0:21:16.1 SC: I'm good. How come we're not celebrating 20 years of no longer looking for race in genomes? Are people still trying to find genes for race in this day and age?So when Blacks get their kidneys tested, the results are compared against what is normal for Blacks, instead of Whites. Sounds reasonable to me.0:21:26.0 DR: Yes. There are a lot of genomic scientists who are still trying to figure out the best way to identify races genetically and there are also a lot who are looking for race-based genetic difference to explain inequities of health and some even other kinds of inequities, like in education and in violence, even.
0:21:52.2 SC: There isn't really any evidence for this happening. Why do you think people are still looking for this?
0:21:56.7 DR: Well, first of all, even though human beings are very, very similar genetically, there's only a tiny percentage of difference between human beings, there still is a lot of genetic variation in the human species. But what some scientists then do is say, "Well, we're going to look for the racial differences in that amount of variation." The problem is that all of that genetic diversity isn't grouped by race, because race isn't a biological category. Now, why do we continue to do that? I think race is just such an embedded idea in Western science, in our culture, in our society. It's useful. It was invented because it was useful for political reasons and it continues to be useful politically to explain why we have so much inequality in our society. ...
0:24:57.6 SC: What are the recommendations now? What should a scientist be doing instead if theyare collecting demographic data on a person and they care about ancestry?
0:25:08.2 DR: I think the most important first step is for scientists to be clear that race is not a biological category. It is purely an invented social or political category. It's not a natural division of human beings that some aspect of nature created, whether we say God created it or nature created it or evolution created it. That's all false. So if scientists could understand that it is a way of managing racialized populations for political reasons, then they can use it in the right way. ...
0:26:31.3 DR: There are a whole host of studies that have been conducted since the time of slavery that assume that black people, for example, are a biologically distinct group and categorically different from other human beings. I can give you the example of the estimated glomerular filtration rate, which is a very important indicator of kidney function, ...
She says this is racist, and should not be done.
It is a fact that there are race-based genetic differences, and it is entirely appropriate for geneticists to look for them.
I post this to show how politicized the scientific establishment has become. George Floyd dies of a fentanyl overdose, Donald Trump gets removed from the White House, and now race is not a biological category.
Of course there are genes for race. You can sign up to Ancestry.com or 23andme.com, and it will identify your race from the DNA in the spit that you send in.
People sometimes say that right-wingers are anti-science. But the Left denies much of genetics.
I suppose if the word 'race' is so offensive to certain people, they could use the word 'breed' instead, though any word that indicates differentiation is what they actually are against (at least publicly). Science is entirely based on the foundation of differentiation, the ability to categorize things into like groups in order to better study, record, compare, contrast, and predict.
ReplyDeleteAnyone on the political left who is offended by noting differences in nature (genetic or otherwise) should probably remove the two by four beam of hypocrisy from their own eye before they wax poetic in their faux outrage.
I believe what the political left is troubled about is not actually the scientific reality of genetic differences, but their own very closeted and hateful history of progressive eugenics which they are projecting onto others in an attempt to absolve themselves. If anyone doubts this, before weighing in, inform yourself by researching Margaret Sanger, she is still highly venerated by the political left to this day for her glorious contributions to 'planned' genocide.
Well over 175 million lives were extinguished in the twentieth century by progressive luminaries of the political left, as they 'experimented' with various flavors of eugenics and social planning.
Sue me for not taking the left seriously in their endless faux outrage, they know not their own history.
"To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child. For what is the worth of human life, unless it is woven into the life of our ancestors by the records of history?"
Marcus Tullius Cicero