6 ms·

How Genetics Is Changing Our Understanding of ‘Race’

56 points by marchenko 9y ago

apk-d 9y ago
There is no race, it's all just brains doing overactive classification. I wish that we got over this as a species already.
- nyolfen 9y ago
  from the article: > It is true that race is a social construct. It is also true, as Dr. Lewontin wrote, that human populations “are remarkably similar to each other” from a genetic point of view. > But over the years this consensus has morphed, seemingly without questioning, into an orthodoxy. The orthodoxy maintains that the average genetic differences among people grouped according to today’s racial terms are so trivial when it comes to any meaningful biological traits that those differences can be ignored. Continue reading the main story Related Coverage > The orthodoxy goes further, holding that we should be anxious about any research into genetic differences among populations. The concern is that such research, no matter how well-intentioned, is located on a slippery slope that leads to the kinds of pseudoscientific arguments about biological difference that were used in the past to try to justify the slave trade, the eugenics movement and the Nazis’ murder of six million Jews. > I have deep sympathy for the concern that genetic discoveries could be misused to justify racism. But as a geneticist I also know that it is simply no longer possible to ignore average genetic differences among “races.”
- thathappened 9y ago
  Everything is relative and nothing is unique at a large enough spectrum
  - ravenstine 9y ago
    Arguments made by people claiming that there's no such thing as race, such as this one, seem to have this underlying premise that while certain thing are relative, other things are objective. Yet they have no possible way of backing this up because their own experience of the world is relative. Ironically, ideas are as close as we can get to real objectivism. When it comes to the mechanics of the universe, everything is fundamentally relative. So claiming that humans making consistent classifications of each other isn't legitimate doesn't make sense.
- fouric 9y ago
  Prove your statement, please.
- bobcostas55 9y ago
  I'm afraid this view is completely incompatible with the findings in population genetics. Two papers to get you started: * Genetic Structure, Self-Identified Race/Ethnicity, and Confounding in Case-Control Association Studies https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1196372/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1196372/ * Genetic Structure of Human Populations https://rosenberglab.stanford.edu/papers/popstruct.pdf https://rosenberglab.stanford.edu/papers/popstruct.pdf
  - klenwell 9y ago
    Glancing at your first citation, nothing in the summary seems to challenge the idea that people of all races see much bigger differences among races (for example, when someone like James Damore start dogwhistling IQ tests in their footnotes) than actually exist genetically. Sure, there are genetic distinctions among groups of people. But as soon as someone mentions black or white people, the discussion isn't about these kind of fine genetic distinctions. They're about stereotypes that are much more social than they are genetic. Now in the political realm, the significance of these terms and the groups is completely different because of the way groups have been treated historically on the basis not of these fine genetic distinctions but rather these crude social racial/ethnic identifications. I'd prefer we avoided using footnotes pointing to scientific publications to oversimplify more complex political discussions or to justify the economic and social marginalization of historically disadvantaged groups based on purposeful misreading.
    - Consultant32452 9y ago
      >justify the economic and social marginalization of historical disadvantaged groups based on purposeful misreading. This wouldn't be a problem if we weren't measuring economic and social marginalization by outcome, particularly when it comes to systemic bias. If we can't have a sober look at the inputs, I'm afraid we can't say anything meaningful about the outputs.
    - Berobero 9y ago
      I agree with you, but I would also note that the original person being replied to seems to be committing a common colloquial misunderstanding in regards to social constructions; just because something is socially constructed does not mean it's not real. Race is absolutely real, regardless of the degree to which genetics does or doesn't correlate with it, because we make it real in our day to day interactions. But your point is succinct: just because you can group people using genetic markers into clusters that align well with our society's typical social categorization of race does by no means validate a genetic basis for all the other sociocultural baggage that we associate with those categories. The most it seems to do particularly in regards to the social category of race is show that genetic markers useful for identifying kinship (I'd file that under "duh"). It's interesting to note, for me, that the analysis of the first paper works just fine for 2 clusters as well (basically East Asian and everyone else), but those super-racial groupings don't exist in the US to my knowledge.
- toasterlovin 9y ago
  The fact that there are observable aggregate genetic differences between groups of humans does not endanger the proposition that all human groups have equal moral worth. But denying that race is a real thing sure does give a lot of oxygen to people with bad ideas.
  - jrimbault 9y ago
