The latter. The problem with this line of thinking is that race is a genetic term. Crime investigators can determine race from a blood droplet. NHS has a monthly begging campaign for "black blood" donations.
That's what confuses me. Some people say race is a construct, but then why do ads for sickle cell medicine only have black actors in them?
I don't see how cloaking or censoring ideas of race benefits humanity. I know there's specific problems that are more common in my race. I WANT doctors and scientists to acknowledge that and use that information to improve treatments.
I don't feel outraged, just sort of confused as to what the incentives at play here are.
what they're trying to convey is that certain phenotypes have correlations to an overly broad construct, and with your example it is only showing that certain debilitating evolutionary paths are correlated or exclusively within a subset of people with those phenotypes
not that hard, to me, let me know when you get there though
You're being unnecessarily condescending when my comment was sincere and inviting of new information. I'm not really sure what you intended to accomplish with that last line, except making yourself feel superior to a stranger online who hasn't read some book or taken some class you have?
yeah you’re right, so without that last line what do you think
its not supposed to be new information, its supposed to deconstruct that people in the largest continent on the planet have the most genetic diversity and only chose/were forced to group together for shared representation after noticing they all got a shitty parallel experience in some other continents
the same concept applies to other groups that happen to overlap in some unique phenotypes
The problem is in the variation of what people mean by "race". In popular culture, people generally use it as a synonym for ethnicity. In genetics, it means the same as "breed" does when referring to animals. The first is a social construct. The second is a grouping of heritable traits.
It is both a social construct as well as a physically real thing. Those two things aren't mutually exclusive, and more people need to understand that. Most of the debate in this area is language games.
Consider running a PCA on a matrix of everyone's alleles < actually, this is legit interesting, has anyone done it? >. Hypothesis: A bunch of the top few components will correspond to commonly understood racial groups that people have created based on observable phenotypic clusters. In this sense, it's a real physical thing. Duh.
However, at the same time, the components are an abstraction, and the common conceptualization of what these components mean and how they relate to reality is somewhat of a mental construction. There will be other high variance components that don't relate to racial categories. We probably don't even notice them. And our racial categories probably don't map that cleanly to the actual underlying components.
They can also distinguish at a much finer level than the typical black, white, asian races. It's a social construct because the cutoff for being one or the other is determined by whatever matters to people in a society, not because science can distinguish them.
That the precise cutoffs are socially constructed does not imply the categorization itself is not biological. It's simply a coarse clustering based on kinship, that can be reproduced without reference to any society.
Edit: To the replies claiming the categorization is arbitrary and mostly cultural - that does not appear to be the case. In fact, it almost perfectly corresponds to genotype principal component plot clusters, as https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29669918 noted:
I.e. the categorization corresponds to what you get when you consider all/many genes, and not a few arbitrarily chosen ones, like those that determine eye or hair color.
You could group people by hair color or eye color as well, without reference to any society. But, the social importance of that grouping could vary greatly between societies. Eg. not many people care about who is an Ionian or an Achaean in modern society.
The racial distinctions (at least today in the west) are associated with biological traits, and specifically the ones that are visually obvious. But, I think those biological traits are used socially to distinguish groups that are considered different for other reasons (values, beliefs, etc.).
The categorisation isn't fully biological though, it's far heavier in the cultural camp. And even when it is biological, it's mainly phenotypic, which isn't adequate for genetic research.
So is ancestry. All Phylogenetic histories with any form of categorization is by definition a social construct. Social constructs, however, are not useless.
This is sort of like when doctors prescribe ibuprofen without explaining the research backing their decision. Are these decisions based on research or purely ideology?
I'm starting to see my faith in these institutions erode at an alarming rate. The other day I rewatched an old episode of Bullshit, and it turns out smoking bans in the early 2000's were predicated on bad science. There was no significant evidence that second hand smoke causes cancer. Throw in COVID, political correctness, Omicron and the reproducibility crisis hitting cancer research and I'm suddenly feeling really fucking alone on the plane of authority.
To clarify, I meant that as a figure of speech. As in, there's different contexts of reality that individuals can look to, for example family, work, etc. On my personal view of the context of authority figures, it seems to be more and more vacant as time goes on. I did not mean I'm physically in an airplane. Sorry for the mix up.
In terms of ways of understanding described in David Deutsch’s “The Beginning of Infinity” you are on a path that may lead to understanding the world more clearly.
Relativism The misconception that statements cannot be objectively true or false, but can be judged only relative to some cultural or other arbitrary standard.
Instrumentalism The misconception that science cannot describe reality, only predict outcomes of observations.
Justificationism The misconception that knowledge can be genuine or reliable only if it is justified by some source or criterion.
Fallibilism The recognition that there are no authoritative sources of knowledge, nor any reliable means of justifying knowledge as true or probable.
>Human geneticists have mostly abandoned the word “race” when describing populations in their papers, according to a new study of research published in a leading genetics journal. That’s in line with the current scientific understanding that race is a social construct, and a welcome departure from research that in the past has often conflated genetic variation and racial categories, says Vence Bonham, a social scientist at the National Human Genome Research Institute who led the study.
>But alternative terms that have gained popularity, such as “ancestry” and “ethnicity,” can have ambiguous meanings or aren’t defined by genetics, suggesting researchers are still struggling to find the words to accurately describe groups delineated by their DNA, according to the study.
>In the 19th and 20th centuries, many geneticists embraced the idea that there were races, such as “Negroid” or “Caucasian,” that were distinct biological groups; such “race science” helped perpetuate discrimination and inequality.
Race being a social construct is an idea of social justice ideology, not of science. Race as a category is incredibly useful for science, and using it is standard practice in forsensic investigations for example.
>>Sociological literature frequently claims that scientists across the disciplinary spectrum have arrived at the common conclusion that race is socially constructed, not biologically anchored. I investigate contemporary scientific thinking about race by interviewing more than 40 biologists and anthropologists at four northeastern universities. Contrary to sociologists' expectations, racial constructionism is revealed to be a minority viewpoint. Moreover, this research shows that the usual “constructionist” versus “essentialist” dichotomy a blunt tool for characterizing the debate about race; a third platform—“antiessentialism”—must be taken into account. Recognizing antiessentialist discourse calls for a reevaluation of prior research that emphasizes socioeconomic status and professional affiliation as influences on interviewees' concepts of race; this project demonstrates that such tectors do little to distinguish essentialist from antiessentialist veiwpoints.
The very fact that this satire account repeatedly predicts the course taken by the scientific and academic establishment tells us that ideology is the dominant guiding force of the process:
I don't see how that supports your assertion? Dr Morning[1] was arguing that the dichotomy of constructionist vs essentialist (and what you appear to be arguing) - is a "blunt tool". And that the at least in the northeast US in 2014, "constructionist" was a minority viewpoint. In fact this seems to contradict your first assertion that science has been "politicized by the state, and its official ideology". I still have no idea how you see the state fitting in here.
Unrelated, I have no idea wtf a tector is.
That satire account is hilarious but I'd hardly base my world view on it.
Sorry, link fixed. As the abstract points out, the idea of race as a social construct, as of 2007, was a minority viewpoint amongst those biologists and anthropologists that Morning interviewed. This is despite sociologists at the time frequently claiming that scientists as a whole saw race as a social construct:
"Contrary to sociologists' expectations, racial constructionism is revealed to be a minority viewpoint."
This supports the theory that the "the science says race is a social construct" started primarily with sociologists, who naturally see everything through the lens of social constructionism, and falsely attributed this belief to the harder sciences, to create an appeal to scientific authority for the viewpoint. Fast forward to today, where this view is now the official position of the scientific establishment as a whole, despite it being a minority position just 15 years ago.
Not seeing how you can't see how the paper supports my position, that this opinion is a result of social pressure to conform with an ideology, and not objective science. Claiming "scientists see race as a social construct" is exactly the kind of social pressure tactic that would be used to bring other scientists into the mold. No one wants to be seen as contradicting a conclusion of the scientific establishment, especially one that superficially, would appear to promote a more equitable world.
>>I still have no idea how you see the state fitting in here.
This victimhood ideology, that contains within it the idea that racial is a social construct used to perpetuate oppression, rationalizes a set of government policies and laws, e.g. civil rights law, that empowers special interests, and thus ties their economic interests to the perpetuation of these government interventions.
