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Voting Question: Why is there so much "Hate" in the world?

I don't think Americans are hated -- I think it is the other way around! My mother was a very open-minded woman. She taught me to value people for who they were, instead of the color of their skin. My dad came from a very conservative family.....actually they were Southern bigots. But he had the most open mind of all of them, because he also learned to appreciate people for who they were, instead of the color of their skin. I always wonder - if he could learn, why can't other people? Why do many Caucasians I have met feel that "The Mexicans are out to get us!" "The Black guys are out to get us!" "The Middle-Easterners are out to get us!" Each culture is brought up in its own traditions. When "outsiders" force their way into their country, they have a right to feel that they have been intruded upon. If they stand up for themselves, the wealthier nations "beat them down." Witness the changes in the Rain Forest --- who do the "Intruders" really think they are helping? When we divide people into groups according to their country of origin, we lose the chance to learn something beautiful from them: their songs, their poetry, their art, their literature, their customs and ceremonies. The field of Anthropology would not even exist if people like Albert Schweitzer and Margaret Mead and others had been scared to meet people from other cultures and to learn something from them. When you open a textbook on Sociology, it does not say, "These people are good; these people are bad." It says, "These people are different from us! Let's see what we can learn about them to enrich our own lives!" I don't understand the concept of HATE. However, I DO understand the concept of FEAR. What I fear most is someone forcing their opinons on me and then telling lies about me and smearing my name, because I happen to have some friends from various cultures. That is cruel and immature and eventually, they will pay for what they have done to me by losing all their friends! more

Resolved Question: In MLA format, how should I cite my English textbook?

It's a compilation of classic stories from American literature. The teacher told how how to cite using editors as opposed to authors, but the textbook has no editors listed. From what I can tell, the people who worked on it are referred to as "Program Consultants." What do I do? more

Resolved Question: US history question...early 19th century?

1. why did US produce so many reform and utopian movements in the 19th century? 2. what did these reform movements contribute to american culture? 3. how did the womens right movements compare with other movements of the period? what obstacles did women reformers face? 4. what is the single most attractive reform movemnet of the early 19th century to you? why? what was the relationship between industrialization and the womenn's rights movements?what id women reformers want? 6. whay was the fkowereing of the 19th century american literature almost an exclusively new england phenomenon? 7.the textbook authors claim that in early 19th century America, public schools “xisted chiefly to educate the children of the poor” why were both the upper and lower classamericans willing to support public education with their tax dollars? 8. why did the mormans become a target for religious intolerance in America? more

Resolved Question: English 3 . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ?

Almost every American cuts his teeth on the American Revolution. As children, we are spoon fed stories about the courageous George Washington braving that grueling winter at Valley Forge and Nathan Hale, strong even in the face of death, going to the gallows, crying out, "I regret that I have but one life to give for my country." Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, Paul Revere-these are names that are engraved on the minds of every American school child. Yes, you know the names--you know the stories, but do you really know the flavor of the times? Do you know why the Revolution happened? Do you know what philosophy underlies 'the American War for Independence? Do you know how it affected the world? And finally, do you know how it affected America and American literature? In the pages of your textbook, you will find, in a very abbreviated form, the political and economic reasons for the Revolutionary War. The colonists began to feel like a nation--calling themselves Americans and resenting the interference of the British. Colonists wanted to have more control in governing the colonies--including more financial control. They resented being taxed by Great Britain, particularly since they felt they had no voice in British government (taxation without representation). These reasons, however, tell only half of the story. The colonists had many legitimate complaints against the British government, but many colonized territories have had equally legitimate complaints against their parent countries, and yet they have not resorted to revolution. The Age of Reason concept of government predisposed the American colonists to view their complaints against Great Britain as sufficient cause for revolt. The Concept of Government in the Age of Reason In Lesson 4, you learned about the basic beliefs of supporters of the Age of Reason. Remember that they emphasized the power of reason and the capability and perfectibility of man. Now let's look at how these basic beliefs were translated into a concept of government that favored individual rights and government by consensus. In the United States of the twentieth century, we often take our right to vote for granted. We don't realize that the idea of the people electing government officials is a relatively new one--a product, in large part, of the Age of Reason. During the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, the concept of the divine right of kings was almost undisputed in Europe. The divine right of kings is the belief that God had conferred on the king of a country and his house the power and the right to govern. Man had no say in what God ordained. In England, the concept of divine right was. challenged by Oliver Cromwell in the 1600s when King Charles I was deposed and beheaded for his "crimes" against the kingdom. Unfortunately, the Commonwealth Republic that Cromwell established degenerated into a Protectorate that quickly became a dictatorship. Not long after Cromwell's death, the British Parliament reinstituted the monarchy and the divine right of kings. The concept of government by the people was never fully explored or supported by Cromwell's abortive government. Not until the end of the 1600s were the concepts of government by consensus and the natural rights of man fully developed and written down as a coherent and cogent philosophy. In 1690, John Locke, one of the most important philosophers of the Age of Reason, published his great political work, Two Treatises of Government--a pivotal influence on the leaders of the Revolutionary War 80 years later. What did Two Treatises of Government propose? Basically, it proposed that man was by nature good and that natural law had given man liberty and natural rights (the protection of life, the acquisition and security of property, freedom of movement, equal justice before law, and the freedom to speak and think within certain limits). Natural rights, according to Locke, had existed before formal government and were superior to it. Because these natural rights were not self-enforcing, some form of government was needed to protect them. Government, then, was to serve man--man was not to serve government. The idea of government serving only to protect the natural rights of man developed into the social contract theory. In order to protect their rights, men consented to be governed. They struck up a bargain with the state. The English jurist Blackstone defined the social contract theory of government neatly when he said that government was "a voluntary compact between a ruler and the ruled . . . . liable to such limitations as are necessary for the security of the absolute rights of the latter." The entire purpose of the contract was to provide security, and the happy enjoyment of life, liberty, and property for the governed. Implicit in the terms of the social contract were three things: That the primary power of government remain with the people That th more

