…after Ashcroft is sent packing. I don't trust him not to file all the test results somewhere.
Race only skin deep
S.J. STUDENTS DISCOVER GENETIC LINK
By Katherine Corcoran
Mercury News
In the stratified world of high school, where cliques often form along racial lines, Carolyn Abbott's biotechnology students recently made a startling discovery:
More than half of the class at San Jose's Piedmont Hills High School, students from numerous racial and ethnic backgrounds, are linked in their DNA to the same ancestor, born more than 100,000 years ago in central China or Taiwan.
``That's crazy,'' said junior Christina Romero, as she scanned the wide array of facial features, hair colors and skin tones among 17 teenagers who were suddenly related.
``I finally have an excuse to be in the Chinese Club,'' said sophomore Beth Gomes, a white student among the consanguineous classmates.
It was a highly technical genetics experiment involving polymerase chain reactions and gel electrophoresis. But it yielded deep revelations that forced the identity-conscious teens to re-evaluate their differences. And it prompted students to ponder a perplexing question: Does race exist?
With the recent mapping of the human genome and the intricate picture now available of humans on a molecular level, scientists know that traditional notions of race no longer hold up.
``It's kind of mind-blowing,'' said Alan Goodman, president-elect of the American Anthropological Association, who likens the discovery to ``what it must have been like to understand that the world isn't flat. The majority of individuals, if you asked them if race is based on biology, they would say yes.''
(don't tell Lawrence at [caught In between] I've been lurking on his blog, okay? I'm trying to take credit for all this…]
Posted by P6 at February 9, 2004 05:01 PM
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Comments
This exercise smacks of some kind of social engineering, since the [apparently] preconceived, preordained, and prepackaged conclusions bear little relation to the scientific facts obtained.
I would be interested to know what techniqes they used. I had read about these exercises before, and discovered that the methods were questionable at best, and the whole experiment was really designed to teach some kind of moral lesson.
The main reasons I say so are this:
Finding a common ancestor among subspecies, species, even across the entire animal kingdom, is nothing profound. Go back far enough, and EVERYTHING has a common ancestor. Saying that dogs and seals share a common ancestor does not deny the fact that there are morphologically unique organisms known as dogs and seals. All humans share a common ancestor, all primates share a common ancestor. Going further back, all mammals share a common ancestor, as do vertibrates, animals, and all those in the animal kingdom share ancestors with plants, viruses, and fungus, though at probably the most elementary cellular and molecular level. Trying to append some kind of anthropomorphic moralism to this is absurd.
Secondly, race is nothing more than an old-fashioned (I'd even venture to say outdated, since it carries so much baggage) term for subspecies. There is nothing objectionable about differentiating two members of the same species by certain shared genetic traits, and many animal subspecies are defined in fact by fewer shared genetic traits than exist between the traditional human races. There are certain species of ants that are differentiated by nothing more than a variation in the makeup of a single chemical marker (I don't remember the details offhand, but it can be found in E.O. Wilson's Ants, and I don't feel like leafing through that 1000+ page tome to find it right now). Granted, the science of taxonomical classification is more art than anything, and there is no clear boundary to delineate precisely where the subspecies and species lines should lie. After all, random genetic variation within a single group can easily develop into a pattern defining two separate groups over time, and where it crosses from one to the other is vague. However, simply because the lines can be fuzzy due to subjective judgment should not constitute a repudiation of the science of classification altogether. Are we to say that because genetic change takes place over time as more or less smooth continuum (puntuated equilibrium aside) rather than in clean and convenient chunks easily rendered into phyla, genera, and species (the problem I have with idiot creationists is they expect to see a chicken give birth to a monkey, which gives birth to a human), that we cannot distinguish between a dog and a seal? That would be like saying there is no difference between 3am and 6pm, because time is a continuous uninterrupted flow (ignoring Loop Quantum Theory and the granularity of time). There are in fact dozens of traits that fall along the traditionally defined racial groups, among them being bone density, hair texture, muscle composition, jaw size and other skeletal differences, sexual maturation, neurochemical variations, and a host of others. The fact that these traits evolved for the purpose of enhancing the survival rate these separate groups within their respective environments is enough to qualify them as subspecies. Trying to append some kind of anthropomorphic moralism to this as well is absurd. Nature does not care about racism. Life is designed to preserve life, and it works marvelously well in doing so, making fine-tuned alterations here and there as the need arises. That is why we have the enormous amount of genetic variation we see around us.
