# Multiculturalism - a no brainer **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 16, 2011, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/multiculturalism-a-no-brainer/574971 "2011-03-16T22:34:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 12
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2011, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/multiculturalism-a-no-brainer/574971/221 "2011-03-28T22:49:29Z")
> [@Chen019](#): > > What do you mean there are no legitimate biological reasons? Again here are the biological definitions. The groups identified by Rosenberg are biological races, or you can call them breeding groups, populations. The individual groups that Rosenberg identified are biological populations. The Yoruba, San, Sindhi, Pathan, Basque, Han, Miao and all the other individual groups are recognized as populations by everyone in biology. None of them are identified as “races.” Where do you find any legitimate scientific paper that identifies any of them as “races”? Mixing terms and arbitrarily putting the label “race” on any of those groups can satisfy some archaic definition, but it simply confuses any discussion of “race” in society or biology because the vast majority of people who hear or read the word “race” in such a discussion will look for a(n essentially) non-existent larger group. To what larger “races” would the Yoruba, Pathans, or Han belong that actually share any biological commonality, (genetic structure, predisposition to disease, dietary restrictions, etc.)? If you wish to assert that there are hundreds of races among humanity, that is your prerogative, but then you need to recognize that when you use that term, you will mislead the overwhelming majority of any audience you might have. When the word “race” gets bandied about, it pretty much nearly always refers to the four of Linnaeus, the five of Blumenbach, or the three of mid-twentieth century social studies texts without actually identifying any genetically coherent group. ---
**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2011, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/multiculturalism-a-no-brainer/574971/222 "2011-03-29T00:37:11Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > The individual groups that Rosenberg identified are biological populations. The Yoruba, San, Sindhi, Pathan, Basque, Han, Miao and all the other individual groups are recognized as populations by everyone in biology. None of them are identified as “races.” Where do you find any legitimate scientific paper that identifies any of them as “races”? > > Mixing terms and arbitrarily putting the label “race” on any of those groups can satisfy some archaic definition, but it simply confuses any discussion of “race” in society or biology because the vast majority of people who hear or read the word “race” in such a discussion will look for a(n essentially) non-existent larger group. To what larger “races” would the Yoruba, Pathans, or Han belong that actually share any biological commonality, (genetic structure, predisposition to disease, dietary restrictions, etc.)? > > If you wish to assert that there are hundreds of races among humanity, that is your prerogative, but then you need to recognize that when you use that term, you will mislead the overwhelming majority of any audience you might have. When the word “race” gets bandied about, it pretty much nearly always refers to the four of Linnaeus, the five of Blumenbach, or the three of mid-twentieth century social studies texts without actually identifying any genetically coherent group. I’m using the biological definitions I cited above. If people find that too confusing it’s their problem. In terms of the HapMap codes these relate to the following broader racial categories: white = CEU + TSI, black = ASW + LWK + MKK + YRI, Hispanic = MEX, East Asian = CHB + CHD + JPT, and South Asian (Indian) = GIH.]. Remember that the term “human populations” is basically a euphemism for “racial groups”. Population descriptors: ASW (A): African ancestry in Southwest USA CEU (C): Utah residents with Northern and Western European ancestry from the CEPH collection CHB (H): Han Chinese in Beijing, China CHD (D): Chinese in Metropolitan Denver, Colorado GIH (G): Gujarati Indians in Houston, Texas JPT (J): Japanese in Tokyo, Japan LWK (L): Luhya in Webuye, Kenya MEX (M): Mexican ancestry in Los Angeles, California MKK (K): Maasai in Kinyawa, Kenya TSI (T): Toscans in Italy YRI (Y): Yoruba in Ibadan, Nigeria ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2011, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/multiculturalism-a-no-brainer/574971/223 "2011-03-29T01:19:14Z")
> [@Chen019](#): > > I’m using the biological definitions I cited above. If people find that too confusing it’s their problem. Actually, it is not so much “confusing” as misleading. To employ the word “race” when it sends a completely different meaning to the audience than you claim to be intending, hardly promotes knowledge or understanding. > [@Chen019](#): > > Remember that the term “human populations” is basically a euphemism for “racial groups”. Not really. “Human populations” has the meaning “genetically related populations.” “Racial groups” means “groups of people, often unrelated, associated by geography or vague phenotype or any other sysem of classification that looks good to a particular observer at a particular time,” (_i.e._, some social construct). ---
