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>Human geneticists have mostly abandoned the word “race” when describing populations in their papers, according to a new study of research published in a leadin

>Human geneticists have mostly abandoned the word “race” when describing populations in their papers, according to a new study of research published in a leading genetics journal. That’s in line with the current scientific understanding that race is a social construct, and a welcome departure from research that in the past has often conflated genetic variation and racial categories, says Vence Bonham, a social scientist at the National Human Genome Research Institute who led the study. >But alternative terms that have gained popularity, such as “ancestry” and “ethnicity,” can have ambiguous meanings or aren’t defined by genetics, suggesting researchers are still struggling to find the words to accurately describe groups delineated by their DNA, according to the study. >In the 19th and 20th centuries, many geneticists embraced the idea that there were races, such as “Negroid” or “Caucasian,” that were distinct biological groups; such “race science” helped perpetuate discrimination and inequality. Which part of this is absurd, exactly?

CryptoPunk 5y ago
Race being a social construct is an idea of social justice ideology, not of science. Race as a category is incredibly useful for science, and using it is standard practice in forsensic investigations for example.
- bytelines 5y ago
  > Race being a social construct is an idea of social justice ideology, not of science. Source?
  - CryptoPunk 5y ago
    From 2007, when this dogma was still not dominant across the scientific disciplines: https://www.jstor.org/stable/20832348 https://www.jstor.org/stable/20832348 >>Sociological literature frequently claims that scientists across the disciplinary spectrum have arrived at the common conclusion that race is socially constructed, not biologically anchored. I investigate contemporary scientific thinking about race by interviewing more than 40 biologists and anthropologists at four northeastern universities. Contrary to sociologists' expectations, racial constructionism is revealed to be a minority viewpoint. Moreover, this research shows that the usual “constructionist” versus “essentialist” dichotomy a blunt tool for characterizing the debate about race; a third platform—“antiessentialism”—must be taken into account. Recognizing antiessentialist discourse calls for a reevaluation of prior research that emphasizes socioeconomic status and professional affiliation as influences on interviewees' concepts of race; this project demonstrates that such tectors do little to distinguish essentialist from antiessentialist veiwpoints. The very fact that this satire account repeatedly predicts the course taken by the scientific and academic establishment tells us that ideology is the dominant guiding force of the process: https://twitter.com/TitaniaMcGrath/status/1339977959508226048?s=20 https://twitter.com/TitaniaMcGrath/status/133997795950822604...
    - bytelines 5y ago
      I don't see how that supports your assertion? Dr Morning[1] was arguing that the dichotomy of constructionist vs essentialist (and what you appear to be arguing) - is a "blunt tool". And that the at least in the northeast US in 2014, "constructionist" was a minority viewpoint. In fact this seems to contradict your first assertion that science has been "politicized by the state, and its official ideology". I still have no idea how you see the state fitting in here. Unrelated, I have no idea wtf a tector is. That satire account is hilarious but I'd hardly base my world view on it. [1] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00380237.2007.10571319 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00380237.2007.10... -- I think you may have linked the wrong thing? I can only find the abstract
      - CryptoPunk 5y ago
        Sorry, link fixed. As the abstract points out, the idea of race as a social construct, as of 2007, was a minority viewpoint amongst those biologists and anthropologists that Morning interviewed. This is despite sociologists at the time frequently claiming that scientists as a whole saw race as a social construct: "Contrary to sociologists' expectations, racial constructionism is revealed to be a minority viewpoint." This supports the theory that the "the science says race is a social construct" started primarily with sociologists, who naturally see everything through the lens of social constructionism, and falsely attributed this belief to the harder sciences, to create an appeal to scientific authority for the viewpoint. Fast forward to today, where this view is now the official position of the scientific establishment as a whole, despite it being a minority position just 15 years ago. Not seeing how you can't see how the paper supports my position, that this opinion is a result of social pressure to conform with an ideology, and not objective science. Claiming "scientists see race as a social construct" is exactly the kind of social pressure tactic that would be used to bring other scientists into the mold. No one wants to be seen as contradicting a conclusion of the scientific establishment, especially one that superficially, would appear to promote a more equitable world. >>I still have no idea how you see the state fitting in here. This victimhood ideology, that contains within it the idea that racial is a social construct used to perpetuate oppression, rationalizes a set of government policies and laws, e.g. civil rights law, that empowers special interests, and thus ties their economic interests to the perpetuation of these government interventions. Thus this ideology is aggressively pushed by those whose interests are dependent on left-wing-ideology motivated state intervention. See the websites/social-media-pages of the labor unions for the New York Times and Washington Post for just a quick sample: https://nytimesguild.org/ https://nytimesguild.org/ https://twitter.com/postguild https://twitter.com/postguild Sociology majors, incidentally, tend to work in government-funded institutions (e.g. as guidance counselors, social workers, etc), or in professions that largely arose as a result of government intervention (e.g. anti-discrimination lawyers, human resource representatives), etc.