Now, why then is there such a moralistic overtone to that exercise, with everyone exhulting in the newly discovered [engineered] fact that everyone is the same, we are all the same, clones, drones, exempt somehow from the biological imperative that governs the evolution of every other life form in the universe? I noticed that one of the persons named is an anthropologist. Well, a study of the history of that field will likely offer some insight. Ever since the days of Franz Boas that field of study has largely engaged in the Lysenkoian effort of separating humans from biology, ie proving that race doesn't exist, proving that cultures bear no relation to the environment in which they develop and hence perfectly interchangeable etc etc, making the world safe for communism through the distortion of science. There are many reasons for this, many political, but I am not going to get into that. There has been a nearly century-long effort at reengineering people's notions about such things, spearheaded by the anthropological and sociological sciences. Many well-known scientists have been part of this effort, including Steven Jay Gould and Rciahrd Dawkins.
The best reason I can guess for wanting to abolish the notion of race probably derives from the many social problems attributable to social organization and the formation of exclusive groups on the basis of race. There are some people who are uncomfortable with man's tribal nature. However, there is a difference between the objective and rational definition of race and the social one. The social definition of race, the categorization of people for the purpose of inclusion or exclusion in some group is not something that is caused by the existence of biological differences. Those are just convenient identifying markers. If there were absolutely no biological differences among humans, then other means would arise to determine group membership. Social categorization can be based on any number of things, and is not a function of race, but a function of the human tendency toward forming tribes, a tendency that itself arose through evolutionary pressures.
Historically, even two groups that were physically indistinguishable could be distinguished by language, dialect, accent, and one could identify an ally from a foe by something as insignificant as the pronunciation of a single word (I think there is some instance of this in the Bible, but I am not sure. Atheists don't make the best religious scholars). In the US even, there is significant discrimination against those with southern accents. A recent study (I don't remember where, you can google it if you are interested. I'm not writing a research paper here) found that people with a southern drawl were immediately considered less intelligent and on average earned lower incomes when they were competing against non-drawled speakers.
Racism is just one aspect of what could more broadly be termed 'otherism.' On an aside, I read an interesting theory on why women tended to be more fluent with language. Women were often married off to other tribes or groups as a means of establishing alliances or truces, and since groups were often separated by language barriers, women had to be adept at learning the new language and adopting the new culture in order to be accepted. I don't know if it is true or not, but it is an interesting idea.
So why do humans tend to be "otherist?" Some recent research in neuroscience suggests that such tendencies arise from a very primitive brain structure called the amygdala. Interestingly, this is also where the terrifying flashbacks that Vietnam vets experienced came from. This is where the deepest human fears arise, the part of us that compels us to fight to survive. Probably not the best or most necessary thing in our modern world.
Personally I don't think that the goal of a unified society should be achieved through the perversion of knowledge. Understanding the neurophysiological basis for certain undesirable attitudes is a far better approach.
Posted by Brian at February 10, 2004 06:16 AMHistorically, even two groups that were physically indistinguishable could be distinguished by language, dialect, accent, and one could identify an ally from a foe by something as insignificant as the pronunciation of a single word (I think there is some instance of this in the Bible, but I am not sure. Atheists don't make the best religious scholars).
You don't need to look in the Bible, you can see more recently. During World War II, the Dutch identified German spies by seeing how they pronounce "Groningen", which is a difficult city-name to pronounce if your not a native Dutch speaker.
Maybe not exactly what you were going for, but similar.
Posted by Raznor at February 12, 2004 03:30 AMOr even preferences in economic theories.
Posted by James R MacLean at February 12, 2004 04:33 AM