Resolved Question: What helped to prepare Walt Whitman as a poet?

All the information is http://www.testpakstars.com/textbooks/amlit/ch17.pdf here. But it says no where in there what helped to prepare him as a poet. It's a multiple choice question and these are the choices his journalistic background his top-flight education his years in the American wilderness and his knowledge of the laws of nature his reading of contemporary and ancient literature and the influence of Emerson But nothing looks right . o_OThanks so much husker, That was one of those, Right in front of you things I spent 30 minutes looking over. Lol. I like getting perfect grades on my work. so yeah. more

Resolved Question: Do you know that much of Indian History Text Books contains False & Fabricated information ?

Re-writing of Indian Historical Text Books http://blogs.epicindia.com/blokesblogin/2005/08/rewriting_indian_history_in_te.html Do you know the Meaning of Bharatvarsha - which mean entire Bharata ( india ) are decendents of an ancient Hindu King called Bharata ( Grandson of Maharishi Vishwamitra ). The Original & Ancient Name of India JAMBUDWIPA. Read :Konraad Elst's Negationism in India: Concealing the Record of Islam, Francois Gautier's Rewriting Indian History contributes to the growing literature of dissent against the "standard" textbooks of India's history. A conspiracy to feed Hindus with absolute DIS-INFORMATION , FABRICATION & FALSIFICATION OF INDIAN HISTORY in Indian School Text Books . Congress Government is using Hindu Money to kill Hindus & Hinduism. Dividing us on basis of RACE ...since Hinduism Unites us all. "The massacres perpetuated by Muslims in India are unparalleled in history, bigger than the Holocaust of the Jews by the Nazis; or the massacre of the Armenians by the Turks; more extensive even than the slaughter of the South American native populations by the invading Spanish and Portuguese." Much of Modern Day North Indian Population are propably Decendents of Islamic Invadors ...all of us Hindus in northern india have muslim blood ..since our ancestors were raped & mutilated by islamic Invadors. more

Resolved Question: How should I register? Republican or Democrat? I’m interested in a career in politics?

