Also, I never met a Canadian I didn’t like.
Keep going! I know there are many many more you can do. What about The cults of America?
Jillian: Canadians are wonderful people. It’s their British heritage, you know. You can’t go wrong with a bit of British in you (*).
ettarose: I need to keep some experiments back for my second round of funding. It simply wouldn’t do to test everyone immediately. The scientist must always prolong his work needlessly or he risks having to find a real job.
(*) This chat-up line used on foreign girls is effective almost 1.2% of the time! Guaranteed!
These 3 subsets of white people have such a surprisingly diverse ancestry. I never would have guessed. I wonder what would come of breeding goths with Canadians; a happy medium, I imagine.
It’s my eight arms that makes me so popular with the ladies, you know. They see me and they start drooling, thinking "one for folding laundry, one for back massages, one to wipe away my tears, two to play violin, one to feed me grapes with…."
People with red hair descended from Orangutans right?
Redheads are generally violent, a trait lacking in the peaceful orangutan. The combination of hair colouring, strange desire to dress in bright and contrasting primary colours, and the tendency towards aggresiveness might suggest coral snake lineage instead.
Good One Jason.
Just out of interest, around the time of Alastair Crowley’s group The Golden Dawn (W.B. Yeats, Bram Stoker, et al), a significant part of Europe’s intelligentsia
were pursuing the idea, supposedly originating from Tibet, that both Man and apes were descended from the same ancestor.
ADG
So, I wonder where who my kids should say they were descendants of – 1/2 Texan, 1/4 Japanese, and 1/4 Mexican??
lol … your co-worker sounds like a real n00b.
cheers
dale
I’d swear my brother is a Goth were it not for the fact that he lives in flannel shirts. Perhaps he’s some sort of new evolutionary offshoot??
Hahaha that was brilliant. I loved the one about officials being moles and blind.