# At what level is racialism accepted in the scientific community? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 10, 2014, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-level-is-racialism-accepted-in-the-scientific-community/695257 "2014-08-10T18:55:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2014, 7:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-level-is-racialism-accepted-in-the-scientific-community/695257/141 "2014-08-14T07:37:32Z")
> [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > One thing I find odd in these discussions is that on the one hand many anti-racial people claim “everyone is the same” or something to that effect You can quote that anyone has said this, in these debates, yes? > [@](#): > > , and deny that “races” exist This is not the same thing. You continue to mischaracterise - but only one side of the debate, I notice. ---
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2014, 8:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-level-is-racialism-accepted-in-the-scientific-community/695257/142 "2014-08-14T08:24:52Z")
So here’s what I’m wondering of those who argue that some races are genetically smarter or less violent than others: what exactly do you want to DO with that information? In an ideal world, where your conception of race is fully accepted, what do you envision happening with government and society and such? ---
**Author:** ![JEngelman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e79b87/32.png) [@JEngelman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JEngelman)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2014, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-level-is-racialism-accepted-in-the-scientific-community/695257/143 "2014-08-14T17:29:04Z")
> [@Leaper](#): > > So here’s what I’m wondering of those who argue that some races are genetically smarter or less violent than others: what exactly do you want to DO with that information? In an ideal world, where your conception of race is fully accepted, what do you envision happening with government and society and such? No one I am aware of maintains that every member of one race is more intelligent than every member of another race. No one I am aware of maintains that every member of one race is more violent (I assume you mean criminal) than every member of another race. However, let us assume for the sake of argument, that at some time in the future genes are discovered that accurately predict academic and professional success, and criminal behavior. Let assume further that these genes are more frequently found in individuals who belong to some races than others. There are some who would use these discoveries to advocate a repeal of the civil rights legislation that was signed in the United States during the 1960’s. I would disagree with those people. There are a larger number of people who would use those discoveries to advocate race profiling by the police, and an end to affirmative action policies. ---
**Author:** ![furt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/439d5e/32.png) [@furt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furt)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2014, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-level-is-racialism-accepted-in-the-scientific-community/695257/144 "2014-08-14T18:38:54Z")
**bldysabba** , thank you. > [@MrDibble](#): > > Again, going by the numbers you showed, the only numbers you can say are at high risk are the ones that actually get the “bolding disease” _unless you assume some geographic commonality_. The number 137 wasn’t on the original list, and we don’t have any way of knowing for sure whether or not it would be boldface were we to add it. It seems to me useful, however, to know things like “if we were to add 137, the data so far suggests that odds are good it would be boldface.” > [@](#): > > Not geography, exactly - there’s nothing wrong with _smaller_ geographic groupings. But continent-level groupings have been consistently shown to be useless for any real science work. They obscure cross-continental associations and inter-continental dissociations(like calling sickle-cell an African disease obscures both the Med/Arabia _cross_-occurrence and the _non_-occurrence in South Africa and the Horn) … > Geography matters, geographic-based races don’t. If someone told me something (like a disease, or a twitchy muscle gene, or a skin colour) had a “West African” occurrence, I’d have no problem with that level of grouping. If they told me it was “African”, I’d laugh in their faces. This is a really interesting assertion. Unless I misapprehend you, your claim here is that in the instances where something like a mountain range seperates two groups, sharply limiting crossbreeding for periods of hundreds of years, the resulting and observable genetic differences between the groups are meaningful – but that when something much bigger, like an ocean or a desert, utterly separates both of those two groups from a third group for a couple millennia, _that_ genetic difference is, OTOH, “useless for any real science work.” If that’s what you’re claiming, well, I’ll just say I’m skeptical and we can agree to disagree. Frankly, I’m not sure we’re advanced quite enough into the genetic age to know what is or isn’t going to eventually prove to be useful, so I’m skeptical of very confident assertions in any direction. It may be worth pointing out that Wade does discuss this intra-continental genetic diversity, and the ways that in some cases geneticists can track someone down to the exact village they come from. He refers to these as “ethnicities,” but says that the line between “ethnicity” and “race” is not a fixed one. If you wanted to insist that, in the above example, there are in fact three “races,” I don’t get the sense that he’d argue the semantics; he would argue that the two races seperated by the mountain range and hundreds of years likely have more in common than the third race seperated by an ocean and a thousand. Obviously, YMMV. ---
**Author:** ![furt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/439d5e/32.png) [@furt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furt)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2014, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-level-is-racialism-accepted-in-the-scientific-community/695257/145 "2014-08-14T18:48:31Z")
> [@furt](#): > > If that’s what you’re claiming, well, I’ll just say I’m skeptical and we can agree to disagree. To add – if you have any data that bears on this specific point (intra-continental geographic distinctions are meaningful, but cross-continental ones are not), I’d be happy to see it. ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2014, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-level-is-racialism-accepted-in-the-scientific-community/695257/146 "2014-08-15T14:18:29Z")
I think the scientific community wants to stay as far away from “race science” as possible. Here’s the consensus as I see it: 1. Human populations reflect geographic- and migration-driven clades but are also clinal. There is no discrete biological “race.” 2. Where self-identifed groupings, such as the [US OMB “SIRE” categories](http://www.census.gov/topics/population/race/about.html) are used, the construct should essentially be considered social and not biological. 3. Because SIRE groups have some basis in continent of recent origin for gene pools, and because human migration patterns have in turn clustered populations by those geographic influences, even at the SIRE level some average differences may be useful in medicine. However great care should be taken not to use those average biological differences carelessly in medicine, and going forward a more useful approach will be to tailor genetically-based medicine to a given individual’s actual genome; not one inferred based on his self-identification. 4. Average genetically-driven functional outcome differences among SIRE groups is not a useful research pursuit. The purpose of those groupings is social, and by definition, self-identification. Research that aims to define average genetic differences driving average functional outcomes is fraught with practical and ethical considerations, and is likely to be misinterpreted or abused outright. 5. Where disparate SIRE-grouped outcomes are observed, [such as highly privileged blacks underscoring underprivileged whites,](http://www.jbhe.com/features/49_college_admissions-test.html) every effort should be made to uncover social and nurturing drivers for the disparity. Where genetic questions are raised, it should be emphasized that those SIRE groupings are arbitrary social constructs, and not rigorously defined biologically. 6. All genes are subject to evolution and selective pressure, and descendant populations can be shown to reflect that. ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2014, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-level-is-racialism-accepted-in-the-scientific-community/695257/147 "2014-08-15T19:29:33Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > If I may answer on his behalf. The position is that there is no such thing as a biological race. Arguing over whether there is or is not a genetic explanation for racial differences is begging the question. First, you need to show that race exists in any meaningful way. > \ You do not need to biologically define race if what you are after is whether or not two groups differ in outcomes because of genes. A more useful way to frame this question is, “If we let people self-identify into races, does that creating groupings inside of which average gene frequencies vary?” When we go off on tangents demanding to “define race biologically,” we miss the point that most people wonder about, which is whether or not the outcome patterns we see in the world are an effect of nurture only, or have a genetic contribution. One can accept that–by definition–a self-identified race category is not a “biologic race,” and still agree that gene frequencies will vary by self-identified group if the self-identified group has, on average, enough recent ancestry from source pools which have been separated by human migration. A self-identified “white” has a much higher average chance of having the MCPH1 haplogroup variant D than does a self-identified “black.” This variant is thought to have arisen less than 40,000 years ago (post L3-M/N mtDNA split) in people(s) who had already migrated out of the sub-sahara. As an obvious consequence because of historic migration barriers, its penetration (for undefined reasons, but including the possibility of positive selection pressure) into sub-saharan populations is far less than eurasian populations. Self-identification as “white” puts one in a gene pool where MCPH1 v D is relatively common, and “black” (and even more so in sub-saharan blacks even less exposed to M-N descendant lines) puts one in a gene pool where the haplogroup D variant is much less common. Many many genes (Eric Wang did an[over-representation analysis](http://www.pnas.org/content/103/1/135.abstract) using the Perlegen Sciences SNP dataset suggesting at least 1800 genes) show evidence for positive selection (“Darwinian selection,” in Wang’s words) in descendant lines. That is, not only have a great many genes evolved, they have been driven into high penetration in modern populations by positive selection, and not just as a consequence of a population bottleneck, for example. Wang used LA populations, I think, drawn from self-identified black, european and ethnic Han pools. The point is that all genes of all peoples are subject to evolution and Darwinian selection (Creationists notwithstanding), and since we’ve been around as anatomically modern humans a couple hundred thousand years (young earth Creationists in particular notwithstanding), there’s been a lot of time for those descendant lines to drive disparate gene pools. If we take large enough groups, and use the law of averages, we’d find that even at so crude a “biological” grouping of “self-identified” race, the frequency of SS hemoglobin would be much higher in the group self-identifying as “black” v the group self-identifying as “white.” Their migration histories are different at that group average level, even if certain subpopulations within those two groups had no difference in SS frequency whatsoever. It is a profound misconception that “no biological definition of race” means “no average difference in gene frequency when people do self-group by race, crude as that may be biologically.” ---
