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“In humans, race is a socially constructed designation, a misleading and harmful surrogate for population genetic differences, and has a long history of being i

“In humans, race is a socially constructed designation, a misleading and harmful surrogate for population genetic differences, and has a long history of being incorrectly identified as the major genetic reason for phenotypic differences between groups. Rather, human genetic variation is the result of many forces—historical, social, biological—and no single variable fully represents this complexity. The structure of genetic variation results from repeated human population mixing and movements across time, yet the misconception that human beings can be naturally divided into biologically distinguishable races has been extremely resilient and has become embedded in scientific research, medical practice and technologies, and formal education.” Dumb question… why would using ethnicity (which is accepted) solve any issues? And, can people choose their ethnicity or is it determined at birth? Complicated, I bet.

pessimizer 4y ago
What would you be using ethnicity for? I don't think they're making a case for some sort of trans-racial ethnic self-identification being used in science as a replacement for race. I think you substitute race with precision. If a cluster of different genes or characteristics are commonly found together, say which ones you're talking about, how often they're found together (as opposed to apart), and why you think that's relevant. Talking about race is honestly often ultimately handwaving in the vague direction of 19th century biblical scholars.
auggierose 4y ago
Ethnicity is just one of many factors, and is related to your culture, which is related to how you live your life, which can definitely be a factor. But yes, if your "ethnic" groups look like [1], ethnicity is really just another word for race, because you are not asked the bullet points, which certainly are ethnic (English vs. African, for example), but the headers (White vs. Black). [1] https://www.ethnicity-facts-figures.service.gov.uk/style-guide/ethnic-groups https://www.ethnicity-facts-figures.service.gov.uk/style-gui...
JoeDaDude 4y ago
To be fair, there is a clear definition of ethnicity as "the quality or fact of belonging to a population group or subgroup made up of people who share a common cultural background or descent". So while an individual cannot decide who they descended from, they can choose whether or not to accept a set of cultural norms. People routinely change religions, learn other languages, or follow other traditions outside the ethnic cultural norms they were born into. The TFA states that ethnicity is only one of many potential "population descriptors" and recommends that researchers "use multiple descriptors rather than a single, overly broad category".
Kon-Peki 4y ago
Further down in the article, the answer is given. They are recommending that journals, funding bodies, etc, start to require scientists to define their chosen categories and justify the usage.
FabrosoFernan 4y ago
That doesn't even make sense. Nobody believes that "race" is the cause of phenotypic differences between groups, it's the outcome of it. It's a useful, albeit broad, term to distinguish distinct populations of people who, over many generations, have genetically converged within their own group and genetically diverged from others. Why must they lie?
- klodolph 4y ago
  That’s factually incorrect—there’s not actually a significant amount of genetic divergence between racial groups. There’s a saying—if you pick two chimpanzees in the same forest, you are likely to find more genetic differences than if you pick two humans on opposite sides of the world. Genetic diversity within a given racial group is much larger than the genetic differences between different racial groups, which makes it very difficult (at best) to come up with some kind of genetic criteria for defining race.
  - hirundo 4y ago
    > there’s not actually a significant amount of genetic divergence between racial groups. Does skin color not diverge between racial groups, or is it not a significant genetic divergence? If skin color seems too trivial to be genetically "significant", then what about racial differences that confer an advantage or disadvantage to malarial resistance? https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3704235/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3704235/
    - klodolph 4y ago
      It’s not a significant part of genetic divergence. Humans also have a striking lack of genetic diversity in the first place, due to factors like a severe population bottleneck 2 Mya. One of the races is “black”, but since most Africans are black, and all humans have African ancestry, the idea of coming up with a genetic basis for “blackness” is completely useless. It would be difficult to come up with some kind of genetic basis for that category that is somehow useful to science, somehow includes most black people, and somehow excludes most non-black people. It is more useful to talk about genetics in terms of (recent) ancestry. Ancestry is reasonably useful for things like screening for genetic conditions. You want to screen for sickle-cell anemia? Recent African ancestry is a reasonable thing to look for; blackness is a poor proxy. Recall that skin pigmentation is more about what latitude your ancestors are from, and not about what specific part of the world they are from. (I’ve used the term “African ancestry” to refer both to long-term ancestry and more recent ancestry here, I hope that the usage is clear from context.)
Joker_vD 4y ago
This whole line of reasoning can also be used to argue that there is no such thing as culture: neither "French culture", or "English culture", or "New York culture", or "Florida culture", etc. exist. Also, population mixing and movements across time doesn't preclude the existence of more or less distinguishable groups inside the said population.
dragonwriter 4y ago
> Dumb question… why would using ethnicity (which is accepted) solve any issues? Because ethnicity is commonly understood and has been defined fron the beginning as a social category (that’s what, historically, differentiates it from race.) So using it to describe a social category doesn't have the problem that using race for that purpose does. > And, can people choose their ethnicity or is it determined at birth? That’s a false dichotomy, and the answer is “not exactly” to both.

