From: launce@zeus.med.utah.edu (Tri-Ungulate)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.asian.american
Subject: Genetics and "race" -- WAS Re: Genetic question misunderstood
Date: 29 Sep 92 01:07:06 GMT
	<1992Sep27.195527.14789@seas.gwu.edu>
Organization: Trifurcate-Hooved Ruminant Surveyors, Inc.

In article <1992Sep27.195527.14789@seas.gwu.edu> claypool@seas.gwu.edu (Hyok H. Lee) writes:
>	[specious argument concerning athletic ability of
>	African-Americans deleted]

   : This whole business of "racial differences" is vacuous, anyway: you
   : can't do a scientific study of these questions because there is no
   : scientific, objective definition of race such that two independent
   : observers can always produce the same labelling of each member of a
   : given group of humans.  "Race" is a social construct, and the notion
   : of race changes as you move among different societies.  From a
   : scientific view, all you can really say is that humans are a single
   : species.
   : 
   : --Mark Day

I left Mark's perceptive (IMHO) comments in precisely because I
believe that he cut to the heart of the matter.  You reply:

>   What you seem to be saying is that races do not actually exist.
>   Scientifically, racial categories do exist.  I believe scientists have
>   identified 12 distinct racial groups.  

And who, pray tell, are these "scientists?"  It amazes me how often
people making over-broad generalizations regarding racial attributes
cite "science" without producing any specific references.  When
somebody actually goes through the effort of doing so, the work cited
is often as not some "study" or "finding" that either a) has little
scientific merit (ah read it in the _Weekly World News_, hyuk, hyuk) or
b) is irrelevant to the topic at hand.  I just got through flaming
some bozo in alt.flame (an EE from UBuff) who made a similar argument
that it is "scientifically proven" that blacks are intellectualy
inferior to whites because of their genetic makeup.

>	Race is a valuable tool in tracking human history, migration
>	patterns and genetic history.

"A commonly repeated definition is that a race is a group showing
differences in gene frequencies from other groups.  Unfortunately,
such a definition is, in practice, essentially worthless. Most human
populations show sufficient local variation that almost every town or
city would have to be considered a race on its own if this definition
were not further qualified.  In order to make it useful, the
definition should therefore be augmented by an indication of the
amount of difference to be considered as interracial.  Such an amount
would have to be set arbitrarily."                      ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^  
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
	--L.L. Cavalli-Sforza, in _The Genetics of Human Populations_

Certainly human genetic variation among population groups exists and
this fact *is* useful scientifically and often clinically.  However,
it is a fallacy to consider the arbitrary concept of "race" as a
scientific known. It is even more dangerous to draw conclusions
regarding something as poorly understood as the genetic basis of
intelligence and attempt to cross-correlate the two.  Even studies
regarding external physical phenotypic variation must be carefully
designed.  For example, the study mentioned regarding muscle
composition of people of West African descent -- what was the cohort?
How is "West African descent" defined - 100%? > 50%?  Were other
relevant factors taken into account?  How were the controls defined?
etc.  Then you make the leap of faith that intelligence can be
quantified as easily as fast/slow twitch muscle ratios.  It's not that
simple.  

>   It just seems to me that with my original post, I have ferretted out
>   people who are closeted racists.  The same type of people who, years
>   ago, would say to a successful black, "You're a credit to your race."
>   Now these closet racist attempt to hide themselves by denying any
>   differences between races.

You've made another real jump here, and lost me in the process. How
can being skeptical about ill-founded theories concerning the nebulous
concept of "race" make one a closet racist?   

>   Hyok Lee

| _, launce gouw * internet: launce@apollo.med.utah.edu * ooniversity of ootah 
|(_) medical center * department of human genetics *   palace of the brine
___) we apologise for the previous opinions. those responsible have been sacked
Newsgroups: soc.culture.asian.american