**Author:** ![Chuck11](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/96bed5/32.png) [@Chuck11](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chuck11)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2014, 11:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-level-is-racialism-accepted-in-the-scientific-community/695257/148 "2014-08-16T11:05:23Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > You do not need to biologically define race if what you are after is whether or not two groups differ in outcomes because of genes. It is a profound misconception that “no biological definition of race” means “no average difference in gene frequency when people do self-group by race, crude as that may be biologically.” Obviously. ---
**Author:** ![Chuck11](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/96bed5/32.png) [@Chuck11](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chuck11)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2014, 11:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-level-is-racialism-accepted-in-the-scientific-community/695257/149 "2014-08-16T11:36:04Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > And like a bad neighbour, or a bad penny the very same survey that was dismissed in the pit (even acknowledged as being very weak by some defenders of this nonsense) is there. > > Sorry, but besides being found as being flawed, that survey was only good in showing mostly the **opinion** that intelligence experts have about what population geneticists, biologists, anthropologists **may** know. > > This is what pseudo scientist deniers on the climate change debate did also with a survey of meteorologists, a good chunk of the weather people really do not know what climate scientists do and so the misleading result is advertised as the “climate scientists are ignorant” when in reality it is a few meteorologists who are. Based on the latest survey, the majority of interviewed intelligence + behavioral genetic researchers i.e., the people who publish in journals such as Intelligence and who are familiar with _the totality of the evidence_, evidence which goes well beyond that from population genetics, agree that the Black-White intelligence gap has a substantial congenital component. “What population geneticists, biologists, anthropologists may know” has nothing to do with this. And as this is a behavioral genetic and psychometric issue, these are the relevant experts. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2014, 12:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-level-is-racialism-accepted-in-the-scientific-community/695257/150 "2014-08-16T12:26:05Z")
> [@Chuck11](#): > > Based on the latest survey, the majority of interviewed intelligence + behavioral genetic researchers i.e., the people who publish in journals such as Intelligence and who are familiar with _the totality of the evidence_, evidence which goes well beyond that from population genetics, agree that the Black-White intelligence gap has a substantial congenital component. “What population geneticists, biologists, anthropologists may know” has nothing to do with this. And as this is a behavioral genetic and psychometric issue, these are the relevant experts. Only a very, very small portion of those asked responded in this survey; it’s not authoritative in the least. ---
**Author:** ![Chuck11](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/96bed5/32.png) [@Chuck11](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chuck11)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2014, 12:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-level-is-racialism-accepted-in-the-scientific-community/695257/151 "2014-08-16T12:36:19Z")
> [@Chuck11](#): > > Yet, our 130 population geneticists did not deny the existence of human biological races nor did they claim that there were no significant behavioral genetic differences between either these or other genetically defined groupings. What they did claim, or rather what they meant, is not clear. Here is what they said, mainly: > > "We reject Wade’s implication that our findings substantiate his guesswork [with regards to natural selection and worldwide differences in I.Q. test results, political institutions, and economic development]. > > We are in full agreement that there is no support from the field of population genetics for Wade’s conjectures.” When I return from out of town, I will request a clarification from the authors concerning the meaning of the last statement, which, to me, is the germane one. Admixture mapping results show a linear relationship between regional ancestry and educational and occupational outcomes throughout the Americans. This clearly _supports_ Wade’s contention that genetic differences underlie between race – here meaning biogeographic ancestral group – differences related to economics. It doesn’t prove it, since the causal relationship might not be active indirect (e.g., by way of congenital trait differences); after all, the association could be due to passive or reactive gene-environment correlations (e.g., “colorism” or the co-transmission of European ancestry and European shared environmental advantage). But it nonetheless supports Wade’s model because a couple of competing ones predict otherwise. Many proponents of colorism, of course, take the mere correlation between regional