Human races after all!?! --- What now?

Great Debates
1

The ‘race debate’ has been had a million times in here just in the few months I have been around (it feels like a million anyway) and many honorable posters, whom I have grown to respect have strived hard to show that ‘race’ is a useless biological concept. I already agreed with that based on what I read over the years before I started posting at the SDMB, and the level the ‘race debate’ is held at in here contributed no little in making me stick around this place.

Further, over the last few years I have felt that it was a blessing to have the ‘race is biologically useless and improvable’ argument as a scythe to cut down racist arguments when I encounter them, which unfortunately is more frequent than one would want, even in polite society.

Now it has been said many a time in these debates that the concept of ‘race’ would seem to have some limited use in medicine due to hereditary disease and such traits that are endemic to population groups. As it seems a respected geneticist is now taking that a step further and challenging the rest of the scientific community by saying that five genetically distinct groups of people with subgroups exist, which one could arguably call ‘races’ and ‘ethnicities’. He says the division pretty much is continental and that 100 random DNA positions or 30 specific is enough to classify a test specimen into the ‘race’ groups. At 50 specific positions he claims that we can be classified into ethnic groups below the five major ‘races’.

He is apparently being taken very seriously by his colleagues in the field.

Two questions arise.

First question: Not being very well versed in the finer points of genetics myself I can’t judge this stuff at all, but I surmise that one should take it at face value, or is NYT out cruising a little too loosely on the waves of as of yet unproven scientific findings?

Second question: What about my scythe? Not that I think this changes anything in the base of my argument, i.e. that we are not significantly different, but it sure blunts the edge in my argument and I foresee many an abuse of such findings to argue imagined differences, or to just posit that this won’t be the end and that soon we’ll find differences in the ’intelligence gene’ as well (that would be the ‘stupidity gene’ in whoever would say something that moronic, but still).

I think you all see my point. What now?

Sparc

2

There is a difference between race and ethnicity. One does not exist.

3

Sparc, I fully agree with your second point, particularly, “Not that I think this changes anything in the base of my argument, i.e. that we are not significantly different…” As you say, it’s of no real importance whether or not there are certain specific genetic differences between races.

Furthermore, this result isn’t the least bit surprising to most of us. I mean, different races have different skin colors for genetic reasons. But, a person is an individual, not a random member of a racial group.

A more real question is how important is it to study medical differences between race? My wife, who does medical-statistical studies, considers race more important than I do. Yes, there are a few diseases with different frequencies by race. However, IMHO, too many researchers tend to automatically subdivide their data by race because it’s easy to do.

As to the question, “What now?”:

My answer is: Ignore the study. Even if it’s correct, it’s unimportant.

4

Genetic experts have pointed out, and sorry no cite, that the average troop of chimps have more genetic differences among group members than all the humans on the planet, meaning that at one point we were down to only a few mating pairs, at the most and that even these were closely related. That some mutations and diversity, causing susceptibility to disease or coloration differences exist does not constitute distinct races. A species is usually called something different if the offspring would not be fertile (a mule). For example, lions and tigers can mate and produce live offspring, but those offspring, ligons, are sterile. A donkey and a horse produce a mule, a jenny or a jackass, but the mule is always sterile. Therefore, they are different species, or races if you will. Humans can mate with the different color groups in the Crayola box of humanity and regularly produce fertile offspring. All one species.

5

He’s an idiot. I was going to give him some support, but then I read the article completely and realized his whole premise makes no sense.

If he’s talking strictly about IDing genetics and classifying people based on their ancestors’ continent of origin, that’s pretty starightforward, and totally harmless. People can see that sub-Saharan Africans have somewhat different genes than Swedes. But he derides people who have stopped here, and have not gone on to use the racial classification. Why? Here’s why:

This has nothing to do with the biological/genetic value of someone’s “race.” This has to do with the SOCIOLOGICAL concept of race, which is very real, and has very real effects on a person’s health. Risch is willfully confusing the two areas–to what end, I don’t know.

6

Interesting stuff.

Actually this is interesting because it brings home a point that I’ve made in these debates - that there is a subtext of political correctness underlying the “no-race” position. That there is a fear to acknowledge the existence of races as this might give ammunition to those who would use this for nefarious purposes. Which tends to make them skew the issue in a non-race direction. (The quote above supports this as well). Members of the anti-race camp (most notably tomndebb) have expended some energy attempting to deny this, though unconvincingly.

toadspittle, I believe you’ve misunderstood Dr. Risch (though that doesn’t necessarily make you an idiot). He is saying that “race” will correlate to both genetic and sociological factors, while genetic markers will correlate only to genetic ones.

