The term race or racial group usually refers to the categorization of humans into populations or groups on the basis of various sets of heritable characteristics. The most widely used human racial categories are based on salient traits (especially skin color, cranial or facial features and hair texture), and self-identification. Conceptions of race, as well as specific ways of grouping races, vary by culture and over time, and are often controversial for scientific as well as social and political reasons. The controversy ultimately revolves around whether or not the concept of race is biologically warranted; the ways in which political correctness might fuel either the affirmation or the denial of race; and the degree to which perceived differences in ability and achievement, categorized on the basis of race, are a product of inherited (i.e., genetic) traits or environmental, social and cultural factors.
Racism: Researchers have reported differences in the average IQ test scores of various ethnic groups. The interpretation, causes, accuracy and reliability of these differences are highly controversial. Some researchers, such as Arthur Jensen, Richard Herrnstein, and Richard Lynn, have argued that such differences are at least partially genetic. Others, for example Thomas Sowell, argue that the differences largely owe to social and economic inequalities. Still others such as Stephen Jay Gould and Richard Lewontin have argued that categories such as "race" and "intelligence" are cultural constructs that render any attempt to explain such differences (whether genetically or sociologically) meaningless.
Scientists prove that race doesn’t exist
Washington - The idea of race is not reflected in a person's genes, Brazilian researchers said on Monday, confirming what scientists have long said - that race has no meaning genetically. The researchers looked at one of the most racially mixed populations in the world for their study, which found there was no way to look at someone's genes and determine his or her race. Brazilians include people of European, African and Indian, or Amerindian, descent."There is wide agreement among anthropologists and human geneticists that, from a biological standpoint, human races do not exist," Sergio Pena and colleagues wrote in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
"Races exist as social constructs," they said. They found 10 gene variations that could reliably tell people apart genetically, but the differences did not have anything to do with physical characteristics such as skin or hair colour. Maternal DNA suggested that even "white" people had, on average, 33 percent of genes that were of Amerindian ancestry and 28 percent African. - Reuters
Studies contradict view that race doesn’t exist
Racial differences among people are real; new studies suggest, contradicting claims by some of the world’s leading scientists and scientific institutions that race doesn’t exist.
These experts had said race is merely a "social construct," or a creation of society’s collective imagination. But the new studies, some of which come from Stanford University in Stanford, Calif., suggest that the way people classify themselves by race reflects real and clear genetic differences among them.
This indicates there is some truth behind the racial distinctions that seem obvious to most ordinary people, the researchers said.
But they added that it’s important to define race correctly, since dangerous misconceptions, such as the notion that some races are superior to others, persist and can serve to excuse racism.
Moreover, previous studies have shown that racial differences between population groups are small, much smaller than variations within the groups themselves. The newer studies didn’t specifically dispute this observation, but simply found that the between-group differences are also clear.
What is true, researchers said in light of the new studies, is that people of different races have different ancestries. This means different genes, since genes are inherited from ancestors.
"The public in general is much more honest" about race than many academics are, "because the general public knows it signifies something rather than nothing," said Jon Entine, a journalist and author of a critically well-received book, "Taboo: Why Black Athletes Dominate Sports and Why We’re Afraid to Talk About It."
The title attests to the subject’s controversial nature, and the inflamed passions often triggered by any suggestion that racial differences reflect meaningful biological differences.
The emotions surrounding the debate arise from its origins in the civil rights struggles of the 1960s, which led to widespread efforts to wipe out racism from society. Recognizing the evils that racial classification had created, from slavery to genocides, many tried to fight racism by playing down racial differences as much as possible.
Partly in order to further this goal of ending racial discrimination, some experts began to publicize the view that race didn’t exist at all.
"Race is a social construct, not a scientific classification," the New England Journal of Medicine, one of the most prestigious medical journals, editorialized on May 3, 2001. "In medicine, there is only one race—the human race.’’
In support of this claim, many scientists cited findings from the Human Genome Project that humans are 99.9 percent genetically alike. These findings recently turned out to be possibly wrong (see exclusive World Science story of Sept. 8, 2004, "New findings undermine basis of ‘race isn’t real’ theory.")
However, scientists, especially anthropologists, have continued to support the race-as-social-construct position.
The American Anthropological Association’s official statement on race declares: "physical variations in the human species have no meaning except the social ones that humans put on them." The group’s president-elect, Alan H. Goodman, was quoted in a Baltimore Sun article of last Oct. 10 as saying, "Race as an explanation for human biological variation is dead," and comparing the race concept to a gun in the hands of racists.
The latest research to challenge the race-as-social-construct theory is a study of 3,636 people from across America and Taiwan, led by Neil Risch, then of the Stanford University School of Medicine and now at the University of California at San Francisco.
It found that people’s self-identified race is a nearly perfect indicator of their genetic background, contradicting the race-as-social-construct view, Risch said.
The study’s authors said it was the largest study of its kind. The participants identified themselves as either white, African-American, East Asian or Hispanic. For each participant, the researchers examined 326 DNA regions that tend to vary between people. These regions are not necessarily within functioning genes—some regions of the genome have no known use—but are simply genetic signposts that come in a variety of forms at the same place.
Without knowing how the participants had identified themselves, Risch and his team ran the results through a computer program that grouped individuals according to patterns of the 326 signposts. This analysis could have resulted in any number of different clusters, but only four clear groups turned up. And in each case the individuals within those clusters all fell within the same self-identified racial group.
"This work comes on the heels of several contradictory studies about the genetic basis of race. Some found that race is a social construct with no genetic basis while others suggested that clear genetic differences exist between people of different races," a press release from Stanford said.
"What makes the current study, published in the February issue of the American Journal of Human Genetics, more conclusive is its size. The study is by far the largest, consisting of 3,636 people who all identified themselves as either white, African-American, East Asian or Hispanic. Of these, only five individuals had DNA that matched an ethnic group different than the box they checked at the beginning of the study."
Although it was reported as the largest study to find genetic differences between races, Risch’s study is not the first. Previous studies have found that Ashkenazi Jews are genetically more susceptible than average for Tay-Sachs disease, a fatal nervous system disorder, for instance. Black populations have been found to carry higher levels of a mutation that leads to sickle-cell anemia.
Risch’s study, however, is not only the largest study but also the first to find that these genetic differences are not isolated cases involving a handful of genes, but are spread throughout the genome.
These differences should be of more than passing interest to the medical community, Risch added, because recognizing them can help tailor treatments and prevention programs to better serve specific ethnic groups.
It can also help geneticists avoid skewed results in epidemiological studies, he wrote. For instance, failing to account for the gene-race relationship could make researchers think a particular difference between populations results from genes when in fact it stems from different cultural conditions.
Several scientists who have supported the view of race as a social construct did not respond to requests for comment on the new studies, including officials from the American Anthropological Association and the author of the New England Journal editorial, Robert S. Schwartz.
However, some other scientists reacted without surprise to the new findings.
"As an ordinary citizen educated in biology, it is self-evident that there are genetic differences between people who have been geographically segregated into mating populations, just as there are genetic differences for all species and subspecies," wrote Michael Wigler, a professor at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in Cold Spring Harbor, New York, in an email.
By: Marta Lamounier
