How Genetics Is Changing Our Understanding of ‘Race’

Re:How Genetics Is Changing Our Understanding of ‘Race’ by ak_yo on Saturday March 24, 2018 @10:16AM (#16666678)

This is an interesting argument but I think it fails to coherently restate what it means for race to be socially constructed. Nobody is denying that genetic differences between people exist and are important for health. They’re saying that reusing racial categorization schemes in genetics is scientifically ungrounded because these racial categories have no inherent biological content— they’re more like receptacles for political and social debate.

It’s not clear what value it adds to use (e.g.) US Census racial categories in genetics research. The salience of racial identification changes over time and is deeply politicized (as the author notes). More sophisticated and granular categories that are actually based on genetics would be much more appropriate than trying to recuperate categories that weren’t developed for science.

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Re:How Genetics Is Changing Our Understanding of ‘Race’ by throwaway538 on Saturday March 24, 2018 @10:43AM (#16666808)

This is because phenotype is a good predictor of genotype and people are good at assessing someone's phenotype very quickly.

I can usually tell roughly which European country someone is from by looking at their face.

It doesn't work as well with different parts of Eastern Europe but you get the idea.

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