Dear Dave (and all)
After my previous mail the background to the following response has
been laid down.
On 30-May-03 Dave Gordon wrote:
> [...] it is very, very unlikely that there are any 'genetic'
> differences in IQ between population groups that are referred to in
> the USA as 'races' (e.g. Black, White, Asian, etc.) for the very
> simple fact that in genetic terms these are not separate races.
> Genetically humanity has only a single racial group.
It depends on what you want "race" to mean, which is the issue I have
been trying to address. I gave definitions and examples of biological
use of the word "race" according to which at any rate some populations
of Black, White, Asian etc. would be races in that sense. Skin colour
is a sufficient criterion on these definitions.
> [...]
> Their mtDNA analysis shows two distinct groups, Group I consists of
> only people from Africa and Group II of people from all over the World
> including some from Africa. You cannot tell from a person s geographic
> origin (or the colour of their skin) how genetically similar or distant
> they are. There are no obvious unique European, Asian, Australian or
> New Guinea mtDNA groups. For example any two White Europeans may be
> genetically more closely related to a Black African than they are to
> each other.
Nevertheless, there is at least one specific respect in which White
Europeans are genetically distinct from Black Africans, namely in the
genetic determination of skin colour. This one is obvious. But in what
other respects? Blood Group frequencies provide another well-established
(though more complicated) instance. We are definitely dealing with "race"
here in the sense I gave earlier. Therefore, in this sense, there is no
objection to stating that White Europeans and Black Africans represent
different races with respect to the characteristics in question.
Whatever the degree of genetic communality of human beings as a whole,
the existence of gene-frequency differences between sub-populations,
with corresponding differences in phenotype, establishes "racial
difference" by definition.
It may be that two particular White Europeans each have greater
overall genetic communality with a particular Black African than with
each other, while at the same time the WEs differ crucially from the
BA in the genes that determine skin colour, and resemble each other.
> [...] This is not to deny that there are genetic differences
> between population groups and individuals, for example the largest
> known number of mutation differences between two people in their
> mitochondrial DNA is fourteen (according to Bryan Sykes) which
> separates Teri Tupuaki, a fisherman from Mangaia in the Cook Islands
> from Mrs Gwyneth Roberts, who cooks school lunches in Bala, North
> Wales. However, genetically both Teri Tupuaki and Gwyneth Roberts
> belong to the same single human race.
Well, if by "the human race" you really mean "the human species" then
I can't disagree with you (indeed that is the common usage). But this
hijacks the word "race" and prevents it from being used for its other
purpose (as above). But you concede that you cannot extend this to
mean that the human species is genetically homogeneous. The fact that
one person has the dark skin of a Zulu and another the pale skin of a
Swede directly shows that they are genetically different in some respects.
As it happens, the contentious usage of "race" is very similar to the
scientific biological usage: A person can be easily recognised from
skin colour as being of "white race" or "black race", whether "race"
has the scientific or the popular meaning. On the one hand, it is
known, for instance, that persons with black skin have a distinctive
distribution in their populations of blood-groups, and therefore of
blood-group-determining alleles; this is part of what is scientifically
meant by designating them as a distinct "race". Blood-group frequencies
are correlated with skin colour, and this correlation may have nothing
to do with genetic linkage: genes for skin colour, and genes for
blood-group, could be selected for independently in a given environment;
all the same, this leads in the end to geographically-defined populations
which are distinct from each other in respect of skin colour, blood-groups
and other heritable features.
On the other hand, a person with black skin is recognised by the
prejudiced as of "black race" in the popular sense, opening the door
for any associations (pejorative or otherwise: black persons may
see it in a favourable light, while having their own opinions about
"white trash") which they may wish to hang on this categorisation. And
because skin colour is inherited, it all too easily happens that people
may come to believe that adverse qualities go, heritably, along with the
skin.
Which is not to dismiss the possibility that many or even all of the
characteristics of a human being may have heritable aspects in various
degrees, even "intelligence" (if only one knew what that really was);
there are certainly several which do, and are therefore "racial". The only
decent approach to it is to observe and measure what one can, and
determine what differences there are and how big they are, and be careful
to examine possible non-genetic explanations for differences when they do
turn out to be correlated with "race", i.e. racial.
One method which can determine whether superificially observed differences
are heritable without descending to the fundamental level of identifying
genes on a genome is to conduct properly controlled breeding experiments.
This has certainly established a huge variety of characters as heritable
in the animal world. But it's not a very acceptable solution in the human
world.
Best wishes,
Ted.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <[log in to unmask]>
Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 167 1972
Date: 01-Jun-03 Time: 20:43:57
------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------
******************************************************
Please note that if you press the 'Reply' button your
message will go only to the sender of this message.
If you want to reply to the whole list, use your mailer's
'Reply-to-All' button to send your message automatically
to [log in to unmask]
*******************************************************
|