    The issue is semantic, the word "race" when applied to the human species doesn't have the same meaning when applied to other species.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
  - make3 9y ago
    moral worth and capacities
    - moduspol 9y ago
      Do all races have equal capacity to play professional basketball? If not, what rational basis could one have in claiming all races must have equal capacity in other areas?
      - JBReefer 9y ago
        Fundamentally, creating policy based on racial capacity cannot end in a moral place. Every single time governments/societies start down that path, it ends poorly. Frankly, who gives a shit. It seems better to me to live in a world that's .000005% less efficiently allocated than it is to live in the caste system that always emerges from that path.
        FeepingCreature 9y ago
        Yeah but you've broken a sanctity to take that 0.00005% away. You've opened the door to instrumentalizing science, formerly the pursuit of truth, for political gain. And I know everybody's doing that already, but there's a difference between everybody doing it and everybody being okay with it. One of those is salvageable, the other isn't.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- ars 9y ago
  If we were not analyzing ourself the different races would be called different species, never mind races. Butterflies are called different species based on much smaller differences. Or for example the two moths in: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peppered_moth_evolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peppered_moth_evolution Calling different races different species obviously would upset people, so we don't. But let's not pretend the differences don't exist.
  - mikeash 9y ago
    “These forms are often accidentally elevated to subspecies status when they appear in literature. Not adding the ‘f.’ (form) or morpha implies that the taxon is a subspecies instead of a form, as in Biston betularia carbonaria instead of Biston betularia f. carbonaria. Rarely forms have been elevated to species status as in Biston carbonaria. Either of these two circumstances might lead to the erroneous belief that speciation was involved in the observed evolution of the peppered moth. This is not the case; individuals of each morph interbreed and produce fertile offspring with individuals of all other morphs; hence there is only one peppered moth species.” - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peppered_moth https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peppered_moth
    - thaumasiotes 9y ago
      > individuals of each morph interbreed and produce fertile offspring with individuals of all other morphs; hence there is only one peppered moth species If this criterion were universally applied, there would be very few plant species, and zero microbial species.
      - mikeash 9y ago
        Precisely how to classify “species” seems to be a major debate. Regardless, it does not appear that these two kinds of moths are actually considered to be different species.
      - FeepingCreature 9y ago
        Indeed; however, a convenient line of differentiation presents itself: animals, let alone humans, are not plants.
- UrukParthian 9y ago
  "overactive classification" Let me drop you off at Skid Row down in Los Angeles. A capacity for "overactive classification" will keep you from looking like a weak target and make you alert. If you want to talk about "getting over this as a species", then why not put your money where your mouth is and move to a "diverse" neighborhood? I'm sure your snobbish weariness will slap you back in the face when you realize that you can't leave anything in your vehicle, when you can't leave windows open at night, etc. Now something that should be over, as a species, is the will to annihilate discriminatory thought as a sacrifice to membership in the modern shibboleth of "secular holiness and secular virtue". There is no virtue and no holiness in discarding the innumerable scenarios where being "racist" is a life and death difference. In a way, it's a form of class warfare where rich people, with private security and gates, mock lower classes for not merely getting along "like they should". Think of all the celebrities talking about the evil of guns in an awards ceremony, oblivious to the hundreds of armed personnel protecting the venue! A weird part of "contemporary" thought is the idea of all or nothing. That if one makes judgements on a racial grouping, it automatically means one is utterly incapable of dealing with individual people...as individual people. I'll never move to a black-majority neighborhood but I'll never disrespect an AA as an individual. Yet I've been told how bad that is, even as the same people fumble to "relate" to an AA by trying to imitate greeting stereotypes they saw on TV! Because ultimately it's less about the people they claim to care about and more about having a social holy halo; a mere trinket they affix to their self-worth.
Chardok 9y ago
This concept of a "race", in terms of genetics, makes sense for classification purposes, just like all taxonomical classifications of living things. The difference here, is that people are taking this genetic concept of "race" and trying to prove their racist points, which always misses the point entirely. It would be a non-issue if the word "race" wasn't so politically charged. Quick edit for 2 easy examples: People with African descent are more likely to have sickle cell anemia, due to the resistance the gene provides against malaria. People with European descent are more likely to have cystic fibrosis, due to resistance it provided from cholera and typhoid.
- mikeash 9y ago
