I didn’t get to watch Battlestar Galactica last night since my daughter came to me about 15 minutes into the program and wanted to share her thoughts on evolution and racism.

Her observation was that animals are often hostile to nearly-related species. Bengal Tigers don’t get along with Indochinese Tigers. Cheetahs and leopards don’t pal around. They compete for the some of same resources, but aren’t of the same group.

And so it would be understandable for the different human races to have some hostility to each other. People who look different from your group will compete for the resources you seek but cannot be expected to contribute to your group’s health.

I thought that was a much more realistic insight than that “racism is taught by racist parents” silliness. The insight holds up much better with social animals than mostly solitary animals like the big cats. There’s an automatic in-group/out-group determination with wolves, coyotes, great apes, etc.

So racism is a vestige of evolution, but something that we can choose to overcome.

I thought it was worth missing some TV to hear that come from my daughter.