**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2011, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/multiculturalism-a-no-brainer/574971/224 "2011-03-29T02:37:05Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > Actually, it is not so much “confusing” as misleading. To employ the word “race” when it sends a completely different meaning to the audience than you claim to be intending, hardly promotes knowledge or understanding. > > Not really. “Human populations” has the meaning “genetically related populations.” “Racial groups” means “groups of people, often unrelated, associated by geography or vague phenotype or any other sysem of classification that looks good to a particular observer at a particular time,” (_i.e._, some social construct). Where do you get that definition from? The definition I used from biology online mirrors your definition for genetically related populations, particularly: > [@](#): > > (2) A descent from a common heritage, ancestor, breed or stock. > > (3) A tribe or family of people sharing a common breed or lineage. The point about geography of course is that it influences mating patterns, something the Rosenberg paper on clines discussed. Here is Neil Risch also: > [@](#): > > Ancestry refers to the race/ethnicity of an individual’s ancestors, whatever the individual’s current affiliation. From the genetic perspective, the important concept is mating patterns, and the degree to which racially or ethnically defined groups remain endogamous… > > Despite the evidence for genetic differentiation among the five major races, as defined above, numerous studies have shown that local populations retain a great deal of genetic variation. Analysis of variance has led to estimates of 10% for the proportion of variance due to average differences between races, and 75% of the variance due to genetic variation within populations. Comparable estimates have been obtained for classical blood markers [15,16], microsatellites [17], and SNPs [12]. Unfortunately, these analysis of variance estimates have also led to misunderstandings or misinterpretations. Because of the large amount of variation observed within races versus between races, some commentators have denied genetic differentiation between the races; for example, \*\*“Genetic data … show that any two individuals within a particular population are as different genetically as any two people selected from any two populations in the world.” [18]. This assertion is both counter-intuitive and factually incorrect [12,13]. If it were true, it would be impossible to create discrete clusters of humans (that end up corresponding to the major races), for example as was done by Wilson et al. [2], with even as few as 20 randomly chosen genetic markers. Two Caucasians are more similar to each other genetically than a Caucasian and an Asian. \*\* [http://genomebiology.com/2002/3/7/comment/2007](http://genomebiology.com/2002/3/7/comment/2007) ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2011, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/multiculturalism-a-no-brainer/574971/225 "2011-03-29T04:04:50Z")
> [@Chen019](#): > > Where do you get that definition from? The definition I used from biology online mirrors your definition for genetically related populations, particularly: However, the three to six “races” that are generally included in those discussions do not meet that definition of population. Pick any of the “races.” They are not “a tribe or family of people sharing a common breed or lineage” while a population probably is and they do not share more of a “common heritage, ancestor, breed or stock” other than all being human. > [@Chen019](#): > > [http://genomebiology.com/2002/3/7/comment/2007](http://genomebiology.com/2002/3/7/comment/2007) > > > [@](#): > > > > If it were true, it would be impossible to create discrete clusters of humans (that end up corresponding to the major races), for example as was done by Wilson et al. [2], with even as few as 20 randomly chosen genetic markers. Two Caucasians are more similar to each other genetically than a Caucasian and an Asian. Really? Wilson’s abstract actually notes: > [@](#): > > We find that commonly used ethnic labels are both insufficient and inaccurate representations of the inferred genetic clusters, and that drug-metabolizing profiles, defined by the distribution of DME variants, differ significantly among the clusters. We note, however, that the complexity of human demographic history means that there is no obvious natural clustering scheme, nor an obvious appropriate degree of resolution. Our comparison of drug-metabolizing profiles across the inferred clusters establishes a framework for assessing the appropriate level of resolution in relating genetic structure to drug response. In other words, Wilson and company developed methods to test genetics for specific markers to identify drug effectiveness rather than relying on the unreliable and inaccurate assumption of relatedness based on “ethnic labels” (such as “race”). Risch appears to believe in racial structure, but tends to ignore all the information that argues against it, (such as citing Wilson’s work that does not say what he wants it to or ignoring the clinal nature of humanity and avoiding discussions of “racial” mixing). You appear to believe Risch, but I find him unpersuasive. ---