  You hint at this, but I think it’s worth explicitly mentioning that “race” as most people understand it, and “race” as an objective, genetic categorization, are two extremely different things. Examples: there is more genetic diversity among Africans (and thus ought to be more races among them) than in the rest of the world combined. A large number of “African Americans” have more European ancestry than African. The previous President was almost always referred to as “black” even though his mother was white, echoing the old “one drop” rules.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - dilap 9y ago
    Is that true? My understanding is that objective categorizations end up matching traditional categories pretty closely, e.g., http://infoproc.blogspot.com/2010/08/connect-dots.html http://infoproc.blogspot.com/2010/08/connect-dots.html
    - mikeash 9y ago
      Do you have something that explains that? The paper is paywalled and I don’t know what to make of the graphic. The examples I gave should be sufficient to demonstrate that there are at least major discrepancies between the two.
tptacek 9y ago
This piece makes an important argument, but if you look around Twitter for the academic reaction to it, it is not unanimously positive. In particular, you can find neurogeneticists taking issue with a thesis built from "there has been enough time for natural selection in human populations" and "genes probably play a role in intelligence"; the story is apparently not that simple given what we apparently know about genes and intelligence (polygenic, impact multiple other things besides intelligence). So while it may be the case that "race is purely a social construct" is an untenable and unproductive position, it does not necessarily follow that a solid case for "achievement and behavior is strongly genetic" has been made. Since intelligence and genetics is the third rail of population genetic studies, isn't the author's specialty, and isn't at all clear, it's a little confusing as to why he went out on this limb. Pinker sure is happy about it though. A good next read: https://gcbias.org/2018/03/14/polygenic-scores-and-tea-drinking/ https://gcbias.org/2018/03/14/polygenic-scores-and-tea-drink...
- hyperbovine 9y ago
  David is arguably the the most influential geneticist alive today. In my opinion he is plenty well qualified to discuss this topic. And, absolutely nowhere in the piece does he say anything to the effect of "achievement and behavior is strongly genetic". I really don't get your second paragraph at all.
  - tptacek 9y ago
    The entire second half of the piece rebuts the implicit notion that there is little science to support a genetic relationship between races and intelligence. But: there is little science to support a genetic relationship between races and intelligence. Has Reich published significantly on neurogenetics?
    - hyperbovine 9y ago
      The negation of “there is little science to support a genetic relationship between races and intelligence” is not “achievement and behavior is strongly genetic”. I suggest you learn about heritability. And yes, he has published extensively on the genetic risk factors of MS.
aaron695 9y ago
> How Genetics Is Changing Our Understanding of ‘Race’ I like the way this propaganda works. Our understanding for millennium, although very incorrect, was light years ahead of the current religious types who write these articles, who are now pretending they are astounded they might have been wrong about "everyone has a soul and is equal". Men and Women are different and NOW WE have proof!!!, OMG WOW You are AMAZING. Normal sane people know this. Compared to the Religions that the author obviously believes. The fact "Nazis’ murder of six million Jews." Doesn't show you race isn't important and real? Fuck me what more do you want to prove it's not imaginary. Why is this nutjobby a news article? It's straight from Russia prop (Yes many others do it). Just say a falsehood " — backed by no evidence — " enough times and your religion wins. The obviously religious writer has to fight this concept. For souls to exist one must fight algorithms, which is what DNA is. I hate saying the T word but if you think they are unique... No this is this is how the other side plays. Repeat falsehoods enough times and it becomes truth. The cleverness here is the extremist pretends to be a moderate. This article is very obviously playbook stuff, but it works. Imagine what the smart people are able to push.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
darepublic 9y ago
Reading between the lines; using genetics to justify racism against group X is dreadfully wrong, but let's not close the door on our ability to use genetics to justify racism against group Y.
- fredch 9y ago
  Wow, pretty bad reading skills there. He's saying, explicitly, that genetic differences between races will be found, and scientists need to start educating people about how to interpret this research and stop sticking their heads in the sand about this really uncomfortable topic. Though I get the feeling it's not uncomfortable for you...
  - darepublic 9y ago
    Coming from NYT I am sure that any research that could be used to demonize their scapegoats will be front and center and fruitful/valid scientific avenues of investigation, whereas of course any research that could be used to hurt the victims of the world will just be racist/sexist drivel that should be censored from the face of the earth. I mean that is pretty much a literal reading of mainstream media these days. It's not uncomfortable to talk about race all day every day in these times didn't you know that? It's not only a social construct it might be that I'm just racially/sexually disposed to being evil.
