Bad Science: Harper's article, "Mighty White of You"

[Scott W]

And then the question becomes: how well have they interpreted genetic code, and does applying linear mathematics to it make it true?

You cited a few papers; that's not scientific consensus. Once again, bad science. The argument hasn't varied. Race refers to variations in species that mark hereditary passage, and I have yet to see a credible argument against it.

I cited authors, not papers. You havent cited shit, except for an article on pbs by a physical anthropologist. Im not going to go through and cite every single article that states that there is no biological basis for race, its unnecessary. You need to do some actual research into the literature. I know you havent, because you seem to think there isnt concensus, and there is. And again, you are wrong with your definition of race. Race refers to subspecies, and if you would actually do a little research, there are mountains of evidence against dividing the human species into subspecies. If you want evidence...I dont know...how about checking out even one of the names I mentioned? You are talking out of your ass, and it shows.

 

[Norsemaiden]

Scott W, what do you do when you get a questionaire from the government (or other organisation)asking you to tick a box of what "race" you are? They must believe in race, and yet they are often the very people who most want to deny the existence of race at the same time.
When there is talk of "racial tension" or "race riots" or positive discrimination for different "races" are you trying to say that this is all nonsense because races don't exist?
Or when a child is to be adopted, and they try to get the child (as a newborn) to be brought up in a family of the same "race" ideally.

 

[speed]

I cited authors, not papers. You havent cited shit, except for an article on pbs by a physical anthropologist. Im not going to go through and cite every single article that states that there is no biological basis for race, its unnecessary. You need to do some actual research into the literature. I know you havent, because you seem to think there isnt concensus, and there is. And again, you are wrong with your definition of race. Race refers to subspecies, and if you would actually do a little research, there are mountains of evidence against dividing the human species into subspecies. If you want evidence...I dont know...how about checking out even one of the names I mentioned? You are talking out of your ass, and it shows.

I totally agree you have made a very compelling argument, and Infoterror hasnt, but...

As Norsemaiden states, our government, and society do believe in race. This is all that matters. Now when and if the world ever catches up to these ideas of science, well that is for the future to decide. but even them, you then have culture, which has evolved alongside race.

 

[infoterror]

All the genetic evidence points to an extreme amount of genetic variation within races, enough to have no validity to group into suybspecies.

Bad science, as:

(1) It does not take into account data position, only data statistical summary. Leaving the verb out of a sentence is usually more destructive than leaving out an adjective.

(2) It fails to note that there is greater variation between unmixed racial groups than between members of an unmixed racial group. One study I saw used mixed-race Brazilians as "white" - that's further bad science.

 

[infoterror]

I totally agree you have made a very compelling argument, and Infoterror hasnt, but...

I don't agree.

He has not cited articles, but named names. He has not presented any evidence that geneticists as a whole agree with him. What's to say he has not listed several people who agree with him whose evidence may be in doubt?

Interesting book review relevant to race.

 

[infoterror]

It’s become a popular view that the human species is extraordinarily homogeneous genetically when compared to most other species.[15] This notion argues against the existence of human races, because very little genetic variation within the entire species means there cannot be much variation between major human populations.

Race F.A.Q.

 

[hibernal_dream]

I don't agree.

He has not cited articles, but named names. He has not presented any evidence that geneticists as a whole agree with him. What's to say he has not listed several people who agree with him whose evidence may be in doubt?

This is true, but your citing of lengthy, specialist articles is worse. I don't know how many biologists are here, but on a general philosophy board not many people would understand what "phylogenetically concordant phenotypic characters" means. Try summarising them like Scott does- it helps us understand your argument and shows that you understand it as well.

 

[Norsemaiden]

Undoubtedly there is far more homogeneity amongst individuals of a wild species of animal than there is in a race of humans. Wild animals speciate (seperate themselves into further different species) that is how evolution happens. Only domesticated animals interbreed.