I am still young and confused about how I should register. Here are my views. After you tell me what I should register as can you tell me if you would ever support me in an election. I believe in lower taxes, I agree with a flat income tax and a flat sales tax. I also support a sales tax holiday to last thru the month of December to boost buying. I think that lower taxes and ax breaks should be used as incentives for companies to come back to the US and so that small businesses and entrepreneurs have a fair shot. I am a believer in capitalism with some regulation (health benefits, workers comp, and work hours obviously). I think that a good program would be a small business bond program where average Americans can lend money to government in secured loan with interests, so that that money can then be lent to small businesses but lenders would get money back with interest. I also believe that taxes should not control behavior but instead should be used as a way to receive revenue. On social issues. I believe that a civil union for any two consenting adults is a must but am opposed to calling it marriage because marriage is a religious ceremony. When it comes to abortion I strongly oppose it and believe that government money should not be used to fund abortions. I do believe though that it must remain legal but that people that do it should do it with their own money. I oppose GOVERNMENT funding of stem cell research and cloning. On foreign policy. I am against entangling alliances and I believe that our military resources should be used only for self-defense (Ex. 9/11). I also have my own philosophy called “western-hemispherianism”, where I think that the US should its private sector should instead negotiate and create jobs in the western hemisphere rather than in eastern countries like China and India. Doing so would weaken our political enemies and bring an end to the immigration crisis (the biggest reason why people migrate is lack of jobs). On that note I am strongly against illegal immigration. I support raids and deportation and the construction and investment in more border security. I believe in protectionist policies (tariffs) against companies that have jobs in eastern countries. On social security I oppose it except for helping those with disabilities and widows. I do not believe that retirees should be supported by the government but that they should rather have personal responsibility and save for the future. They should be able to use their money to invest how over they like. When it comes to welfare I believe that irresponsible parents and people who do not seek a job or an education. Welfare should be used and not abused. On energy I believe in investing in nuclear, clean coal, geothermal, solar, natural gas, bio-fuels, and the exploitation of OUR fossil fuels. I believe in energy independence. When it comes to health I think that workers should be able to choose to keep their own health insurance thru their jobs, purchase on their own. I also support legislation where hospitals and clinics can enlist their services in a database and where they promise to provide services to families that can prove that they have a wage of under $50,000. In exchange I would promise the hospital an annual $1 billion and clinics $4million (excludes cosmetic procedures and abortions). I support cancer research and AIDS research as well as autism research. Finally!Education. I think that the system needs to go through some serious reform. Teacher’s abilities should be tested by their respective states. States should also make legislation to not allow cell phone access in schools. They should also make contracts with internet service providers to make sure that all schools have access to the internet and that students have their textbooks. I am also a supporter of the voucher program for students who wish to apply for alternative schools. I also wish we had a program where students who graduate college/apprenticeship for example can receive a $1500 bonus after they graduate. I also think that cities should create local workshops paid by the government where students can go to and get tutoring free of charge by college students in certain fields (mathematics,literature). This could count as work study for college students while at the same time prepping elementary and high school kids. AND OF COURSE PARENTS MUST DO THEIR PART!sure unka dano more

Resolved Question: Do I have to purchase teacher and student editions?

I'm homeschooling my daughter and am on a strict budget (can only spend around $300) so I can't really afford both.If I did only buy student textbooks how would I grade her homework? What about assignments and tests? Could I possibly just buy teacher textbooks and just tell her not to look at the answers? Here are the textbooks I'm getting: Latin For Americans 2 - 0078742536 Introduction To Psychology - 0155050699 Macroeconomics - 0073273082 American Passage:A History of the U.S. - 0495050156 Understanding Literature - 0618405402 Saxon Geometry - 160277305x more

Resolved Question: Where can I read High school textbooks online?

I forgot my English textbook at school and I have to outline a chapter about Spanish Explores, Smith, and Bradford in a book entitled "adventures in american literature: The athena edition" Where can I read the pages online. The first link that takes me to the exact site about the book gets the 10 points. Please help. more

Resolved Question: would u like to know what some non muslim scientists comment on the Qu'ranic miracles?

Resolved Question: Give me feedback.. What does it mean to be a high school writer?