    - shaki-dora 9y ago
      > It it might be that I'm just racially/sexually disposed to being evil. No, I believe your failings are on the other side of the nature/nurture divide.
factsaresacred 9y ago
The idea that race is a social construct is simply dumb. Race: Genetic characteristics common to humans with a shared geographic origin, and that differ from humans from other geographic origins, sometimes distinguishable by appearance. If our collective memory was wiped today, tomorrow we would distinguish humans by what we call 'races'. But it would require science to clarify what distinguishes a race at the genetic level (physical differences being a decent proxy but often wrong and clearly primitive) and to map the distinct differences between each race. Why is this controversial?
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  > The idea that race is a social construct is simply dumb The idea that it is not a social construct is both dumb and ahistorical. (OTOH, readily apparent phenotype obviously has some correlation to genotype, so there is going to be a degree of correlation between he social construct and genetics, especially when the social construct includes socially-enforced rules discouraging reproduction outside of the socially-ascribed category.) > If our collective memory was wiped today, tomorrow we would distinguish humans by what we call 'races'. We'd probably adopt a somewhat similar concept with different dividing lines based on loose association of readily apparent phenotypic traits with the social affinities, power dynamics, and other conflicts and commonalities that formed after the mass forgetting event. This is easily predictable because studies of concepts of race across time and space in history without such mass forgetting events show differences driven by such affinities, shifting (mostly slowly) as those affinities change over time. > Why is this controversial? Because it aligns with what some people want very much to believe (hence support for it) but is inconsistent with historical evidence (hence, opposition to it), producing controversy.
  - factsaresacred 9y ago
    > concepts of race How is 'genetic characteristics common to humans with a shared geographic origin' a concept? Did you read the article? > Groundbreaking advances in DNA sequencing technology...enable us to measure with exquisite accuracy what fraction of an individual’s genetic ancestry traces back to, say, West Africa 500 years ago — before the mixing in the Americas of the West African and European gene pools that were almost completely isolated for the last 70,000 years. With the help of these tools, we are learning that while race may be a social construct, differences in genetic ancestry that happen to correlate to many of today’s racial constructs are real. Allow me to emphasise: "differences in genetic ancestry that happen to correlate to many of today’s racial constructs are real". Wow, what a coincidence given the fact that "differences in genetic ancestry" is exactly what race is. Maybe you have another definition of race that might be a social construct but "differences in genetic ancestry" is what most people mean when they say 'race'.
cgiles 9y ago
I have no idea whether the overall pendulum is swinging back from "race is a purely social construct". I hope so, because it has always seemed absurd to me, for the very reasons the author cites, just as absurd as the idea that race is a hard determinant of anything. But what I can say is that in molecular biology, working scientists have completely ignored this politically charged debate and continued to use the concept this whole time. In one example I am directly familiar with, researchers have continued to use and stratify genome-wide association studies by self-reported race/ethnicity in the search for variants causal for lupus. This is important not only because as with many diseases, there is a difference in likelihood of getting the disease between "races" not attributable to lifestyle, but also because it is entirely possible, even probable, that the mechanisms causing the disease are somewhat different between ethnicities. Actually, therefore, the understanding that there are real differences between "races" in the context of disease is actually helpful for the smaller groups because it means that special attention is paid to the etiology of their disease apart from the general etiology. In the same way that, for many years, most biology research was done on males and it was just assumed that the findings would always apply to females. That was incorrect, and now studies are done to determine gender differences in treatment and disease etiology. IMO this whole debate has dragged on as long as it has because too many in the public are seemingly incapable -- or unwilling -- to understand basic concepts about population means and variances, and in particular that in a situation like this where population means are very real but usually small, and the variance is high, knowing what "race" you are usually conveys little information about some other attribute of interest. Usually, but not always, as is particularly the case with many diseases. I have grown particularly tired of the argument that, because a taxonomy, like any clustering, is fuzzy and the number of clusters is somewhat arbitrary, the whole thing conveys no useful information. It is patently false.
- tptacek 9y ago
  Is it not the case that biologists are simply on firmer ground working on the premise of causal genetic relationships with populations and genes, and far shakier ground when they try to correlate genes to behavior?
  - 9y ago