Cheetahs are so homogenous, for example, that they are practically clones of eachother. This lack of variation means that they don't have the problem of genetic ill health from inbreeding that domesticated animals and humans would have (why incest causes disabilities in offspring).

Homogeneity in human races is breaking down all the time from race mixing and people in communities affected by this lose their instinctive altruism, a phenomenon Dawkins refers to as "the green beard effect". This is an instinct to help those who you know are your own kind because you can recognise them by appearance, smell and behaviour. This is to preserve (how ever few) genes which seperate one group from another.

Because certain genes are recessive it is easiest for a northern european to recognise their own kind anywhere in the world. At it's most basic, if someone has naturally straight hair (of European colour and texture) pale skin that doesn't tan ( a celtic trait rather than Scandinavian, although common among Vikings) blue eyes and no signs of having a protruding face (like negroes) or bulgy eyes or various other giveaways of having mixed blood - someone else who is like that can know that person is one of their kind instantly. And that because these genes are recessive, there are no lurking genes from another genepool in that person.

Anyone who tans, has curly hair, or brown eyes has a lot harder job on their hands trying to work out who is kin. So many Italians and Spaniards are as dark as a typical Pakistani or Indian. When there is a lot of racemixing, any people left of the former description will know who they are - but the others will not have a clue.

 

[Norsemaiden]

GREEN BEARD EFFECT
from Wikipedia, free encyclopedia

"The Selfish gene theory postulates that natural selection will increase the frequency of those genes whose phenotypic [= physical appearance] effects ensure their successful replication. A gene can be favored by selection if it causes its bearers to be altruistic to other organisms containing copies of it.

"A green-beard effect gene (or linked genes) produces three phenotypic effects: (1) a perceptible trait - the hypothetical green beard; (2)recognition of this trait in others; and (3) preferential treatment to those recognised. So this gene is directly recognising copies of itself regardless of average relatedness."

 

[Scott W]

Scott W, what do you do when you get a questionaire from the government (or other organisation)asking you to tick a box of what "race" you are? They must believe in race, and yet they are often the very people who most want to deny the existence of race at the same time.
When there is talk of "racial tension" or "race riots" or positive discrimination for different "races" are you trying to say that this is all nonsense because races don't exist?
Or when a child is to be adopted, and they try to get the child (as a newborn) to be brought up in a family of the same "race" ideally.

As Ive said before in this thread, Im not stating that phenotpyic plasticity doesnt exist within Homo sapiens, it definitely does. But what this is about is what the word race means. The word race refers specifically to subdividing homo sapiens into subspecies of something like Homo sapiens caucasoid. I have no problem stating that my ethnicity is polish and scottish. I belong to a lineage of northern europeans, and Im definitely not a dark skinned person from africa. However, just because these differences exist, doesnt mean that race is biologically valid.

To further my point, I think speed made a great comment. I absolutely agree that the sociological idea of race has its own reality. Whether race is biologically meaningless means nothing to a klan member. So speed, I wholeheartedly agree that there is a sociologically aspect to race, I just take serious offense when people go around stating that biology has proven race exists or that there is a "debate" when there isnt.

Hopefully that clears up the point Im trying to make.

 

[Scott W]

Also, just to shut infoterror up:

MJ Bamshad et al "Does race exist" Scientific American (december 2003)

JC Long et al "Human Genetic Diversity and the Nonexistence of Biological race" Journal of Human Biology (august 2003)

Lehrman, S. The Reality of Race. Scientific American v. 288 no. 2 (February 2003) p. 32-3

Marshall, E. DNA studies challenge the meaning of race. Science v. 282 no. 5389 (October 23 1998) p. 654-5

Barbujani G
Human races: Classifying people vs understanding diversity
CURRENT GENOMICS 6 (4): 215-226 JUN 2005

Royal CDM, Dunston GM
Changing the paradigm from 'race' to human genome variation
NATURE GENETICS 36 (11): S5-S7 Suppl. S NOV 2004

