If only everyone could look at skin color as a fascinating piece of science.
10
I've always described my racial attitude as "Darwinian", meaning there's only one race and that's the Human Race. We (humans) spend too much time thinking and acting about minor genetic variations when there are significant problems that we need to face as a single species.
Down here in Texas, there's a "Bubba Mentality" that states, "I'm white, male, Christian and Texan so I'm unquestionably superior!" If one were to ask "Bubba" what actions he has ever performed to benefit or improve the life of others, the response would be, "Are you stupid or deaf? I already told you that I'm unquestionably superior!"
When Bubba is asked, "When did you choose to be white and male and born in Texas?", he can't understand the question.
Too many people want to believe they are superior based on inborn factors that they had no role in determining. That seems to be an unfortunate part of the human condition, perhaps a vestige of some long past pack animal mentality.
12
Well, funny thing. Scientists believe they understand now why Greenland Inuits are so well-adapted to a brutally-cold climate. Turns out it*s likely those Denisovan genes...
Yes, we*re all members of the one human species, of which there are extinct sub-species whose genes persist, to greater or lesser degrees, in modern human populations, and confer adaptive advantages and sometimes are the cause of disadvantages.
Some persons of East Asian heritage are at greater risk of dangerous reactions to even a moderate consumption of alcohol--such as esophageal cancer. That's a useful fact for, say, college students to know. The facial flush is embarrassing but that esophageal cancer thing is a little more serious.
If you can*t even talk about a problem, how will you fix it? Murray and Herrnstein weren*t white supremacists. It*s valid to note an IQ differential. It*s necessary to identify what causes it. If it turns out that far too many American black children live in substandard housing and are exposed pre- and post-natally to a variety of environmental toxins causing serious and sometimes irreversible neurobiological damage, permanently decreasing their IQ scores, don*t we need to know that?
Murray and Herrnstein themselves said that environmental causes could not be excluded. But the shouting drowns out that very important detail.
11
Does climate affect the skin? There is no definite answer. The study is silent on this aspect. Example,where there is strong sunshine,like South India,there are people who are born white,as both the parents are of white skin. These people live there,get themselves exposed to sunshine,but their skin does not turn black. If one parent is of black skin,and the other is white,it is not necessary that all children will be born white or black - one will be white,the second will be black,and the third will be a mixed one - wheatish. Europeans are of white skin,as the climate is cool. Skin does play a vital role in marriages - a boy may not like to marry a girl which is of black skin. A white skin girl may marry a black skin boy. One should not be proud just because the skin is white. Black people are not inferior,and white people are not superior. Fighting racism is more difficult than freeing this world from nuclear weapons.
3
Please be consistent about genes and gene variants. The story is confusing if read literally. No new genes that affect pigmentation arose in the human population.
6
So the first inhabitants of Britain, before the islands were temporarily abandoned during the last glacial maximum from about 25,000years ago, were not white but most likely dark skinned. That could require a revision of the literature published by certain racist groups in the UK. And rightly so.
17
I refer often in comments and replies to Professor Dorothy Roberts, socially black but belonging to the only genetically distinct race, the human, and in one comment or reply here to the fact that she and Sarah Tishkoff are both at University of Pennsylvania. I was fairly sure that they had been joint authors of an article in Science, and now, here it is:
POLICY FORUM SCIENCE AND SOCIETY
Taking race out of human genetics
1. Michael Yudell1,*,
2. Dorothy Roberts2,
3. Rob DeSalle3,
4. Sarah Tishkoff2
Science 05 Feb 2016:
Vol. 351, Issue 6273, pp. 564-565
DOI: 10.1126/science.aac4951
Summary
"In the wake of the sequencing of the human genome in the early 2000s, genome pioneers and social scientists alike called for an end to the use of race as a variable in genetic research (1, 2). Unfortunately, by some measures, the use of race as a biological category has increased in the postgenomic age (3). Although inconsistent definition and use has been a chief problem with the race concept, it has historically been used as a taxonomic categorization based on common hereditary traits (such as skin color) to elucidate the relationship between our ancestry and our genes. We believe the use of biological concepts of race in human genetic research—so disputed and so mired in confusion—is problematic at best and harmful at worst. It is time for biologists to find a better way."
