Abstract
PROF. A. A. ABBIE's statements1 concerning two of my papers2,3 on the genetics of the Australian aborigines cannot be allowed to pass unanswered. Prof. Abbie admits that he is not a geneticist, yet he throws doubt on genetical methods of racial study, even suggesting that nearly three months in Australia was insufficient time for me to obtain reliable results. He is unwilling to recognize that anatomy can only make comparisons between racial types, while genetical methods of family study in crosses give an analysis of racial differences and are thus of far greater significance. His thesis appears to be that the aboriginal population of the whole continent is a unit, and that all the evidence which shows the presence of mixed elements must be resisted or denied.
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Abbie, A. A., Nature, 187, 375 (1960).
Gates, R. Ruggles, Acta Genet. Med. et Gemell., 9, 7 (1960).
Gates, R. Ruggles, Z. Morph. Anthrop., 50, 150 (1960).
Tindale, N. B., and Birdsell, J. B., Rec. S. Aust. Mus., 7, 1 (1941).
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GATES, R. Australian Aborigines and Genetics. Nature 189, 423 (1961). https://doi.org/10.1038/189423a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/189423a0
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