If humans had as much genetic variation as dogs...

[DeeryTheDeer]

What would they look like?

[Thatperson]

Humans have massive amounts of genetic variations, you can see this between the races.

[mcwillis]

What would they look like? I was thinking about this the other day. It really is impressive how many variations of dog there are in the world. I met an 8 month old springer spaniel last week, she was so cute and gorgeous and the funny thing about spaniels is they are so excited to greet humans

[Xei]

There are objective statistical measures you can do on these things. I Googled but couldn't find any comparative figures. Roughly 1 in every 1,000 base pairs are different between two arbitrary humans. There's much less research into dogs.

[Thatperson]

then again, its only 10 base pairs between an arbitrary human and an arbitrary chimpanzee.

[sanctum]

Actually, humans have relatively little genetic variation compared to other species. A possible explanation is when a period of freezing temperatures in Europe coupled with a drought in Africa killed all "cavemen" except for a few (estimated around 600?) who were smart enough to change their diets to living off the ocean. Some biologists think we descended from this tiny group of individuals. This is known as the bottleneck effect. Most humans have similar body proportions and shapes, whether tall/short, fat/skinny. Imagine human equivalents of mastiffs and golden retrievers walking around with corgies and poodles! I imagine some humans would have more smushed faces than they usually do. Some would have really short limbs or unusual torso/legs proportions. We'd also probably have crazy hair. The possibilites are hard to pinpoint.

[Xei]

then again, its only 10 base pairs between an arbitrary human and an arbitrary chimpanzee. Nnno. You clearly have no conception of genetics. This isn't a big surprise.

[Izrail]

races Careful, love, it's 2012. Despite how I heartily appreciate your irony, continual use of such archaic terms is inevitably classifying your intellect as subpar. That's the last thing you need when arguing certain peoples to be lesser than you. In regard to OP, Imagine human equivalents of mastiffs and golden retrievers walking around with corgies and poodles! I imagine some humans would have more smushed faces than they usually do. Some would have really short limbs or unusual torso/legs proportions. We'd also probably have crazy hair. The possibilites are hard to pinpoint. I think sanctum summed it up fairly well. It is funny to visualize. I imagine a childrens' book series would do well encompassing such a world, if you have any entrepreneurial tendencies and are a fan of writing and drawing, DeeryTheDeer.

[Alric]

It is probably good we don't have as big as differences as there are with dogs, because the group of 12 foot tall people would probably go all crazy beating up the three foot tall people.

[Xei]

We probably do have the alleles in the population, it's just that the nature of human society is to mingle the outliers, rather than find another outlier for them to mate with, which leads to a continuum. With dogs it's the other way round; we isolate the outliers and segment the population, which accentuates the differences. I imagine that humans have just as wide a variety of genetic material, it's just that it's evenly distributed, whereas with dogs various complementary bits are clumped together.

[mcwillis]

It is probably good we don't have as big as differences as there are with dogs, because the group of 12 foot tall people would probably go all crazy beating up the three foot tall people.

[Original Poster]

What would they look like? I'd imagine it'd be a lot like Elder Scrolls Universe, with more half-breeds