What Does It Mean To Be A High School Writer? Different theories effect how literacy influences adolescents today. In 1980, many scholars believed memorization was the way to literacy in England (Rigby pg. 459). In Rome, learning phonics was the path to a literate life (Bertonneau spara. 4), Now, Riesland argues over whether writing is even necessary to be considered literate (Riesland para 9). Knowing these alternative teaching methods we are urged to conform to each teacher's classification. High school writing is a game, we start playing it at a very young age. The purpose is to write according to what you think the teacher find acceptable. We write with caution since the finished result will be picked apart and inspected. When in class, everything that we do is based on the grade. We take notes, not on what we believe is interesting, but on what we think the teacher believes is important, our own ideas are pushed aside to make room for the instructor's thoughts. The whole concept of high school is to obtain an 'A', even at elementary level, when students are given a task they reluctantly grab a pen and halfheartedly jot down something, anything apt enough to obtain the grade that they want. Will they write to their fullest potential if they already wrote what will get them a satisfactory grade? No, they will simply leave their paper as is, total “bull” (Perry.); lacking the “umph” it needed to be an honorable piece of literature. We lack motivation and are too lazy to think. “Thinking, as Voltaire avowed, is a very tedious process which men or women will do anything to avoid.” (Hunt) We need a society that does not just look at grades. William Perry, a scholar who studied the relation between education and the development of personality, concluded that universities are looking for a black and white answer. Perry contrasts two epistemologies, one he calls “bull”, and the other known as “cow”. Essentially, bull is more analytical, and does not involve data or facts. Conversely, cow is pure textbook fact. According to Perry, “the grades which we assign on examinations communicate to students what [the professors beliefs] may be” Who is to judge if your paper is literate or not? According to Gee, literacy is based on your social context. If you can “[use] language and [make] sense in [your] speech and writing” you are considered literate. (Gee.) Is the paper fully cow or is it pure bull, and how does one decide which acquires a better grade if they are both deserving of E's? High school writer is being locked into a specific definition for the word 'literacy'. Different areas have different expectations, Street argues that there is no definition for the word literacy; it “is not a measure… of skills, but [of] social practices that vary from one context to another.”(Street.) Riesland says that the “definition of literacy is outdated and that the new definition must account for the technologically evolving landscape.”( Riesland para. 2-3) A variety of people will judge what they think literacy is differently. A wealthy Maine Line teacher's idea of it is going to be extremely dissimilar to an elderly teacher in Uganda. Literacy has to do with relativity of people and the context they use it in. After delving into the many different pieces talking about literature I feel that I am more lost now than I was when I started writing this paper. Gee, Hunt, Street, and Perry are all intellectuals with totally different perspectives on the topic of literacy. I learned that there is no correct way of measuring if someone is literate or not. A high school writer is just conforming to their teacher's theory. I hope after you read this you will learn to think outside of the box, no one thinks in black and white, so do not be afraid to write in color. Students should stop cheating themselves of insightful work. It is better to argue something and find challenging questions, than to accept something as is. Even if you never get hold of an answer, it is more rewarding to know you strived for it. That sense of accomplishment is the best feeling you will ever have. Works Cited Bertonneau, Thomas. "Phonics, "Whole Language," and Literacy: the Alphabet and American Education." Michigan Education Report 10 Feb. 2000. 29 Feb. 2008 <http://www.mackinac.org/pubs/mer/article.aspx?ID=2697>. Gee, J. “11 Orality and Literacy: From the Savage Mind to Ways with Words” (2004): 169-169. Hunt, D, "Misunderstanding the Assignment." (2002): 62-65. Perry, William G. "Examsmanship and the Liberal Arts." 51-54. Riesland, Erin. "Visual Literacy and the Classroom." New Horizons for Learning. Mar. 2005. 29 Feb. 2008 <http://home.blarg.net/~building/strategies/literacy/riesland.htm>. Rigby, Stephen H. A Companion to Britain in the Later Middle Ages. Blackwell, 2002. Google Book Search. 29 Feb. 2008 <http://books.google.com/books?id=H4gfZGPDuu8C&pg=PA453&lpg=PA453&dq=literacy+memorization+of+grammar+scholar&source=web&ots=DwHi_URu6Z&sig=UHU8BdSk7ICyRDzQBIBKtoq8bZ4&hl=en>. Street, B. "Literacies Across Cultural Contexts." Encyclopedia of Language and Literacy 2 (2008): 2-3.I want people to disagree and argue with my ideathis is for school so please, I need feedback and I want you to dispute my idea more

Resolved Question: Where can I find American Lit. CLEP resources?

I am going to clep American Literature for my college degree. I need to find online resources, textbooks, etc. to help me learn all of this material. Any free/cheap resources you can tell me about would be greatly appreciated! Thank you. :) more

Resolved Question: I read this poem.......?

I read this poem out of my 8th grade English Textbook. The textbook is Elements of Literature, Second Course ( I go to school in Ny if that helps at all). The poem is about two African-American siters and the title of the poem is Sisters. I just need to know the author. I know it's by an African-American person also. Here are some of the lines out of the poem: Me and you be sisters We be running up and down the street Me and you be greasing our legs ............ Me and you get 35 get babies get black ....... you sing i poet. Thats not all of them but those are the ones that I can remember. more

Resolved Question: Do you belong to the "new Church of Global Warming"?

