Genetic Differentiation of Races of Man as Judged by Single-Locus and Multilocus Analyses

A reanalysis of previous estimates of the degree of racial differentiation in man based upon blood group frequencies points out systematic underestimates inherent in the methods. A comparison of several measures of genetic distance indicates that the Shannon-Wiener information statistic is not sensitive to the appropriate range of gene frequency differences found between populations of man, and estimates of genetic distance averaged over several or many loci may disguise substantial differentiation. A measure of genetic distance incorporating information from several loci simultaneously is applied to blood group data, and substantial differentiation between races is identified. The implications of these preliminary results are discussed.