56 points by marchenko 9y ago

There is no race, it's all just brains doing overactive classification. I wish that we got over this as a species already.

nyolfen 9y ago
from the article: > It is true that race is a social construct. It is also true, as Dr. Lewontin wrote, that human populations “are remarkably similar to each other” from a genetic point of view. > But over the years this consensus has morphed, seemingly without questioning, into an orthodoxy. The orthodoxy maintains that the average genetic differences among people grouped according to today’s racial terms are so trivial when it comes to any meaningful biological traits that those differences can be ignored. Continue reading the main story Related Coverage > The orthodoxy goes further, holding that we should be anxious about any research into genetic differences among populations. The concern is that such research, no matter how well-intentioned, is located on a slippery slope that leads to the kinds of pseudoscientific arguments about biological difference that were used in the past to try to justify the slave trade, the eugenics movement and the Nazis’ murder of six million Jews. > I have deep sympathy for the concern that genetic discoveries could be misused to justify racism. But as a geneticist I also know that it is simply no longer possible to ignore average genetic differences among “races.”
thathappened 9y ago
Everything is relative and nothing is unique at a large enough spectrum
- ravenstine 9y ago
  Arguments made by people claiming that there's no such thing as race, such as this one, seem to have this underlying premise that while certain thing are relative, other things are objective. Yet they have no possible way of backing this up because their own experience of the world is relative. Ironically, ideas are as close as we can get to real objectivism. When it comes to the mechanics of the universe, everything is fundamentally relative. So claiming that humans making consistent classifications of each other isn't legitimate doesn't make sense.
fouric 9y ago
Prove your statement, please.
bobcostas55 9y ago
I'm afraid this view is completely incompatible with the findings in population genetics. Two papers to get you started: * Genetic Structure, Self-Identified Race/Ethnicity, and Confounding in Case-Control Association Studies https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1196372/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1196372/ * Genetic Structure of Human Populations https://rosenberglab.stanford.edu/papers/popstruct.pdf https://rosenberglab.stanford.edu/papers/popstruct.pdf
- klenwell 9y ago
  Glancing at your first citation, nothing in the summary seems to challenge the idea that people of all races see much bigger differences among races (for example, when someone like James Damore start dogwhistling IQ tests in their footnotes) than actually exist genetically. Sure, there are genetic distinctions among groups of people. But as soon as someone mentions black or white people, the discussion isn't about these kind of fine genetic distinctions. They're about stereotypes that are much more social than they are genetic. Now in the political realm, the significance of these terms and the groups is completely different because of the way groups have been treated historically on the basis not of these fine genetic distinctions but rather these crude social racial/ethnic identifications. I'd prefer we avoided using footnotes pointing to scientific publications to oversimplify more complex political discussions or to justify the economic and social marginalization of historically disadvantaged groups based on purposeful misreading.
  - Consultant32452 9y ago
    >justify the economic and social marginalization of historical disadvantaged groups based on purposeful misreading. This wouldn't be a problem if we weren't measuring economic and social marginalization by outcome, particularly when it comes to systemic bias. If we can't have a sober look at the inputs, I'm afraid we can't say anything meaningful about the outputs.
  - Berobero 9y ago
    I agree with you, but I would also note that the original person being replied to seems to be committing a common colloquial misunderstanding in regards to social constructions; just because something is socially constructed does not mean it's not real. Race is absolutely real, regardless of the degree to which genetics does or doesn't correlate with it, because we make it real in our day to day interactions. But your point is succinct: just because you can group people using genetic markers into clusters that align well with our society's typical social categorization of race does by no means validate a genetic basis for all the other sociocultural baggage that we associate with those categories. The most it seems to do particularly in regards to the social category of race is show that genetic markers useful for identifying kinship (I'd file that under "duh"). It's interesting to note, for me, that the analysis of the first paper works just fine for 2 clusters as well (basically East Asian and everyone else), but those super-racial groupings don't exist in the US to my knowledge.
toasterlovin 9y ago