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
4
(intense sarcasm) Please don't bother people with facts. They like to hate what they hate and they don't want to have to go to the trouble of changing their justifications. If we were really all the same, then we should all be treated with the same level of respect and they just don't want to do that. Following the example of our liar and chief they have no intention of it.
4
I think of all of this by way of a simple, naïve, question. Why is it we focus on race at all? Are we not all one species? All of us the same? Human beings? When you cut yourself do you not bleed; no different from me? Do you not love, rage and fear; whimsical and profound in your life, no different from me? Blood knows there is no difference beneath the skin. Science proves it. We are all the same. We should dwell on this more, and less on that which is of no significance. We would all be the better for it if we did.
John~
American Net'Zen
4
"Studying 1,570 people in Ethiopia, Tanzania and Botswana, she and her colleagues discovered a set of genetic variants that account for 29 percent of the variation in skin color. (The remaining variation seems tied to genes yet to bbe discovered.)
So 71 percent seems (?) tied to genes yet to be discovered? 71 percent? Really.
What a sin against literacy, journalism, integrity.
What a tribute to trolling.
9
Here's the money paragraph:
"The widespread distribution of these genes and their persistence over millenniums show that the old color lines are essentially meaningless, the scientists said. The research “dispels a biological concept of race,” Dr. Tishkoff said."
Amazing! She just proved that skin color is encoded in our DNA, and is an evolutionary response to environmental differences, yet she feels politically compelled to state the opposite.
I'll be on the lookout for the randomly blond, blue-eyed Africans and dark-brown Irishmen who prove Ms. Tishkoff's absurd contention.
14
Race is a word that comes to us from the era of eugenics, and drips with psuedo science of the 19th century. I'm astonished at how many people in these comments cling to the idea though. The concept is the albatross around Americas neck. There's really no place for the word in science. Well perhaps to debunk it, but it's really more epithet than descriptor.
Ethnicity is a better word. It's not loaded, and it references where your people came from, as opposed to locking you into a caste system. And that's what race really is, a caste system based on melanin.
11
If you think "race" = skin color alone, you are out of your mind. Race = skin color, hair and eye color, height, build, stature, and physiognomy. Race= prognathism or lack thereof, shovel shaped incisors or lack thereof, and behavioral genetic traits such as general intelligence, personality, aggression, pro social or anti social behavior, mentality illness, or ability to delay gratification. Race= natural history, history of cereal and livestock domestication, agriculture, art, language, conquest, and invention. Race equals all of these taken together.
7
Commenters here seem to be confusing "ethnicity" with "race." Ethnicity has a genetic foundation. Race is a social construct. The confusion is apparent when one looks at a U.S. survey that asks for one's background. What does "non-white Hispanic" mean?
23
The question is especially funny when it applies to food. I keep walking down the "Hispanic Foods" aisle in the grocery store listening for something to talk.
6
To The Times Editors who give us Race/Related, Conversations About Race and George Yancy's series of interviews (URL at the end) presented at the Stone, three series said to be about race but mostly about racism:
Read the 186 comments next to Carl Zimmer's Science column. If this does not persuade you that you need a series about Concepts of Race In The United States, then I guess nothing will. I suggest that the best way to capture everyone's attention would be to start the series with Professor Kenneth Prewitt's proposal in Chapter 11 of What Is Your Race? The Census and Our Flawed Efforts To Classify Americans.
That proposal is to gradually replace that system with one that no longer uses race/ethnicity but instead uses ever better SES data. An example of such a system is to be found here in Sweden.
An essential element of this series would be that genome researchers, maybe even Svante Pääbo, would take part.
