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Human geneticists curb use of the term ‘race’ in their papers

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Re: Human geneticists curb use of the term ‘race’ in their papers

#71

Post by bytelines »

CryptoPunk wrote: post #66
bytelines wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Race being a social construct is an idea of social justice ideology, not of science. Source?

From 2007, when this dogma was still not dominant across the scientific disciplines: https://www.jstor.org/stable/20832348 >>Sociological literature frequently claims that scientists across the disciplinary spectrum have arrived at the common conclusion that race is socially constructed, not biologically anchored. I investigate contemporary scientific thinking about race by interviewing more than 40 biologists and an…

I don't see how that supports your assertion? Dr Morning[1] was arguing that the dichotomy of constructionist vs essentialist (and what you appear to be arguing) - is a "blunt tool". And that the at least in the northeast US in 2014, "constructionist" was a minority viewpoint. In fact this seems to contradict your first assertion that science has been "politicized by the state, and its official ideology". I still have no idea how you see the state fitting in here.

Unrelated, I have no idea wtf a tector is.

That satire account is hilarious but I'd hardly base my world view on it.

[1] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00380237.2007.10... -- I think you may have linked the wrong thing? I can only find the abstract

Re: Human geneticists curb use of the term ‘race’ in their papers

#72

Post by _od5n »

alphabettsy wrote: post #68
_od5n wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It means that regardless of whether you are an athletic prodigy, someone with developmental disabilities, or anybody else, you are deserving of equal share in governance — in contrast with aristocracy where some are considered more worthy to rule over others by dint of who they are. What does "an equal share of governance" mean? The question right now isn't enfranchisement, it's whether racial groups-- or ancestral…

I’d prefer if people like yourself were forthcoming with what you’re ultimately advocating for instead of pretending to entertain honest intellectual discussion using tired “scientific” propaganda. From my experience people belonging to a certain group of concerned citizenry seem to be complaining about over-representation of black people in the NFL quite regularly.

What I'm ultimately advocating, as I think I've been clear on so far, is evidence-based criticism of the push in US public policy to force racially-proportional outcomes in many areas. This push often ignores or obscures the science of measureable population-level racial/ancestral/ethnic/geographic group differences, some of which are cultural, some of which are environmental, and some of which are heritable. The link's description of researchers "adopting an antiracist posture" is what brings the point to mind.

I'd prefer it if you explicitly stated your bad-faith assumptions about my character instead of blowing negative smoke signals and putting scare quotes around words like "scientific."

Re: Human geneticists curb use of the term ‘race’ in their papers

#73

Post by CryptoPunk »

bytelines wrote: post #71
CryptoPunk wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From 2007, when this dogma was still not dominant across the scientific disciplines: https://www.jstor.org/stable/20832348 >>Sociological literature frequently claims that scientists across the disciplinary spectrum have arrived at the common conclusion that race is socially constructed, not biologically anchored. I investigate contemporary scientific thinking about race by interviewing more than 40 biologists and an…

I don't see how that supports your assertion? Dr Morning[1] was arguing that the dichotomy of constructionist vs essentialist (and what you appear to be arguing) - is a "blunt tool". And that the at least in the northeast US in 2014, "constructionist" was a minority viewpoint. In fact this seems to contradict your first assertion that science has been "politicized by the state, and its official ideology". I still hav…

Sorry, link fixed. As the abstract points out, the idea of race as a social construct, as of 2007, was a minority viewpoint amongst those biologists and anthropologists that Morning interviewed. This is despite sociologists at the time frequently claiming that scientists as a whole saw race as a social construct:

"Contrary to sociologists' expectations, racial constructionism is revealed to be a minority viewpoint."

This supports the theory that the "the science says race is a social construct" started primarily with sociologists, who naturally see everything through the lens of social constructionism, and falsely attributed this belief to the harder sciences, to create an appeal to scientific authority for the viewpoint. Fast forward to today, where this view is now the official position of the scientific establishment as a whole, despite it being a minority position just 15 years ago.

