5 ms·

> How do you effectively discuss, and communicate, that for example sickle cell anaemia or lactose intolerance affects people of African descent, or skin cancer

by timr 4y ago

> How do you effectively discuss, and communicate, that for example sickle cell anaemia or lactose intolerance affects people of African descent, or skin cancer is prevalent in people of European ancestry? And that poor and badly educated people are susceptible to bad diets, lifestyles and medical issues that are a consequence of that? Don't worry, it says in the guidelines that race and ethnicity aren't real: > Race and ethnicity are sociopolitical constructs. Humans do not have biological races, at least based on modern biological criteria for the identification of geographical races or subspecies. This, of course, is going to be Good News to people of African descent (where sickle cell anemia is ~20x more likely in black newborns than white [1]), Ashkenazi Jewish people (at higher risk for a number of different genetic illnesses [2]), or pretty much every non-white person with lactose intolerance [3]...just to name a few examples. [1] https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/sicklecell/features/keyfinding-trait.html#:~:text=The%20U.S.%20incidence%20estimate%20for,Asian%20or%20Pacific%20Islander%20newborns https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/sicklecell/features/keyfinding-tr.... [2] https://www.gaucherdisease.org/blog/5-common-ashkenazi-genetic-diseases/ https://www.gaucherdisease.org/blog/5-common-ashkenazi-genet... [3] https://medlineplus.gov/genetics/condition/lactose-intolerance/#:~:text=Lactose%20intolerance%20in%20adulthood%20is%20most%20prevalent%20in%20people%20of,%2C%20Greek%2C%20and%20Italian%20descent https://medlineplus.gov/genetics/condition/lactose-intoleran....