I can dream can't I?
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Dual citizen US SE
https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/tag/philosophers-on-race/
George Yancy's closing column "Dear White America" drew 2126 comments.
1
Finally, some hard scientific evidence to support treating"race" as it should be---.irrelvant---be it for benign or malign purposes. It can't be determined accurately, and means norhing. Throw the whole concept out the window.
3
Skin color varies within ethnic groups too, of course. I'm all Irish, but far from "pale and freckly".
1
Weird article. "Race" is political, not biological or genetic.
2
This is science. The racism of the odious Charles Murray is white supremacist entertainment. Yet the times and other whites insist that it deserves an honorable platform at institutions of higher learning. That is either white supremacist or hypocritical, or most likely both
5
Variations in the entire set of genes between individuals of one "race" are larger than those between different "races". That's the ultimate way to say that the concept "race" is meaningless for all sensible purposes.
When we humans didn't know better we classified people by superficial things like skin color, hair and the shape of the eyes, determined by very few genes obviously. It's a tribute to ignorance when we stick to that obsolete thinking.
"Race" is a concept with a horrifying history. It has been used to justify oppression of the worst kind and is soaked in blood. It should simply be taken out of the dictionary and put in the archives for human intellectual fallacies.
There are many people with black skin, born and raised in Sweden by Swedish parents. If one of them plays for the national football ("soccer") team one could classify him as a football player, if classifying were necessary. But it's simpler to just say "human being", which is always correct.
5
It seems to me this article would be more appropriate in some obscure scientific journal rather than the NYT. The content may be of interest to an anthropological geneticist, if such a person exists, than an ordinary person whose interest in race is based on sociological phenomena.
Of course "somebody on the street" is going to say skin color is the main difference between races. It's the most obvious visual difference between groups of people. And being the most obvious visual difference, it is the threshold for differentiating between different groups for someone who has no other knowledge of the individuals in the groups. From this differentiating grows racism.
It would have been surprising for "somebody on the street" to say it's the cultural and historical background or it's the presents and arrangement of genetic code of someone that is the main difference between races.
This is because, when it comes right down to it, skin color is pretty much the only difference between "races."
If you want to cluster people, other animals or m&ms by colour or other physical characteristics, and then call that "race" the reality of the physical characteristics does lend the categorization any depth. The categorization is superficial, even if the physical characterisics that underlie the categorization are correlated, unless those characteristics are directly related to functioning. The only reason to retain the notion of race is because it used by people who want to attribute functioning to physical characterstics. That is in turn, strongly implies racism. So the only non-racist way to retain the notion of race is to treat it as a complete and total social construction based on superficialities like skin colour.
If you want to cluster people, other animals or m&ms by colour or other physical characteristics, and then call that "race" the reality of the physical characteristics does NOT lend the categorization any depth. The categorization is superficial, even if the physical characterisics that underlie the categorization are correlated, unless those characteristics are directly related to functioning. The only reason to retain the notion of race is because it used by people who want to attribute functioning to physical characterstics. That is in turn, strongly implies racism. So the only non-racist way to retain the notion of race is to treat it as a complete and total social construction based on superficialities like skin colour
It seems to me that most of these comments suffer from the same problem as that of the article itself: we still do not have a scientifically valid definition of race. If we did, we would be able to apply it to individuals like Barack Obama. And if we decided that race is an artificial construct, how would we explain the shared genetic features of individuals with common genetic ancestors? Seems like we need to develop a more cogent scientific definition before we can apply such labels to scientific inquiry.
2
“We are more alike, my friends, than we are unalike.” - Maya Angelou
4
"The pale-skin variant of SLC24A5 that’s overwhelmingly common in Europe, for example, is a recent addition to the genome, arising just 29,000 years ago, according to the new study. It became widespread only in the past few thousand years."
where did this gene arise 29,000 years ago, shortly after or about the time that neanderthals purportedly became extinct? and why did it become popular only in the past few millennia? mini-ice age? volcanic winters? conquest and rape by proto-vikings? were most europeans and other darker before then?
in today's world among 7.5 billion people, we have arbitrary definitions--even by choosing SLC24A5 or other sections among the genome--and fuzzy boundaries--not all europeans or "caucausians" have SLC24A5) and i bet that more than a few non-caucasians have SLC24A5.