7

IzzyR,

Go ahead and place words in my mouth. That I can defend, or just demand that you retract, but placing my words in Tom’s mouth just won’t fly.

In any case I see no conflict between what Tom has said and what I am saying. As I said I am hard pressed and it would be inappropriate to argue for someone else so I’ll just address this from my viewpoint as best I can with the extreme little knowledge I have of the scientific side.

That I as a knee-jerk card carrying, meek-hearted PC humanist (not) see a correlation between the scientific debate on race and my personal socio-political viewpoints does in no way mean that there is a PC agenda with the scientific statement that race is a meaningless concept biologically speaking. That is in fact as non sequitor as you get.

If it makes you feel better you can say that I am doing the same thing that I fear racists will do with Dr. Risch’s statements and findings. I am hijacking scientific findings for my dark and nasty ulterior political motives and purposes.

Jump me for what I write next time instead of implicating a third party that has no responsibility for my potentially deluded ravings regarding scientific matters that I in fact understand as much about as a six year old does of the finer points of macroeconomics.

Sparc

8

Sparc,

No need to get all excited there. I am not completely certain if I am failing to understand you or you have failed to understand me, but I’d guess the latter. Read and understand the following:

I am not putting any words in Tom’s mouth - I am quite familiar with his words, having read them in several threads - and I don’t anticipate that he will attempt to deny them. (If he does, I will dig up links, but again, I doubt if this will be necessary). What I am pointing to is yourself as an example of someone who is troubled by the possible implications of the “races exist” side of the argument. This suggests that others as well might have similar motivations. Tom has made the point that one of the leading “races don’t exist” scientists has been attacked by the “PC crowd”, and suggested that the PC POV might be to say that races do exist. I have suggested that motivations such as yours might be more common. I therefore note this in this instance. I also noted that one of the scientists in the article suggested the same.

If you have anything substantive to say on this topic, by all means…

9

This question is only important for the sake of debate. And debate is just a game. Nothing more.
And this particular debate is getting rather tiresome.
Peace,
mangeorge

10

I have made one specific point regarding the interaction of “PC” efforts and the determination of biological race in several posts: Dr. Cavalli-Sforza is the geneticist most responsible for the adoption by the scientific community that there is no underlying biological reality to race; he has been denied funding by people who are recognized as being in the “PC” camp to continue his analyses of genetic records of migration of humans. Thus, we have “PC” people actively opposing research by the single strongest opponent of race as reality rather than supporting this “opponent of race.” At that point, I simply find it amusing when people claim that “anti-race” is PC when PC people oppose “anti-race” science.

The conclusion that I draw from comparing the remarks of the opponents of Dr. Cavalli-Sforza with the comments of Dr. O’Brien is that anyone who opposes any scientific examination will be labeled PC, regardless of their actual motives. “Political Correctness” is simply an epithet hurled at anyone who opposes any action. It is becoming a meaningless term in its own right. The idea that either Collounsbury or I are serious proponents of PC is absurd to the point of laughter.

Regarding the works of Drs. Risch and Goldstein:
I will be interested to see what the actual science is. Dr. Risch claims to have been able to identify races. OK. What has he found that Cavalli-Sforza and several dozen other people have missed? If there is genuinely something out there, then let us see what it is. I have never opposed the concept of “race”–I have only noted that the geneticists have not been able to identify it and that the old definitions do not seem to match the human reality.

I do have two immediate reservations:

  • Dr. Goldstein used genetic markers instead of race, came up with different populations, and was dismissed by Dr. Risch because those markers would be “confusing”? Excuse me? An actual biological marker (or series of markers) that actually map onto prevalence of or susceptibility to disease is somehow more “confusing” than someone’s physical appearance (which is demonstrably misleading in several cases)? Unless he was misquoted, Risch’s claims that
    [/quote]
    If the two groups were Caucasian-Americans and African-Americans, say, the researcher might be blinded to other explanations, like a difference in access to medical care.
    [/quote]
    is specious. Americans of African descent are quite likely to have a significant percentage of European or North American ancestors in contrast to continental Africans and that should have a very definite effect on looking at things by “race.” In fact, that is the exact point made in the NEJM that Risch claims to oppose.
  • Dr. Risch has claimed (or the author of the article claimed for him) that his races are associated with the large land masses–yet (going back to the old hobgoblin of appearance), there are at least three separate groups that are quite physically different in sub-Sahara Africa. How has he been able to lump them together? What has he found that connects them?