Collins FS
What we do and don't know about 'race', 'ethnicity', genetics and health at the dawn of the genome era
NATURE GENETICS 36 (11): S13-S15 Suppl. S NOV 2004
(the above is a fascinating article no matter where you stand on this issue of race, author states that less emphasis needs to be placed on "race" and "ethnicity" and much more emphasis on family history, social class, education, access to health care, etc)

Berg K, Bonham V, Boyer J, et al.
The use of racial, ethnic, and ancestral categories in human genetics research
AMERICAN JOURNAL OF HUMAN GENETICS 77 (4): 519-532 OCT 2005

Keita SOY, Kittles RA, Royal CDM, et al.
Conceptualizing human variation
NATURE GENETICS 36 (11): S17-S20 Suppl. S NOV 2004

Pigliucci M, Kaplan J
On the concept of biological race and its applicability to humans
PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE 70 (5): 1161-1172 DEC 2003
(this paper states that race does exist the way it is defined by the paper, but is not related to the common idea of race meaning "black" "white" and "asian")

Foster MW, Sharp RR
Race, ethnicity, and genomics: Social classifications as proxies of biological heterogeneity
GENOME RESEARCH 12 (6): 844-850 JUN 2002

There you go, that was all done with a combination of papers I am familiar with and enjoy, along with a short search of the words "race and genetics" into a basic online journal index. Also, I came across no papers, not a single one, that said there is any debate nor that there is genetic evidence that supports the idea of human subspecies.

 

[infoterror]

There you go, that was all done with a combination of papers I am familiar with and enjoy, along with a short search of the words "race and genetics" into a basic online journal index. Also, I came across no papers, not a single one, that said there is any debate nor that there is genetic evidence that supports the idea of human subspecies.

So you post the names of some articles on a taboo topic, and hope that's going to convince me? LOL - hope your debate teacher isn't reading this, 'cause that doesn't count for much.

See the Race FAQ information posted. Race exists; it's just not politically fashionable to say so!

 

[Scott W]

So you post the names of some articles on a taboo topic, and hope that's going to convince me? LOL - hope your debate teacher isn't reading this, 'cause that doesn't count for much.

See the Race FAQ information posted. Race exists; it's just not politically fashionable to say so!

I read it, its full of downright lies, and misinterpretation of the data. He even suggests that mtDNA is incorrect, when that ALSO is generally accepted across life sciences, in fact, the date given by mitochondrial DNA has been SHORTENED by y chromosome haplotypes. So the date of 80,000-100,000 years actually appears to be even less. Something more like 40,000 to 60,000 years since the migration out of africa. Meaning that no, humans have not been living in separate places long enough to diversify into subspecies. That is just one of many things he got completely wrong.

You have no idea what you are talking about. I also have no desire to convince you. Your mind wouldnt accept the biological nonexistence of race, no matter what evidence is brought to you. I was just posting something because you claimed I didnt, then you claim what i posted isnt enough. However, you post one faq, and we are all supposed to take that as gospel. You are awful at debating.

 

[speed]

This debate is starting to degenerate Scott W and Infoterror. I've just done it myself in the personality thread. Its easy to do. So, lets keep the personal attacks at a minimum.

Infoterror, this statement was not very philosophical of you: "LOL - hope your debate teacher isn't reading this, 'cause that doesn't count for much."

And Scott W: "You have no idea what you are talking about;You are awful at debating."

Those kind of things would rile me up, but I understand how they happen, as I do it myself at times. So perhaps the two of you should call a truce; I dont think either one of you will convince the other.

 

[derek]

^I am in agreement. Regardless, I have thoroughly enjoyed the debate between the two up to this point.

My hesitant two cents are thrown in the corner of Scott W, though.

 

[speed]

^I am in agreement. Regardless, I have thoroughly enjoyed the debate between the two up to this point.