The fact that there are observable aggregate genetic differences between groups of humans does not endanger the proposition that all human groups have equal moral worth. But denying that race is a real thing sure does give a lot of oxygen to people with bad ideas.
- jrimbault 9y ago
  The issue is semantic, the word "race" when applied to the human species doesn't have the same meaning when applied to other species.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- make3 9y ago
  moral worth and capacities
  - moduspol 9y ago
    Do all races have equal capacity to play professional basketball? If not, what rational basis could one have in claiming all races must have equal capacity in other areas?
    - JBReefer 9y ago
      Fundamentally, creating policy based on racial capacity cannot end in a moral place. Every single time governments/societies start down that path, it ends poorly. Frankly, who gives a shit. It seems better to me to live in a world that's .000005% less efficiently allocated than it is to live in the caste system that always emerges from that path.
      - FeepingCreature 9y ago
        Yeah but you've broken a sanctity to take that 0.00005% away. You've opened the door to instrumentalizing science, formerly the pursuit of truth, for political gain. And I know everybody's doing that already, but there's a difference between everybody doing it and everybody being okay with it. One of those is salvageable, the other isn't.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
ars 9y ago
If we were not analyzing ourself the different races would be called different species, never mind races. Butterflies are called different species based on much smaller differences. Or for example the two moths in: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peppered_moth_evolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peppered_moth_evolution Calling different races different species obviously would upset people, so we don't. But let's not pretend the differences don't exist.
- mikeash 9y ago
  “These forms are often accidentally elevated to subspecies status when they appear in literature. Not adding the ‘f.’ (form) or morpha implies that the taxon is a subspecies instead of a form, as in Biston betularia carbonaria instead of Biston betularia f. carbonaria. Rarely forms have been elevated to species status as in Biston carbonaria. Either of these two circumstances might lead to the erroneous belief that speciation was involved in the observed evolution of the peppered moth. This is not the case; individuals of each morph interbreed and produce fertile offspring with individuals of all other morphs; hence there is only one peppered moth species.” - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peppered_moth https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peppered_moth
  - thaumasiotes 9y ago
    > individuals of each morph interbreed and produce fertile offspring with individuals of all other morphs; hence there is only one peppered moth species If this criterion were universally applied, there would be very few plant species, and zero microbial species.
    - mikeash 9y ago
      Precisely how to classify “species” seems to be a major debate. Regardless, it does not appear that these two kinds of moths are actually considered to be different species.
    - FeepingCreature 9y ago
      Indeed; however, a convenient line of differentiation presents itself: animals, let alone humans, are not plants.
UrukParthian 9y ago
"overactive classification" Let me drop you off at Skid Row down in Los Angeles. A capacity for "overactive classification" will keep you from looking like a weak target and make you alert. If you want to talk about "getting over this as a species", then why not put your money where your mouth is and move to a "diverse" neighborhood? I'm sure your snobbish weariness will slap you back in the face when you realize that you can't leave anything in your vehicle, when you can't leave windows open at night, etc. Now something that should be over, as a species, is the will to annihilate discriminatory thought as a sacrifice to membership in the modern shibboleth of "secular holiness and secular virtue". There is no virtue and no holiness in discarding the innumerable scenarios where being "racist" is a life and death difference. In a way, it's a form of class warfare where rich people, with private security and gates, mock lower classes for not merely getting along "like they should". Think of all the celebrities talking about the evil of guns in an awards ceremony, oblivious to the hundreds of armed personnel protecting the venue! A weird part of "contemporary" thought is the idea of all or nothing. That if one makes judgements on a racial grouping, it automatically means one is utterly incapable of dealing with individual people...as individual people. I'll never move to a black-majority neighborhood but I'll never disrespect an AA as an individual. Yet I've been told how bad that is, even as the same people fumble to "relate" to an AA by trying to imitate greeting stereotypes they saw on TV! Because ultimately it's less about the people they claim to care about and more about having a social holy halo; a mere trinket they affix to their self-worth.