Now, if Risch can provide actual evidence of his theory, I will have no problem accepting it. I have always recognized that there are various populations of humans in the world and I am willing to let the people who study such things explain to me how large or coherent those populations are. The evidence prior to Risch has, for ten to fifteen years, argued exactly against Risch’s claims. Let’s see his evidence.

11

Tom,

Your assertions about your position regarding PC are exactly as I remember them. Hence my point above.

More significantly, you end off with: “Let’s see his [Risch’s]evidence”. Now the fact is that the vast majority of people on this board have little or no ability to look up and assess Risch’s evidence. You should therefore be aware that we are relying on the more erudite people like yourself (& Collounsbury, Edwino, & Gaspode et al) to look up and assess the evidence for us. Have at it.

:slight_smile:

12

IzzyR,

In fact I think you are misunderstanding me - and not the other way around, probably because I was unclear to begin with in the OP and that my retort to you was clouded by sarcasm. I am slowly learning that sarcasm and irony are all too often to waste in here, and I am growing increasingly apprehensive of my lack of clarity at times.

I don’t have a problem with any finding that indicates that there is such a thing as ‘race’ from a biological viewpoint, if it is clear what is meant and what the implications be.

I fear findings that mix social concepts of ‘race’ with genetics in an unclear way. Hence, what I understand from Risch’s finding trouble me because I can’t get my mind around which of those two he means and as far as I can see he means neither, but both and as such it is rife with opportunity to be hijacked for purposes ulterior. As I have said before I am desperately lacking in knowledge in these respects and thus unable to judge the detailed argument, hence this thread.

So far toadspittle has indicated that I was correct in that fear. You claim that this is an exaggeration or misreading, but have not made a very compelling argument, actually you made none.

Tom just increased my skepticism by pointing to the potential speciousness in all this as regards geographical populations and phenotype connection.

Where I guess it all goes wrong is that I wasn’t careful enough in the wording of the OP. I should have anticipated the argument you bring and not brought in my ‘scythe’ into it at all. The fact stands though that as a rabid anti-racist I am suspicious of any scientific finding that magically fits old clichés of eugenics, especially when the rest of the scientific community have refuted it for many years.

This in no ways makes for a connection between the actual science and my political views. For that matter I don’t understand the concept PC at all. Considering the amount of flak I usually pull from both right and left of the political spectrum, I am even more confused by the concept if I am to be the yardstick for PC-ness, nary a PC left in the world after that.

Sparc

13

Sparc,

OK, though I don’t see much connection between this and your previous post (what of your words did you think I was putting in Tom’s mouth?).

In any event, your most recent post seems to reiterate your OP. Which is fine. And my point, again, is that you might not be alone in your concern that a “races exist” finding “is rife with opportunity to be hijacked for purposes ulterior”. And that this concern, if it weighs on the minds of scientists and those who employ and fund them, has the possible impact of shifting the scientific position on race racial more in the direction of “races don’t exist” than pure science would warrant.

I don’t see any connection between toadspittle’s post and anything being being discussed here - if I’ve misunderstood him/her he/she will clarify.

In any event, I am not accusing any specific person of being motivated by PC considerations, so there’s no need to deny anything - only speculating on what the overall overall impact of this mindset might be with regards to this issue.

14

Well, I guess it’s nice to know that we laypeople are not the only ones who wrestle with these issues.

From a symposium held in 1996:
[url=http://www.stanford.edu/group/SHR/5-supp/text/kaplan.html]problematizing reifications and naturalizations out of focus
[/quote]

(Don’t worry, it is not all as turgid as the title.)

15

OK IzzyR,

I’m giving this one last attempt. It is 5.30 AM in my parts and time for bed, so I’ll be short. Hopefully that will not impede the clarity.

I made reference to racism, you implicated Tom on it, for a statement that I happen to be familiar with and had nothing to do with what I wrote, it was in fact not remotely connected. By equating my words with his you put my words out of context and warped them into his. I think Tom can fend for himself, I just don’t like it when my words are taken on a ride and go places where they were not intended.