My hesitant two cents are thrown in the corner of Scott W, though.

I agree with you on that.

However, this argument or dialogue, has stalled and hit the insult and exasperation phase, as I am sure they both are aware. It was a fun ride!

 

[Norsemaiden]

Do we have to finish this here? I think there are still some issues to explore regarding this.
In Nature species are constantly seperating out (speciating) moving towards different species - except in the case where they have found a niche where mutation itself is a deadly disadvantage. Do we have 100% agreement on this - as I think we do?

Humans were at least beginning a process of speciation when the different groups became geographically seperated and their outer appeareance became distinctively different. Again agreement across the board?

For some reason scientists are saying (whether it is accurate or ulteriorly motivated, but that is not relevant to the point I'm making) that although these groupings are physically LIKE seperate "races" they are not, because there is too much similarity in all genes unrelated to phenotype (appearance), which is shared between these groups.

I wish to go further with this but I would greatly appreciate a brief yes or no answer to whether I got this right so far. So please Scott W can you help?

 

[Blaphbee]

I read it, its full of downright lies, and misinterpretation of the data. He even suggests that mtDNA is incorrect, when that ALSO is generally accepted across life sciences, in fact, the date given by mitochondrial DNA has been SHORTENED by y chromosome haplotypes. So the date of 80,000-100,000 years actually appears to be even less. Something more like 40,000 to 60,000 years since the migration out of africa. Meaning that no, humans have not been living in separate places long enough to diversify into subspecies. That is just one of many things he got completely wrong.

Out of africa theories are currently being challenged by rival claims made in Asia.

Also:

"When the question is racial heritage, other tests can find clues in DNA.

Of the roughly 30,000 genes spelled out in the human genome, ancestry tests focus on about 225 mutations called single nucleotide polymorphisms that arose thousands of years ago and tend to be linked to specific continents.

By examining what kind of mutations a person has, scientists can get an idea of whether one's ancestors came from Africa, Europe, Asia or North America."

http://www.latimes.com/news/science...age=1&cset=true&ctrack=1&coll=la-news-science

Given our planet's rich biodiversity, "speciation" clearly happens regularly, but scientists cannot quite pinpoint the driving forces behind it.

Now, researchers studying a family of butterflies think they have witnessed a subtle process, which could be forcing a wedge between newly formed species.

The team, from Harvard University, US, discovered that closely related species living in the same geographical space displayed unusually distinct wing markings.

This process, called "reinforcement", prevents closely related species from interbreeding thus driving them further apart genetically and promoting speciation.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4708459.stm

University of Western Ontario psychologist J. Philippe Rushton was internationally condemned 15 years ago for claiming to discover differences in brain size, intelligence, sexual habits and personality between whites, blacks and “Orientals.”

Yet the role of race in genetics is a subject scientists now believe they can't ignore. The future of medicine may depend on it.

When the Human Genome Project was completed in 2000, its most touted result was that it showed no genetic basis for race. In fact, some scientists went so far as to dub race a “biological fiction.”

But five years later, one of scientists' main preoccupations has become to chart the genetic variations between and within racial groups — to parse that 0.1 per cent.

Now, teams are panning for gene types to help explain why West Africa produces the fastest runners in the world

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20050618.wxrace0618/BNStory/Front/

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A drug targeted specifically for black Americans with heart problems is on track to become the first drug in the U.S. marketed to a specific racial group.

A clinical trial of the heart failure medication BiDil in black Americans was halted early when it became apparent that those using it did better than those who did not.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/HEALTH/conditions/06/17/racial.pill.ap/index.htm

"It's imperative that we look at racially specific differences," says Dr. Esteban González Burchard, assistant professor at the University of California at San Francisco. "The one-size-fits-all approach to developing drugs is no longer valid." Certainly there is growing evidence that a number of drugs seem to offer different benefits -- or pose different risks -- depending on race. Studies have shown that hypertension drugs called ACE inhibitors are less effective in black patients than in other groups. The lung cancer drug Iressa has shown higher rates of effectiveness in Asians. And when GlaxoSmithKline PLC (GSK ) warned of a possible link between its asthma drug Serevent and life-threatening asthmatic episodes, the problem appeared to be more common in blacks.