Thus this ideology is aggressively pushed by those whose interests are dependent on left-wing-ideology motivated state intervention. See the websites/social-media-pages of the labor unions for the New York Times and Washington Post for just a quick sample:
Sociology majors, incidentally, tend to work in government-funded institutions (e.g. as guidance counselors, social workers, etc), or in professions that largely arose as a result of government intervention (e.g. anti-discrimination lawyers, human resource representatives), etc.
> This supports the theory that the "the science says race is a social construct" started primarily with sociologists.
Who? Dr Morning is the only sociologist here. And you're using her to support your argument.
You've obviously thought about this a lot and have some pretty strong opinions but I don't see how that aligns with the original article or anything geneticists are talking about?
Ignoring for a second the idea that "race is a social construct", will you at least concede that race *was* a social construct? And that it predated our understanding of genetics and was used to, among other things, justify slavery, eugenics and other human misery? And that perhaps we shouldn't be cavalier about attributing scientific observations about genetics to something like a 'race' of people? Because that's the discussion that's happening in the scientific community. It seems very divorced from your assertions about victimhood ideology.
Genetics are still important. Groups of related ancestors are, too. Take a personal example - I did "23 and me" maybe 10 years ago. I'm half Swedish and half Mexican (mestizo, basque and native). I have genetic markers that predispose me to having high iron in my blood. This is pretty common among Swedish ancestory.
How does attributing that to "white" help anything here?
And what the hell am I? Am I latino? Am I white?
Does any of that fucking matter? Who cares what the hell Johann Friedrich Blumenbach thought about the subject. My ancestory - my mix of Swedish and Mexican ancestors - is really only useful for explaining what I look like. The concept of "race", historically, takes it further to attempt to explain who I am. Am I lazy? Am I superior? Am I worthy of passing on my genes? From there it's a historical slided to the worst parts of our history: that maybe the world would be better off without certain people. Or that some were meant to be superior.
>>Who? Dr Morning is the only sociologist here. And you're using her to support your argument.
According to the paper:
The title:
"“Everyone Knows It's a Social Construct”: Contemporary Science and the Nature of Race"
The first line of the abstract:
"Sociological literature frequently claims that scientists across the disciplinary spectrum have arrived at the common conclusion that race is socially constructed, not biologically anchored."
I assume Dr. Morning's characterization is accurate, and could be easily corroborated.
I don't see how it's constructive to continue responding to you when you are being obtuse in assessing what I'm providing.
Just to clarify: are you claiming that the following assessments of Dr. Morning's, are not credible, or are incorrect:
* the dominant viewpoint amongst sociologists, as of 2007, was that "scientists across the disciplinary spectrum have arrived at the common conclusion that race is socially constructed"
* as of 2007, most biologists and anthropologists did not, indeed, see race as socially constructed
?
>>Ignoring for a second the idea that "race is a social construct", will you at least concede that race was a social construct? And that it predated our understanding of genetics and was used to, among other things, justify slavery, eugenics and other human misery? And that perhaps we shouldn't be cavalier about attributing scientific observations about genetics to something like a 'race' of people? Because that's the discussion that's happening in the scientific community. It seems very divorced from your assertions about victimhood ideology.
All of this is nonsense. It wasn't a social construct, and its emergence as a recognized concept wasn't motivated by a desire to justify doing horrible things to people. This is just standard victimhood narrative, to give the political left in the academic/scientific establishment moral authority.
And using race categories doesn't imply ignoring its limitations, or preclude the use of other ways of categorizing people.
Dr Morning's assertion is that "race is a social construct" is a minority position, and one that sociologists overemphasize.
This is very different from saying "race being a social construct is an idea of social justice ideology, not of science". She is arguing that the perceived consensus or widespread acceptance of the idea is wrong. You're asserting that "social justice [ideologists]" or sociologists (you seem to be using them interchangeably) themselves came up with the very idea.
We're 15 years later. Is it still a minority position? I honestly don't know. Based on OP, it seems like no, but maybe we're in the same position. But it was clearly never "an idea of social justice ideology, not of science"
> It wasn't a social construct, and its emergence as a recognized concept wasn't motivated by a desire to justify doing horrible things to people
So if our understanding of race was never a social construct, do tell what is the science behind this:
> Finally, I am of opinion that after all these numerous instances I have brought together of negroes of capacity, it would not be difficult to mention entire well-known provinces of Europe, from out of which you would not easily expect to obtain off-hand such good authors, poets, philosophers, and correspondents of the Paris Academy; and on the other hand, there is no so-called savage nation known under the sun which has so much distinguished itself by such examples of perfectibility and original capacity for scientific culture, and thereby attached itself so closely to the most civilized nations of the earth, as the Negro."
I'm not asserting, either, that reasoning around races was used to justify things before the act, but rather that by attributing ideas like "genetics explains people" carries historical consequences. Like that some genes are superior to others. I don't know how you can deny this took place in our history.
>>Dr Morning's assertion is that "race is a social construct" is a minority position, and one that sociologists overemphasize.
You're being disingenuous, in not fully describing Morning's assertion. The assertion, fully described, is that "race is a social construct" is a minority position, and one that sociologists claim is a universally held among scientists at large.
This is deeply mistaken claim by the sociologists, and to me it's evident why the consensus emerged within the sociology field around this erronuous belief: it's a manipulation tactic, to give the "race is a social contract" claim an appeal to scientific credibility.
And it worked! Only 15 years later, and the main scientific institutions are now arguing for a broad exorcism of the concept of race.
>>But it was clearly never "an idea of social justice ideology, not of science"
Given the following facts, I think there is a preponderance of evidence that it is an idea of social justice ideology, not science:
* the well-documented extreme-left wing bias of the sociology field
* the economic interests those with sociology degrees have - due to the occupations that sociology degrees are amenable to - to propagate left-wing political ideology and the government programs that are associated with it
* the lack of rigor in sociology, which makes it less scientific, and more political/ideological, than other scientific disciplines. This lack of rigor is reflected in the pervasiveness of the erronuous belief about "race is a social construct" in sociology field, that Morning references
* the until recent general rejection of the "race is a social construct" idea in the harder sciences for which race is relevant: biology and anthropology
The best explanation for the coincidence of all of these facts, is that "race is a social construct" originated in the left-wing grievance ideology promoted by the political left, and that the sociologists, due to their alignment with this ideology, created a dogmatic commitment to this belief in the other scientific disciplines, by linking the rejection of this belief with vices like racism.
>>that reasoning around races was used to justify things before the act, but rather that by attributing ideas like "genetics explains people" carries historical consequences.
The answer is not to pretend race doesn't exist and/or has no usefulness as a category. The attempt to extirpate race from the sciences, in an attempt to minimize racism, is just delusional utopianism, that in its neuroticism, totally ignores the collateral damage to various scientific frameworks, of such a drastic and far-reaching conceptual re-engineering.
To deny that race is a social construct by word salads full of "left-wing victim-hood" etc is even more deluded than your "the news is a union conspiracy" posts.
>>Americans bought into this idea, too. Why was it so appealing? "Americans of European descent invented race during the era of the American Revolution as a way of resolving the contradiction between a natural right to freedom and the fact of slavery," historian Barbara J. Fields explained in a presentation to the producers of PBS's series Race: The Power of An Illusion (which is worth checking out for more detailed information on all this).
The journalists at Vox are fully unionized by the way.
Any way, this kind of victimhood/injustice framing is extremely common, and was even posited by the other commenter in this very discussion!
>>will you at least concede that race was a social construct? And that it predated our understanding of genetics and was used to, among other things, justify slavery, eugenics and other human misery?
But now you want to gaslight people into believing that this victimhood narrative isn't the main context in which the concept appears?
>>more deluded than your "the news is a union conspiracy" posts.
Your pithy response to my argument that unionized news staff have an economic interest in promoting left wing political ideas - when I've elaborated at length as to why I believe this is the case - suggests you're approaching this issue very emotionally, and not in a good faith attempt to open-mindedly explore what I'm saying to see if it's true.
I dont really have much to say about your political rant other than to point out the irony of some reality denying ideologist misrepresenting what people think or say being a central theme in your argument.
I have provided my evidence and rationale. If you can't handle providing a meaningful response to it, and resort to this low-effort dismissal, it says more about your confidence in your own argument than it does about my argument.
What science in particular is not getting done now, due to the replacement of the term race in scientific papers? Be specific. You seem deeply passionate about this issue, so I'm sure you have plenty of examples.
