I had actually quit the list when Dave Gordon posted his note concerning
the genetic stuff. I have resubscribed momentarily to set the record
straight, as it is evident to anyone who is familiar with the science that
some biologists are not being entirely honest on the subject of race.
Anyone who is familiar with the history of Lysenkoism in Russia will
realize that not everything a geneticist may say is gospel truth or
untainted by political agendas. The following elaborates upon my original
offlist reply to Dave Gordon.
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The problem is that Cavalli-Sforza is involved with the Human Genome
Project, and is propagating a tissue of half-truths to cover their asses at
the Project and deflect heat away from them - otherwise they risk being
publicly crucified as laying the foundation for eugenics, racial
supremacism, and God-knows-what. He and his group are simply exaggerating
the problems with the race concept.
In fact, you have only to check Medline for any year under the search term
"race" and you will see how many genetic conditions differentiate human
populations. You will also find a number of genetic disorders that are
predominantly found in African, European, and Pacific Rim Asian
populations. In medical genetics, race is a legitimate term that is used
all the time. Cavalli-Sforza is simply disingenuous on this issue. Note
also that both nuclear and mitochondrial DNA can be used by forensic
biologists to determine the ethnic origin of murder victims.
Another misleading argument: There is no need for one race to be anywhere
near speciation for them to have certain cognitive and behavioral
characteristics that differentiate them, probabilistically speaking, from
other populations. That is a red herring and another disingeneous point by
C-S. The behavioral and cognitive differences attributed to Africans versus
Europeans need be of no greater magnitude than those that distinguish two
Scottish clans or, for that matter, any two families - in order for them to
be real and significant. If the Campbells are more violent and excitable
than the MacDonalds, that is a biologically significant datum. I invite
anyone to do a Medline search under the term "race" and record the number
of biological studies in which significant genetic and medical differences
are found between human populations. Please, anyone - do the Medline search
and peruse the abstracts that come up before proclaiming that race is a
myth. Behavioral and cognitive studies using race as an independent
variable are much, much rarer - but here one is dealing with taboos.
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To the above, I add a specific example. There is a study in the literature
from the last couple of years in which the frequency of a particular allele
of a particular gene was studied in several white populations and several
black populations, the latter spanning Africa and the U.S. It turns out
that this allele - which causes a lung disease similar to cystic fibrosis,
but isn't cystic fibrosis - is common in the African population and the US
black sample, but not in the white samples in Europe or the US. The gene,
incidentally, codes a protein that acts as a surfactant and enables the
lungs to clear mucus - so it's quite similar in principle to CF. Anyway,
the problem is common to populations of African descent, that is, the
allele that produces a faulty protein and hence the resulting pulmonary
condition. Now this is considered perfectly good science, and it is only
one of many from the last couple of years' literature.
Conclusion: Geneticists who overstate the faultiness of the race construct
do so for political, not scientific reasons.
Signing off the list again,
David Klein
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