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_26/b3939074_mz011.htm?chan=tc

Few scientists fabricate results from scratch or flatly plagiarize the work of others, but a surprising number engage in troubling degrees of fact-bending or deceit, according to the first large-scale survey of scientific misbehavior.

More than 5 percent of scientists answering a confidential questionnaire admitted to having tossed out data because the information contradicted their previous research or said they had circumvented some human research protections.

Ten percent admitted they had inappropriately included their names or those of others as authors on published research reports.

And more than 15 percent admitted they had changed a study's design or results to satisfy a sponsor, or ignored observations because they had a "gut feeling" they were inaccurate.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/08/AR2005060802385.html

Scientists Find DNA Region That Affects Europeans' Fertility
By NICHOLAS WADE

Published: January 17, 2005

Researchers in Iceland have discovered a region in the human genome that, among Europeans, appears to promote fertility, and maybe longevity as well.

Though the region, a stretch of DNA on the 17th chromosome, occurs in people of all countries, it is much more common in Europeans, as if its effect is set off by something in the European environment. A further unusual property is that the genetic region has a much more ancient lineage than most human genes, and the researchers suggest, as one possible explanation, that it could have entered the human genome through interbreeding with one of the archaic human lineages that developed in parallel with that of modern humans.

The genetic region was discovered by scientists at DeCode Genetics, a biotechnology company in Reykjavik, Iceland, which has made the Icelandic population, with its comprehensive genealogy and medical records, a prime hunting ground for the genetic roots of common diseases. Their finding is published in today's issue of Nature Genetics in a report by Dr. Kari Stefansson, Dr. Augustine Kong, Dr. Hreinn Stefansson and other DeCode scientists.

The DeCode scientists found that the chromosome 17 inversion is rare in Africans, almost absent in Asians, but present in 20 percent of Europeans, the same frequency as in Iceland. The inversion seems to have been favored by natural selection among Europeans in fairly recent times, perhaps the last 10,000 years. "Maybe something switched it on in the European environment, such as an interaction with diet," said Dr. David Reich, a population geneticist at the Broad Institute.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/17/science/17gene.html

These are just a few salient articles pertaining to this discussion. It seems "wide-spread acceptance" isn't as rock-solid an argument as people would like to think it is.

You have no idea what you are talking about. I also have no desire to convince you. Your mind wouldnt accept the biological nonexistence of race, no matter what evidence is brought to you. I was just posting something because you claimed I didnt, then you claim what i posted isnt enough. However, you post one faq, and we are all supposed to take that as gospel. You are awful at debating.

The above constititutes exactly the problem with this argument. In this debate, Scott has been more interested in trying to pawn off the discussion itself with false accusations that infoterror won't listen to his points, insinuations that infoterror had an expectation that the FAQ posted was to be taken as gospel (this is known as "putting words in the other's mouth), and when called on his own citation methods - name-dropping does nothing, Scott; when you cite something in an argument, titles and names don't make an argument for you, you have to back up your own claims with evidence - he stonewalled the discussion by copping out with numerous statements: "you don't know what you're talking about", "I also have no desire to convince you", etc.

Cop out all you like Scott, but you've been avoiding the debate pretty systematically for most of this thread, and only recently have started to answer some questions put to you.

You keep claiming lofty sources, but you don't substantiate any of your own claims with these sources, you either name-drop, insult the other participant, or grandly pronounce that it's widely-accepted knowledge.

The only one hampering the debate is you.