It’s a nonsense standard to demand “examples” of science not being done, which would be impossible to know precisely, and OP didn’t even claim specifically. The point is that our prominent scientific institutions are occupying themselves with nonsense woke red herrings. That constitutes a corruption of their telos (rigorous pursuit of the rational truth) in principle and the consequences are predictable, “examples” are beside the point.
It makes one wonder who is really behind this movement. That said, it seems to come from only one direction of the political spectrum, so it's not like there isn't any opposition.
What information does "race" tell us that "ethnicity" and "ancestry" does not? Does saying something is of Ghanian or Inuit origin less informative than saying they're black or native-American?
It has nothing to do with political correctness or wokitude, science bra. There's simply no genetic basis for "race." All humans today have 99.9% identical DNA, with an extraordinary lack of genetic variation compared to that in other species. There is no person on the planet that is a further relation to you than about 37th cousin. Ever seen race used for differentiation in other animal? Race is a recent invention, essentially nothing more than folklore, to be generous, and not a product of scientific research or discovery. The concept of race has it origins in the context of African slavery. So from it's inception, the concept of race was always racist invention.
I don't understand how the criticisms in the comment section here are at all related to the actual journal article.
From the abstract of the paper: Throughout The Journal’s 70-year history, “ancestry” and “ethnicity” have increased in use, appearing in 33% and 26% of articles in 2009–2018, while the use of “race” has decreased, occurring in 4% of articles in 2009–2018. Although its overall use has declined, the odds of “race” appearing in the presence of “ethnicity” has increased relative to the odds of occurring in its absence. Forms of population descriptors “Caucasian” and “Negro” have largely disappeared from The Journal (<1% of articles in 2009–2018). Conversely, the continental labels “African,” “Asian,” and “European” have increased in use and appear in 18%, 14%, and 42% of articles from 2009–2018, respectively.
Am I missing something? Is it not more accurate in genetics to describe populations based on their originating location rather than the color of their skin?
Yeah, I'm really not following all the talk of "wokeness" here. Race is a social category that often says something about your ancestry, and about certain traits like skin color and statistical predisposition to certain genetic diseases. But ancestry is the actual genetically meaningful thing. So why would we want researchers to use the outdated concept of race? Is it woke to prefer oxygen to phlogiston?
"Race" when referring to humans is equivalent to "breed" when referring to animals. Both terms, as used in biology, refer to groupings of heritable traits. Is "breed" an invalid concept because a Poodle can mate with a Labrador?
By this standard, the African bush and the villages of India should be full of thousands of "races" because of the high genetic diversity and relative reproductive isolation of many populations therein, which far exceeds that which delineates our conventional racial classification. But in the real world, race always refers to the same old Negroid/Caucasoid/Mongoloid classification that a few Westerners came up with in the 1700s.
Why is that? Does it feel plausible that Science fixated on the Biologically Correct racial classification of humans over a century before Mendelian genetics and the germ theory of disease became widely accepted?
Or is it perhaps more plausible that racial classification came into vogue for other, more unfortunate reasons, which are now well-known and documented, and then persisted by mere inertia and conventionalism/conformism?
The article is about race, so there's all these comments who already know what the article says without reading it, what their pre-established attitudes are, and why they are superior.
Yea as a biologists who's done some genetic research this isn't about wokeness (though I don't think that's necessarily bad anyway).
Race is a cultural term, not scientific. No one doing this research thinks there's no difference in genetic makeup between groups, it's that how we use and thinK about the word race doesn't line up with those groups and differences.
It's just not accurate for scientific publications, not just the cultural and historical baggage it has.
Like down anyone thing that white, black, or asian describe narrowly defined genetic groupings?
Yes, "race" for geneticists is an imprecise term and in that field there is a growing need for a better descriptor.
Now for cops, or social workers, or everyday speech, race may be just the perfect term - morphology is important to their work, and will remain important. But geneticists are concerned with more than morphology, or appearance.
I don't believe there is a linguistic threat here to everyday speech, or a threat to how we refer to each others appearance. But in genetics, race as a scientific term is in need of improvement - and that is what the article is acknowledging.
Does the color of an organism fall under the study of morphology?
I don't believe it does. Nor do I believe race is a good term for anyone to use, partially because its entirely subjective. A good example of this is that in the US, a person can be considered black if they have African (or otherwise considered black) ancestry anywhere in their genetic history, even if the rest of their ancestors would have been considered "white"
On top of this subjectivity we have the historical baggage and oppression, so it would be best to move away from race as currently used. We are all part of one race, the human race. We need to stop splitting ourselves into in/out groups because that only holds us back.
I agree we need a better term. Maybe 'cluster', as they are distinguishable in PCA plots.
One interesting aspect of these clusters is that the higher the resolution, the more clusters you can find, up to the point that neighboring towns can have slightly different distributions.
I suppose the article is well-intentioned but in terms of genetic diversity and skin color, the actual history of human evolution on the African continent is far more complex than that indicates. There's a fascinating paper using modern DNA methods about this, from 2017, published in Science. It's behind a paywall as is the associated perspective but this is a good discussion with the links:
> "Genes responsible for diversity of human skin colors identified"
> "Tishkoff noted that the work underscores the diversity of African populations and the lack of support for biological notions of race."
> "Many of the genes and new genetic variants we identified to be associated with skin color may never have been found outside of Africa, because they are not as highly variable," Tishkoff said. "There is so much diversity in Africa that's not often appreciated. There's no such thing as an African race. We show that skin color is extremely variable on the African continent and that it is still evolving. Further, in most cases the genetic variants associated with light skin arose in Africa."
Basically, in genetics today it's about phylogenetics, which "utilizes cladistic methods to construct phylogenetic trees based directly on morphological and molecular data." From this viewpoint 'African' is not a meaningful group relative to 'Asian' or 'European', which may themselves not be very meaningful groups either, in terms of biological descent and actual genetic relatedness within and without these supposed groups.
Another truly fascinating aspect of that study is this suggestion, pigment alteration:
> ""Our results suggest there must be some kind of as-yet-uncharacterized form of cross-talk between lysosomes and the melanosomes that make eumelanins," Marks said. "Figuring out how this works might provide new ideas for ways to manipulate skin pigmentation for therapeutic means."
Imagine the consternation and issues surrounding the introduction of something like retroviral gene therapy which altered an individual's pigmentation. People who suffered sunburn easily might benefit greatly, but I can imagine certain controversies arising from such technology.
> The decline in usage of “race” reflects how geneticists slowly came to understand race as “a social category with biological consequences,” the team writes in its paper, published today in AJHG.
Soooo…a biological category.
The ironic part of all this is that it would be very easy to put the ultimate kibosh on any racial superiority claims by simply acknowledging race and then studying the hell out of racial intelligence and physique gaps.
I don’t want to fall prey to confirmation bias but it seems abundantly clear from the evidence so far that there are definitely gaps between races…but not gaps large enough to make any sort of useful difference to anyone.
Of course all the initial commenters are going to declare that this is political correctness gone amok who haven't actually read the article (it was behind a paywall for me), but here are some things that I know from my own reading:
1. "Black" is a not especially useful categorization as there are multiple genetically distinct strains of ancestry within Africa. It's likely that there's a greater difference genetically between an African-American (who is likely of Western African origin mixed with European genetics) than, say, a recent immigrant from South Africa or East Africa.
2. As a sociological term, most people would consider Indians and Europeans to be of different races, but it turns out that genetically they're very similar (which should not be surprising to anyone who's made it through a 100-level course in anthropology or linguistics).
3. That said, the peoples of the Indian sub-continent are also genetically diverse within themselves as there were multiple waves of in-migration there (so you might find some Indians who are not genetically similar to Europeans, and yet, they would end up being treated as the same race as their neighbors who are genetically similar to Europeans).
4. Many of the markers of race end up being selected out in a surprisingly short period of time. Lactose tolerance, for example, evolved in just 2,000–20,000 years and it's likely that a lot of things that we consider fundamental to race similarly appeared in relatively short time frames like this.
So they’re moving from overly-broad, archaic, and imprecise terms to more precise terms that better reflect the human gene pool? That’s great! Not understanding why some have issue with this.