nradov 4y ago
Everyone is of African descent, depending on how far back you look. So it's a rather vague term, and becoming less useful over time as previously distinct groups become more intermixed. In studies of conditions like sickle cell anaemia or lactose intolerance or skin cancer it would probably be more useful to relate those to particular genotypes and/or phenotypes rather than relying on which "race" field each experimental subject selected on the intake form.
- timr 4y ago
  I was waiting for the first person to say this, which is why I explicitly wrote "black" when describing the disproportionate rates of sickle cell in black children vs. white children. This isn't some rhetorical game. We know what "race" is, intuitively, and we know that it correlates strongly with real-world biological outcomes. These guidelines are gaslighting people into ignoring broadly useful categories because we don't have a reductive way of defining them. We don't have a biological test that defines race (yet), ergo, it doesn't exist. Except that's wrong. It's absurd. > In studies of conditions like sickle cell anaemia or lactose intolerance or skin cancer it would probably be more useful to relate those to particular genotypes and/or phenotypes rather than relying on which "race" field each experimental subject selected on the intake form. If we could do that -- relate the (known) gene for sickle cell to some other "genotype" that captures the racial bias we know exists -- we'd have a strict biological definition for race, wouldn't we? Aside from that, we know the "phenotype" that correlates with the illness. Black people have it, at high rates.
  - freejazz 4y ago
    Black isn't a "race", it's a social category. You can't actually be serious? In America, black includes people of Caribbean descent, people from South America, African-Americans, someone that stepped off a plane from Ethiopia. It's a completely meaningless term in regards to science. You can't actually be serious?
    - Banana699 4y ago
      "Blind isn't an actual biological condition, it's a social category" The same thing can be different categories. Black is social category, and is also a very well defined biological state of the most visible organ in your body, and is associated with certain genes. Instead of repeatedly stating the name of those different genes every time you say something about them, you can simply say the name of the most visible marker of them and still be correct the vast majority of time.
      - freejazz 4y ago
        The notion was that a "race" is something of such significant scientific relevance, that not being able to use "Black" to refer to a "race" would be a disservice. But you aren't here saying Black is a race, it is a "defined biological state of the most visible organ in your body". Okay, what does that have to do with race? Did you not understand my previous post explaining that "people who are socially considered Black" is basically a useless scientific criteria outside of its social circumstances? You seem a little bit more focused on repeating some rhetorical dunk you read somewhere online than actually understanding what is being discussed. Take a moment and actually consider what I'm writing. To repeat the example that I gave before, research on Ashkenazi Jewish diseases is not hindered by calling it research on the specific haplotype group that it is. The poster that brought up Ashkenazi Jews is misunderstanding if not disingenuous. I think you also don't get the difference between what a haplotype group is in this context, and your concept of "race".
      - nradov 4y ago
        If the biological state is "very well defined" then please point us to the definition. Is it based solely on skin hue and reflectance, or are there other factors? Do some people in South Asia with very dark skin meet that definition or are they excluded? I'm not just trying to be argumentative here. If scientists want to produce high quality, reproducible research then they must precisely define their terms. They can't just assume that everyone has the same understanding and knows what they mean.
freejazz 4y ago
To do you the favor, as ashkenazi jew (at higher risk for a number of different genetic illnesses) nothing about my understanding of this is predicated upon the concept of a race. That there is a genetically distinct haplotype group that corresponds to many folk that share these traits with me, is sufficient. By the way, I don't think "African descent" is a race by any means of my understanding of the word...
- wyager 4y ago
  > That there is a genetically distinct haplotype group that corresponds to many folk that share these traits with me, is sufficient This is what race means. You are taking the same referent and giving it a different designator.
  - freejazz 4y ago
    If that's the case I'm sure you can provide a link to a dictionary stating as much. In reality, such haplotype groups, when they even exist, do not correlate with what people call "race".
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - wyager 4y ago
      You mean one of the politically activist dictionaries like Webster, which have lately frequently changed the definition of words like "racism"? I'm sure if it becomes an issue they'll change their definition of "race" too, if they haven't already. And sure, not all races correspond directly to a specific HG, but all races have clear genetic differences which can be identified and classified purely mechanically. Multi-locus fixation clustering is an example of one such mechanical procedure. Unsupervised, something like k-means will generate racial groups equivalent to the ones humans come up with intuitively. In your case, the HG in question obviously corresponds to one such cluster.
      - 4y ago
JBits 4y ago
> Don't worry, it says in the guidelines that race and ethnicity aren't real: Personally I find this criticism incredibly disingenuous. It sets up a strawman and doesn't even bother to consider the author's reasoning. To be clear, I don't really mind whether "race" is a suitable word to descibe ethnic groups, heritage or whatever, nor do I know much about genetics. No one would deny that the examples you mention aren't real. I'm not making an argument either way, but if someone were, it's easy to think of potential starting points. Such as, Historical reasons based on connections to racisms or eugenics. Maybe even biological/genetics reasons, like being based too much off of external characteristics leading to incorrect assumptions about heritage. Perhaps these terms over simply something with too many contributing factors to be useful without misinterpretation. Wikipedia's descriptions of both suggest that the author's description is, at the very least, not uncommon.
ravel-bar-foo 4y ago
> Race and ethnicity are sociopolitical constructs. Humans do not have biological races, at least based on modern biological criteria for the identification of geographical races or subspecies. The first sentence is a liberal shibboleth: it has no more meaning than "colors (of light) are social constructs", or "embryos are sovial constructs." People will go to war over whether and where the lines of "sociopolitival constructs" get drawn... ...and the second sentence is that war, attempting to deny that genetic or biological information can inform sociopolitical categorizations.
- VerminOctopus1 4y ago
  The second sentence is a statement of fact in the world of genetics, phylogeny, and taxonomy. Your criticism of it tells me you are not adequately knowledgeable about these areas of science to participate in this conversation at the level required.
  - ravel-bar-foo 4y ago
    I think we're on the same side here. My point is that all three statements are true, but that in the later two cases the otherwise "socially constructed" boundaries are so useful and so meaningful to people that to say they "don't exist" is very odd. There is no clear boundary between blue and green (and some cultures have a word for green-blue), but nobody goes about saying that "colors don't exist." Ditto embryos. Genetics, phylogeny, and taxonomy provide definitions, which are socially constructed based on ground truth and utility for purpose. Each definition is "socially constructed" but to say the categories "don't exist" because they are socially defined is nuts.

by timr 4y ago

nradov 4y ago

Everyone is of African descent, depending on how far back you look. So it's a rather vague term, and becoming less useful over time as previously distinct groups become more intermixed. In studies of conditions like sickle cell anaemia or lactose intolerance or skin cancer it would probably be more useful to relate those to particular genotypes and/or phenotypes rather than relying on which "race" field each experimental subject selected on the intake form.

