History Channel's "Big History" and the origin of race

"Big History" is a pretty interesting documentary series.

For those of you who like science and are interested in theories of how "race" came about, you might like episode below.

http://www.hulu.com/watch/556777

It's one of the first I've seen that actually portrays the first people to live in europe as black africans.

Would be interesting to hear opinions on this episode.

Though I have my quibbles, the whole "big history" series is pretty thought-provoking.

 

"Race", a meaningless term in human biology, primarily came about in the eighteenth century.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Friedrich_Blumenbach

It is an error to attribute phenotypical differentiation in human appearance as the result of natural selection as evidence of racial categorization.

 

would be nice, but now that the genie is out of the bottle, it has plenty of meaning to most people.

Ask any asian girl if race is meaningless. Or take any hispanic - so mixed you have no clue where to categorize them - and ask them if race is meaningless.

 

Agreed