CryptoPunk 5y ago

Race being a social construct is an idea of social justice ideology, not of science. Race as a category is incredibly useful for science, and using it is standard practice in forsensic investigations for example.

bytelines 5y ago
> Race being a social construct is an idea of social justice ideology, not of science. Source?
- CryptoPunk 5y ago
  From 2007, when this dogma was still not dominant across the scientific disciplines: https://www.jstor.org/stable/20832348 https://www.jstor.org/stable/20832348 >>Sociological literature frequently claims that scientists across the disciplinary spectrum have arrived at the common conclusion that race is socially constructed, not biologically anchored. I investigate contemporary scientific thinking about race by interviewing more than 40 biologists and anthropologists at four northeastern universities. Contrary to sociologists' expectations, racial constructionism is revealed to be a minority viewpoint. Moreover, this research shows that the usual “constructionist” versus “essentialist” dichotomy a blunt tool for characterizing the debate about race; a third platform—“antiessentialism”—must be taken into account. Recognizing antiessentialist discourse calls for a reevaluation of prior research that emphasizes socioeconomic status and professional affiliation as influences on interviewees' concepts of race; this project demonstrates that such tectors do little to distinguish essentialist from antiessentialist veiwpoints. The very fact that this satire account repeatedly predicts the course taken by the scientific and academic establishment tells us that ideology is the dominant guiding force of the process: https://twitter.com/TitaniaMcGrath/status/1339977959508226048?s=20 https://twitter.com/TitaniaMcGrath/status/133997795950822604...
  - bytelines 5y ago
    I don't see how that supports your assertion? Dr Morning[1] was arguing that the dichotomy of constructionist vs essentialist (and what you appear to be arguing) - is a "blunt tool". And that the at least in the northeast US in 2014, "constructionist" was a minority viewpoint. In fact this seems to contradict your first assertion that science has been "politicized by the state, and its official ideology". I still have no idea how you see the state fitting in here. Unrelated, I have no idea wtf a tector is. That satire account is hilarious but I'd hardly base my world view on it. [1] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00380237.2007.10571319 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00380237.2007.10... -- I think you may have linked the wrong thing? I can only find the abstract
    - CryptoPunk 5y ago
      Sorry, link fixed. As the abstract points out, the idea of race as a social construct, as of 2007, was a minority viewpoint amongst those biologists and anthropologists that Morning interviewed. This is despite sociologists at the time frequently claiming that scientists as a whole saw race as a social construct: "Contrary to sociologists' expectations, racial constructionism is revealed to be a minority viewpoint." This supports the theory that the "the science says race is a social construct" started primarily with sociologists, who naturally see everything through the lens of social constructionism, and falsely attributed this belief to the harder sciences, to create an appeal to scientific authority for the viewpoint. Fast forward to today, where this view is now the official position of the scientific establishment as a whole, despite it being a minority position just 15 years ago. Not seeing how you can't see how the paper supports my position, that this opinion is a result of social pressure to conform with an ideology, and not objective science. Claiming "scientists see race as a social construct" is exactly the kind of social pressure tactic that would be used to bring other scientists into the mold. No one wants to be seen as contradicting a conclusion of the scientific establishment, especially one that superficially, would appear to promote a more equitable world. >>I still have no idea how you see the state fitting in here. This victimhood ideology, that contains within it the idea that racial is a social construct used to perpetuate oppression, rationalizes a set of government policies and laws, e.g. civil rights law, that empowers special interests, and thus ties their economic interests to the perpetuation of these government interventions. Thus this ideology is aggressively pushed by those whose interests are dependent on left-wing-ideology motivated state intervention. See the websites/social-media-pages of the labor unions for the New York Times and Washington Post for just a quick sample: https://nytimesguild.org/ https://nytimesguild.org/ https://twitter.com/postguild https://twitter.com/postguild Sociology majors, incidentally, tend to work in government-funded institutions (e.g. as guidance counselors, social workers, etc), or in professions that largely arose as a result of government intervention (e.g. anti-discrimination lawyers, human resource representatives), etc.