ancestral phenotype (e.g., color) and outcomes _as proof_ of their position. So were one to adopt these or related, but clearly untenable, epistemic standards one might make a much stronger claim. Anyways, the signatories must either be adopting an idiosyncratic epistemic standard or must not be classifying “admixture mapping” as “population genetic”. When it was shown that height correlated with admixture in Central African Pygmy and Non-Pygmy populations it was often concluded, on account of the linear association between the trait and admixture, that the height difference [“was likely determined by genetic factors”](http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ajpa.21512/abstract), so it’s not as if admixture mapping results have never been counted as evidence, let alone empirical support, for a genetic hypothesis. Whatever the case, I will look into it when I get a chance. ---
**Author:** ![Chuck11](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/96bed5/32.png) [@Chuck11](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chuck11)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2014, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-level-is-racialism-accepted-in-the-scientific-community/695257/152 "2014-08-16T13:07:19Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > Only a very, very small portion of those asked responded in this survey; it’s not authoritative in the least. Regarding the issue of whether the B/W gap has a congenital basis, the survey mentioned is more authoritative than the population geneticist _letter_ and anything else mentioned, as: (a) This was a survey which attempted to get a representative sample and for which the authors tried to address the issue of sampling bias/attrition. (b) The respondents evaluated the _full of the evidence_, not just the “population genetic” evidence (whatever was meant by that). (c) The expertise of those surveyed (intelligence and behavioral genetics) was more related to the topic, one which concerned behavioral genetic differences in intelligence/and behavioral related economic outcomes. That is, these are the people that formulate the hypotheses, do the relevant research, and debate the results on the matters. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2014, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-level-is-racialism-accepted-in-the-scientific-community/695257/153 "2014-08-16T15:08:53Z")
> [@Chuck11](#): > > Based on the latest survey, the majority of interviewed intelligence + behavioral genetic researchers i.e., the people who publish in journals such as Intelligence and who are familiar with _the totality of the evidence_, evidence which goes well beyond that from population genetics, agree that the Black-White intelligence gap has a substantial congenital component. “What population geneticists, biologists, anthropologists may know” has nothing to do with this. And as this is a behavioral genetic and psychometric issue, these are the relevant experts. Just puffing regarding the experts cites, the ones that they based the survey where researchers for publications like Intelligence, Cognitive Psychology, Biological Psychology, Journal of Mathematical Psychology, Contemporary Educational Psychology, Journal of School-Psychology, New Ideas in Psychology, and Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology. As pointed before they are not really looking at the genetic evidence, nor citing it (it is a survey after all, no room for citations or links), it has to be noticed that after so many years of pointing at this survey the pertinent research showing the genes involved in the differences in IQ between the races has not been identified. Based on how the real experts are reacting to Wade and others one has to conclude that that the experts in measuring intelligence are **interpreting** the evidence that other experts are finding, and giving their **opinion** about what they think population geneticists, biologists, anthropologists are doing. Same pseudo-scientific move as the misuse of the survey of meteorologists about what they think climate science is doing and finding. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2014, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-level-is-racialism-accepted-in-the-scientific-community/695257/154 "2014-08-16T15:25:21Z")
One more note, the misuse is in using the survey to spread FUD about what the proper experts are reporting. What the surveys really found is evidence of what science writers like [Peter Hadfield reported many times before](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpcwyeGQlA8), there is also a lot of ignorance among experts when they ponder about other fields of science outside their area of expertise. ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2014, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-level-is-racialism-accepted-in-the-scientific-community/695257/155 "2014-08-16T16:01:36Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > …there is also a lot of ignorance among experts when they ponder about other fields of science outside their area of expertise. Can you share the qualifications you have? I mean, with the degree that you go on and on and on and about global warming, and the degree of certainty you offer, not to mention hubris. I assume you must have a few PhDs in the relatively relevant areas. Is that assumption correct? ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2014, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-level-is-racialism-accepted-in-the-scientific-community/695257/156 "2014-08-16T16:48:09Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > Can you share the qualifications you have? I mean, with the degree that you go on and on and on and about global warming, and the degree of certainty you offer, not to mention hubris. I assume you must have a few PhDs in the relatively relevant areas. Is that assumption correct? The evidence is clear that you miss the point. IOTW, it is more important to you to deny that experts are the ones that are being pointed out, and the pondering of ones that are not experts are just opinions. Opinions that are as valid as anyone. It is also noticed that instead of dealing with the flaws of the surveys or what the proper experts from the OP are telling us it is more important for you to play the ad hominen card. My area of expertise is in the areas of information technology and social studies, with history as a big component. What I have been learning here in the SDMB and in other places (and one should never stop learning BTW) is that it is not impossible to investigate what others did, to investigate the history of scientific racism and use logic to realize that people more clever than us investigated already what the proper experts are reporting. [http://www.skepdic.com/iqrace.html](http://www.skepdic.com/iqrace.html) > [@](#): > > ``` > The three great strategies for obscuring an issue are to introduce irrelevancies, to arouse prejudice, and to excite ridicule.... ---Bergen Evans, The Natural History of Nonsense > > ``` > [@](#): > > Are the studies of no value that show African-Americans or Asians doing differently than so-called “white” Americans on standardized IQ tests? That is, is the work of people like Herrnstein and Murray worthless? No. It is valuable data, but it is also explosive data because of our racist political history. [The data is also often wrong.\*](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0805811109/roberttoddcarrolA/) Such data will inevitably be exploited by white supremacists, twisted for their own political goals and used not to improve racial relations in America but to encourage further racial strife. Such data consists mainly of correlations. And while correlations should convince orthodox empirical scientists of nothing, to the racist researcher, correlations are the heart and soul of their work. > [@](#): > > Joseph Graves, an African-American evolutionary biologist at Arizona State University-West in Tempe, notes that most people and researchers who try to establish correlations between various natural abilities and skin color are not geneticists. > > > [@](#): > > > > These people don’t know evolutionary genetics. They talk about interesting issues in race and biology. And since, I think, there are no real races, I wonder what these issues are. It makes me angry that I have to take time from my research (on the genetics of aging) to argue about something that shouldn’t even need to be discussed (Blum). > > C. Loring Brace, an anthropologist at the University of Michigan, claims that “race is a four-letter word with no basis in biological reality” (Blum). Others claim that the assertion that race is biologically meaningless is politically motivated.\* There is also the problem of different scientists defining ‘race’ in different ways. > > In any case, genetic clustering occurs due to geographical isolation over long periods of time, and continues through inheritance when individuals leave their native area and breed with others of similar background. Physical features such as skin color, shape of eyelid, color of eyes, texture of hair, etc., are genetically determined. (For example, about 90 to 95 percent of African Americans and 98 to 99 percent of Asians are Rh-positive._) It is also true that an individual’s capacity for any particular kind of intelligence is largely dependent on genetic factors. As far as I know, nobody has yet found a correlation between the genes that determine, say, musical talent or the power to visualize or to think abstractly, and the genes that determine a set of physical characteristics that most would readily recognize as European or African. If you want to find out why Asians are over-represented in California’s universities while blacks and Hispanics are underrepresented, you will probably search in vain for a genetic answer. Those who are interested in such things would do better to look at family structure, ethnic traditions, and social conditions._ Serious sceptical sites like that can lead us to recognize that **also** among the ones investigating pseudo-science report what the proper experts are telling us. Not what the opinions of the ones not investigating genes are. ---
**Author:** ![watchwolf49](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9c0ed/32.png) [@watchwolf49](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/watchwolf49)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2014, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-level-is-racialism-accepted-in-the-scientific-community/695257/157 "2014-08-16T21:44:42Z")
Wikipedia’s [article on subspecies](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subspecies) states that the Zoological community only recognizes this, and [race](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_%28biology%29) is an informal taxon. Racism is strictly social. In my experience, each of the “races” demonstrates financial responsibility is just about the exact same ratios. So as a capitalist, race doesn’t exist in my mind. ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2014, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-level-is-racialism-accepted-in-the-scientific-community/695257/158 "2014-08-16T21:48:02Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > The evidence is clear that you miss the point. > > IOTW, it is more important to you to deny that experts are the ones that are being pointed …\ Rather than relying on the idea that “experts” have done a general debunking that can then be extended to a more narrowly-framed contention, it would be useful to have a group of population geneticists, paleoanthropologists, and other such similar pursuits all get together and sign onto the following contention: _“It is highly unlikely that observed outcome differences among human groupings by continent of recent origin as determined by DNA microsatellite markers and relevant SNPs are related to gene variant frequency within gene pools created by those groupings.”