Not seeing how you can't see how the paper supports my position, that this opinion is a result of social pressure to conform with an ideology, and not objective science. Claiming "scientists see race as a social construct" is exactly the kind of social pressure tactic that would be used to bring other scientists into the mold. No one wants to be seen as contradicting a conclusion of the scientific establishment, especially one that superficially, would appear to promote a more equitable world.

>>I still have no idea how you see the state fitting in here.

This victimhood ideology, that contains within it the idea that racial is a social construct used to perpetuate oppression, rationalizes a set of government policies and laws, e.g. civil rights law, that empowers special interests, and thus ties their economic interests to the perpetuation of these government interventions.

Thus this ideology is aggressively pushed by those whose interests are dependent on left-wing-ideology motivated state intervention. See the websites/social-media-pages of the labor unions for the New York Times and Washington Post for just a quick sample:

https://nytimesguild.org/

https://twitter.com/postguild

Sociology majors, incidentally, tend to work in government-funded institutions (e.g. as guidance counselors, social workers, etc), or in professions that largely arose as a result of government intervention (e.g. anti-discrimination lawyers, human resource representatives), etc.

Re: Human geneticists curb use of the term ‘race’ in their papers

#74

Post by bytelines »

CryptoPunk wrote: post #73
bytelines wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see how that supports your assertion? Dr Morning[1] was arguing that the dichotomy of constructionist vs essentialist (and what you appear to be arguing) - is a "blunt tool". And that the at least in the northeast US in 2014, "constructionist" was a minority viewpoint. In fact this seems to contradict your first assertion that science has been "politicized by the state, and its official ideology". I still hav…

Sorry, link fixed. As the abstract points out, the idea of race as a social construct, as of 2007, was a minority viewpoint amongst those biologists and anthropologists that Morning interviewed. This is despite sociologists at the time frequently claiming that scientists as a whole saw race as a social construct: "Contrary to sociologists' expectations, racial constructionism is revealed to be a minority viewpoint."…

> This supports the theory that the "the science says race is a social construct" started primarily with sociologists.

Who? Dr Morning is the only sociologist here. And you're using her to support your argument.

You've obviously thought about this a lot and have some pretty strong opinions but I don't see how that aligns with the original article or anything geneticists are talking about?

Ignoring for a second the idea that "race is a social construct", will you at least concede that race *was* a social construct? And that it predated our understanding of genetics and was used to, among other things, justify slavery, eugenics and other human misery? And that perhaps we shouldn't be cavalier about attributing scientific observations about genetics to something like a 'race' of people? Because that's the discussion that's happening in the scientific community. It seems very divorced from your assertions about victimhood ideology.

Genetics are still important. Groups of related ancestors are, too. Take a personal example - I did "23 and me" maybe 10 years ago. I'm half Swedish and half Mexican (mestizo, basque and native). I have genetic markers that predispose me to having high iron in my blood. This is pretty common among Swedish ancestory.

How does attributing that to "white" help anything here?

And what the hell am I? Am I latino? Am I white?

Does any of that fucking matter? Who cares what the hell Johann Friedrich Blumenbach thought about the subject. My ancestory - my mix of Swedish and Mexican ancestors - is really only useful for explaining what I look like. The concept of "race", historically, takes it further to attempt to explain who I am. Am I lazy? Am I superior? Am I worthy of passing on my genes? From there it's a historical slided to the worst parts of our history: that maybe the world would be better off without certain people. Or that some were meant to be superior.