What in the name of all goat herding bastards from hell is that supposed to mean? You cut and paste my words and took them out of context? Hello??? Seriously, that’s not OK. Here is what I really said, once again:

In other words; I have no problem with anyone proving that race exists from a genetic perspective, as long as that is what they do and not confuse various other irrelevant issues into it, like social standards or perceived race based on phenotype.

Clear? If not I fear I can’t do much better so you’ll have to wonder what I meant as re the first part and live with your delusions as to what I actually said as for the last, 'cause I am not explaning one more time.

Sparc

16

I guess I’m dense. I still think that Tom and toadspittle are exactly right in that Risch in mixing up two concepts without cause.

The sociologic construct of race exists. Individuals are identified by others and self-identify as a particular “race” and such an identity affects behaviors including access to care.

Certain features are measurably more common in sociologically identified group A vs Group B. Among these features are the presence of various genetic markers.

Response to various medications is predicted by certain genetic markers. A crude prediction can be made on the basis of sociologic identification that a particular marker may be more likely present, and that therefore a particular response to a certain drug may be more common in that group. Clearly testing for that marker directly would be more predictive than such a crude stand-in. Goldstein’s approach has much more utility.

Such marker testing in no way obviates the importance of social factors … rather it helps tease out what effects are caused by social factors and which ones have a basis in biology.

An example from the research of a freind of mine:

Observation: Black Americans reject kidney transplants much more frequently than White Americans. (Social constructs which have some predictive medical predictive value).

Hypotheses:
a) This is due to differential care and social economic status or due to differing behaviors.
b) This is due to differing gentic predispositions.

Study: Found that a particular genetic marker predicted transplant rejection in Blacks and Whites. This marker is more common in Blacks than Whites but is present in both populations. Other factors, such as SES, were less predictive of outcomes.

Implication: Testing for that marker allows for more aggressive immunosuppression in those individuals, Black or White, that are at greatest risk of rejection, while sparing Blacks without such a marker unneeded aggressive care and its side effects.

Risch would have all “Blacks” get the more aggressive care, rather than test for the specific marker … to avoid “confusion.” He seems to think that researchers are unable to control for and to test for the effects of other factors as well as the markers, like behaviors , SES, and access to care. That seriously understimates medical researchers. Moreover it implies that Black or White automatically is asociated with some particular other factor.

“Race” remains a crude concept of limited value. Of use only until the specifics of a particular situation are better understood and then applied across groups of social construction.

17

From my read of the article, Risch seems to be defining “race” as his own term, and grouping populations together into what he calls a race, using societies definitions to seem legitament. (or however it’s spelled). I am not sure where he groups Australian Aboriginies, i didn’t see it in the article. Dr. Goldstein seemed to make sense, but the article is upstairs and i’m too tired to go get it to make sure (ran too far today). Testing for markers regardless of skin color is what should be done and what will be done by any responsible doctor.

18

We need to be less paranoid about “race” and definitions of it. We wouldn’t find anything wrong with a doctor questioning the use of a certain medication for a child because of a “family history” of allergy to it. “Race” - whatever exactly we mean by it, in this sense is like “extended family” if you will, in terms of genetic markers.

In this part of the world, there is huge incidence of diabetes amongst the subcontinental population (many are expats here) and possibly amongst the Arabs as well, though I am less certain about that. As I understand it, 15 percent of subcontinental people carry a gene which predisposes them to diabetes. Diet undeniably is another factor.

So from a WHO point of view, if they wanted to carry out a health education project in this area, they might target the “subcontinental race/peoples/whatever” for particular emphasis on healthy, lower-sugar diet, to avoid this problem.

That they call it “race” or “peoples” or “ethnicities” doesn’t really matter - it’s the convenience of grouping together a particular set of people (profiling, if you will) that is.

Some cites:
http://www.niddk.nih.gov/health/diabetes/dateline/fall00/7.htm
http://procor.org/procor-summary-hma/msg00027.html

19

Much too vague - I give up on this one.

Please stop with these constant accusations that I’ve put words in people’s mouths or taken them out of context. IOW, get over yourself. I am reasonably sure that I’ve understood what you’ve said, and have used your words appropriately - if not you should be trying to show what I’ve said that was wrong, instead of foaming at the mouth over vague generalities.

