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Cultural differences may leave their mark on DNA

sciencebulletin.org

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Re: Cultural differences may leave their mark on DNA

#21

Post by cb18 »

While this article isn't entirely, reality denying non-sense, in fact mostly the opposite. The researchers do themselves and their readers huge a huge disservice with notions like,

“These data suggest that the interplay between race and ethnicity as social constructs and genetic ancestry as a biological construct is more complex than we had realized,

Putting forth these notions makes study and understanding of genetics far more convoluted and difficult than it needs to be.

Race is ancestry, ancestry is race, plain and simple.

Race is ancestry, ancestry is relatedness. Ancestry is the factor of relatedness, relatedness is the factor of race. For example an Englishman has a relatedness factor to a Dane that is hundreds of times greater than than the relatedness factor the Englishman has to a Nigerian. An Englishman and a Dane are of the European race, a Nigerian is of the (sub-Saharan) African race.

You'd think this would be the simplest thing in the world to understand, but something about the modern world has caused otherwise for some people.

Races are simply large extended families that came about due to imposing natural barriers in the ancient world, deserts, oceans, mountain ranges.

"Social constructs" are claptrap that came about from nihilist "post-modernists," and "critical theory" lunatics and agitators seeking to attack and disrupt western society.

Re: Cultural differences may leave their mark on DNA

#22

Post by danharaj »

lngnmn wrote: post #20

Cultural changes rate are too infinitesimal compared to the time which is required for any genetic change to get a chance to form and propagate through a population to attain a stable presence (forming a distinct trait). The probability that a certain cultural difference induced mutation could be formed (given that there is no flow of information from a phenotype back to genotype) is something incalculable. What migh…

The article talks about gene expression, which is much more fluid. Another factor that influences gene expression whose effects are just starting to be measured is poverty.

Re: Cultural differences may leave their mark on DNA

#23

Post by cb18 »

hx87 wrote: post #6
tristor wrote: post #2

Looks like the TL;DR conclusion is that "race" is not just a social construct, but actually has genetic markers which are expressed beyond ethnic heritage. As the authors conclude, this could be extremely important in tailoring medical treatments for people for differences in their genetic makeup based on their race. In other words harder sciences are proving that social sciences obsession with identity politics has…

Biological populations certainly do exist, it's just that they don't correlate well with prevailing concepts of "race". The average western African is more similar to the average European than to the average southern African.

Biological populations certainly do exist, it's just that they don't correlate well with prevailing concepts of "race". The average western African is more similar to the average European than to the average southern African.

Absolute, utter hogwash.

Re: Cultural differences may leave their mark on DNA

#24

Post by danharaj »

cb18 wrote: post #21

While this article isn't entirely, reality denying non-sense, in fact mostly the opposite. The researchers do themselves and their readers huge a huge disservice with notions like, “These data suggest that the interplay between race and ethnicity as social constructs and genetic ancestry as a biological construct is more complex than we had realized, Putting forth these notions makes study and understanding of geneti…

The construction of whiteness as an ideology of European imperial powers is well documented and well studied. I doubt you've ever read any scholarship on the matter.

Re: Cultural differences may leave their mark on DNA

#25

Post by lacampbell »

hx87 wrote: post #6
tristor wrote: post #2

Looks like the TL;DR conclusion is that "race" is not just a social construct, but actually has genetic markers which are expressed beyond ethnic heritage. As the authors conclude, this could be extremely important in tailoring medical treatments for people for differences in their genetic makeup based on their race. In other words harder sciences are proving that social sciences obsession with identity politics has…

Biological populations certainly do exist, it's just that they don't correlate well with prevailing concepts of "race". The average western African is more similar to the average European than to the average southern African.

Source? By southern African do you mean Khoisan?

Re: Cultural differences may leave their mark on DNA

#26

Post by maxerickson »

lngnmn wrote: post #20

Cultural changes rate are too infinitesimal compared to the time which is required for any genetic change to get a chance to form and propagate through a population to attain a stable presence (forming a distinct trait). The probability that a certain cultural difference induced mutation could be formed (given that there is no flow of information from a phenotype back to genotype) is something incalculable. What migh…

A cultural environment could induce a nearly instantaneous change in the genetics of a population though.

Say some percentage of a population has tails. Then they start getting killed because they have a tail. A generation or two later, a much smaller percentage of the population will have tails. The likelihood of tails appearing in the population has decreased dramatically, due to culture.

Re: Cultural differences may leave their mark on DNA

#28

Post by lngnmn »

maxerickson wrote: post #26
lngnmn wrote: post #20

Cultural changes rate are too infinitesimal compared to the time which is required for any genetic change to get a chance to form and propagate through a population to attain a stable presence (forming a distinct trait). The probability that a certain cultural difference induced mutation could be formed (given that there is no flow of information from a phenotype back to genotype) is something incalculable. What migh…

A cultural environment could induce a nearly instantaneous change in the genetics of a population though. Say some percentage of a population has tails. Then they start getting killed because they have a tail. A generation or two later, a much smaller percentage of the population will have tails. The likelihood of tails appearing in the population has decreased dramatically, due to culture.

> instantaneous change in the genetics of a population though.

How exactly, given that a generational time for humans is about 20 years?

Re: Cultural differences may leave their mark on DNA

#29

Post by lacampbell »

erispoe wrote: post #14
hx87 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Biological populations certainly do exist, it's just that they don't correlate well with prevailing concepts of "race". The average western African is more similar to the average European than to the average southern African.

Populations in Africa are also genetically more diverse than the rest of the world combined.

But people are ignorant of Africa in general. When they talk about an African race they're ignoring Ethiopians or khoisans or pygmies - they mean Bantu people.

I don't think there's more genetic diversity among Bantus than the rest of the world combined.

Re: Cultural differences may leave their mark on DNA

#30

Post by lngnmn »

danharaj wrote: post #22
lngnmn wrote: post #20

Cultural changes rate are too infinitesimal compared to the time which is required for any genetic change to get a chance to form and propagate through a population to attain a stable presence (forming a distinct trait). The probability that a certain cultural difference induced mutation could be formed (given that there is no flow of information from a phenotype back to genotype) is something incalculable. What migh…

The article talks about gene expression, which is much more fluid. Another factor that influences gene expression whose effects are just starting to be measured is poverty.

Gene expression has nothing to do with altering DNA, leave alone any propagation of such "changes".
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