1
If treating individuals differently because of their race is "racist," then we must face the fact that government, academia, and media are populated with racists.
2
It's as though Sussman's "The Myth of Race" had never been written.
It's amusing how hard white leftists are trying to spin this -- it's as though they think repeating "Race isn't real!" over and over makes it so.
Phenotypical differences IS race. As are genetic variations. Nobody has ever taken race to mean "different species" or completely distinct categories with no gradation or overlap. Not even in the human zoo days. Keep hugging that straw man all you want. We see you.
Belief in human equality is the emotional commitment to ignorance. If western academia wasn't so infested with politically driven pseudoscience, your beliefs would have been dismantled by now. Time will fix this problem. I hope you live long enough to see it.
7
See, and I think time is already fixing the problem of folks like you, who are happily slowly disappearing. Belief in human equality is not an emotional commitment to ignorance, it is the foundation of the American Declaration of Independence, the UN's Universal Declaration on Human Rights, and other foundational social documents that have endured -- and will endure -- long after you and your racist, retrograde beliefs are gone.
9
I believe whatever Nkechi Amare Diallo believes on this issue.
1
When Darwin's theory came to America several of our lovely racist intellectuals were thrilled. They posited that the white race had obviously come from Adam and Eve and been specially created by God while all the other races had come from animals and therefore subjugation was their natural state. Never underestimate a man's desire for anything that give them a feeling of supremacy over their neighbors even if it's breathtakingly stupid.
4
Interesting how people are so, so married to the social construct of race. Missing from this article perhaps is the concept of ethnicity. Perhaps people are confounding the two? A big question is, what happens when people of different "races" have children? What "race" are the children? Families of mixed race children know that they come in all kinds of hues. Children of "black"/"white" unions can pass for "white" or "black", or... neither? Early Virginia race laws defined the race of a mixed union to be that of the mother's (1662). This meant that a white man mating with a black woman would give birth to what was considered a black child, and thus enslaved, and of no consequence to the white man. In contrast, a white woman with a black man would give birth to a free child. Children born of an enslaved black woman would be a slave. A white man could rape his bondwomen, and he would never need acknowledge his offspring- indeed, he sired a new slave.
Hey NYT, just stop it. There is only one race, we call it the HUMAN RACE!
For those who say that races do exist, how would you describe those with parents from two different racial groups? Do they constitute a new race, and their offspring another new race, and so on? In other words, racial characteristics may exist, but the races themselves, like everything else about humanity, are always changing. Races may exist, but they don’t have inherent existence. The Buddhist philosophical notion of the Two Truths can be very helpful here. On the conventional level, we can say there are racial differences and to the extent that there are, work with them (different public health messages about sun exposure, for example). But on the ultimate level, race has no inherent existence, and to start assigning qualities of value to each, such as inherent superiority, inferiority, and so on, is to live in a fantasy.
14
I think all you're doing is pointing out the "fuzzy boundary problem" common to many scientific inquiries. For example, most scientists accept the concept that some things are "living" and some are not. And yet, there is no scientifically rigorous accepted definition of life, because of the very fuzzy boundary. But even though it is very difficult devise a definition that properly sorts viruses, crystals and lichen into the right category, we still recognize "life" as a useful concept.
"Race" is the same. Even though some people are not easily categorized, the concept of race describes the world as we observe it closely enough to be useful, even though the boundaries are "fuzzy".
4
It may be myth, but Papa Doc Duvalier, the Haitian dictator, was once asked what proportion of the population of Haiti was white, and he said 95%. When asked how that can be (with a very dark skinned population) he said we do what the people of America do. If there is even one drop of white blood......