**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2011, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/multiculturalism-a-no-brainer/574971/226 "2011-03-30T00:44:28Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > However, the three to six “races” that are generally included in those discussions do not meet that definition of population. Pick any of the “races.” They are not “a tribe or family of people sharing a common breed or lineage” while a population probably is and they do not share more of a “common heritage, ancestor, breed or stock” other than all being human. > Really? Wilson’s abstract actually notes:In other words, Wilson and company developed methods to test genetics for specific markers to identify drug effectiveness rather than relying on the unreliable and inaccurate assumption of relatedness based on “ethnic labels” (such as “race”). > > Risch appears to believe in racial structure, but tends to ignore all the information that argues against it, (such as citing Wilson’s work that does not say what he wants it to or ignoring the clinal nature of humanity and avoiding discussions of “racial” mixing). You appear to believe Risch, but I find him unpersuasive. Risch doesn’t ignore racial mixing. See his comments on hispanics in that 2002 paper. Nonetheless, in a study in 2005 Risch then showed self reported ethnicity corresponds to these clusters about 99% of the time. When Risch says that two two Caucasians are more similar to each other genetically than a Caucasian and an Asian, that’s what subsequent studies also show. > [@](#): > > "How often is a pair of random individuals from two different populations genetically more similar than a pair of individuals randomly selected from any single population… > > if genetic similarity is measured over many thousands of loci, the answer becomes “never” when individuals are sampled from geographically separated populations." (Witherspoon et al 2007 - Genetic Similarities Within and Between Human Populations) And no matter what genetic markers you choose: SNPs, STRs, no matter how you choose them: randomly or based on their “informativeness”, it is relatively easy to classify DNA into the correct continental origin (ie. major geographic origins of their ancestors). > [@](#): > > The results presented here show how investigators conducting genetic association studies can use small numbers of arbitrarily chosen SNPs to identify stratification in study subjects and avoid false positive genotype-phenotype associations. Our findings also demonstrate the extent of variation between continentally defined groups and argue strongly against the contention that genetic differences between groups are too small to have biomedical significance. [http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/picrender.fcgi?artid=1828730&blobtype=pdf](http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/picrender.fcgi?artid=1828730&blobtype=pdf) In terms of clinal variation note though Rosenberg’s comment about clusters & why these arise. > [@](#): > > For population pairs from the same cluster, as geographic distance increases, genetic distance increases in a linear manner, consistent with a clinal population structure. However, for pairs from different clusters, genetic distance is generally larger than that between intracluster pairs that have the same geographic distance. For example, genetic distances for population pairs with one population in Eurasia and the other in East Asia are greater than those for pairs at equivalent geographic distance within Eurasia or within East Asia. Loosely speaking, it is these small discontinuous jumps in genetic distance—across oceans, the Himalayas, and the Sahara—that provide the basis for the ability of STRUCTURE to identify clusters that correspond to geographic regions. > **[PLOS Genetics](https://journals.plos.org/plosgenetics/)** ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2011, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/multiculturalism-a-no-brainer/574971/227 "2011-03-30T00:57:07Z")
> [@Chen019](#): > > Risch doesn’t ignore racial mixing. See his comments on hispanics in that 2002 paper. Nonetheless, in a study in 2005 Risch then showed self reported ethnicity corresponds to these clusters about 99% of the time. When Risch says that two two Caucasians are more similar to each other genetically than a Caucasian and an Asian, that’s what subsequent studies also show. As long as you stick to North America with its particular filters of immigration, you can make that work. It starts to come apart when we move into the rest of the world, otherwise, Wilson would not have had to create the separate methodology to use gene testing for drug compatibility–he could have simply relied on self-reported ethnicity, the specific action he noted was too flawed for validity. I’m surprised to even see Risch employ the word “Caucasian.” I’d be curious to know who he includes in that group and whether he really believes that a Swede is closer, genetically, to a Sri Lankan than to an Ethiopian or whether the Ethiopian is more distant from a Yemeni than a Swede or a Sri Lankan. Does he include Tahitians with the Mongoloids or with an Oceanic people? Regardless, with all the extra gene matching that that is required for genuine medicine to match individuals, there does not seem to be any legitimate reason to hang on to the outdated concept of “race,” since it fails to actually provide useful information. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2011, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/multiculturalism-a-no-brainer/574971/228 "2011-03-30T01:00:45Z")
> [@Chen019](#): > > In terms of clinal variation note though Rosenberg’s comment about clusters & why these arise. And note, again, that Rosenberg failed to find actual relatedness among the groups, only statistical pairing by junk DNA as a legacy of migrations. Within the various groups, enough change has occurred that the geographical groups tend to be composed of actually dissimilar smaller groups. ---
