CE QUE NOUS APPORTE LA NATURE

• Published in: Civilisations 1986-01, Vol.35 (1), p.167-182
• Main Author: JACQUARD, Albert
• Format: Article
• Language: fre
• ISSN: 0009-8140

In looking at the phenomen of man's genesis and propagation, it is advisable to draw a line between his innate and acquired characteristics, between what he derives from nature and what is the result of chance. Even if certain of an individual's characteristics do stem from the luck of the genetic draw, it nevertheless becomes possible to break free from genetic constraints as soon as the causal chain becomes variagated. In particular, even if a person's intellectual abilities are dependent on his genetic inheritance, they are not specifically determined by these constraints. Since it has never been possible to prove either the genetic or the natural origin of any intellectual characteristic, the theory of natural talent must be rejected in its totality. Attempts by anthropologists and geneticists to define the concept of race have all ended in failure. In fact, what the geneticists have arrived at is another conclusion. There must be a process of natural selection or of genetic drift for two populations belonging to the same species to differ. All that is required is some slight migratory movement between the two populations to eliminate the differences in their genetic structures brought about by selection and drift over many generations. In the case of humanity, such cases of isolation are very much the exception. Thus, whatever humanity's diversity, it is not possible to trace boundaries enabling different races to be identified.