2
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2766632/
One of the same genes that affect skin color in humans also is found in many other animals, including the common aquarium fish, the zebra danio.
The human concept of race is indeed a social construct designed by 19th century European males to promote their idea of self-superiority.
4
The author makes a point that eight genes determine skin color. An additional gene that emerged 29000 years ago pales the skin of its carrier. It’s fair to say that one additional gene turns out to be the main driver to lump humans into different groups. That’s insane.
3
This is all well and good, but may I ask: where is this conversation ultimately going? Soon scientists will discover the genes that affect not just skin color, but intelligence, aggression, and many other human characteristics. We will certainly find that these genes are not evenly distributed in peoples across the planet. What then?
All humans should have equal rights not because of fuzzy boundaries between races (as implied in this article), or a misguided notion that all races have equal potential in all areas, but because of their basic, intrinsic humanity.
5
I found this article truly confusing - the title seems to be misleading.
the research that is mentions, at least from what I understand, doesn't deny that different races exist nor that skin color is a variable of it, to me it seems to reinforce the concept. As far as I can understand, people who have different DNA are different (which of course doesn't mean that one is better than the other). Furthermore, empirical evidence seems to disprove some of the mentioned discoveries: look at Sardinians in Italy, some of them are very dark skinned (olive skin we call it) and with very peculiar dark eyes (so unique that you can recognize someone as Sardinian just by the eyes) while others are very light skinned, some with dark eyes and other with blue or green eyes and they all live under the same scorching sun.
3
Things our genes don't do: employ gerrymandering, redlining, redistricting, discrimination in employment, education, justice, and housing; disadvantage in employment, education, justice, and housing ....those are the actions of actual people. Unfortunately, in most instances, these actions are deliberate.
6
Why are most adults about the same size? As a species, we don't vary as much in size as dogs or horses.
4
Dogs differ dramatically in size, shape, fur...because breeding replaced natural selection. The phenotype of wolves however varies only slightly depending on their environmental pressures
3
It is interesting to read that many commenters claim that race does not even exist, or that it exists, but is only a social and certainly not a scientific construct.
Or that genetic tests do not report race but rather country or region of origin (forgetting that peoples were historically grouped in regions or countries, and certainly continents, on ethnic or tribal lines, which means that one can certainly be inferred from the other.)
These are probably the same commenters who would call out (and rightly so) the global climate change deniers as anti-science, but see no irony whatsoever in being race deniers.
Racism is of course obviously wrong, unethical, & unenlightened, but it should not be considered racist to acknowledge that there are different races of humankind, without otherwise passing judgement.
Saying that there are no races, or that race is only a social construct, does not make it so.
9
Wouldn't you know that a German would observe that Brits possess Neanderthal genes. Odd that the observation didn't first come from the French.
4
The "Brits," as you put it, are a combination of Celtic, Anglo-Saxon, Jutes, and Norman peoples. Exactly where is Saxony? Normandy?
Bruce:
Your response lacks clarity. The Science piece didn't refer to Saxony but specifically to Britain when it stated that "Last week, Michael Dannemann and Janet Kelso of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany reported that people in Britain still carry a number of Neanderthal variants that color skin."
1
Where are the genes which explain the consistent difference in intelligence testing between what are referred to as races? Or is that something we are forbidden to talk about?
18
Test score results, and "intelligence testing" as you call it, are the result of external factors (access to education and resources, or the lack of thereof, proper nutrition, family size and income, etc.) not of Biology. If this argument was valid, then only one set or group of individuals would always be successful or "test well" but that is not the case. There are hundreds of studies on the subject available for free.
34
Are you correcting for economic situations when making your claims? There is one race of people, Human. It is frightening that your user name implies you are a medical doctor. Do you treat everyone or only people of the higher intelligence race?