Re: Human geneticists curb use of the term ‘race’ in their papers

#75

Post by CryptoPunk »

bytelines wrote: post #74
CryptoPunk wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, link fixed. As the abstract points out, the idea of race as a social construct, as of 2007, was a minority viewpoint amongst those biologists and anthropologists that Morning interviewed. This is despite sociologists at the time frequently claiming that scientists as a whole saw race as a social construct: "Contrary to sociologists' expectations, racial constructionism is revealed to be a minority viewpoint."…

> This supports the theory that the "the science says race is a social construct" started primarily with sociologists. Who? Dr Morning is the only sociologist here. And you're using her to support your argument. You've obviously thought about this a lot and have some pretty strong opinions but I don't see how that aligns with the original article or anything geneticists are talking about? Ignoring for a second the id…

>>Who? Dr Morning is the only sociologist here. And you're using her to support your argument.

According to the paper:

The title:

"“Everyone Knows It's a Social Construct”: Contemporary Science and the Nature of Race"

The first line of the abstract:

"Sociological literature frequently claims that scientists across the disciplinary spectrum have arrived at the common conclusion that race is socially constructed, not biologically anchored."

I assume Dr. Morning's characterization is accurate, and could be easily corroborated.

I don't see how it's constructive to continue responding to you when you are being obtuse in assessing what I'm providing.

Just to clarify: are you claiming that the following assessments of Dr. Morning's, are not credible, or are incorrect:

* the dominant viewpoint amongst sociologists, as of 2007, was that "scientists across the disciplinary spectrum have arrived at the common conclusion that race is socially constructed"

* as of 2007, most biologists and anthropologists did not, indeed, see race as socially constructed

?

>>Ignoring for a second the idea that "race is a social construct", will you at least concede that race was a social construct? And that it predated our understanding of genetics and was used to, among other things, justify slavery, eugenics and other human misery? And that perhaps we shouldn't be cavalier about attributing scientific observations about genetics to something like a 'race' of people? Because that's the discussion that's happening in the scientific community. It seems very divorced from your assertions about victimhood ideology.

All of this is nonsense. It wasn't a social construct, and its emergence as a recognized concept wasn't motivated by a desire to justify doing horrible things to people. This is just standard victimhood narrative, to give the political left in the academic/scientific establishment moral authority.

And using race categories doesn't imply ignoring its limitations, or preclude the use of other ways of categorizing people.

Re: Human geneticists curb use of the term ‘race’ in their papers

#76

Post by bytelines »

CryptoPunk wrote: post #75
bytelines wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This supports the theory that the "the science says race is a social construct" started primarily with sociologists. Who? Dr Morning is the only sociologist here. And you're using her to support your argument. You've obviously thought about this a lot and have some pretty strong opinions but I don't see how that aligns with the original article or anything geneticists are talking about? Ignoring for a second the id…

>>Who? Dr Morning is the only sociologist here. And you're using her to support your argument. According to the paper: The title: "“Everyone Knows It's a Social Construct”: Contemporary Science and the Nature of Race" The first line of the abstract: "Sociological literature frequently claims that scientists across the disciplinary spectrum have arrived at the common conclusion that race is socially constructed, not b…

Dr Morning's assertion is that "race is a social construct" is a minority position, and one that sociologists overemphasize.

This is very different from saying "race being a social construct is an idea of social justice ideology, not of science". She is arguing that the perceived consensus or widespread acceptance of the idea is wrong. You're asserting that "social justice [ideologists]" or sociologists (you seem to be using them interchangeably) themselves came up with the very idea.

We're 15 years later. Is it still a minority position? I honestly don't know. Based on OP, it seems like no, but maybe we're in the same position. But it was clearly never "an idea of social justice ideology, not of science"

> It wasn't a social construct, and its emergence as a recognized concept wasn't motivated by a desire to justify doing horrible things to people

So if our understanding of race was never a social construct, do tell what is the science behind this:

> Finally, I am of opinion that after all these numerous instances I have brought together of negroes of capacity, it would not be difficult to mention entire well-known provinces of Europe, from out of which you would not easily expect to obtain off-hand such good authors, poets, philosophers, and correspondents of the Paris Academy; and on the other hand, there is no so-called savage nation known under the sun which has so much distinguished itself by such examples of perfectibility and original capacity for scientific culture, and thereby attached itself so closely to the most civilized nations of the earth, as the Negro."

