My post a few days ago about multiracial humans elicated many comments, and not all of them were flip or for amusement. There are some serious issues, like synergistic and antagonistic epistasis, which I would like to explore in the future. But, I think there are two primary “take home” points:
1) Aside from cases of problematic populations with recessive diseases (frankly, I think Ashkenazi Jews fall under this) the fitness benefit of outbreeding does not stand out so much as to be of great comment in the grand scheme of how you fix upon your one and only. I don’t even think it really is a big issue socially in a genetic sense (as even mild levels of inbreeding can be).
2) On the other hand, the expected variance of the outcome might be greater than you would otherwise get in a homogenous population (if all your marbles are black, your expected outcomes are all black, but if you throw marbles of indeterminate color there is going to be wide range of outcomes whose probabilities are conditional upon the sample proportions).
By the latter point, I mean that greater underlying genetic variation within admixed populations (ergo, the potential in individuals) results in a more fully explored range of phenotypes (more novel combinations), this implies that more and less “fit” adaptive territory maybe explored by this population. There are lots of qualifications here, as “fitness” is contextual. One could make a case that the strategy you, dear reader, should follow as an individual should be premised upon your risk vs. yield outcome. If you are a “high quality” individual, perhaps let the die fly in the hopes of spawning the Übermensch. On the other hand, if you aren’t exactly a catch, perhaps it is best to play it safe and minimize the risk of plumbing the deepest depths of the fitness landscape. The fair Eurasian lady pictured above has had the longest lasting Neutrogena contract yet.* Could it be that her hybrid vigor has imparted upon her skin a youthful pallor unmatched in either Europeans or East Asians? Who the hell knows? But science is all about unanswered questions.
* As the citation is Wikipedia I make no guarantee that the link will corroborate my claim!
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