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The crux for me was this paragraph: “I have deep sympathy for the concern that genetic discoveries could be misused to justify racism,” he wrote. “But as a gen

The crux for me was this paragraph: “I have deep sympathy for the concern that genetic discoveries could be misused to justify racism,” he wrote. “But as a geneticist I also know that it is simply no longer possible to ignore average genetic differences among ‘races’.” There really shouldn't be a debate that there are genetic differences amongst 'races'. It shouldn't be something that is "taboo" to discuss or talk about, since it is a factually correct statement to make.

romwell 7y ago
>There really shouldn't be a debate that there are genetic differences amongst 'races'. It shouldn't be something that is "taboo" to discuss or talk about, since it is a factually correct statement to make. I disagree. Who defines what a "race" is? Divide a population into two groups arbitrarily, and you'll find statistical differences. Pick any metric, and you'll get clusters. There are so many data scientists here on HN - so I hope many do understand how sensitive clustering is to the metric, algorithm, and other parameters! And for everyone else: race is like colors in a rainbow. Yes, the rainbow is not monochromatic. And yet there is no division in the continuous spectrum in nature.
- viklove 7y ago
  > Divide a population into two groups arbitrarily, and you'll find statistical differences. False. If you select individuals for each group through random sampling, you likely won't find significant statistical differences. Also your allegory is fallacious. There is no difference in the adjacent colors in the rainbow, but there is definitely a large and noticeable difference between purple and yellow.
  - romwell 7y ago
    >Also your allegory is fallacious. There is no difference in the adjacent colors in the rainbow, but there is definitely a large and noticeable difference between purple and yellow. This is exactly what the allegory is saying.
didibus 7y ago
Isn't the factually correct statement to make that there are genetic differences amongst 'people'?
foldr 7y ago
There's no rigorous scientific definition of "race", so there can't really be scientific facts about genetic differences between races. Some "racial" groups happen to have a higher incidence of particular genes. But when you look at specific examples, it's absurd to connect this to any kind of racial theory. For example, Latinos apparently have a higher incidence of Alzheimers than the general US population, and this could possibly have some generic component (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5874398/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5874398/). But no-one would suggest that "Latino" is a bona fide racial category.
- vcavallo 7y ago
  how about “a phenotypically and statistically relevant portion of one’s DNA can be traced back to X region over the range of Y years ago”? nobody is saying anything about “racial theory” in society at large. more so that certain particular phenotypes are strongly correlated together - like your example about Alzheimer’s.
  - foldr 7y ago
    I don't really see what you're getting out. Yes, there are correlations between genes and other things. So what?
    - vcavallo 7y ago
      there's not much of a "so what" aside from the fact that that's true and people have typically labelled some of those clumpy groupings, "races". it may be haphazard, socially problematic and not extremely useful, but those correlations and average differences between groups are present. The place where it becomes useless, in my view, and one of many ways in which it does not ground racism is that differences _within_ these fuzzily-defined groups is vast. a poster further up said "There really shouldn't be a debate that there are genetic differences amongst 'races'" and your comment seemed to, in tone, disagree while at the same time granting that its true. All I'm getting at is that this can both be 'true' and 'limited in usefulness' and if you agree then we're not arguing. ..but I sense that you don't agree and I'd be happy to hear more about the disagreement.
technothrasher 7y ago
"Race" is typically defined by phenotype, and it incredibly messy to try and pin down genetically. Sure, I've no doubt you could create genetic averages and fit most people your targeting into race groups based on a selected phenotype or group of phenotypes. But the genetic variation between those people for non-selected phenotypes would tend to be just as large as between any individual in the "race" as outside of it. So, switch your looked at phenotypes and the race lines with shift with them. So, the question becomes not whether you can formally define a set of races if you wish, but for what purpose exactly are you trying to genetically formalize these social constructs?
orwin 7y ago
Well, races are artificially created by inbreeding and culling. I don't know if it have ever been done for humans, but this might be the wrong word. And i won't trust any geneticist who don't know that given that a geneticist taught me that.

romwell 7y ago

>There really shouldn't be a debate that there are genetic differences amongst 'races'. It shouldn't be something that is "taboo" to discuss or talk about, since it is a factually correct statement to make. I disagree. Who defines what a "race" is? Divide a population into two groups arbitrarily, and you'll find statistical differences. Pick any metric, and you'll get clusters. There are so many data scientists here on HN - so I hope many do understand how sensitive clustering is to the metric, algorithm, and other parameters! And for everyone else: race is like colors in a rainbow. Yes, the rainbow is not monochromatic. And yet there is no division in the continuous spectrum in nature.

viklove 7y ago
> Divide a population into two groups arbitrarily, and you'll find statistical differences. False. If you select individuals for each group through random sampling, you likely won't find significant statistical differences. Also your allegory is fallacious. There is no difference in the adjacent colors in the rainbow, but there is definitely a large and noticeable difference between purple and yellow.
- romwell 7y ago
  >Also your allegory is fallacious. There is no difference in the adjacent colors in the rainbow, but there is definitely a large and noticeable difference between purple and yellow. This is exactly what the allegory is saying.

didibus 7y ago

Isn't the factually correct statement to make that there are genetic differences amongst 'people'?

foldr 7y ago

There's no rigorous scientific definition of "race", so there can't really be scientific facts about genetic differences between races. Some "racial" groups happen to have a higher incidence of particular genes. But when you look at specific examples, it's absurd to connect this to any kind of racial theory. For example, Latinos apparently have a higher incidence of Alzheimers than the general US population, and this could possibly have some generic component (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5874398/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5874398/). But no-one would suggest that "Latino" is a bona fide racial category.

vcavallo 7y ago
how about “a phenotypically and statistically relevant portion of one’s DNA can be traced back to X region over the range of Y years ago”? nobody is saying anything about “racial theory” in society at large. more so that certain particular phenotypes are strongly correlated together - like your example about Alzheimer’s.
- foldr 7y ago
  I don't really see what you're getting out. Yes, there are correlations between genes and other things. So what?
  - vcavallo 7y ago
    there's not much of a "so what" aside from the fact that that's true and people have typically labelled some of those clumpy groupings, "races". it may be haphazard, socially problematic and not extremely useful, but those correlations and average differences between groups are present. The place where it becomes useless, in my view, and one of many ways in which it does not ground racism is that differences _within_ these fuzzily-defined groups is vast. a poster further up said "There really shouldn't be a debate that there are genetic differences amongst 'races'" and your comment seemed to, in tone, disagree while at the same time granting that its true. All I'm getting at is that this can both be 'true' and 'limited in usefulness' and if you agree then we're not arguing. ..but I sense that you don't agree and I'd be happy to hear more about the disagreement.

technothrasher 7y ago

"Race" is typically defined by phenotype, and it incredibly messy to try and pin down genetically. Sure, I've no doubt you could create genetic averages and fit most people your targeting into race groups based on a selected phenotype or group of phenotypes. But the genetic variation between those people for non-selected phenotypes would tend to be just as large as between any individual in the "race" as outside of it. So, switch your looked at phenotypes and the race lines with shift with them. So, the question becomes not whether you can formally define a set of races if you wish, but for what purpose exactly are you trying to genetically formalize these social constructs?

orwin 7y ago

Well, races are artificially created by inbreeding and culling. I don't know if it have ever been done for humans, but this might be the wrong word. And i won't trust any geneticist who don't know that given that a geneticist taught me that.