When I was a pd in a genomics lab, I took notice of these debates on twitter. I was curious to understand why "race" was a term some people were adamant should be recognized in almost all contexts except for genetics. From what I've gleaned, it's because people loath the idea of biological factors setting constraints on personal identity. I get it. The same debate has transformed scientific vernacular wrt. sex/gender. And I'm ok with changing the verbiage to whatever people are comfortable with, and if it adds more precision to what scientists are referencing. The terms do not change what is observed in the lab- People with certain genotypes tend to cluster into very distinct observable phenotypes, with regard to ancestry and sex. For example, here are the first 3 principal components plotted from one of the largest genomic data repos available...
"Created equal" doesn't mean cloned. Even in the 18th century nobody would have thought that.
It means that regardless of whether you are an athletic prodigy, someone with developmental disabilities, or anybody else, you are deserving of equal share in governance — in contrast with aristocracy where some are considered more worthy to rule over others by dint of who they are.
With a different version of "created equal", the whole meaning of the rest of your post changes.
>It means that regardless of whether you are an athletic prodigy, someone with developmental disabilities, or anybody else, you are deserving of equal share in governance — in contrast with aristocracy where some are considered more worthy to rule over others by dint of who they are.
What does "an equal share of governance" mean? The question right now isn't enfranchisement, it's whether racial groups-- or ancestral groups, or ethnic cateories-- should have forced proportional representation in things like college admissions, med school admissions, or criminal arrest rates. The assumption put forth by self-labeled antiracists is that disproportionate representation is by itself evidence of racism. That's their core axiom, and it totally ignores signficant heritable (or cultural or environmental) differences between groups. It's an inherently disingenuous ideology, as nobody complains about the overrepresentation of NFL players with African ancestry, for example, but it's an idea with a whole lot of capital behind it.
I’d prefer if people like yourself were forthcoming with what you’re ultimately advocating for instead of pretending to entertain honest intellectual discussion using tired “scientific” propaganda.
From my experience people belonging to a certain group of concerned citizenry seem to be complaining about over-representation of black people in the NFL quite regularly.
What I'm ultimately advocating, as I think I've been clear on so far, is evidence-based criticism of the push in US public policy to force racially-proportional outcomes in many areas. This push often ignores or obscures the science of measureable population-level racial/ancestral/ethnic/geographic group differences, some of which are cultural, some of which are environmental, and some of which are heritable. The link's description of researchers "adopting an antiracist posture" is what brings the point to mind.
I'd prefer it if you explicitly stated your bad-faith assumptions about my character instead of blowing negative smoke signals and putting scare quotes around words like "scientific."
I believe you’re using discredited research that's popular amount the race realism crowd and feigning ignorance by acting as if it’s unpalatable but true to you.
And I think you're assigning me malicious motiviations, and ignoring valid research that doesn't support your own prejudices.
To be painstakingly clear about what I'm saying here: while the 2R MAO-A allele is more common among black males than in other groups, it's only present in a single-digit percentage of even that most-affected group. Of all those men with the allele, most don't commit any crime. Only <0.01% of Americans of all races are arrested for violent crime each year. When we discuss violent criminals with a genetic predisposition to aggression, we're talking about a tiny minority of a minority of a minority, way below single-digit percentages, not all members of a particular racial group.
The trouble is, that tiny minority of a minority of a minority can still skew total arrest numbers. If 0.02% of one racial group commits violent crime in a year versus 0.01% for members of another group, comparitive arrest rates will seem racially disproportionate. If that difference is seen as "police are all racist, and have a negative overall impact on black communities", bad policy may result. See recent crime spikes in American cities for examples, where de-policed minority communities have been among the hardest hit by rising violence.
The good news is that MAO-A deficiency can be identified and treated pharmacologically with progesterone supplementation. Researchers have also explored CRISPR-based therapies to boost MAO-A expression. I see this condition and its treatment as analogous to Vitamin D deficiency, which for obvious genetic reasons disproportionately affects people with dark skin. If we decide we're finally allowed to talk about it, the problem can be tackled constructively and the problems caused by ignoring it will vanish.
I don't believe you're sincere in your interest in the research, but in case you are, here are a few recent studies w/ relevant quotes from each abstract. Please tell me which ones you think are discredited:
University of Kentucky, 2015: "Low functioning MAOA genotypes have been reliably linked to increased reactive aggression" - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25637908/
National Institute for Health and Welfare, Finland, 2015: "Our results, from two independent cohorts of Finnish prisoners, revealed that a monoamine oxidase A (MAOA) low-activity genotype (contributing to low dopamine turnover rate) as well as the CDH13 gene (coding for neuronal membrane adhesion protein) are associated with extremely violent behavior (at least 10 committed homicides, attempted homicides or batteries)." - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25349169/
University of Kansas, 2016: "In particular, converging lines of evidence have documented that these maladaptive manifestations of aggression are influenced by monoamine oxidase A (MAOA), the enzyme that catalyzes the degradation of brain serotonin, norepinephrine and dopamine." - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26776902/
University of Heidelberg, 2019: "Previous studies have linked the low expression variant of a variable number of tandem repeat polymorphism in the monoamine oxidase A gene (MAOA-L) to the risk for impulsivity and aggression" - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31441562/
University of Toronto, 2020: "Over the past two decades, research has revealed that genetic factors shape the propensity for aggressive, antisocial, and violent behavior. The best-documented gene implicated in aggression is MAOA (Monoamine oxidase A), which encodes the key enzyme for the degradation of serotonin and ...
What you’ve posted tells me I was exactly on point with what you’re getting at. I’m familiar with race realism, science used to support it, and the people who believe in it.
I believe you’re probably well-intentioned, but you know what they say about that.
> recent crime spikes in American cities for examples, where de-policed minority communities have been among the hardest hit by rising violence.
They probably appreciate your concern, but how can you list so many studies and still assert something widely untrue like the “de-policed minority communities”.
My issue isn’t with the science. It’s that people like yourself take the science and attempt to use it to justify circumstances or policy while ignoring seemingly all else.
I’ve seen all but the last study you’ve listed before, but I'm not interested in engaging with you further. I'm certain there are plenty that are willing to hear and share your ideas.
So you've flipped from bad-faith speculation about my intent to, "I believe you’re probably well-intentioned", and from "I believe you’re using discredited research" to, "my issue isn’t with the science," without addressing any of the studies I linked or the consensus they represent. And now you're gaslighting about the post-George Floyd nationwide pullpack in policing:
>but how can you list so many studies and still assert something widely untrue like the “de-policed minority communities”
To illustrate how wrong you are with just a few examples:
* Portland abolished their gun violence unit in 2020 in response to the George Floyd protests. Gun homicides have soared as a result to their highest level in 30 years, mostly in minority communities [0].
* While violent crime soared in Chicago last year, also chiefly in minority communities, arrest rates for violent crime fell. The UChicago crime lab attributes this in part to a "pulling back of proactive policing" [1].
* "In a reversal of plans to divert funding from police to social services, Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf said Monday that she'll push to reverse planned cuts to the city's police department and seek to quickly hire more officers amid a spike in violence and homicides that has left some residents afraid to leave their homes" [2].
I'm not interested in race chauvanism, race-based nationalism, or racist politics generally. I support colorblind policy with class-based affirmative action, and the vigorous enforcement of laws against racial discrimination.
>I'm not interested in engaging with you further.
Good, I'm done responding to your repeated falsehoods and bad-faith accusations. Thanks for revealing your true nature to the reader.
To use the Enlightenment terminology of the time, it's that each person has the same "Natural Rights" per John Locke. Another popular way of putting it was "Equal before God". Again, this is in contrast to e.g. the divine right of kings. And it was practically expressed (for white male land owners) at the dawn of the U.S.A in terms of an equal franchise.
> It's an inherently disingenuous ideology,
Well, you're starting from the bogus notion that "created equal" meant genetically equivalent ("more or less"); you might consider grappling with that before worrying about whether others are disingenuous.
> However, a large genome-wide association study has failed to find any large or statistically significant effects of the MAOA gene on aggression.[47] A separate GWAS on antisocial personality disorder likewise did not report a significant effect of MAOA.[48] Another study, while finding effects from a candidate gene search, failed to find any evidence in a large GWAS.[46] A separate analysis of human and rat genome wide association studies, Mandelian randomization studies, and causal pathway analyses likewise failed to reveal robust evidence of MAOA in aggression.[49] This lack of replication is predicted from the known issues of candidate gene research, which can produce many substantial false positives.[50]
>In humans, an association between the 2R allele of the VNTR region of the gene and an increase in the likelihood of committing serious crime or violence has been found. The VNTR 2R allele of MAOA has been found to be a risk factor for violent delinquency, when present in association with stresses, i.e. family issues, low popularity or failing school.[36][37][38][11]
If any experts in this field are available to explain the discrepancy, I'd love to hear from them.