 

[Scott W]

Do we have to finish this here? I think there are still some issues to explore regarding this.
In Nature species are constantly seperating out (speciating) moving towards different species - except in the case where they have found a niche where mutation itself is a deadly disadvantage. Do we have 100% agreement on this - as I think we do?

Humans were at least beginning a process of speciation when the different groups became geographically seperated and their outer appeareance became distinctively different. Again agreement across the board?

For some reason scientists are saying (whether it is accurate or ulteriorly motivated, but that is not relevant to the point I'm making) that although these groupings are physically LIKE seperate "races" they are not, because there is too much similarity in all genes unrelated to phenotype (appearance), which is shared between these groups.

I wish to go further with this but I would greatly appreciate a brief yes or no answer to whether I got this right so far. So please Scott W can you help?

Shit, i just realized you asked for a brief yes or no answer to both of those...maybe I can summarize.

1. Not really. Species tend to move towards speciation, but it takes thousands upon thousands of years, and some species that inhabit very specific niches dont speciate at all. There are some phyla in the animal "kingdom" that contain a handful of species, and thats it.

2. I would also go with a no, more so than a yes. Humans havent really been reproductively isolated on the grand scale of white, black, and asian. Interbreeding always occurs at the edges of a population, and with the advent of sophisticated ways of traveling, we are even less isolated then we were before. Also evolution happens as populations become adapted to their local environments. Humans should have changed physically as they populated the world, it does not necessarily mean they were subspeciating, however.

Ok, now, I suppose you can read the long version if you want.

Absolutely, the first point I have to disagree with. There are alot of misconceptions about evolution (that it is directional, or that it HAS to occur), and really there are some species on this planet that have gone millions of years with relatively little change. Its not the species are ALWAYS moving towards subspeciation. At the corner of this debate is what causes speciation. In order for speciation to occur, the populations must be separated for a long enough length of time for no gene flow to occur between the species. In this way as the two geographically distinct populations then adapt to their own environments and can not go back and interbreed with each other, the genetic differences start to stack up, and eventually (if given the chance) will not produce fertile offspring. This is the road to speciation.

These "vicariance" events can be caused by a number of sources which are relatively unimportant. The point really hinges on where modern humans came from, and how long ago we came from there. Basically, there are two theories about this, the "Out of Africa" and the "Multiregional". The "Out of Africa" theory that modern humans originated once in Africa, and then populated the world has by far the strongest support. The Multiregional hypothesis states that modern humans have originated 3 times around the planet as ancestor hominids interbred with one another and modern humans arose in Africa, Europe and Asia (negroid, caucasoid, and mongoloid respectively) independently. If this were the case, then obviosly there would be no argument to the idea of separate races, because these groups of humans are not linked by a common ancestor. But really the support for the multiregional hypothesis comes from mishapen half skulls, and teeth and fossils like that. And Im talking like a handful of fossils. Not hundreds, a few dozen or so. Its really VERY sketchy science at best, and very subjective. The DNA evidence pretty much kills the multiregional hypothesis, mtDNA and Y chromosome studies point to a tribe in africa as the oldest lineage on earth, and all people are derived from that area.

So the trick then becomes, have modern humans been around (and separated) for a long enough time to subspeciate and the answer is simply, no. As I said earlier, y chromosome haplotypes (marker regions used in DNA analysis) have pinned the date at a relatively recent date of around 60,000 years ago as the time of migration out of africa. The mtDNA date is around 100,000. With humans interbreeding and migrating pretty regularly, its really impossible to imagine that the "main" groups of humans have been reproductively isolated for a long enough time.

While it is true that we see different appearence around the world, I would argue this has more to do with ancient humans adapting to their local environment, as opposed to subspeciating. Interestingly enough, I find the fact that we see a gradation of skin tone from africa up to northern europe to be evidence for this. Recent studies have suggested that skin tone is a response to nutrition and sunlight. In africa where it is very very warm, people walk around with very little clothing, and thus absorb tons of nutrients from the sunlight. As you go north and sunlight is weakened, and the earth gets colder, people wear more clothing. Less skin is exposed to the sunlight, and thus the tone was lightened to increase absorbtion of nutrients. More research needs to be done in this, but I think it provides an excellent evolutionary explanation for why skin color did change.

