4 ms·

It's interesting to read the open letter that 67 researchers posted on Buzzfeed that's referred to in the article (article calls them social scientists but ther

by Jun8 8y ago

It's interesting to read the open letter that 67 researchers posted on Buzzfeed that's referred to in the article (article calls them social scientists but there are many people from biology and related fields: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/bfopinion/race-genetics-david-reich https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/bfopinion/race-genetics.... Their basic point: "Reich critically misunderstands and misrepresents concerns that are central to recent critiques of how biomedical researchers — including Reich — use categories of “race” and “population.” " A personal anecdote: Colorectal cancer (CRC) seems to be more prevalent among the African-American population in the US (for an analysis of why see https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4977418/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4977418/) A close colleague's wife was diagnosed with CRC (she's OK now, after chemo). He was putting off colonoscopy until at least 50 but after looking at the stats and his wife's prognosis got it done in a heart beat. They're both black. Moral of this story to me: 1) Don't delay your colonoscopy, schedule one asap is you're close to 50. 2) The "race has no biological basis" concept may be fine on a theoretical level but when you're at the crosshairs of a racial group related disease things take another dimension!

cmrdporcupine 8y ago
But the point is that 'black' is not really all that meaningful because it encompasses potentially dozens of very disparate quite genetically distinct populations and lineages -- I mean what's CRC prevalence like among continental Africans? Maybe it's possible that CRC is more prevalent among African-Americans because of some higher occurrence in the west African populations where most slaves came from. Or maybe it developed in North America. But to talk about it in terms of race implies that black skin and African origin is the most important binding element -- when in fact what we are talking about is a specific African-American population.
- AnimalMuppet 8y ago
  And the guy who got his wife the test was in fact an African-American. So you can argue all you want about whether the label "black" fits, but the fact is, it communicated correctly. Now, you do have a bit of a valid point - such results can be taken to say more than is actually valid of them. But it seems to me that most people protesting aren't actually concerned with that at all. They're concerned with the sociological aspects, rather than the correlation between the genetics and particular populations.
- novacole 8y ago
  If you read the Tiskoff paper [0] on the genetic diversity of Africans, it’s actually thousands of genetically diverse groups. Africans as a race is nonsensical genetically speaking. [0] The Genetic Structure and History of Africans and African Americans https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2947357/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2947357/
- cm2187 8y ago
  It is pretty relevant to a dermatologist. Racial statistics are banned in France so dermatologists have to resort to code words, because skins of different color behave quite differently.
  - Iv 8y ago
    Just to nitpick: racial statistics are not banned in France. But they have to be voluntary and anonymous. What is forbidden is to make a file telling if a specific person is black... or jewish, as has been the case not too long ago. So the census (which is mandatory) is banned from asking questions about ethnicity, religion or political affiliation. You can however make a general statistics about blacks or muslims as long as you guarantee anonymity and consent of the participants.
zone411 8y ago
It seems to me that only a fraction of the signees have biological backgrounds. I don't see a single geneticist if you don't count two signees that are in the fields of "Genetics and Society." This letter talks about "trajectory of modern genetics" but the authors don't look qualified to talk about it. As a layman (I read Reich's book), their argument seems poor. "It must also be understood that all genetic contributions to physical traits, including disease, are always influenced by environmental factors" Isn't that falsified by Tay-Sachs disease etc? "Instead, we need to recognize that meaningful patterns of genetic and biological variation exist in our species that are not racial." Is anybody arguing that this is untrue? "In short, there is a difference between finding genetic differences between individuals and constructing genetic differences across groups by making conscious choices about which types of group matter for your purposes. These sorts of groups do not exist “in nature.” They are made by human choice. This is not to say that such groups have no biological attributes in common. Rather, it is to say that the meaning and significance of the groups is produced through social interventions." This seems untrue. As far as I know, these groups are simply found through unsupervised clustering. The only choice would be how many groups you want to get.
- AnimalMuppet 8y ago
  I think that the problem is, some sociologists are opposed to the idea of race on sociological grounds, and object when it is what pops up out of the unsupervised clustering. The lady doth protest too much, methinks...
  - cm2187 8y ago
    And it is highly problematic when science is being curbed because it doesn’t agree with the ideology of the time. As we decode and understand more of the genome, biology will be on a collision course with political correctness which dictates that everything is environment. But it may be that genes have a significant influence on our character, sexuality, intelligence, etc.
- novacole 8y ago
  These groups pop out with k-means clustering. But only at k=5 do you get something that looks like traditional racial grouping. Beyond that the races are unrecognizable. And so too for below that. At K=2 there are only Africans (with Europeans clustered into that group) and Asians (with native Americans and Pacific Islanders cluster into that group)[0] [0] Genetic Structure of Human Populations https://rosenberglab.stanford.edu/papers/popstruct.pdf https://rosenberglab.stanford.edu/papers/popstruct.pdf