_ This will not happen. What the average guy (interested in the issue at all) wants to know is if the NBA is mostly black because the blacks who make the NBA have a genetic advantage. What social policy driving race-alone Affirmative Action preferences needs to know is whether or not equalizing nurturing opportunity for education is likely to equalize average scores among “race” groups. What the typical public-facing statement about books like Wade’s does is make vague, broad, feel-good dismissals that: 1. Attack a biological definition of race, 2. Remind everyone that so-called “races” are so full of diversity that any discussion of self-identification is simply a “social construct,” 3. That such works are full of exaggeration and over-simplification, 4. That the authors of such works don’t really understand genetics, and 5. That the signing-on experts never meant to conclude what the author concluded. This is all fair rhetoric, but underneath the careful wordsmithing is an avoidance of the basic question as I stated it above. I hold that the next crop of NBA players will be skewed for individuals who self-identify as “black,” and the reason will be a genetic advantage that reflects source genes from their continent of recent origin. On the other hand, those players will probably not be Mbuti or Kalenjin. That a genetic advantage for sprinting existing in a sub-population of a socially-constructed “race” drives a skewed distribution for the whole “race” does not say much about a given individual. The over-representation of that gene(s) within the “black” race does mean the NBA is likely to remain over-represented by “blacks,” though. However, since we happen to self-identify for a race, and since we happen to care about whether or not our race is represented for at least some pursuits such as professional positions, then we have to understand what roles, if any, genes play. The whole thing becomes a wordsmithing game for “experts” in the field. They have a very practical dilemma that genes do drive outcomes, and that evolution coupled with human migration has driven variations in gene frequency for various lumpings of humans. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2014, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-level-is-racialism-accepted-in-the-scientific-community/695257/159 "2014-08-16T23:15:26Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > The whole thing becomes a wordsmithing game for “experts” in the field. They have a very practical dilemma that genes do drive outcomes, and that evolution coupled with human migration has driven variations in gene frequency for various lumpings of humans. And as usual, no genetic evidence regarding the cause of any differences in intelligence among races. As usual the main reason why we are discussing this is switched to mean that we are saying that no genetics are involved in some of the differences we have. It is not likely that the genetic differences are significant regarding intelligence, we are not really dealing here with the differences in genes that benefit a group over another in sports, but that is also not well supported also. > **[The Gene for Running Fast or Far | ScienceBlogs](https://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2008/08/23/the-gene-for-running-fast-or-f)** > > Jamaican sprinters make people who are not really thinking about this jump, like pole vaulters, to the conclusion that there must be a gene for running fast that somehow evolved ... like Olympic Beach Volley Ball seemingly from sterile sand ...... > [@](#): > > On the other hand, it has become fairly common to attribute a select few true racial traits to certain races. The most common is the obvious genetic superiority of Africans in areas of sports. This belief is widespread among people of all sorts of political orientations, and is often considered benign because it is a “good thing” and not a bad thing (like racial tendencies to be sub intelligent, or to exhibit criminal behavior would be). > > The fact that these “benign” traits are just as fictitious as the other traits, and that they are not at all benign, has not stopped people from believing them. > > A newly released study in Nature Genetics MacArthur et al. 2007. Loss of ACTN3 gene function alters mouse muscle metabolism and shows evidence of positive selection in humans. Nature Genetics Published online: 9 September 2007 | doi:10.1038/ng2122 relates to this issue. According to the study, an allele of a gene that is involved in the development of muscle occurs in some human populations, conferring on those individuals an exceptional ability to run. > > From the abstract of this paper: > > > [@](#): > > > > ``` > > More than a billion humans worldwide are predicted to be completely deficient in the fast skeletal muscle fiber protein alpha-actinin-3 owing to homozygosity for a premature stop codon polymorphism, R577X, in the ACTN3 gene. The R577X polymorphism is associated with elite athlete status and human muscle performance, suggesting that alpha-actinin-3 deficiency influences the function of fast muscle fibers. Here we show that loss of alpha-actinin-3 expression in a knockout mouse model results in a shift in muscle metabolism toward the more efficient aerobic pathway and an increase in intrinsic endurance performance. In addition, we demonstrate that the genomic region surrounding the 577X null allele shows low levels of genetic variation and recombination in [certain groups of people], consistent with strong, recent positive selection. We propose that the 577X allele has been positively selected in some human populations owing to its effect on skeletal muscle metabolism. > > > > ``` > > So, now we have it. The gene, how it works, what it does. This must explain why all of those Africans win all those races, and why so many elite American athletes are African-American. > > The