Resolved Question: Do u think this is true?

and plz read the whole thing it took forever to write. There are words in our language that seem to lead inevitably to controversy. This is surely true for the words "equality" and "race." And yet among well informed people, there is little disagreement as to what these words should mean, in part because various advances in biological science have produced a better understanding of the human condition. Let me begin with race. There is a widespread feeling that the word "race" indicates something undesirable and that it should be left out of all discussions. This leads to such statements as "there are no human races." Those who subscribe to this opinion are obviously ignorant of modern biology. Races are not something specifically human; races occur in a large percentage of species of animals. You can read in every textbook on evolution that geographic races of animals, when isolated from other races of their species, may in due time become new species. The terms "subspecies" and "geographic race" are used interchangeably in this taxonomic literature. This at once raises a question: are there races in the human species? After all, the characteristics of most animal races are strictly genetic, while human races have been marked by nongenetic, cultural attributes that have very much affected their overt characteristics. Performance in human activities is influenced not only by the genotype but also by culturally acquired attitudes. What would be ideal, therefore, would be to partition the phenotype of every human individual into genetic and cultural components. Alas, so far we have not yet found any reliable technique to do this. What we can do is acknowledge that any recorded differences between human races are probably composed of cultural as well as genetic elements. Indeed, the cause of many important group differences may turn out to be entirely cultural, without any genetic component at all. Still, if I introduce you to an Eskimo and a Kalahari Bushman I won't have much trouble convincing you that they belong to different races. In a recent textbook of taxonomy, I defined a "geographic race" or subspecies as "an aggregate of phenotypically similar populations of a species inhabiting a geographic subdivision of the range of that species and differing taxonomically from other populations of that species." A subspecies is a geographic race that is sufficiently different taxonomically to be worthy of a separate name. What is characteristic of a geographic race is, first, that it is restricted to a geographic subdivision of the range of a species, and second, that in spite of certain diagnostic differences, it is part of a larger species. No matter what the cause of the racial difference might be, the fact that species of organisms may have geographic races has been demonstrated so frequently that it can no longer be denied. And the geographic races of the human species - established before the voyages of European discovery and subsequent rise of a global economy - agree in most characteristics with the geographic races of animals. Recognizing races is only recognizing a biological fact. Still, the biological fact by itself does not foreclose giving various answers to the question, What is race? In particular, adherence to different political and moral philosophies, as we shall see, permits rather different answers. But I believe it is useful at the outset to bracket the cultural factors and explore some of the implications of a strictly biological approach. The evolutionary literature explains why there are geographic races. Every local population of a species has its own gene pool with its own mutations and errors of sampling. And every population is subject to selection by the local environment. There is now a large literature on the environmental factors that may influence the geographic variation of a species. For example, populations of warm-blooded vertebrates (mammals and birds) in the colder part of their geographical range tend to larger size (Bergmann's rule). Darwin wondered whether these climatic factors were sufficient to account for the differences between geographic races in the human species. He finally concluded that sexual selection, the preference of women for certain types of men, might be another factor leading to differences between geographic races. This kind of biological analysis is necessary but not sufficient. By itself, biology cannot explain the vehemence of the modern controversy over race. Historically, the word "race" has had very different meanings for different people holding different political philosophies. Furthermore, in the last two hundred years there has been a change in the dominant philosophy of race. In the eighteenth century, when America's Constitution was written, all our concepts were dominated by the thinking of the physical sciences. Classes of entities were conceived in terms of Platonic essentialism. Each class (eidos) corresponded to a definite type that was constant and invariant. Variation never entered into discussions because it was considered to be "accidental" and hence irrelevant. A different race was considered a different type. A white European was a different type from a black African. This went so far that certain authors considered the human races to be different species. It was the great, and far too little appreciated, achievement of Charles Darwin to have replaced this typological approach by what we now call population thinking. In this new thinking, the biological uniqueness of every individual is recognized, and the inhabitants of a certain geographic region are considered a biopopulation. In such a biopopulation, no two individuals are the same, and this is true even for the six billion humans now on Earth. And, most important, each biopopulation is highly variable, and its individuals greatly differ from each other, thanks to the unique genetic combinations that result from this variability. Let me illustrate the implications of individual differences by analyzing the outcome of the 2001 Boston marathon. Kenyans are