by Jun8 8y ago

cmrdporcupine 8y ago

But the point is that 'black' is not really all that meaningful because it encompasses potentially dozens of very disparate quite genetically distinct populations and lineages -- I mean what's CRC prevalence like among continental Africans? Maybe it's possible that CRC is more prevalent among African-Americans because of some higher occurrence in the west African populations where most slaves came from. Or maybe it developed in North America. But to talk about it in terms of race implies that black skin and African origin is the most important binding element -- when in fact what we are talking about is a specific African-American population.

AnimalMuppet 8y ago
And the guy who got his wife the test was in fact an African-American. So you can argue all you want about whether the label "black" fits, but the fact is, it communicated correctly. Now, you do have a bit of a valid point - such results can be taken to say more than is actually valid of them. But it seems to me that most people protesting aren't actually concerned with that at all. They're concerned with the sociological aspects, rather than the correlation between the genetics and particular populations.
novacole 8y ago
If you read the Tiskoff paper [0] on the genetic diversity of Africans, it’s actually thousands of genetically diverse groups. Africans as a race is nonsensical genetically speaking. [0] The Genetic Structure and History of Africans and African Americans https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2947357/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2947357/
cm2187 8y ago
It is pretty relevant to a dermatologist. Racial statistics are banned in France so dermatologists have to resort to code words, because skins of different color behave quite differently.
- Iv 8y ago
  Just to nitpick: racial statistics are not banned in France. But they have to be voluntary and anonymous. What is forbidden is to make a file telling if a specific person is black... or jewish, as has been the case not too long ago. So the census (which is mandatory) is banned from asking questions about ethnicity, religion or political affiliation. You can however make a general statistics about blacks or muslims as long as you guarantee anonymity and consent of the participants.

zone411 8y ago

It seems to me that only a fraction of the signees have biological backgrounds. I don't see a single geneticist if you don't count two signees that are in the fields of "Genetics and Society." This letter talks about "trajectory of modern genetics" but the authors don't look qualified to talk about it. As a layman (I read Reich's book), their argument seems poor. "It must also be understood that all genetic contributions to physical traits, including disease, are always influenced by environmental factors" Isn't that falsified by Tay-Sachs disease etc? "Instead, we need to recognize that meaningful patterns of genetic and biological variation exist in our species that are not racial." Is anybody arguing that this is untrue? "In short, there is a difference between finding genetic differences between individuals and constructing genetic differences across groups by making conscious choices about which types of group matter for your purposes. These sorts of groups do not exist “in nature.” They are made by human choice. This is not to say that such groups have no biological attributes in common. Rather, it is to say that the meaning and significance of the groups is produced through social interventions." This seems untrue. As far as I know, these groups are simply found through unsupervised clustering. The only choice would be how many groups you want to get.

AnimalMuppet 8y ago
I think that the problem is, some sociologists are opposed to the idea of race on sociological grounds, and object when it is what pops up out of the unsupervised clustering. The lady doth protest too much, methinks...
- cm2187 8y ago
  And it is highly problematic when science is being curbed because it doesn’t agree with the ideology of the time. As we decode and understand more of the genome, biology will be on a collision course with political correctness which dictates that everything is environment. But it may be that genes have a significant influence on our character, sexuality, intelligence, etc.
novacole 8y ago
These groups pop out with k-means clustering. But only at k=5 do you get something that looks like traditional racial grouping. Beyond that the races are unrecognizable. And so too for below that. At K=2 there are only Africans (with Europeans clustered into that group) and Asians (with native Americans and Pacific Islanders cluster into that group)[0] [0] Genetic Structure of Human Populations https://rosenberglab.stanford.edu/papers/popstruct.pdf https://rosenberglab.stanford.edu/papers/popstruct.pdf