I'm not asserting, either, that reasoning around races was used to justify things before the act, but rather that by attributing ideas like "genetics explains people" carries historical consequences. Like that some genes are superior to others. I don't know how you can deny this took place in our history.

Re: Human geneticists curb use of the term ‘race’ in their papers

#77

Post by alphabettsy »

_od5n wrote: post #72
alphabettsy wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d prefer if people like yourself were forthcoming with what you’re ultimately advocating for instead of pretending to entertain honest intellectual discussion using tired “scientific” propaganda. From my experience people belonging to a certain group of concerned citizenry seem to be complaining about over-representation of black people in the NFL quite regularly.

What I'm ultimately advocating, as I think I've been clear on so far, is evidence-based criticism of the push in US public policy to force racially-proportional outcomes in many areas. This push often ignores or obscures the science of measureable population-level racial/ancestral/ethnic/geographic group differences, some of which are cultural, some of which are environmental, and some of which are heritable. The lin…

No problem.

I believe you’re using discredited research that's popular amount the race realism crowd and feigning ignorance by acting as if it’s unpalatable but true to you.

Re: Human geneticists curb use of the term ‘race’ in their papers

#78

Post by CryptoPunk »

bytelines wrote: post #76
CryptoPunk wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>Who? Dr Morning is the only sociologist here. And you're using her to support your argument. According to the paper: The title: "“Everyone Knows It's a Social Construct”: Contemporary Science and the Nature of Race" The first line of the abstract: "Sociological literature frequently claims that scientists across the disciplinary spectrum have arrived at the common conclusion that race is socially constructed, not b…

Dr Morning's assertion is that "race is a social construct" is a minority position, and one that sociologists overemphasize. This is very different from saying "race being a social construct is an idea of social justice ideology, not of science". She is arguing that the perceived consensus or widespread acceptance of the idea is wrong. You're asserting that "social justice [ideologists]" or sociologists (you seem to…

>>Dr Morning's assertion is that "race is a social construct" is a minority position, and one that sociologists overemphasize.

You're being disingenuous, in not fully describing Morning's assertion. The assertion, fully described, is that "race is a social construct" is a minority position, and one that sociologists claim is a universally held among scientists at large.

This is deeply mistaken claim by the sociologists, and to me it's evident why the consensus emerged within the sociology field around this erronuous belief: it's a manipulation tactic, to give the "race is a social contract" claim an appeal to scientific credibility.

And it worked! Only 15 years later, and the main scientific institutions are now arguing for a broad exorcism of the concept of race.

>>But it was clearly never "an idea of social justice ideology, not of science"

Given the following facts, I think there is a preponderance of evidence that it is an idea of social justice ideology, not science:

* the well-documented extreme-left wing bias of the sociology field

* the economic interests those with sociology degrees have - due to the occupations that sociology degrees are amenable to - to propagate left-wing political ideology and the government programs that are associated with it

* the lack of rigor in sociology, which makes it less scientific, and more political/ideological, than other scientific disciplines. This lack of rigor is reflected in the pervasiveness of the erronuous belief about "race is a social construct" in sociology field, that Morning references

* the until recent general rejection of the "race is a social construct" idea in the harder sciences for which race is relevant: biology and anthropology

The best explanation for the coincidence of all of these facts, is that "race is a social construct" originated in the left-wing grievance ideology promoted by the political left, and that the sociologists, due to their alignment with this ideology, created a dogmatic commitment to this belief in the other scientific disciplines, by linking the rejection of this belief with vices like racism.

>>that reasoning around races was used to justify things before the act, but rather that by attributing ideas like "genetics explains people" carries historical consequences.

The answer is not to pretend race doesn't exist and/or has no usefulness as a category. The attempt to extirpate race from the sciences, in an attempt to minimize racism, is just delusional utopianism, that in its neuroticism, totally ignores the collateral damage to various scientific frameworks, of such a drastic and far-reaching conceptual re-engineering.

