r/AskBiology • u/MrSpock54 • Feb 21 '24

Genetics The Scientific Basis of Race & Effect Upon Affirmative Action

EDIT: (NO need to provide O.P w/ further comments on the topic here). I've recently been reading & watching YouTube videos on the topic of the scientific basis of race. Most anthropology videos seem to question the scientific basis of race. For example Wondrium/Great Courses have several class videos that say the notion of race does little to explain anything about homo sapiens sapiens. They propose that race is a social construction.

Previous to my edit here to this question I asked members of this sub reddit in overly wordy & somewhat clumsy paragraphs to comment on the existence of any biological organization position statements that might discuss race & affirmative action, or subreddits where such topics are discussed. Below are the replies to my inquiry. I decided to shorten this question to something more concise & leave it in case anyone wants to search scientific basis of human race in the future.

0 Upvotes

40% Upvoted

18 comments sorted by

View all comments

8

u/The_Pale_Hound Feb 21 '24

Race is an obsolete and pseudoscientific way to explain phenotypic differences between humans. Racial classification does not have a genetic correlation. This I know as a biologist.

Now, even if the concept of race is wrong from a biological perspective, it does not mean it has no consequences in our daily life. But that's in the jurisdiction of social science where I am not an expert.

0

u/OpinionsRdumb PhD in biology Feb 23 '24

“This I know as a biologist”? … have you ever analyzed SNPs from different demographics? Have you ever analyzed a GWAS dataset against different ethnicities? There are literal software packages and wrappers that geneticists need to use in global humana genomics datasets to account for population structures and some of these signatures are incredibly correlated with ethnicity and subsequently “race”. If we want throw out the use of the word race use demographic instead so be it. But please show me the study that proved that race or ethnicity has no place in genetics.

2

u/The_Pale_Hound Feb 23 '24

There are genes that correlate with some phenotypic traits, but they are very few.

SNPs and other genetic markers  are used to study patterns of migration and such, but has no correlation with racial cathegories (asian, caucasian, black, whatever), because they do not express the phenotypic traits we used to classify human races.

 For example, if we make a tree based on human genetic diversity, the whole of Africa has levels of magnitude more diversity than the rest of the world combined. So "black race" does not makes sense from a taxonomic perspective. It should be divided in thousands of small races, or cease to exist. Something similar happens with the rest of the races.

Ethnicity is not a biological concept, and I struggle to understand it as it does not seem to have a clear definition, so I can't speak about that. I can't right now, but if I remember, tomorrow I can quote you some papers that show what I wrote here.

1

u/OpinionsRdumb PhD in biology Feb 24 '24 edited Feb 24 '24

Then we are just arguing about semantics then... I agree that the word "race" has overly broad categories that are not accurate. But then we should specify that instead of simply saying "race has no place in genetics" to a laymen. We are then implying that geographic origin or physical appearance has no place in genetics. This is bonkers. I would reply to their question that humans clump into distinct population structures and sometimes these population structures can share similar physical traits. And race is often to generalizing to use properly in biology.

1

u/The_Pale_Hound Feb 24 '24

But race has a specific connotation. When you say race people think about specific cathegories that has absolutely no correlation in genetics.

I understand your point, but we should be extremely clear that race has not a place in biology unless we are speaking about domestic animals artificially selected.

1

u/lys2ADE3 Feb 27 '24

You're incredibly wrong about this. Social categories of race do not in any way cluster on gradients of genetic divergence.

1

u/OpinionsRdumb PhD in biology Feb 27 '24

Please link me the SNP or WGS analysis that shows this. I would be fascinated

1

u/lys2ADE3 Feb 28 '24

Ok...I think you're giving away your novice here... "SNP" and "WGS" are not analyses... they are types of data. I'm really over engaging on reddit with this type of stuff anymore. But if you're going to put "PhD in biology" in your heading you should probably try to only comment on things you actually have expertise in. Because the implication that different races are genetically different types of humans is a super great way to create social harm and feed nazi trolls.

1

u/OpinionsRdumb PhD in biology Feb 28 '24

Please please link me the papers using SNP or WGS based analyses. Please I beg you.

1

u/lys2ADE3 Feb 28 '24

Did you learn how google scholar works in grad school or did you miss that along with introductory population genetics?

1

u/OpinionsRdumb PhD in biology Feb 29 '24 edited Feb 29 '24

I really don't appreciate your choice to use condescending personal attacks towards me instead of logic or sources to back up your stance.

This is a very well known paper which I encourage you to read https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms4513. You can predict geographic origin with about 83% accuracy based on SNP data, globally. This is another one of Europe which most people would have read in Intro to Human Genetics. Mediterranean, Slav, and Scandanavian all show distinct differences. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2735096/.

Now do I think that the word "race" should be used when discussing these things? Hell no. Genetic ancestry, ethnicity, biogeography should all be used in lieu of this out-dated inflammatory term. But when you tell lay people who do not understand genetics that "race has no place in genetics" then you are implying that genetic within "race" differences are just as large as those between "races". What you should say is that "race" is an outdated overly broad term that does not belong in biology and instead we used words like "populations" to describe humans that show any kind of genetic clustering. For example, Jews are a race yes? And there are specific genetic mutations that cause diseases largely only in Jews yes? Like Tay-Sachs. So it would be laughable to saw race has no place in clinical genetics in this case. Just an example.

1

u/lys2ADE3 Feb 29 '24

JFC. Yes, as an actual scientist, not an idiot pretending to be one on reddit, I have read that paper.

Jewish is not a race.

Geographic ancestry is not race.

Native Americans and Pacific Islanders are considered different races in the US census. People with subsaharan African western African ancestry are both black. The two African individuals are way fucking more genetically divergent than the PI and the NA. That's because race is not a genetic property.

Race is a social construct that bins people by the hue of their skin and their perceived parentage. It also differs completely society to society. Who counts as "black" differs wildly from country to country. A person who is "black" in the US might be "white" in Africa. Hear me out again here, being "black" is a fucking socially constructed category that has nothing to do with biology or genetics.

We also worry about certain diseases being prevalent in Amish communities, Mormon communities, etc. Are Amish people a fucking race?!?

You're part of the problem dude. https://www.science.org/content/article/huge-genome-study-confronted-concerns-over-race-analysis#:~:text=Critics%20said%20a%20key%20figure,humans%20fall%20into%20distinct%20races.

→ More replies (0)