I think an example will help to explain the scientific view on this. There are some species of snakes that look amazingly different depending on where you are in the Americas. Take the coral snake for example. If you live in america, Im sure we all know the old poem "red next to black, a friend of jack. Red next to yellow, kill a fellow". This poem refers to the fact that corn snakes mimic coral snakes to deceive predators. For the USA, if the red is next to black, its a corn snake and harmless. If the red is next to yellow, its a coral snake and very very dangerous. However, if you go anywhere in central and south america, this poem doesnt work. Coral and Corn snakes show an amazing amount of physical differences througout the americas, and yet, really they are all still one single species, most people do not think of them as separate. The same goes with the king snake and gopher snake. There is an amazing amount of morphological diversity, and yet, they are still just a single species. The thing is, we place so much emphasis on physical characteristics, we have a bias to feel that because asians and peopel of african descent, in general, have X, Y, and Z physical differences, that separate races follows logically. Nature doesnt work that way, physical differences arent everything.

In the case of humans, even if there WAS enough genetic diversity to support subspecies, we would be moving AWAY from that with how much we are interbreeding and migrating.

 

[Blaphbee]

The Reality of Race

There's hardly any difference in the DNA of human races. That doesn't mean, argues sociologist Troy Duster, that genomics research can ignore the concept.

By Sally Lehrman

Race doesn't exist, the mantra went. The DNA inside people with different complexions and hair textures is 99.9 percent alike, so the notion of race had no meaning in science. At a National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) meeting five years ago, geneticists were all nodding in agreement. Then sociologist Troy Duster pulled a forensics paper out of his briefcase. It claimed that criminologists could find out whether a suspect was Caucasian, Afro-Caribbean or Asian Indian merely by analyzing three sections of DNA.

"It was chilling," recalls Francis S. Collins, director of the institute. He had not been aware of DNA sequences that could identify race, and it shocked him that the information can be used to investigate crimes. "It stopped the conversation in its tracks."

In large part thanks to Duster, Collins and other geneticists have begun grappling with forensic, epidemiological and pharmacogenomic data that raise the question of race at the DNA level. The NHGRI now routinely includes experts from the social disciplines to assist in guiding research priorities and framing the results for the public. "The complexities of the DNA sequence require not just simplistic statements about similarities between groups but a full appreciation of history, anthropology, social science and politics," Collins has realized. "Duster is a person that rather regularly gets tapped on the shoulder and asked for help."

The urbane 66-year-old Duster, who splits his time between appointments at the University of California at Berkeley and New York University, examines how the public absorbs news about genetics into existing beliefs and how those perceptions also shape the use of genetic sequencing, DNA probes and other molecular techniques.

Those techniques have revealed that race is minor at the DNA level. The genetic differences between any two randomly selected individuals in one socially recognized population account for 85 percent of the variation one might find between people of separate populations. Put another way, the genetic difference between two individuals of the same race can be greater than those between individuals of different races--table sugar may look like salt, but it has more similarities with corn syrup.

But genetics cannot prove that race doesn't exist, Duster explains. No amount of logic will erase the concept or destroy the disparities that arise from it, because people use race to sort their social groupings and to define their social and economic interactions. Moreover, they do so in ways that have significant biological consequences. Duster recently helped to draft a 15-page statement for the American Sociological Association showing how race persists as a factor in disparities in health and other areas of life. "You cannot just get rid of the concept without doing tremendous damage to the epidemiologic research done so far," Duster says. African-Americans are three times as likely to die from heart disease, for example. "Blacks are redlined by banks, followed by department store security, pulled over by the police. This can produce hypertension," he points out. "It can give you a heart attack."