Chardok 9y ago

This concept of a "race", in terms of genetics, makes sense for classification purposes, just like all taxonomical classifications of living things. The difference here, is that people are taking this genetic concept of "race" and trying to prove their racist points, which always misses the point entirely. It would be a non-issue if the word "race" wasn't so politically charged. Quick edit for 2 easy examples: People with African descent are more likely to have sickle cell anemia, due to the resistance the gene provides against malaria. People with European descent are more likely to have cystic fibrosis, due to resistance it provided from cholera and typhoid.

mikeash 9y ago
You hint at this, but I think it’s worth explicitly mentioning that “race” as most people understand it, and “race” as an objective, genetic categorization, are two extremely different things. Examples: there is more genetic diversity among Africans (and thus ought to be more races among them) than in the rest of the world combined. A large number of “African Americans” have more European ancestry than African. The previous President was almost always referred to as “black” even though his mother was white, echoing the old “one drop” rules.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- dilap 9y ago
  Is that true? My understanding is that objective categorizations end up matching traditional categories pretty closely, e.g., http://infoproc.blogspot.com/2010/08/connect-dots.html http://infoproc.blogspot.com/2010/08/connect-dots.html
  - mikeash 9y ago
    Do you have something that explains that? The paper is paywalled and I don’t know what to make of the graphic. The examples I gave should be sufficient to demonstrate that there are at least major discrepancies between the two.

tptacek 9y ago

This piece makes an important argument, but if you look around Twitter for the academic reaction to it, it is not unanimously positive. In particular, you can find neurogeneticists taking issue with a thesis built from "there has been enough time for natural selection in human populations" and "genes probably play a role in intelligence"; the story is apparently not that simple given what we apparently know about genes and intelligence (polygenic, impact multiple other things besides intelligence). So while it may be the case that "race is purely a social construct" is an untenable and unproductive position, it does not necessarily follow that a solid case for "achievement and behavior is strongly genetic" has been made. Since intelligence and genetics is the third rail of population genetic studies, isn't the author's specialty, and isn't at all clear, it's a little confusing as to why he went out on this limb. Pinker sure is happy about it though. A good next read: https://gcbias.org/2018/03/14/polygenic-scores-and-tea-drinking/ https://gcbias.org/2018/03/14/polygenic-scores-and-tea-drink...

hyperbovine 9y ago
David is arguably the the most influential geneticist alive today. In my opinion he is plenty well qualified to discuss this topic. And, absolutely nowhere in the piece does he say anything to the effect of "achievement and behavior is strongly genetic". I really don't get your second paragraph at all.
- tptacek 9y ago
  The entire second half of the piece rebuts the implicit notion that there is little science to support a genetic relationship between races and intelligence. But: there is little science to support a genetic relationship between races and intelligence. Has Reich published significantly on neurogenetics?
  - hyperbovine 9y ago
    The negation of “there is little science to support a genetic relationship between races and intelligence” is not “achievement and behavior is strongly genetic”. I suggest you learn about heritability. And yes, he has published extensively on the genetic risk factors of MS.

aaron695 9y ago

> How Genetics Is Changing Our Understanding of ‘Race’ I like the way this propaganda works. Our understanding for millennium, although very incorrect, was light years ahead of the current religious types who write these articles, who are now pretending they are astounded they might have been wrong about "everyone has a soul and is equal". Men and Women are different and NOW WE have proof!!!, OMG WOW You are AMAZING. Normal sane people know this. Compared to the Religions that the author obviously believes. The fact "Nazis’ murder of six million Jews." Doesn't show you race isn't important and real? Fuck me what more do you want to prove it's not imaginary. Why is this nutjobby a news article? It's straight from Russia prop (Yes many others do it). Just say a falsehood " — backed by no evidence — " enough times and your religion wins. The obviously religious writer has to fight this concept. For souls to exist one must fight algorithms, which is what DNA is. I hate saying the T word but if you think they are unique... No this is this is how the other side plays. Repeat falsehoods enough times and it becomes truth. The cleverness here is the extremist pretends to be a moderate. This article is very obviously playbook stuff, but it works. Imagine what the smart people are able to push.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

darepublic 9y ago

Reading between the lines; using genetics to justify racism against group X is dreadfully wrong, but let's not close the door on our ability to use genetics to justify racism against group Y.

fredch 9y ago
Wow, pretty bad reading skills there. He's saying, explicitly, that genetic differences between races will be found, and scientists need to start educating people about how to interpret this research and stop sticking their heads in the sand about this really uncomfortable topic. Though I get the feeling it's not uncomfortable for you...
- darepublic 9y ago
  Coming from NYT I am sure that any research that could be used to demonize their scapegoats will be front and center and fruitful/valid scientific avenues of investigation, whereas of course any research that could be used to hurt the victims of the world will just be racist/sexist drivel that should be censored from the face of the earth. I mean that is pretty much a literal reading of mainstream media these days. It's not uncomfortable to talk about race all day every day in these times didn't you know that? It's not only a social construct it might be that I'm just racially/sexually disposed to being evil.
  - shaki-dora 9y ago
    > It it might be that I'm just racially/sexually disposed to being evil. No, I believe your failings are on the other side of the nature/nurture divide.