Re: Human geneticists curb use of the term ‘race’ in their papers

#79

Post by _od5n »

alphabettsy wrote: post #77
_od5n wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I'm ultimately advocating, as I think I've been clear on so far, is evidence-based criticism of the push in US public policy to force racially-proportional outcomes in many areas. This push often ignores or obscures the science of measureable population-level racial/ancestral/ethnic/geographic group differences, some of which are cultural, some of which are environmental, and some of which are heritable. The lin…

No problem. I believe you’re using discredited research that's popular amount the race realism crowd and feigning ignorance by acting as if it’s unpalatable but true to you.

And I think you're assigning me malicious motiviations, and ignoring valid research that doesn't support your own prejudices.

To be painstakingly clear about what I'm saying here: while the 2R MAO-A allele is more common among black males than in other groups, it's only present in a single-digit percentage of even that most-affected group. Of all those men with the allele, most don't commit any crime. Only The trouble is, that tiny minority of a minority of a minority can still skew total arrest numbers. If 0.02% of one racial group commits violent crime in a year versus 0.01% for members of another group, comparitive arrest rates will seem racially disproportionate. If that difference is seen as "police are all racist, and have a negative overall impact on black communities", bad policy may result. See recent crime spikes in American cities for examples, where de-policed minority communities have been among the hardest hit by rising violence.

The good news is that MAO-A deficiency can be identified and treated pharmacologically with progesterone supplementation. Researchers have also explored CRISPR-based therapies to boost MAO-A expression. I see this condition and its treatment as analogous to Vitamin D deficiency, which for obvious genetic reasons disproportionately affects people with dark skin. If we decide we're finally allowed to talk about it, the problem can be tackled constructively and the problems caused by ignoring it will vanish.

I don't believe you're sincere in your interest in the research, but in case you are, here are a few recent studies w/ relevant quotes from each abstract. Please tell me which ones you think are discredited:

University of Kentucky, 2015: "Low functioning MAOA genotypes have been reliably linked to increased reactive aggression" - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25637908/

National Institute for Health and Welfare, Finland, 2015: "Our results, from two independent cohorts of Finnish prisoners, revealed that a monoamine oxidase A (MAOA) low-activity genotype (contributing to low dopamine turnover rate) as well as the CDH13 gene (coding for neuronal membrane adhesion protein) are associated with extremely violent behavior (at least 10 committed homicides, attempted homicides or batteries)." - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25349169/

University of Kansas, 2016: "In particular, converging lines of evidence have documented that these maladaptive manifestations of aggression are influenced by monoamine oxidase A (MAOA), the enzyme that catalyzes the degradation of brain serotonin, norepinephrine and dopamine." - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26776902/

University of Heidelberg, 2019: "Previous studies have linked the low expression variant of a variable number of tandem repeat polymorphism in the monoamine oxidase A gene (MAOA-L) to the risk for impulsivity and aggression" - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31441562/

University of Toronto, 2020: "Over the past two decades, research has revealed that genetic factors shape the propensity for aggressive, antisocial, and violent behavior. The best-documented gene implicated in aggression is MAOA (Monoamine oxidase A), which encodes the key enzyme for the degradation of serotonin and catecholamines. Congenital MAOA deficiency, as well as low-activity MAOA variants, has been associated with a higher risk for antisocial behavior (ASB) and violence, particularly in males with a history of child maltreatment." - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32574581/

Re: Human geneticists curb use of the term ‘race’ in their papers

#80

Post by _od5n »

sbelskie wrote: post #59
_od5n wrote: post #50

Quoted post unavailable.