social and economic explanations are no longer as needed. The fact that almost all African elite long distance runners were born and raised one or more miles above sea level and thus developed tremendous lung capacity is no longer as important. Finally, we have a benign race gene for … well, racing. > BBBZZZZZZEERRRRKKKKKK > > Huh? What? Oh, that was the “no, that’s wrong” buzzer going off…. > > The frequency of this gene is nowhere high enough in any population to be a “racial” trait, even if such traits actually existed. And it is prevalent mainly among Europeans and Asians. The slow ones have the fast genes. > > Back to the paper: > > > [@](#): > > > > ``` > > The frequency of the 577X null allele differs between human groups: it is approx 10% in Africans but approaches 50% in Eurasian populations. Two independent studies have reported associations between R577X and elite athlete status; the frequency of the 577XX null genotype is lower in sprinting and power athletes and higher in endurance athletes. > > > > ``` > > Eat your heart out, Philip Rushton. ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2014, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-level-is-racialism-accepted-in-the-scientific-community/695257/160 "2014-08-17T03:00:50Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > And as usual, no genetic evidence regarding the cause of any differences in intelligence among races. As usual the main reason why we are discussing this is switched to mean that we are saying that no genetics are involved in some of the differences we have. It is not likely that the genetic differences are significant regarding intelligence, we are not really dealing here with the differences in genes that benefit a group over another in sports, but that is also not well supported also. > > [The Gene for Running Fast or Far | ScienceBlogs](http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2008/08/23/the-gene-for-running-fast-or-f/) You are confusing a general discussion about how homozygosity for ACTN R577X might drive performance outcomes with the more germane point that the prevalence for this is markedly different betwee african and european groups studied. I am not surprised. It’s easy to oversimplify and take away the summaries–particularly from blogs and the like–that seem to jibe with how you want the world to be. I suggest further reading, GIGObuster: From your cite: _“The frequency of the 577X null allele differs between human groups: it is approx 10% in Africans but approaches 50% in Eurasian populations.”_ So the first thing that should jump out even to the casual reader is that this is at least a good example of a gene whose frequency may have a marked variation between “races” even if we don’t know exactly how it works. Then you could dig a little deeper, and perhaps see if a recent review sheds more light on whether or not this particular gene might have actually been shown to have any non-trivial associations, even if they weren’t exactly the one the mouse model suggested. Turns out such reviews do exist. [Here’s one, looking over about 360+ papers on the topic.](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3554644/) If you are interested in learning more, feel free, but the basic takeaways about ACTN3 I think you’d find helpful are: 1. ACTN3 variants differ markedly between african and eurasian populations in the groups studied so far 2. ACTN3 (and perhaps in particular–but maybe not; maybe in some other way–homozygosity for the R577XX variant (thought to be a stop codon polymorphism) may have an effect for power sports. 3. ACE genes also have been studied and are presented here And a couple quotes. - "When restricted the analyses to power events, a significant association was observed . In the analyses based on dominant model as shown in Figure 5, R allele carrier was consistently associated with increase possibility of sports performance among power events Significant relations were observed between ACE II genotype and endurance events, and ACTN R allele and power events, respectively. Subgroup analyses suggest gender, ethnicity and sport discipline might explain, at least in part, the existing heterogeneity between included studies. …the crude division of ethnics groups into ‘Asian’, ‘African’ and ‘Western’ may make the analyses be prone to bias. Therefore, further studies from different populations are warranted to verify the current findings."\* No one should pretend every important gene driving either trivial or non-trivial outcomes has been worked out. An equal caution should be applied when an early explanation turns out to be wrong or overly simplistic. And we should definitely be cautious about pretending small studies for gene frequencies automatically apply to broad population groups, or for that matter, to any given individual self-identifying with that group. But in general, the trend in studying these sorts of genes has been to support the general notion that genes do drive outcomes, and when frequency studies are done even at the crude division of “race,” it is very commonly the case that wide frequency variations are observed. This doesn’t seem to lend much reassurance to those who hope that mother nature has somehow decided to be roughly egalitarian among human populations in creating the gene pools from which those populations draw their genes. Given the continental migration patterns we know to have existed, all of this fits neatly into a fundamental supposition that race-based groupings have disparate gene pools with disparate gene frequencies. I recommend you spend less time perusing blogs and summary position papers, and more time reading the research itself. Then you can form your own conclusions. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-level-is-racialism-accepted-in-the-scientific-community/695257.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-level-is-racialism-accepted-in-the-scientific-community/695257.md?page=9)