timr 4y ago
I was waiting for the first person to say this, which is why I explicitly wrote "black" when describing the disproportionate rates of sickle cell in black children vs. white children. This isn't some rhetorical game. We know what "race" is, intuitively, and we know that it correlates strongly with real-world biological outcomes. These guidelines are gaslighting people into ignoring broadly useful categories because we don't have a reductive way of defining them. We don't have a biological test that defines race (yet), ergo, it doesn't exist. Except that's wrong. It's absurd. > In studies of conditions like sickle cell anaemia or lactose intolerance or skin cancer it would probably be more useful to relate those to particular genotypes and/or phenotypes rather than relying on which "race" field each experimental subject selected on the intake form. If we could do that -- relate the (known) gene for sickle cell to some other "genotype" that captures the racial bias we know exists -- we'd have a strict biological definition for race, wouldn't we? Aside from that, we know the "phenotype" that correlates with the illness. Black people have it, at high rates.
- freejazz 4y ago
  Black isn't a "race", it's a social category. You can't actually be serious? In America, black includes people of Caribbean descent, people from South America, African-Americans, someone that stepped off a plane from Ethiopia. It's a completely meaningless term in regards to science. You can't actually be serious?
  - Banana699 4y ago
    "Blind isn't an actual biological condition, it's a social category" The same thing can be different categories. Black is social category, and is also a very well defined biological state of the most visible organ in your body, and is associated with certain genes. Instead of repeatedly stating the name of those different genes every time you say something about them, you can simply say the name of the most visible marker of them and still be correct the vast majority of time.
    - freejazz 4y ago
      The notion was that a "race" is something of such significant scientific relevance, that not being able to use "Black" to refer to a "race" would be a disservice. But you aren't here saying Black is a race, it is a "defined biological state of the most visible organ in your body". Okay, what does that have to do with race? Did you not understand my previous post explaining that "people who are socially considered Black" is basically a useless scientific criteria outside of its social circumstances? You seem a little bit more focused on repeating some rhetorical dunk you read somewhere online than actually understanding what is being discussed. Take a moment and actually consider what I'm writing. To repeat the example that I gave before, research on Ashkenazi Jewish diseases is not hindered by calling it research on the specific haplotype group that it is. The poster that brought up Ashkenazi Jews is misunderstanding if not disingenuous. I think you also don't get the difference between what a haplotype group is in this context, and your concept of "race".
    - nradov 4y ago
      If the biological state is "very well defined" then please point us to the definition. Is it based solely on skin hue and reflectance, or are there other factors? Do some people in South Asia with very dark skin meet that definition or are they excluded? I'm not just trying to be argumentative here. If scientists want to produce high quality, reproducible research then they must precisely define their terms. They can't just assume that everyone has the same understanding and knows what they mean.

freejazz 4y ago

To do you the favor, as ashkenazi jew (at higher risk for a number of different genetic illnesses) nothing about my understanding of this is predicated upon the concept of a race. That there is a genetically distinct haplotype group that corresponds to many folk that share these traits with me, is sufficient. By the way, I don't think "African descent" is a race by any means of my understanding of the word...

wyager 4y ago
> That there is a genetically distinct haplotype group that corresponds to many folk that share these traits with me, is sufficient This is what race means. You are taking the same referent and giving it a different designator.
- freejazz 4y ago
  If that's the case I'm sure you can provide a link to a dictionary stating as much. In reality, such haplotype groups, when they even exist, do not correlate with what people call "race".
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - wyager 4y ago
    You mean one of the politically activist dictionaries like Webster, which have lately frequently changed the definition of words like "racism"? I'm sure if it becomes an issue they'll change their definition of "race" too, if they haven't already. And sure, not all races correspond directly to a specific HG, but all races have clear genetic differences which can be identified and classified purely mechanically. Multi-locus fixation clustering is an example of one such mechanical procedure. Unsupervised, something like k-means will generate racial groups equivalent to the ones humans come up with intuitively. In your case, the HG in question obviously corresponds to one such cluster.
    - 4y ago

JBits 4y ago

> Don't worry, it says in the guidelines that race and ethnicity aren't real: Personally I find this criticism incredibly disingenuous. It sets up a strawman and doesn't even bother to consider the author's reasoning. To be clear, I don't really mind whether "race" is a suitable word to descibe ethnic groups, heritage or whatever, nor do I know much about genetics. No one would deny that the examples you mention aren't real. I'm not making an argument either way, but if someone were, it's easy to think of potential starting points. Such as, Historical reasons based on connections to racisms or eugenics. Maybe even biological/genetics reasons, like being based too much off of external characteristics leading to incorrect assumptions about heritage. Perhaps these terms over simply something with too many contributing factors to be useful without misinterpretation. Wikipedia's descriptions of both suggest that the author's description is, at the very least, not uncommon.

ravel-bar-foo 4y ago

> Race and ethnicity are sociopolitical constructs. Humans do not have biological races, at least based on modern biological criteria for the identification of geographical races or subspecies. The first sentence is a liberal shibboleth: it has no more meaning than "colors (of light) are social constructs", or "embryos are sovial constructs." People will go to war over whether and where the lines of "sociopolitival constructs" get drawn... ...and the second sentence is that war, attempting to deny that genetic or biological information can inform sociopolitical categorizations.

VerminOctopus1 4y ago
The second sentence is a statement of fact in the world of genetics, phylogeny, and taxonomy. Your criticism of it tells me you are not adequately knowledgeable about these areas of science to participate in this conversation at the level required.
- ravel-bar-foo 4y ago
  I think we're on the same side here. My point is that all three statements are true, but that in the later two cases the otherwise "socially constructed" boundaries are so useful and so meaningful to people that to say they "don't exist" is very odd. There is no clear boundary between blue and green (and some cultures have a word for green-blue), but nobody goes about saying that "colors don't exist." Ditto embryos. Genetics, phylogeny, and taxonomy provide definitions, which are socially constructed based on ground truth and utility for purpose. Each definition is "socially constructed" but to say the categories "don't exist" because they are socially defined is nuts.