Sorry for the double reply, but I just read the sources cited in your quote. The content of the studies differs significantly from the Wikipedia author's descriptions.
The first study, which "failed to find any large or statistically significant effects of the MAOA gene on aggression", actually did find one statistically significant link between male MAOA gene expression and violence [0]:
>For studies with categorical outcomes (Supplementary Figure 1), the following associations were found: (1) COMT-Val158Met was significantly associated with violence (P=0.02) as a categorical outcome; (2) when examining violence as a categorical outcome only, there was an association for MAOA promoter 30 bpVNTR in males with a history of violence (P=0.023)
The second study isn't cited correctly. The results are taken from another study cited in the one listed [1]. The results of that study are intriguing, as they do fail to find a link between MAOA and violence in a GWAS of 4816 individuals. However, their data on subjects' violent behavior comes entirely from self-reported questionnaires.
This study also lumps the 3-repeat MAOA allele in with the 2-repeat allele variant. This is a common confounding factor in studies on violence and MAOA [2]. MAOA-3R is far more common in the populations of all racial/ancestral groups compared to the 2-repeat allele, and its measured effect on aggressive behavior is much smaller. Defining L-MAOA, or the low-activity MAOA gene as both MAOA-3R and MAOA-2R dilutes the value of any study on the 2-repeat allele, which is the specific allele I brought up in my first comment.
The third study, which "failed to find any evidence in a large GWAS", found highly significant effects in their candidate study while the GWAS was hampered by a lack of data [3]:
>Therefore, it is plausible that while research of the genetic background of criminal or violent behavior is hampered by many confounding factors, focusing on extreme phenotypes might yield more robust results. This was demonstrated in our analysis on the association between rs11649622 and MAOA genotypes vs the number of committed violent crimes, showing clear dose–response effects. However, collecting data from extreme phenotypes is difficult. For this reason, our number of study subjects was relatively small, which resulted in a rather low statistical power in the GWAS.
>Concerning statistical significance, the P-value of 2.9 × 10−5 for the low-activity MAOA variant can be considered as extremely significant, as the Bonferroni-corrected level of significance in the candidate gene study was 0.025.
>The results indicate both low monoamine metabolism and neuronal membrane dysfunction as plausible factors in the etiology of extreme criminal violent behavior, and a conservative estimate implies that 5–10% of all severe violent crime in Finland is attributable to specific MAOA and CDH13 genotypes.
The last study, which "failed to reveal robust evidence of MAOA in aggression", actually ranked MAOA first as a risk factor for aggressive behavior [4]:
>Also, individual genes were ranked based on their cumulative weights to quantify their importance as risk factors for aggressive behavior, which resulted in 40 top-ranked and highly interconnected genes.
>Supplementary Table 4 lists all the 1767 genes from the eight aggression gene sets (adult and children GWAS, transcriptomics in four rodent models, KO mice and OMIM) and ranks them based on their number of occurrences and weighted ranks for aggression (only human orthologs were included from the rodent genes). MAOA was ranked highest with both methods.
Ultimately, I'm inclined to believe those meta-analyses which do find an effect on MAOA-2R and agression because the mechanism of action of this gene is not entirely a mystery. Low-repeat versions of the MAOA allele result in less MAOA in the brain. We know what severe MAOA deficiency looks like; it's called Brunner syndrome [5]. Symptoms include violence, agress...
91 comments
[ 4.0 ms ] story [ 150 ms ] threadEdit: It seems my suspicion was correct, and at least Chinese anthropology does not share the Western aversion to 'race':
https://lesacreduprintemps19.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/on-...
And the biggest thing is that race corresponds to generic ancestry with 99.86% accuracy: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1196372/
Such as determining that a person who is ~75% "white" and ~25% "black" is in fact, "black"?
If "race" is a "genetic term" it is certainly not only a "genetic term".
I don't see how cloaking or censoring ideas of race benefits humanity. I know there's specific problems that are more common in my race. I WANT doctors and scientists to acknowledge that and use that information to improve treatments.
I don't feel outraged, just sort of confused as to what the incentives at play here are.
not that hard, to me, let me know when you get there though
its not supposed to be new information, its supposed to deconstruct that people in the largest continent on the planet have the most genetic diversity and only chose/were forced to group together for shared representation after noticing they all got a shitty parallel experience in some other continents
the same concept applies to other groups that happen to overlap in some unique phenotypes
Consider running a PCA on a matrix of everyone's alleles < actually, this is legit interesting, has anyone done it? >. Hypothesis: A bunch of the top few components will correspond to commonly understood racial groups that people have created based on observable phenotypic clusters. In this sense, it's a real physical thing. Duh.
However, at the same time, the components are an abstraction, and the common conceptualization of what these components mean and how they relate to reality is somewhat of a mental construction. There will be other high variance components that don't relate to racial categories. We probably don't even notice them. And our racial categories probably don't map that cleanly to the actual underlying components.
Edit: To the replies claiming the categorization is arbitrary and mostly cultural - that does not appear to be the case. In fact, it almost perfectly corresponds to genotype principal component plot clusters, as https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29669918 noted:
https://youtu.be/iegYpOG6mQI
I.e. the categorization corresponds to what you get when you consider all/many genes, and not a few arbitrarily chosen ones, like those that determine eye or hair color.
The racial distinctions (at least today in the west) are associated with biological traits, and specifically the ones that are visually obvious. But, I think those biological traits are used socially to distinguish groups that are considered different for other reasons (values, beliefs, etc.).
It reminds me of this example of life immitating satire:
https://twitter.com/TitaniaMcGrath/status/142161970031280947...
I'm starting to see my faith in these institutions erode at an alarming rate. The other day I rewatched an old episode of Bullshit, and it turns out smoking bans in the early 2000's were predicated on bad science. There was no significant evidence that second hand smoke causes cancer. Throw in COVID, political correctness, Omicron and the reproducibility crisis hitting cancer research and I'm suddenly feeling really fucking alone on the plane of authority.
Maybe you are in fact alone on a plane you call authority.
Relativism The misconception that statements cannot be objectively true or false, but can be judged only relative to some cultural or other arbitrary standard.
Instrumentalism The misconception that science cannot describe reality, only predict outcomes of observations.
Justificationism The misconception that knowledge can be genuine or reliable only if it is justified by some source or criterion.
Fallibilism The recognition that there are no authoritative sources of knowledge, nor any reliable means of justifying knowledge as true or probable.
>But alternative terms that have gained popularity, such as “ancestry” and “ethnicity,” can have ambiguous meanings or aren’t defined by genetics, suggesting researchers are still struggling to find the words to accurately describe groups delineated by their DNA, according to the study.
>In the 19th and 20th centuries, many geneticists embraced the idea that there were races, such as “Negroid” or “Caucasian,” that were distinct biological groups; such “race science” helped perpetuate discrimination and inequality.
Which part of this is absurd, exactly?
Source?
https://www.jstor.org/stable/20832348
>>Sociological literature frequently claims that scientists across the disciplinary spectrum have arrived at the common conclusion that race is socially constructed, not biologically anchored. I investigate contemporary scientific thinking about race by interviewing more than 40 biologists and anthropologists at four northeastern universities. Contrary to sociologists' expectations, racial constructionism is revealed to be a minority viewpoint. Moreover, this research shows that the usual “constructionist” versus “essentialist” dichotomy a blunt tool for characterizing the debate about race; a third platform—“antiessentialism”—must be taken into account. Recognizing antiessentialist discourse calls for a reevaluation of prior research that emphasizes socioeconomic status and professional affiliation as influences on interviewees' concepts of race; this project demonstrates that such tectors do little to distinguish essentialist from antiessentialist veiwpoints.
The very fact that this satire account repeatedly predicts the course taken by the scientific and academic establishment tells us that ideology is the dominant guiding force of the process:
https://twitter.com/TitaniaMcGrath/status/133997795950822604...
Unrelated, I have no idea wtf a tector is.
That satire account is hilarious but I'd hardly base my world view on it.