pessimizer 4y ago

What would you be using ethnicity for? I don't think they're making a case for some sort of trans-racial ethnic self-identification being used in science as a replacement for race. I think you substitute race with precision. If a cluster of different genes or characteristics are commonly found together, say which ones you're talking about, how often they're found together (as opposed to apart), and why you think that's relevant. Talking about race is honestly often ultimately handwaving in the vague direction of 19th century biblical scholars.

auggierose 4y ago

Ethnicity is just one of many factors, and is related to your culture, which is related to how you live your life, which can definitely be a factor. But yes, if your "ethnic" groups look like [1], ethnicity is really just another word for race, because you are not asked the bullet points, which certainly are ethnic (English vs. African, for example), but the headers (White vs. Black). [1] https://www.ethnicity-facts-figures.service.gov.uk/style-guide/ethnic-groups https://www.ethnicity-facts-figures.service.gov.uk/style-gui...

JoeDaDude 4y ago

To be fair, there is a clear definition of ethnicity as "the quality or fact of belonging to a population group or subgroup made up of people who share a common cultural background or descent". So while an individual cannot decide who they descended from, they can choose whether or not to accept a set of cultural norms. People routinely change religions, learn other languages, or follow other traditions outside the ethnic cultural norms they were born into. The TFA states that ethnicity is only one of many potential "population descriptors" and recommends that researchers "use multiple descriptors rather than a single, overly broad category".

Kon-Peki 4y ago

Further down in the article, the answer is given. They are recommending that journals, funding bodies, etc, start to require scientists to define their chosen categories and justify the usage.

FabrosoFernan 4y ago

That doesn't even make sense. Nobody believes that "race" is the cause of phenotypic differences between groups, it's the outcome of it. It's a useful, albeit broad, term to distinguish distinct populations of people who, over many generations, have genetically converged within their own group and genetically diverged from others. Why must they lie?

klodolph 4y ago
That’s factually incorrect—there’s not actually a significant amount of genetic divergence between racial groups. There’s a saying—if you pick two chimpanzees in the same forest, you are likely to find more genetic differences than if you pick two humans on opposite sides of the world. Genetic diversity within a given racial group is much larger than the genetic differences between different racial groups, which makes it very difficult (at best) to come up with some kind of genetic criteria for defining race.
- hirundo 4y ago
  > there’s not actually a significant amount of genetic divergence between racial groups. Does skin color not diverge between racial groups, or is it not a significant genetic divergence? If skin color seems too trivial to be genetically "significant", then what about racial differences that confer an advantage or disadvantage to malarial resistance? https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3704235/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3704235/
  - klodolph 4y ago
    It’s not a significant part of genetic divergence. Humans also have a striking lack of genetic diversity in the first place, due to factors like a severe population bottleneck 2 Mya. One of the races is “black”, but since most Africans are black, and all humans have African ancestry, the idea of coming up with a genetic basis for “blackness” is completely useless. It would be difficult to come up with some kind of genetic basis for that category that is somehow useful to science, somehow includes most black people, and somehow excludes most non-black people. It is more useful to talk about genetics in terms of (recent) ancestry. Ancestry is reasonably useful for things like screening for genetic conditions. You want to screen for sickle-cell anemia? Recent African ancestry is a reasonable thing to look for; blackness is a poor proxy. Recall that skin pigmentation is more about what latitude your ancestors are from, and not about what specific part of the world they are from. (I’ve used the term “African ancestry” to refer both to long-term ancestry and more recent ancestry here, I hope that the usage is clear from context.)

Joker_vD 4y ago

This whole line of reasoning can also be used to argue that there is no such thing as culture: neither "French culture", or "English culture", or "New York culture", or "Florida culture", etc. exist. Also, population mixing and movements across time doesn't preclude the existence of more or less distinguishable groups inside the said population.

dragonwriter 4y ago

> Dumb question… why would using ethnicity (which is accepted) solve any issues? Because ethnicity is commonly understood and has been defined fron the beginning as a social category (that’s what, historically, differentiates it from race.) So using it to describe a social category doesn't have the problem that using race for that purpose does. > And, can people choose their ethnicity or is it determined at birth? That’s a false dichotomy, and the answer is “not exactly” to both.