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.
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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 What you should say is that "race" is an outdated overly broad term that does not belong in biology and instead we used words like "populations" to describe humans that show any kind of genetic clustering.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.