**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2011, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/multiculturalism-a-no-brainer/574971/229 "2011-03-30T03:51:51Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > And note, again, that Rosenberg failed to find actual relatedness among the groups, only statistical pairing by junk DNA as a legacy of migrations. Within the various groups, enough change has occurred that the geographical groups tend to be composed of actually dissimilar smaller groups. Well, doesn’t genetic distance measure the time since two populations have shared common ancestors - i.e., since they were the same population? So genetic distance is a summary measure of general relatedness between populations. And what these results show is that people from a given continental population are more closely related to one another than they are to the populations of other continents (see Goodrum’s faq [http://www.goodrumj.com/RFaqHTML.html](http://www.goodrumj.com/RFaqHTML.html). As you say, you can also identify the genetic distance between smaller groups within these major groupings: > [@](#): > > Significant East-West and North-South substructure is apparent already from the figure. The resolution of the study is sufficiently high that Swedes and Norwegians can be distinguished with 90 percent accuracy … > > Genetic distances between population clusters are roughly as follows: the distance between two neighboring western European populations is of order one in units of standard deviations and the distance to the Russian cluster is several times larger than that – say, 3 or 4. From HapMap data, the distance from Russian to Chinese and Japanese clusters is about 18, and the distance of southern Europeans to the Nigerian cluster is about 19. > **[Information Processing](https://infoproc.blogspot.com/search/label/genetics?updated-max=2010-06-29T07%3A41%3A00-07%3A00&max-results=20)** > > Pessimism of the Intellect, Optimism of the Will     > > Favorite posts | Manifold podcast | Twitter: @hsu\_steve ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2011, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/multiculturalism-a-no-brainer/574971/230 "2011-03-31T03:46:23Z")
> [@Chen019](#): > > Well, doesn’t genetic distance measure the time since two populations have shared common ancestors - i.e., since they were the same population? > > So genetic distance is a summary measure of general relatedness between populations. No. It merely shows the distance from common ancestor, not what has happened to the populations since that time. By “relatedness” I would expect to see common susceptibility to disease or diet or pharmacology, yet disease is all over the place, based on environmental factors, acceptable diets are diverse, (probably environmentally selected, as well), and, as Wilson and others have noted, good pharmacology still requires tests at the level of individuals, not groups. At the local, (biological population), level, we can find relatedness, but no such commonality can be found at the level of the socially identified “races.” ---
**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2011, 6:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/multiculturalism-a-no-brainer/574971/231 "2011-03-31T06:12:50Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > No. It merely shows the distance from common ancestor, not what has happened to the populations since that time. > By “relatedness” I would expect to see common susceptibility to disease or diet or pharmacology, yet disease is all over the place, based on environmental factors, acceptable diets are diverse, (probably environmentally selected, as well), and, as Wilson and others have noted, good pharmacology still requires tests at the level of individuals, not groups. At the local, (biological population), level, we can find relatedness, but no such commonality can be found at the level of the socially identified “races.” Ok, but you have to accept that people from these continental races or populations are more closely related to each other than they are to people from other continental races. For instance, europeans are more closely related to each other than they are to someone from sub-saharan africa or an australian aborigine. In terms of disease, here are some examples of statistical differences along these lines: > [@](#): > > There exists adequate evidence of racial disparities to warrant stratification for genomic studies of many complex diseases. There are numerous examples of such racial disparities in disease (e.g. prostate cancer,11 glaucoma,12 chronic kidney disease,13 and diabetes-related lower extremity amputation)14 and response to therapy (e.g. high-dose interferon treatment for chronic hepatitis C)15 that persist after accounting for a wide range of potential confounders (e.g. access to care, socioeconomic status, health behaviours). Such residual race effects should at the very least raise some suspicion regarding the distribution and effect size of susceptibility alleles associated with these and other complex disorders. [http://ije.oxfordjournals.org/content/32/1/26.full](http://ije.oxfordjournals.org/content/32/1/26.full) > [@](#): > > International Conference on Harmonization (ICH) published a guidance to facilitate the registration of drugs among ICH regions (European Union, Japan, the United States) by recommending a framework for evaluating the impact of ethnic factors on a drug’s effect, as well as its efficacy and safety at a particular dosage and dosage regimen. This review focuses on the pharmacokinetic differences between East Asians and Caucasians. Differences in metabolism between East Asians and Caucasians are common, especially in the activity of several phase I enzymes such as CYP2D6 and the CYP2C subfamily. [http://jcp.sagepub.com/content/44/10/1083.short](http://jcp.sagepub.com/content/44/10/1083.short) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/multiculturalism-a-no-brainer/574971.md?page=11)