[1] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00380237.2007.10... -- I think you may have linked the wrong thing? I can only find the abstract
"Contrary to sociologists' expectations, racial constructionism is revealed to be a minority viewpoint."
This supports the theory that the "the science says race is a social construct" started primarily with sociologists, who naturally see everything through the lens of social constructionism, and falsely attributed this belief to the harder sciences, to create an appeal to scientific authority for the viewpoint. Fast forward to today, where this view is now the official position of the scientific establishment as a whole, despite it being a minority position just 15 years ago.
Not seeing how you can't see how the paper supports my position, that this opinion is a result of social pressure to conform with an ideology, and not objective science. Claiming "scientists see race as a social construct" is exactly the kind of social pressure tactic that would be used to bring other scientists into the mold. No one wants to be seen as contradicting a conclusion of the scientific establishment, especially one that superficially, would appear to promote a more equitable world.
>>I still have no idea how you see the state fitting in here.
This victimhood ideology, that contains within it the idea that racial is a social construct used to perpetuate oppression, rationalizes a set of government policies and laws, e.g. civil rights law, that empowers special interests, and thus ties their economic interests to the perpetuation of these government interventions.
Thus this ideology is aggressively pushed by those whose interests are dependent on left-wing-ideology motivated state intervention. See the websites/social-media-pages of the labor unions for the New York Times and Washington Post for just a quick sample:
https://nytimesguild.org/
https://twitter.com/postguild
Sociology majors, incidentally, tend to work in government-funded institutions (e.g. as guidance counselors, social workers, etc), or in professions that largely arose as a result of government intervention (e.g. anti-discrimination lawyers, human resource representatives), etc.
Who? Dr Morning is the only sociologist here. And you're using her to support your argument.
You've obviously thought about this a lot and have some pretty strong opinions but I don't see how that aligns with the original article or anything geneticists are talking about?
Ignoring for a second the idea that "race is a social construct", will you at least concede that race *was* a social construct? And that it predated our understanding of genetics and was used to, among other things, justify slavery, eugenics and other human misery? And that perhaps we shouldn't be cavalier about attributing scientific observations about genetics to something like a 'race' of people? Because that's the discussion that's happening in the scientific community. It seems very divorced from your assertions about victimhood ideology.
Genetics are still important. Groups of related ancestors are, too. Take a personal example - I did "23 and me" maybe 10 years ago. I'm half Swedish and half Mexican (mestizo, basque and native). I have genetic markers that predispose me to having high iron in my blood. This is pretty common among Swedish ancestory.
How does attributing that to "white" help anything here?
And what the hell am I? Am I latino? Am I white?
Does any of that fucking matter? Who cares what the hell Johann Friedrich Blumenbach thought about the subject. My ancestory - my mix of Swedish and Mexican ancestors - is really only useful for explaining what I look like. The concept of "race", historically, takes it further to attempt to explain who I am. Am I lazy? Am I superior? Am I worthy of passing on my genes? From there it's a historical slided to the worst parts of our history: that maybe the world would be better off without certain people. Or that some were meant to be superior.
According to the paper:
The title:
"“Everyone Knows It's a Social Construct”: Contemporary Science and the Nature of Race"
The first line of the abstract:
"Sociological literature frequently claims that scientists across the disciplinary spectrum have arrived at the common conclusion that race is socially constructed, not biologically anchored."
I assume Dr. Morning's characterization is accurate, and could be easily corroborated.
I don't see how it's constructive to continue responding to you when you are being obtuse in assessing what I'm providing.
Just to clarify: are you claiming that the following assessments of Dr. Morning's, are not credible, or are incorrect:
* the dominant viewpoint amongst sociologists, as of 2007, was that "scientists across the disciplinary spectrum have arrived at the common conclusion that race is socially constructed"
* as of 2007, most biologists and anthropologists did not, indeed, see race as socially constructed
?
>>Ignoring for a second the idea that "race is a social construct", will you at least concede that race was a social construct? And that it predated our understanding of genetics and was used to, among other things, justify slavery, eugenics and other human misery? And that perhaps we shouldn't be cavalier about attributing scientific observations about genetics to something like a 'race' of people? Because that's the discussion that's happening in the scientific community. It seems very divorced from your assertions about victimhood ideology.
All of this is nonsense. It wasn't a social construct, and its emergence as a recognized concept wasn't motivated by a desire to justify doing horrible things to people. This is just standard victimhood narrative, to give the political left in the academic/scientific establishment moral authority.
And using race categories doesn't imply ignoring its limitations, or preclude the use of other ways of categorizing people.
This is very different from saying "race being a social construct is an idea of social justice ideology, not of science". She is arguing that the perceived consensus or widespread acceptance of the idea is wrong. You're asserting that "social justice [ideologists]" or sociologists (you seem to be using them interchangeably) themselves came up with the very idea.
We're 15 years later. Is it still a minority position? I honestly don't know. Based on OP, it seems like no, but maybe we're in the same position. But it was clearly never "an idea of social justice ideology, not of science"
> It wasn't a social construct, and its emergence as a recognized concept wasn't motivated by a desire to justify doing horrible things to people
So if our understanding of race was never a social construct, do tell what is the science behind this:
> Finally, I am of opinion that after all these numerous instances I have brought together of negroes of capacity, it would not be difficult to mention entire well-known provinces of Europe, from out of which you would not easily expect to obtain off-hand such good authors, poets, philosophers, and correspondents of the Paris Academy; and on the other hand, there is no so-called savage nation known under the sun which has so much distinguished itself by such examples of perfectibility and original capacity for scientific culture, and thereby attached itself so closely to the most civilized nations of the earth, as the Negro."
I'm not asserting, either, that reasoning around races was used to justify things before the act, but rather that by attributing ideas like "genetics explains people" carries historical consequences. Like that some genes are superior to others. I don't know how you can deny this took place in our history.
You're being disingenuous, in not fully describing Morning's assertion. The assertion, fully described, is that "race is a social construct" is a minority position, and one that sociologists claim is a universally held among scientists at large.
This is deeply mistaken claim by the sociologists, and to me it's evident why the consensus emerged within the sociology field around this erronuous belief: it's a manipulation tactic, to give the "race is a social contract" claim an appeal to scientific credibility.
And it worked! Only 15 years later, and the main scientific institutions are now arguing for a broad exorcism of the concept of race.
>>But it was clearly never "an idea of social justice ideology, not of science"
Given the following facts, I think there is a preponderance of evidence that it is an idea of social justice ideology, not science:
* the well-documented extreme-left wing bias of the sociology field
* the economic interests those with sociology degrees have - due to the occupations that sociology degrees are amenable to - to propagate left-wing political ideology and the government programs that are associated with it
* the lack of rigor in sociology, which makes it less scientific, and more political/ideological, than other scientific disciplines. This lack of rigor is reflected in the pervasiveness of the erronuous belief about "race is a social construct" in sociology field, that Morning references
* the until recent general rejection of the "race is a social construct" idea in the harder sciences for which race is relevant: biology and anthropology
The best explanation for the coincidence of all of these facts, is that "race is a social construct" originated in the left-wing grievance ideology promoted by the political left, and that the sociologists, due to their alignment with this ideology, created a dogmatic commitment to this belief in the other scientific disciplines, by linking the rejection of this belief with vices like racism.
>>that reasoning around races was used to justify things before the act, but rather that by attributing ideas like "genetics explains people" carries historical consequences.
The answer is not to pretend race doesn't exist and/or has no usefulness as a category. The attempt to extirpate race from the sciences, in an attempt to minimize racism, is just delusional utopianism, that in its neuroticism, totally ignores the collateral damage to various scientific frameworks, of such a drastic and far-reaching conceptual re-engineering.
And that "race is a social construct" idea is part of a victimhood narrative is totally obvious. See how the idea is nested here for instance:
https://www.vox.com/2014/10/10/6943461/race-social-construct...
>>Americans bought into this idea, too. Why was it so appealing? "Americans of European descent invented race during the era of the American Revolution as a way of resolving the contradiction between a natural right to freedom and the fact of slavery," historian Barbara J. Fields explained in a presentation to the producers of PBS's series Race: The Power of An Illusion (which is worth checking out for more detailed information on all this).
The journalists at Vox are fully unionized by the way.
Any way, this kind of victimhood/injustice framing is extremely common, and was even posited by the other commenter in this very discussion!
>>will you at least concede that race was a social construct? And that it predated our understanding of genetics and was used to, among other things, justify slavery, eugenics and other human misery?