2
In The age of Trump, your comments are refreshing-The next thing people will bring up is the discredited pseudo science of eugenics-sad.
Clearly, there are human phenotypes, and they clearly arose in places. The idea that race is a social construct is politically useful, because civil society demands that we accept all people as equally deserving of legal protection, respect, compassion, etc. But the idea that there is no such thing as race is purely semantic. There is such thing as inherited genetic traits. Ideally, they won't determine unequal treatment, but it takes willful blindness to say that the traits aren't real. Last I checked, 69 of the fastest 70 men in the world were of West African descent. One was European. When I ran in high school, the white schools had nice facilities and good coaches and the black schools had no facilities and the state finals were dominated by black athletes. This is a cultural construct? Obviously not. But bias is also real, and unfair, and something we can strive to end. As long as people believe that a person's race determines their fate, we're sunk. Nobody knows a person's future, only a few extremely broad statistical tendencies.
32
Your going to use athletics to prove something concerning racial differences? I always saw the dominance of African athletes because of the economic benefit .This has nothing to do with race. If the European athlete wants to be good at long-distance running, he or she has the same opportunity. The real question is not race but how do they train?If the European thinks to themselves that only Africans are going to be superior long-distance runners then they won't train as hard because they've already come to the conclusion that they can't win. This holds true for sports like football and basketball dominated by people of color. What I find most curious is that the sports that I mentioned do not require a lot of equipment or special training facilities in order for you to do well. If you wanted to get into hockey or ice skating for example, you would need a special arena, special equipment and expensive training instruction (plus poor access to these resources)- that's why you won't see a lot of black people involved in these sports. So basically your comment means that the ONLY reason some sports are dominated by people of color is because of their genetic make up not because they worked hard and sacrificed to get to the top??
2
Well in my school there was a guy from one of the Andean countries who had just magnificent calf muscles. One could easily surmise that many generations of his ancestors benefitted from an ability to trek up steep mountains.
So, maybe some of the many peoples from North Africa benefitted from being able to haul across large distances in the heat, a talent lost as groups moved north.
For all the talk of nose-sizes, turns out to often have something to do with conditioning the temperature of the air before it hits the lungs.
Point is people have a lot of genes & are able to develop superficial physical adaptations to the varied climates they lived in.
Key word is superficial.
These kinds of adaptations are NOT speciation. Ethnicities are not subspecies.
So, my classmate had naturally enviable calfs, your sports had enviably fast runners. I only wish people would envy my big nose!
Another way to look at Europeans vs. Africans, is that it's the Europeans who interbred with the other species of humans, the Neanderthals. Neanderthals are historically considered 'cavemen' or primitive.
Africans have no such interbreeding with 'primitive' 'cavemen' and are therefore the more pure Homo Sapiens.
So, perhaps in the end the Africans are better... or not. But might help explain why civilization evolved in Africa & not in Europe.
That's right, Egypt is in Africa.
Bottom line is white nationalists are probably just bitter that they're primitive Neanderthals & can't jump.
5
Fascinating study, but it would seem that the next question would be are there direct correlates between the skin tone genes and other traits or is it meant to show that no such correlates exist at all? That would make the discovery truly revolutionary rather than just hopeful.
4
This research only dispels a biological concept of race because news organizations, including the Times, continue to report about race as an essential, scientific human characteristic. Any reasonably informed historian knows that academics like Franz Boas long ago figured out that race is an entirely social construct.
19
If race is "entirely a social construct" then why are forensic scientists able to identify a suspects race from his DNA alone?
21
I think it is more a reflection of society that influences how news organizations report with respect to race.
1
By asking him. That is the social way...
As important scientifically as this study is, it does not change the basic fact: there are on Earth people of different skin color and facial features.
7
Wow. Now that is some deep thinking.
2
The basic fact is that those features are trivial. What we do about them is not trivial at all.
2
Yes, but what about our insides? Is your liver any different than a mans in, say, Botswana? No.