a population famous for producing long-distance runners. Three Kenyans had entered the race, and it was predicted that they would end the race as numbers one, two, and three. However, to everybody's great surprise, the winner was a Korean, and, even more surprisingly, number two was an Ecuadorian from a population that had never been credited with long-distance running abilities. It was a clear refutation of a typological - or essentialist - approach to thinking about race. In a Darwinian population, there is great variation around a mean value. This variation has reality, while the mean value is simply an abstraction. One must treat each individual on the basis of his or her own unique abilities, and not on the basis of the group's mean value. At the same time, nothing could be more meaningless than to evaluate races in terms of their putative "superiority." Superiority where, when, and under what circumstances? During the period of the development of the human races, each one became adapted to the condition of its geographic location. Put a Bushman and an Eskimo in the Kalahari Desert and the Bushman is very much superior; put a Bushman and an Eskimo on the Greenland ice and the Eskimo is by far superior. The Australian Aborigines were very successful in colonizing Australia around sixty thousand years ago and developed local races with their own culture. Yet they could not defend themselves against European invaders. What happened to the human population in this case of European colonization is comparable to what happened to the biota of New Zealand - a case that Darwin studied. When British animals and plants were introduced into New Zealand, many native species were not able to cope with this new competition and became extinct. In both cases, the success of the European populations of plants, animals, and colonists may have been simply due to a constellation of favorable geographic factors. There is no evidence at all that it was due to some intrinsic genetic "superiority." When dealing with human races we must think of them as the inhabitants of the geographic region in which they had originated. Presumably each human race consists of individuals who, on average and in certain ways, are demonstrably superior to the average individual of another race. Eskimos, for instance, are superior in their adaptedness to cold. In the last four or five Olympics there were always six to eight contenders of African descent among the ten finalists in the sprinting races, surely not an accidental percentage. These considerations should teach us how we should think about human races. A human race consists of the descendants of a once-isolated geographical population primarily adapted for the environmental conditions of their original home country. But, as is illustrated by the success of Europeans and Africans and Asians in all parts of the world, any race is capable of living anywhere. Most importantly, a race is always highly variable: any human race will include a wide variety of extraordinary individuals who excel in very different human abilities. When comparing one race with another, we do find genes that are on the whole specific for certain populations. Many individuals of Native American descent have the Diego blood group factors, and people of Jewish descent have a propensity for Tay-Sachs disease. Some of these characteristics are virtually diagnostic, but most are merely quantitative, like the description of the human races in older anthropology textbooks describing skin color, hair, eye color, body size, etc. An ensemble of such characteristics usually permits classifying an individual in the relevant race. All these characteristics are nevertheless highly variable, and it is virtually impossible to classify every individual definitively, especially in those areas where one geographic race merges into another (as is true, for example, for the human population of modern-day America). Curiously, when people make derogatory statements about members of other races, they often do not refer to biological traits at all, but rather to putative character traits: members of a certain racial group are said to be lazy, dishonest, unreliable, thievish, arrogant, etc. There is no scientific evidence of a genetic basis for any such negative traits. There is also no scientific evidence known to me that the genetic differences we do discover among the human races have any influence at all on personality. Most of the mentioned undesirable personality traits, if they are at all correlated with specific human populations, are obviously cultural and therefore open to change through appropriate forms of education. It is generally unwise to assume that every apparent difference in traits between populations of human beings has a biological cause. In a recent aptitude test administered in California, students of Asian descent did conspicuously better than students of African descent. Researchers evaluating these results subsequently discovered that in the year preceding the test, the Asian-American students had spent a daily average of three hours on homework, while the African-American students had done virtually no homework at all. The test results by themselves cannot tell us what percentage of the superior performance by the Asian-American students was due to their genetic endowment and what percentage to the cultural trait of being better prepared for the test thanks to spending, on the whole, far more time on homework than the African-American students did. One can conclude from these observations that although there are certain genetic differences between races, there is no genetic evidence whatsoever to justify the uncomplimentary evaluation that members of one race have sometimes made of members of other races. There simply is no biological basis for racism. Indeed, what is far more important than the differences between human races is the enormous variation within each racial group. We must always keep in mind that no two human beings even so-called identical twins - are in fact genetically identical. When encountering a lying member of another