But now you want to gaslight people into believing that this victimhood narrative isn't the main context in which the concept appears?
>>more deluded than your "the news is a union conspiracy" posts.
Your pithy response to my argument that unionized news staff have an economic interest in promoting left wing political ideas - when I've elaborated at length as to why I believe this is the case - suggests you're approaching this issue very emotionally, and not in a good faith attempt to open-mindedly explore what I'm saying to see if it's true.
It makes one wonder who is really behind this movement. That said, it seems to come from only one direction of the political spectrum, so it's not like there isn't any opposition.
From the abstract of the paper: Throughout The Journal’s 70-year history, “ancestry” and “ethnicity” have increased in use, appearing in 33% and 26% of articles in 2009–2018, while the use of “race” has decreased, occurring in 4% of articles in 2009–2018. Although its overall use has declined, the odds of “race” appearing in the presence of “ethnicity” has increased relative to the odds of occurring in its absence. Forms of population descriptors “Caucasian” and “Negro” have largely disappeared from The Journal (<1% of articles in 2009–2018). Conversely, the continental labels “African,” “Asian,” and “European” have increased in use and appear in 18%, 14%, and 42% of articles from 2009–2018, respectively.
Am I missing something? Is it not more accurate in genetics to describe populations based on their originating location rather than the color of their skin?
Why is that? Does it feel plausible that Science fixated on the Biologically Correct racial classification of humans over a century before Mendelian genetics and the germ theory of disease became widely accepted?
Or is it perhaps more plausible that racial classification came into vogue for other, more unfortunate reasons, which are now well-known and documented, and then persisted by mere inertia and conventionalism/conformism?
The article is about race, so there's all these comments who already know what the article says without reading it, what their pre-established attitudes are, and why they are superior.
It would be funny if it wasn't so sad.
Race is a cultural term, not scientific. No one doing this research thinks there's no difference in genetic makeup between groups, it's that how we use and thinK about the word race doesn't line up with those groups and differences.
It's just not accurate for scientific publications, not just the cultural and historical baggage it has. Like down anyone thing that white, black, or asian describe narrowly defined genetic groupings?
Now for cops, or social workers, or everyday speech, race may be just the perfect term - morphology is important to their work, and will remain important. But geneticists are concerned with more than morphology, or appearance.
I don't believe there is a linguistic threat here to everyday speech, or a threat to how we refer to each others appearance. But in genetics, race as a scientific term is in need of improvement - and that is what the article is acknowledging.
I'm not sure I would impute a "woke" angle here.
On top of this subjectivity we have the historical baggage and oppression, so it would be best to move away from race as currently used. We are all part of one race, the human race. We need to stop splitting ourselves into in/out groups because that only holds us back.
One interesting aspect of these clusters is that the higher the resolution, the more clusters you can find, up to the point that neighboring towns can have slightly different distributions.
> "Genes responsible for diversity of human skin colors identified"
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/10/171012143324.h...
> "Tishkoff noted that the work underscores the diversity of African populations and the lack of support for biological notions of race."
> "Many of the genes and new genetic variants we identified to be associated with skin color may never have been found outside of Africa, because they are not as highly variable," Tishkoff said. "There is so much diversity in Africa that's not often appreciated. There's no such thing as an African race. We show that skin color is extremely variable on the African continent and that it is still evolving. Further, in most cases the genetic variants associated with light skin arose in Africa."
Basically, in genetics today it's about phylogenetics, which "utilizes cladistic methods to construct phylogenetic trees based directly on morphological and molecular data." From this viewpoint 'African' is not a meaningful group relative to 'Asian' or 'European', which may themselves not be very meaningful groups either, in terms of biological descent and actual genetic relatedness within and without these supposed groups.
Another truly fascinating aspect of that study is this suggestion, pigment alteration:
> ""Our results suggest there must be some kind of as-yet-uncharacterized form of cross-talk between lysosomes and the melanosomes that make eumelanins," Marks said. "Figuring out how this works might provide new ideas for ways to manipulate skin pigmentation for therapeutic means."
Imagine the consternation and issues surrounding the introduction of something like retroviral gene therapy which altered an individual's pigmentation. People who suffered sunburn easily might benefit greatly, but I can imagine certain controversies arising from such technology.
Soooo…a biological category.
The ironic part of all this is that it would be very easy to put the ultimate kibosh on any racial superiority claims by simply acknowledging race and then studying the hell out of racial intelligence and physique gaps.
I don’t want to fall prey to confirmation bias but it seems abundantly clear from the evidence so far that there are definitely gaps between races…but not gaps large enough to make any sort of useful difference to anyone.
[1] -https://stevenpinker.com/files/pinker/files/1994_04_03_newyo...
1. "Black" is a not especially useful categorization as there are multiple genetically distinct strains of ancestry within Africa. It's likely that there's a greater difference genetically between an African-American (who is likely of Western African origin mixed with European genetics) than, say, a recent immigrant from South Africa or East Africa.
2. As a sociological term, most people would consider Indians and Europeans to be of different races, but it turns out that genetically they're very similar (which should not be surprising to anyone who's made it through a 100-level course in anthropology or linguistics).
3. That said, the peoples of the Indian sub-continent are also genetically diverse within themselves as there were multiple waves of in-migration there (so you might find some Indians who are not genetically similar to Europeans, and yet, they would end up being treated as the same race as their neighbors who are genetically similar to Europeans).
4. Many of the markers of race end up being selected out in a surprisingly short period of time. Lactose tolerance, for example, evolved in just 2,000–20,000 years and it's likely that a lot of things that we consider fundamental to race similarly appeared in relatively short time frames like this.
https://youtu.be/iegYpOG6mQI
It means that regardless of whether you are an athletic prodigy, someone with developmental disabilities, or anybody else, you are deserving of equal share in governance — in contrast with aristocracy where some are considered more worthy to rule over others by dint of who they are.
With a different version of "created equal", the whole meaning of the rest of your post changes.
What does "an equal share of governance" mean? The question right now isn't enfranchisement, it's whether racial groups-- or ancestral groups, or ethnic cateories-- should have forced proportional representation in things like college admissions, med school admissions, or criminal arrest rates. The assumption put forth by self-labeled antiracists is that disproportionate representation is by itself evidence of racism. That's their core axiom, and it totally ignores signficant heritable (or cultural or environmental) differences between groups. It's an inherently disingenuous ideology, as nobody complains about the overrepresentation of NFL players with African ancestry, for example, but it's an idea with a whole lot of capital behind it.
From my experience people belonging to a certain group of concerned citizenry seem to be complaining about over-representation of black people in the NFL quite regularly.
I'd prefer it if you explicitly stated your bad-faith assumptions about my character instead of blowing negative smoke signals and putting scare quotes around words like "scientific."
I believe you’re using discredited research that's popular amount the race realism crowd and feigning ignorance by acting as if it’s unpalatable but true to you.
To be painstakingly clear about what I'm saying here: while the 2R MAO-A allele is more common among black males than in other groups, it's only present in a single-digit percentage of even that most-affected group. Of all those men with the allele, most don't commit any crime. Only <0.01% of Americans of all races are arrested for violent crime each year. When we discuss violent criminals with a genetic predisposition to aggression, we're talking about a tiny minority of a minority of a minority, way below single-digit percentages, not all members of a particular racial group.
The trouble is, that tiny minority of a minority of a minority can still skew total arrest numbers. If 0.02% of one racial group commits violent crime in a year versus 0.01% for members of another group, comparitive arrest rates will seem racially disproportionate. If that difference is seen as "police are all racist, and have a negative overall impact on black communities", bad policy may result. See recent crime spikes in American cities for examples, where de-policed minority communities have been among the hardest hit by rising violence.
The good news is that MAO-A deficiency can be identified and treated pharmacologically with progesterone supplementation. Researchers have also explored CRISPR-based therapies to boost MAO-A expression. I see this condition and its treatment as analogous to Vitamin D deficiency, which for obvious genetic reasons disproportionately affects people with dark skin. If we decide we're finally allowed to talk about it, the problem can be tackled constructively and the problems caused by ignoring it will vanish.