factsaresacred 9y ago

The idea that race is a social construct is simply dumb. Race: Genetic characteristics common to humans with a shared geographic origin, and that differ from humans from other geographic origins, sometimes distinguishable by appearance. If our collective memory was wiped today, tomorrow we would distinguish humans by what we call 'races'. But it would require science to clarify what distinguishes a race at the genetic level (physical differences being a decent proxy but often wrong and clearly primitive) and to map the distinct differences between each race. Why is this controversial?

dragonwriter 9y ago
> The idea that race is a social construct is simply dumb The idea that it is not a social construct is both dumb and ahistorical. (OTOH, readily apparent phenotype obviously has some correlation to genotype, so there is going to be a degree of correlation between he social construct and genetics, especially when the social construct includes socially-enforced rules discouraging reproduction outside of the socially-ascribed category.) > If our collective memory was wiped today, tomorrow we would distinguish humans by what we call 'races'. We'd probably adopt a somewhat similar concept with different dividing lines based on loose association of readily apparent phenotypic traits with the social affinities, power dynamics, and other conflicts and commonalities that formed after the mass forgetting event. This is easily predictable because studies of concepts of race across time and space in history without such mass forgetting events show differences driven by such affinities, shifting (mostly slowly) as those affinities change over time. > Why is this controversial? Because it aligns with what some people want very much to believe (hence support for it) but is inconsistent with historical evidence (hence, opposition to it), producing controversy.
- factsaresacred 9y ago
  > concepts of race How is 'genetic characteristics common to humans with a shared geographic origin' a concept? Did you read the article? > Groundbreaking advances in DNA sequencing technology...enable us to measure with exquisite accuracy what fraction of an individual’s genetic ancestry traces back to, say, West Africa 500 years ago — before the mixing in the Americas of the West African and European gene pools that were almost completely isolated for the last 70,000 years. With the help of these tools, we are learning that while race may be a social construct, differences in genetic ancestry that happen to correlate to many of today’s racial constructs are real. Allow me to emphasise: "differences in genetic ancestry that happen to correlate to many of today’s racial constructs are real". Wow, what a coincidence given the fact that "differences in genetic ancestry" is exactly what race is. Maybe you have another definition of race that might be a social construct but "differences in genetic ancestry" is what most people mean when they say 'race'.

cgiles 9y ago

I have no idea whether the overall pendulum is swinging back from "race is a purely social construct". I hope so, because it has always seemed absurd to me, for the very reasons the author cites, just as absurd as the idea that race is a hard determinant of anything. But what I can say is that in molecular biology, working scientists have completely ignored this politically charged debate and continued to use the concept this whole time. In one example I am directly familiar with, researchers have continued to use and stratify genome-wide association studies by self-reported race/ethnicity in the search for variants causal for lupus. This is important not only because as with many diseases, there is a difference in likelihood of getting the disease between "races" not attributable to lifestyle, but also because it is entirely possible, even probable, that the mechanisms causing the disease are somewhat different between ethnicities. Actually, therefore, the understanding that there are real differences between "races" in the context of disease is actually helpful for the smaller groups because it means that special attention is paid to the etiology of their disease apart from the general etiology. In the same way that, for many years, most biology research was done on males and it was just assumed that the findings would always apply to females. That was incorrect, and now studies are done to determine gender differences in treatment and disease etiology. IMO this whole debate has dragged on as long as it has because too many in the public are seemingly incapable -- or unwilling -- to understand basic concepts about population means and variances, and in particular that in a situation like this where population means are very real but usually small, and the variance is high, knowing what "race" you are usually conveys little information about some other attribute of interest. Usually, but not always, as is particularly the case with many diseases. I have grown particularly tired of the argument that, because a taxonomy, like any clustering, is fuzzy and the number of clusters is somewhat arbitrary, the whole thing conveys no useful information. It is patently false.

tptacek 9y ago
Is it not the case that biologists are simply on firmer ground working on the premise of causal genetic relationships with populations and genes, and far shakier ground when they try to correlate genes to behavior?
- 9y ago