race, nothing would be more illogical - and unjust - than to conclude that all members of that race are liars. Likewise, if one encountered a particularly warmhearted member of a different race, it would be equally foolish to conclude that all members of that race are equally warmhearted. To avoid such mistakes, it is useful to apply the population thinking pioneered by Darwin. It also helps to adopt the motto "They are like us." This was my motto more than seventy years ago when I became one of the first outsiders to visit a native village in the interior of New Guinea. Invariably, they are like us. Whenever I lived with one of these relatively isolated populations of human beings for any length of time, it did not take me long to discover the differences in the personalities of the individuals with whom I had to deal. The rule that no individuals are the same was as true for the Stone Age natives of New Guinea as it is for a group of my Harvard colleagues. A lot of our human difficulties are due to people forgetting the simple rule that no two people are the same. So what, if anything, does biology, and specifically the biological understanding of race, have to teach us about the concept of equality? In the first place, the biological facts may help to remind us just how new the political concept of equality really is. When we look at social species of animals, we discover that there is always a rank order. There may be an alpha-male or an alpha-female, and all other individuals of the group fall somewhere below them in the rank order. A similar rank-ordering has long marked many human societies as well. During the years I lived in a small village of Papuans in the mountains of New Guinea, the local chief had three wives, other high-ranking members of the village had one, and a number of "inferior" tribesmen had no wives at all. Nineteenth-century British society distinguished clearly between aristocrats, gentlemen, and common workingmen. As George Eliot describes in the novel Middlemarch, there was even a rank order within each of these major classes. As a historian of science, I am inclined to believe that the scientific revolution of the eighteenth century helped to promote new ways of thinking about equality. From the perspective of Newtonian essentialism, all samples of a chemical element are identical and, as modern physics assumes, so are nuclear particles. Equality of this sort is a universal phenomenon. Perhaps it was only a small step from Newtonian essentialism to the moral proposition that all human beings are essentially equal, and therefore should have equal rights. As is true of the word "race," "equality" has come to mean different things to different people. I take it for granted that every good American accepts the principle of civil equality. This means equal opportunity, equality before the law, and equality in social interactions. To have elaborated this principle is one of the glorious achievements of the American Revolution. Still, the principle cannot in many contexts be applied concretely, for the kinds of biological reasons I have already discussed. No two human individuals are genetically the same. Paradoxically, it is precisely because the human population is genetically and culturally so diverse that we need a principle of civil equality. Anybody should be able to enjoy the benefits of our liberal society in spite of differences of religion, race, or socioeconomic status. Regardless of whether the difference in performance between individuals, or two groups, has biological or purely cultural causes, it is our moral obligation to see to it that each individual and group has an equal opportunity. The great British geneticist J. B. S. Haldane asked what we can do to provide equal opportunities to all members of our society, regardless of any differences in ability. He said we simply have to provide more opportunities, we must diversify our educational curricula, and we must offer new incentives. These reflections on the biology of race and the concept of equality suggest the following conclusions: * Every single human being is biologically unique and differs in major characteristics even from close relatives. * Geographical groups of humans, what biologists call races, tend to differ from each other in mean differences and sometimes even in specific single genes. But when it comes to the capacities that are required for the optimal functioning of our society, I am sure that the performance of any individual in any racial group can be matched by that of some individual in another racial group. This is what a population analysis reveals. * In small groups of primitive human beings, just as in all groups created by social animals, there is a rank order, with certain individuals being dominant. * In the large human societies that developed after the origin of agriculture and the rise of cities, new systems of ranking became established, of which the European feudal societies of the fourteenth to the eighteenth century were typical. * Democracy, including the principle of civil equality, emerged during the Enlightenment and became fully established through the American Revolution and incorporated in the Constitution of the new American republic. * When Thomas Jefferson proclaimed that " all men are created equal," he failed to distinguish between the civil equality of individual human beings and their biological uniqueness. Even though all of us are in principle equal before the law and ought to enjoy an equality of opportunity, we may be very different in our preferences and aptitudes. And if this is ignored, it may well lead to discord. * It is our obligation to overcome the seeming conflict between a strict upholding of civil equality and the vast biological and cultural differences among individual human beings and groups of individuals. The introduction of new educational measures and even legislation to overcome existing inequalities will be successful only if based on a full understanding of the underlying biological and cultural factors. more

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