I don't believe you're sincere in your interest in the research, but in case you are, here are a few recent studies w/ relevant quotes from each abstract. Please tell me which ones you think are discredited:
University of Kentucky, 2015: "Low functioning MAOA genotypes have been reliably linked to increased reactive aggression" - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25637908/
National Institute for Health and Welfare, Finland, 2015: "Our results, from two independent cohorts of Finnish prisoners, revealed that a monoamine oxidase A (MAOA) low-activity genotype (contributing to low dopamine turnover rate) as well as the CDH13 gene (coding for neuronal membrane adhesion protein) are associated with extremely violent behavior (at least 10 committed homicides, attempted homicides or batteries)." - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25349169/
University of Kansas, 2016: "In particular, converging lines of evidence have documented that these maladaptive manifestations of aggression are influenced by monoamine oxidase A (MAOA), the enzyme that catalyzes the degradation of brain serotonin, norepinephrine and dopamine." - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26776902/
University of Heidelberg, 2019: "Previous studies have linked the low expression variant of a variable number of tandem repeat polymorphism in the monoamine oxidase A gene (MAOA-L) to the risk for impulsivity and aggression" - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31441562/
University of Toronto, 2020: "Over the past two decades, research has revealed that genetic factors shape the propensity for aggressive, antisocial, and violent behavior. The best-documented gene implicated in aggression is MAOA (Monoamine oxidase A), which encodes the key enzyme for the degradation of serotonin and ...
What you’ve posted tells me I was exactly on point with what you’re getting at. I’m familiar with race realism, science used to support it, and the people who believe in it.
I believe you’re probably well-intentioned, but you know what they say about that.
> recent crime spikes in American cities for examples, where de-policed minority communities have been among the hardest hit by rising violence.
They probably appreciate your concern, but how can you list so many studies and still assert something widely untrue like the “de-policed minority communities”.
My issue isn’t with the science. It’s that people like yourself take the science and attempt to use it to justify circumstances or policy while ignoring seemingly all else.
I’ve seen all but the last study you’ve listed before, but I'm not interested in engaging with you further. I'm certain there are plenty that are willing to hear and share your ideas.
Maybe you could even make some money and write for them; https://prowhiteparty.wordpress.com/2020/12/17/black-people-...
>but how can you list so many studies and still assert something widely untrue like the “de-policed minority communities”
To illustrate how wrong you are with just a few examples:
* Portland abolished their gun violence unit in 2020 in response to the George Floyd protests. Gun homicides have soared as a result to their highest level in 30 years, mostly in minority communities [0].
* While violent crime soared in Chicago last year, also chiefly in minority communities, arrest rates for violent crime fell. The UChicago crime lab attributes this in part to a "pulling back of proactive policing" [1].
* "In a reversal of plans to divert funding from police to social services, Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf said Monday that she'll push to reverse planned cuts to the city's police department and seek to quickly hire more officers amid a spike in violence and homicides that has left some residents afraid to leave their homes" [2].
>Maybe you could even make some money and write for them; https://prowhiteparty.wordpress.com/2020/12/17/black-people-...
I'm not interested in race chauvanism, race-based nationalism, or racist politics generally. I support colorblind policy with class-based affirmative action, and the vigorous enforcement of laws against racial discrimination.
>I'm not interested in engaging with you further.
Good, I'm done responding to your repeated falsehoods and bad-faith accusations. Thanks for revealing your true nature to the reader.
[0] https://www.oregonlive.com/crime/2021/10/under-the-gun-who-h...
[1] https://news.yahoo.com/chicago-violent-crime-arrests-down-12...
[2] https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/oakland-mayor-seeks-reve...
To use the Enlightenment terminology of the time, it's that each person has the same "Natural Rights" per John Locke. Another popular way of putting it was "Equal before God". Again, this is in contrast to e.g. the divine right of kings. And it was practically expressed (for white male land owners) at the dawn of the U.S.A in terms of an equal franchise.
> It's an inherently disingenuous ideology,
Well, you're starting from the bogus notion that "created equal" meant genetically equivalent ("more or less"); you might consider grappling with that before worrying about whether others are disingenuous.
> However, a large genome-wide association study has failed to find any large or statistically significant effects of the MAOA gene on aggression.[47] A separate GWAS on antisocial personality disorder likewise did not report a significant effect of MAOA.[48] Another study, while finding effects from a candidate gene search, failed to find any evidence in a large GWAS.[46] A separate analysis of human and rat genome wide association studies, Mandelian randomization studies, and causal pathway analyses likewise failed to reveal robust evidence of MAOA in aggression.[49] This lack of replication is predicted from the known issues of candidate gene research, which can produce many substantial false positives.[50]
>In humans, an association between the 2R allele of the VNTR region of the gene and an increase in the likelihood of committing serious crime or violence has been found. The VNTR 2R allele of MAOA has been found to be a risk factor for violent delinquency, when present in association with stresses, i.e. family issues, low popularity or failing school.[36][37][38][11]
If any experts in this field are available to explain the discrepancy, I'd love to hear from them.
The first study, which "failed to find any large or statistically significant effects of the MAOA gene on aggression", actually did find one statistically significant link between male MAOA gene expression and violence [0]:
>For studies with categorical outcomes (Supplementary Figure 1), the following associations were found: (1) COMT-Val158Met was significantly associated with violence (P=0.02) as a categorical outcome; (2) when examining violence as a categorical outcome only, there was an association for MAOA promoter 30 bpVNTR in males with a history of violence (P=0.023)
The second study isn't cited correctly. The results are taken from another study cited in the one listed [1]. The results of that study are intriguing, as they do fail to find a link between MAOA and violence in a GWAS of 4816 individuals. However, their data on subjects' violent behavior comes entirely from self-reported questionnaires.
This study also lumps the 3-repeat MAOA allele in with the 2-repeat allele variant. This is a common confounding factor in studies on violence and MAOA [2]. MAOA-3R is far more common in the populations of all racial/ancestral groups compared to the 2-repeat allele, and its measured effect on aggressive behavior is much smaller. Defining L-MAOA, or the low-activity MAOA gene as both MAOA-3R and MAOA-2R dilutes the value of any study on the 2-repeat allele, which is the specific allele I brought up in my first comment.
The third study, which "failed to find any evidence in a large GWAS", found highly significant effects in their candidate study while the GWAS was hampered by a lack of data [3]:
>Therefore, it is plausible that while research of the genetic background of criminal or violent behavior is hampered by many confounding factors, focusing on extreme phenotypes might yield more robust results. This was demonstrated in our analysis on the association between rs11649622 and MAOA genotypes vs the number of committed violent crimes, showing clear dose–response effects. However, collecting data from extreme phenotypes is difficult. For this reason, our number of study subjects was relatively small, which resulted in a rather low statistical power in the GWAS.
>Concerning statistical significance, the P-value of 2.9 × 10−5 for the low-activity MAOA variant can be considered as extremely significant, as the Bonferroni-corrected level of significance in the candidate gene study was 0.025.
>The results indicate both low monoamine metabolism and neuronal membrane dysfunction as plausible factors in the etiology of extreme criminal violent behavior, and a conservative estimate implies that 5–10% of all severe violent crime in Finland is attributable to specific MAOA and CDH13 genotypes.
The last study, which "failed to reveal robust evidence of MAOA in aggression", actually ranked MAOA first as a risk factor for aggressive behavior [4]:
>Also, individual genes were ranked based on their cumulative weights to quantify their importance as risk factors for aggressive behavior, which resulted in 40 top-ranked and highly interconnected genes.
>Supplementary Table 4 lists all the 1767 genes from the eight aggression gene sets (adult and children GWAS, transcriptomics in four rodent models, KO mice and OMIM) and ranks them based on their number of occurrences and weighted ranks for aggression (only human orthologs were included from the rodent genes). MAOA was ranked highest with both methods.
Ultimately, I'm inclined to believe those meta-analyses which do find an effect on MAOA-2R and agression because the mechanism of action of this gene is not entirely a mystery. Low-repeat versions of the MAOA allele result in less MAOA in the brain. We know what severe MAOA deficiency looks like; it's called Brunner syndrome [5]. Symptoms include violence, agress...
There is, AFAIK, only one sentient primate "race" on the Earth, Homo Sapiens.
And the members of that species are, genetically, incredibly closely related.
Differences in melanin content, bodily proportions and other immutable traits don't rise to the level of a different species for Homo Sapiens.
As such, referring to disparate groups by their geographic locus, ethnicity or ancestry is much more precise than using outdated terms like "race."
It's not about "wokeness" or "political correctness." Rather, it's about precision and more useful groupings of individuals.