To reiterate, what I’ve said is that concerns such as those that you’ve expressed could have the effect of pushing the scientific viewpoint in the direction of “races don’t exist” for non-scientific reasons. Agree or disagree, but stop frothing.

Maybe I’m even more dense - I don’t think Tom and toadspittle are saying the same thing at all.

toadspittle’s point was that by insisting that genetic races were necessary, and giving as the reason because of other, non-genetic factors, Dr. Risch was mixing up the two areas. This is similar to the point that you are making.

As I understood it, Dr. Risch’s point goes like this: There are different “races” which may have some differences (on average) both from sociological causes and from genetic ones. If we were to focus on differences between “Race A” and “Race B”, we would be including, as a practical matter, both sets of differences. By eliminating “race” as a differentiator, we familiarize ourselves (and doctors who read the results of the studies) with the genetic differences, but not the sociological ones. Of course, if genetic differences between the “races” were non-extant, that would have to be done in any event -there would be no genetic differences that tend to go along with sociological ones. But here Risch makes the point that they have some validity.

Tom’s point is that the groups being discussed, i.e. Americans of European and African ancestry, have a higher percentage of identical genes than would the “races” that Risch proposes, thus making Risch’s point specious in this particular case.

Frankly, I am not much concerned by any of this - this is a technical matter best left to researchers and medical people. What interests me is the factual claims by Risch about the very existence of “race”:

Of special significance is the fact that his detractors seem to agree with this (while still maintaining that the concept is not useful) as posted above. This seems to run counter to much of what has been posted on these boards about race.

I tried to look up his article in the online journal in which it was published, but it is for subscribers only. Any volunteers?

20

A brief comment if I can. I’m quite busy presently and on the road so I can’t participate as I would like in this discussion, but I did read the article in question, but not the underlying article by Risch.

Observations:

(a) I was puzzled to the point of questioning the premise with the article, and presumably the underlying article in question, that the statement that the macro-races (AKA the classical race concept) is biologically useless does not come from population geneticists.

As anyone who has read the primary literature I have cited here knows, this observation comes precisely from population geneticists., and names I recognize readily than Risch.

Note, for example, in a recent intervention (about a month ago) the quite recent macro-study published in PNAS which found no coherent distribution frequency across continental populations across multiple traits. I.e. patterns of distributions did not match the race idea. Hard data. The people who do this work, and who pointed out the important meaning that it has for negative conclusions on “racial” genetic medicine are population geneticists.

The article’s premise is bizarre then. Perhaps the underlying article is differntly phrased.

(b) That assertion combined with his strange bait and switch between population genetics (I take the confused statement of ethnicities within ‘races’ in re genetics to be an allusion to the emerging preference to speak of populations which are genetically defined) the issue of Race as a sociological factor, quite valid and indeed very important, raises further questions for me.

© I’d like to see the underlying article as the NYT article was confused and perhaps not accurate in its characterization. If accurate, it strikes me Risch has set up a straw man. However, I don’t have access to this journal and will not be back at home base for a while, so …

(d) However, I suspect that perhaps the real point is annoyance on the part of Risch with what I will call the SJGouldrocks (a poster who made ridiculous assertions to the effect there are no population differences btw humans and weirdly called me and Tom racists or something like that.) school which has misunderstood current data.

Of course, I see Izzy with his usual pinache has trotted out the hoary old PC accusation. Nice to see political angles raised in an issue of science.

Well, Izzy old man, note his use of the speculative may – in short his statement as quoted in the article is that the general statement is correct but he feels that other things may point in other directions. Again I point to the PNAS study I recently cited – the detials escape me presently and would in any case be lost on you – in re a multi-loci analysis of distributions, a first of its kind if I recall correctly, whose conclusions reinforced the observation that the old classical “races” do not show covariation. Do not.

Now, Risch can hold his breath on this or not as he likes. Current data and for the better part of 5 years all new incoming data keep pointing in the same direction. As a friend of mine who does primary research in this area said to me once, in re the very same sort of argument “at some point you just have to start drawing conclusions.”

Okay, I really can not afford to get sucked into this at this moment so I apologize to all in advance for begging off. I do encourage edwino and dseid to take a look at the PNAS paper and perhaps edwino has this particular journal so we can get a sense of the original art. I have low expectations when pop. journalists deal with this subject.