From your link: > However, a large genome-wide association study has failed to find any large or statistically significant effects of the MAOA gene on aggression.[47] A separate GWAS on antisocial personality disorder likewise did not report a significant effect of MAOA.[48] Another study, while finding effects from a candidate gene search, failed to find any evidence in a large GWAS.[46] A separate analysis of human…

Sorry for the double reply, but I just read the sources cited in your quote. The content of the studies differs significantly from the Wikipedia author's descriptions.

The first study, which "failed to find any large or statistically significant effects of the MAOA gene on aggression", actually did find one statistically significant link between male MAOA gene expression and violence [0]:

>For studies with categorical outcomes (Supplementary Figure 1), the following associations were found: (1) COMT-Val158Met was significantly associated with violence (P=0.02) as a categorical outcome; (2) when examining violence as a categorical outcome only, there was an association for MAOA promoter 30 bpVNTR in males with a history of violence (P=0.023)

The second study isn't cited correctly. The results are taken from another study cited in the one listed [1]. The results of that study are intriguing, as they do fail to find a link between MAOA and violence in a GWAS of 4816 individuals. However, their data on subjects' violent behavior comes entirely from self-reported questionnaires.

This study also lumps the 3-repeat MAOA allele in with the 2-repeat allele variant. This is a common confounding factor in studies on violence and MAOA [2]. MAOA-3R is far more common in the populations of all racial/ancestral groups compared to the 2-repeat allele, and its measured effect on aggressive behavior is much smaller. Defining L-MAOA, or the low-activity MAOA gene as both MAOA-3R and MAOA-2R dilutes the value of any study on the 2-repeat allele, which is the specific allele I brought up in my first comment.

The third study, which "failed to find any evidence in a large GWAS", found highly significant effects in their candidate study while the GWAS was hampered by a lack of data [3]:

>Therefore, it is plausible that while research of the genetic background of criminal or violent behavior is hampered by many confounding factors, focusing on extreme phenotypes might yield more robust results. This was demonstrated in our analysis on the association between rs11649622 and MAOA genotypes vs the number of committed violent crimes, showing clear dose–response effects. However, collecting data from extreme phenotypes is difficult. For this reason, our number of study subjects was relatively small, which resulted in a rather low statistical power in the GWAS.

>Concerning statistical significance, the P-value of 2.9 × 10−5 for the low-activity MAOA variant can be considered as extremely significant, as the Bonferroni-corrected level of significance in the candidate gene study was 0.025.

>The results indicate both low monoamine metabolism and neuronal membrane dysfunction as plausible factors in the etiology of extreme criminal violent behavior, and a conservative estimate implies that 5–10% of all severe violent crime in Finland is attributable to specific MAOA and CDH13 genotypes.

The last study, which "failed to reveal robust evidence of MAOA in aggression", actually ranked MAOA first as a risk factor for aggressive behavior [4]:

>Also, individual genes were ranked based on their cumulative weights to quantify their importance as risk factors for aggressive behavior, which resulted in 40 top-ranked and highly interconnected genes.

>Supplementary Table 4 lists all the 1767 genes from the eight aggression gene sets (adult and children GWAS, transcriptomics in four rodent models, KO mice and OMIM) and ranks them based on their number of occurrences and weighted ranks for aggression (only human orthologs were included from the rodent genes). MAOA was ranked highest with both methods.

Ultimately, I'm inclined to believe those meta-analyses which do find an effect on MAOA-2R and agression because the mechanism of action of this gene is not entirely a mystery. Low-repeat versions of the MAOA allele result in less MAOA in the brain. We know what severe MAOA deficiency looks like; it's called Brunner syndrome [5]. Symptoms include violence, agression, and impulsive behavior. I think it's reasonable to hypothesize a continuum of increased aggression between normal MAOA levels and the extreme lows of Brunner syndrome.

[0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/pmc/articles/PMC3965568/

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/pmc/articles/PMC5048197/

[2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/pmc/articles/PMC4369574/

[3] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/pmc/articles/PMC4776744/

[4] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/pmc/articles/PMC6274606/

[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brunner_syndrome

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