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Cultural differences may leave their mark on DNA

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Re: Cultural differences may leave their mark on DNA

#31

Post by svachalek »

ChemicalWarfare wrote: post #19
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…

"Race" has 2 meanings. 1. Race as a social construct. It does exist in that capacity - as an extreme example Irish were not considered "white" in America (google for some "hilarious" images from "back in the day"). 2. Race as a biological reality. This is a touchy subject for a variety of reasons. But that doesn't mean that well documented taxonomic differences between human races are "fake". They do exist and are mo…

What I understand of the issue is that genetic differences between populations are real, but they form a continuum whose boundaries are extremely blurry if visible at all from a genetic level. Thus the drawing of boundary lines and the assignment of individuals into those handful of categories is something subject to change from culture to culture. In other words, genetic differences do not make race a "biological reality".

Re: Cultural differences may leave their mark on DNA

#32

Post by dqv »

danharaj wrote: post #24
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.

Okay. I mean... You're the one saying it's well documented and well studied. Are you going to prove your assertion?

Re: Cultural differences may leave their mark on DNA

#33

Post by danharaj »

ChemicalWarfare wrote: post #19
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…

"Race" has 2 meanings. 1. Race as a social construct. It does exist in that capacity - as an extreme example Irish were not considered "white" in America (google for some "hilarious" images from "back in the day"). 2. Race as a biological reality. This is a touchy subject for a variety of reasons. But that doesn't mean that well documented taxonomic differences between human races are "fake". They do exist and are mo…

What does it mean for "race" to be a "biological reality"? Interpopulation diversity of both phenotype and genotype isn't remarkably different from intrapopulation diversity. There are no genetic markers that taken together say "this person is black" or "this person is white". The concept of race was never grounded in real science and its proponents constantly change their justifications after the fact. At one point the "biological reality" of race was said to be rooted in phrenology.

Race is not just a word for different breeding populations of humans. The dilution of its meaning into something so innocuous is ahistorical, in fact it contradicts what was claimed to be the reality of race just decades ago. It's a political concept first and foremost.

No biological theory predicts races. Races are categories rooted in historical economic exploitation and domination that are a posteriori fitted with whatever truthy pseudoscientific justification is catchy at the time. Any categories of humans that biological measurements would come up with would hardly match racial categories. Perhaps the most racialized group that has distinct biological markers are Ashkenazi jews. However, the relation between Ashkenazi jews, Sephardic jews, and ethnic Arabs is very strong.

P.S. A review of the legal history of race in colonial America: https://sph.umd.edu/sites/default/files/files/Harris_Whitene...

Re: Cultural differences may leave their mark on DNA

#34

Post by wnoise »

svachalek wrote: post #31
ChemicalWarfare wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Race" has 2 meanings. 1. Race as a social construct. It does exist in that capacity - as an extreme example Irish were not considered "white" in America (google for some "hilarious" images from "back in the day"). 2. Race as a biological reality. This is a touchy subject for a variety of reasons. But that doesn't mean that well documented taxonomic differences between human races are "fake". They do exist and are mo…

What I understand of the issue is that genetic differences between populations are real, but they form a continuum whose boundaries are extremely blurry if visible at all from a genetic level. Thus the drawing of boundary lines and the assignment of individuals into those handful of categories is something subject to change from culture to culture. In other words, genetic differences do not make race a "biological re…

They're not visible at the level of looking at one SNP at a time. If you look at a whole lot of genes, you can get a very good idea of race.

Re: Cultural differences may leave their mark on DNA

#35

Post by maxerickson »

lngnmn wrote: post #28
maxerickson wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Say 5 people out of 25 have tails at time=0.

One day, the 20 without tails kill the 5 with tails.

So at time=0, the prevalence of tails is 20%. At time=1 day the prevalence of tails is 0%.

The remaining members of the population may still have the genes to make a tail, but no one currently has a tail. If tails are a dominant trait, they won't. If tails are a recessive trait, a couple generations of killing babies with tails will do quite a lot to further diminish the prevalence of the trait.

Re: Cultural differences may leave their mark on DNA

#36

Post by hx87 »

lacampbell wrote: post #29
erispoe wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> But people are ignorant of Africa in general.

Not population geneticists. Africa in those cases == sub-Saharan African people, not just Bantu.

Re: Cultural differences may leave their mark on DNA

#37

Post by hx87 »

lacampbell wrote: post #25
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.

Source? By southern African do you mean Khoisan?

Here's one paper. By southern African I do mean Khoisan as well as related peoples.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2953791/

Re: Cultural differences may leave their mark on DNA

#38

Post by tossaccttu78 »

tristor wrote: post #8
winter_blue wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually the genetic differences between races are far smaller and more blurry than most people would imagine (based on differences in appearance). The Atlantic had an article about exactly the kind of thing you're taking about, and how this kind of pseudoscience is being pushed by neo-nazis and the alt-right: http://www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/510962/

Thanks for once again proving that nobody can ever have a serious discussion about science related to ethnicity because someone will always jump up, point at them, and scream "racist". I wonder if it's occurred to you how many people suffer from medical conditions because they're either untreated or treated poorly because we don't bother studying and reporting on things like this, specifically and exactly because the…

> I wonder if it's occurred to you how many people suffer from medical conditions because they're either untreated or treated poorly because we don't bother studying and reporting on things like this, specifically and exactly because there's a hundred people just waiting in the wings to call you a racist for studying it?

How will that solve for people of mixed heritage? Grandkids of mixed ancestry may look "white" (redheaded whitey here, with great-grandparents that are very obviously native american) and still have genetic predispositions passed down.

The solution is not to clump by skin color. But to assess individuals specifically for certain markers.

Please take your strawman elsewhere.

Re: Cultural differences may leave their mark on DNA

#39

Post by hx87 »

cb18 wrote: post #23
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.

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.

Please elaborate or hold your peace.

Re: Cultural differences may leave their mark on DNA

#40

Post by stcredzero »

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…

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.

That's not how I read it. My takeaway was that "race" is a social construct that can leave epigenetic markers. In other words, culture can affect physiology.

In other words harder sciences are proving that social sciences obsession with identity politics has hindered medical advancements once again.

I would agree that many in the social sciences create epistemological problems for ideological reasons.

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