A new approach, gene clustering, avoids race by dividing according to medically important markers, such as genes for the enzymes necessary to metabolize drugs. But society will very likely re-create racial categories and rankings under the new terms, Duster predicts. And by failing to name the social context, this strategy gives base-pair differences undue emphasis at the expense of environmental influences. Race is a social reality, Duster observes, and he warns that science itself is a social institution susceptible to essentialist perceptions of race.

Raised in poverty during the Great Depression by a mother from an upper-class family, Duster, whose father died when he was nine, grew up navigating between Chicago's tough streets and its privileged intellectual and civic parlors. He witnessed firsthand the complexities of social categories and learned to "code-switch" from one to another, much as he capably moves among sociology, anthropology and genetics now.

Duster started out as a journalist but quit in moral indignation when chided for failing to interview a trapped subway motorman waiting for a leg amputation. He turned to sociology and joined Berkeley in 1967, quickly developing a reputation for thought-provoking work on drugs and social policy. In the 1970s Duster was a familiar voice in National Institutes of Health committees reviewing grants for research on mental health and drug abuse. While sitting on a panel for President Jimmy Carter's Commission on Mental Health, he began to hear researchers speculate that drug addiction and mental illness were linked to genetic susceptibilities.

Duster found the conversations alarming. His book, Backdoor to Eugenics, aimed to stimulate public debate by showing how genetic-screening policies tended to reinforce the power structures already within society. Since then, he has pressed geneticists and molecular biologists to consider the social meaning that emerges from what they perceive as unbiased fact.

At first they resisted. As a member of the Ethical, Legal and Social Implications Working Group advising the agencies on human genome research, Duster urged the NIH and the Department of Energy to challenge The Bell Curve, the 1994 best-seller that argued that race correlated with intelligence. Government officials held up a response for eight months, convinced that the nonexistence of race at the genome level spoke for itself.

Duster, along with fellow committee member Dorothy Nelkin of New York University, highlighted the ways in which cultural context influences the application of medical and behavioral genetics. Now Collins is relying on Duster and other collaborators, such as University of Wisconsin molecular biologist Pilar Ossorio, to help explain why race must be acknowledged even if it is biologically inconsequential. "It's a tightrope between trying to rescue the importance and meaning of research on race without giving it a false reality," Duster says.

Indeed, although he maintains that race is significant in genetics, Duster insists it is misleading to reinscribe race as a definitive system to group people who share geographic origins and thus some genes. For one, concepts of race vary geographically as well as historically. The ethnic status of South Asians, for example, has changed over the past century in the U.S. and more often serves to define a political and cultural "other" than something biological. In 1920 Oregon granted citizenship to Bhagat Singh Thind of India during a ban on Asian immigration. But the U.S. Supreme Court disagreed, stating that even though Thind should be considered "Caucasian," he still wasn't "white." (Thind, who had joined the U.S. Army during World War I, managed to stay in the country, earn a Ph.D. and publish 15 books on metaphysics.)

Researchers have also advocated assessing health risks within ethnic groups based on inherited variations in just one DNA base pair. But such single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) profiles can be deceptive, Duster warns. Ethnic differences in drug metabolism or response to tobacco exist, but they appear to be minimal and depend strongly on the environment. The emphasis on DNA, he remarks, transforms health status into a biological inevitability, and it is tempting to use the same tools to profile criminality or intelligence at the genome level.

Specific variations in DNA can be linked to ancestral geographic origins, but those differences only occasionally offer a medically important clue. They fail to define any essential characteristics of a whole group. Race, itself a fluid idea, is part of the environmental context of the genome, Duster suggests. "Race is a relationship," he says. "When you talk about race as a relationship, it prevents anyone from giving it false meaning."


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sally Lehrman is a medical technology and health policy journalist based in San Francisco.

http://www.uwm.edu/~gjay/Whiteness/realityofrace.htm