While I enjoy the subject matter of our conversation I don't wish to risk going too far off topic, so I'll only state my following opinions and leave it at that.
1. We mostly agree on the difference in definitions of the terminology, Caucasian and Aryan. I however, having done much research on the subject, will always insist without further comment that Aryan did mean "white" (in addition to "noble and superior") to the originators of that particular term.
(Note that I'm only saying it meant that to the originators of the term, themselves. In my **personal opinion** "Aryan" is/was a grandiose, narcissistic, even phony, self-label. For reasons I'd rather not get into here.)
2. With respect to the definition of Caucasian (with thanks to Erica for clarifying the fact that the US does NOT use that term on censuses, etc.) -- early genetic anthropologists routinely divided "Caucasian" into three distinct subcategories, based on specific differences among them:
1. Dinaric (Mediterranean, Southern peninsular European, North/East African, Arabic),
2. Alpine (French, Swiss, etc. people living in the mountainous interior and river basins of Europe), and
3. Nordic (Scandinavian or Atlantean i.e. North European and Atlantic Coastal).
And then there were the Basque, Celtic, Gaul, Germanic and Slavic tribes, sort of corralled, more or less, as much as possible, within the three broad 'European' categories.
Alpine thought by some to have been a blend of Dinaric and Nordic, furthermore.
Most of what I stated above about the 'history of race classification' is highly debatable and certainly outdated, to be taken with grains of salt; and as such I'm not sitting here with text books open for verification. This is just a generalized summary based solely on my fuzzy memory, so if you disagree or wish to correct or add anything, please allow me to simply acknowledge it in advance and move on. I'm not here to prove outdated theories, just adding my own two cents to the conversation.
Because as Erica rightly pointed out, it is an incredibly complicated subject.
And I should add: with aspects and theories that may be a bit too 'out there' and/or controversial for a Geni forum.
And as Saga implied, modern population genetics has already made significant progress in our understanding of human origins, although in my opinion it has yet only barely scratched the surface and is subject to a considerable degree of bias.
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