1
Different populations of humans that have experienced geographical or cultural isolation from other groups will exhibit enrichment for some genetic alleles relative to others; which ones will depend on things like variation in the gene pool, immigration, inbreeding, and of course, natural selection. Lots of factors. Human beings have been on the move, and have been reshuffling the genetic deck for a very long time, which is why admixture (blending) is the norm in human beings, as opposed to speciation (genetic changes that preclude fertile offspring). Yes, spitting in a tube will tell you something about where your ancestors lived, based on some markers enriched by staying put long enough in a given place. The frequency of some genetic variants may also play a role in disease processes and differential therapeutic success. That said, it is the presence of the actual genetic variant that counts, not color, not physiognomy, etc.; traits can be linked more or less closely, and it is a mistake to make assumptions based on superficial characteristics. Also, for the millionth time; if there is more variation in a trait within a group (like a "race"), than between groups (i.e. they overlap with respect to a trait), then the grouping is itself not predictive regarding the trait. Please NY Times, more reporting on science, and in greater depth.
57
This research has nothing to do with the biological/genetic reality of race, which is well established (and intuitively obvious to everyone); that angle should have been left out of the article and headline.
15
Race isn't a biological or genetic reality it is a social construct and too that was made up with a specific purpose in mind.
8
Race is not intuitively obvious to my 3 year old.
2
So sickle cell anemia is a "social construct?"
2
"The research “dispels a biological concept of race,” Dr. Tishkoff said".
No, it does not. And it cannot. The statement above simply defies logic. Anyhow, denying existence of racial differences (plainly obvious to everyone) is not a way to fight racism.
23
Well, it dispels a biological concept, but that biological concept isn't what most people mean when they talk about race, in relation to humans. We focus a lot on the differences between the Irish and the Germans and the Swedes (and the Zulu and the Yoruba and the Asante. etc etc), and there are significant social and historical differences, along with some genetic differences. A geneticist wouldn't see separate races, but an observer might use the term.
But more important, you're absolutely right, in dispelling racism, we shouldn't be denying differences, we should be insisting that differences shouldn't be a basis of prejudice and discrimination.
1
This article is representative of all that is wrong with a lot of science and the need by a lot of scientists to prove their confirmation biased findings.
So, because genes responsible for 29% of skin color are distributed across races , these "scientists" and this article reach the conclusion that races don't exist.
Wow. What about the other 71% of genes responsible for skin color differences? What about all the other genes responsible for all the other race characteristics like hair, eye color, bone structure?
And then people wonder why some Americans are skeptical when the NYT claims "97% of scientists find that humans are causing global warming".
When everyone is so intent on proving what is politically correct, you will invariable "prove" many things that simply are not true.
28
Those characteristics you mention aren't neatly divided between groups it's worth calling "races" that why. For instance not only people from Africa have dark skin, not only people from Europe are tall, not only people from Asia have dark hair, and not only people from Westport Connecticut are racist.
2
Race isn't biological, it's a social construct.
American scientists disprove racism.
A majority of Americans remain bigoted racists.
8
Thank you, Carl, and thank you, NYT, for highlighting this research and enabling a space for more nuanced thinking about race. As usual, the comments section is delightful. We need more of this. We need it now, at a moment when the forces of intolerance have rolled back some progress we have made towards understanding the systemic biases we've imposed on ourselves and our neighbors. All this talk about white supremacists vs anti white supremacists, such extremes, has wiped out all more subtle and persistent forms of disempowerment. These are the conversations we need to be having.
3
What -- apart from the identification of some of the genes that produce skin color -- is new here?
7
the fact that these genes are very old, and that they predated by several hundred thousand years the partitioning of humans into different subpopulations as the peopled the earth over the last 50,000 years.
8
Well I certainly don’t know why there’s a race problem after reading this. It explains everything anyone should need to know. So accessible, even a layman should now be completely clear on the subject. I already smell the love in the air.
8
Judging people based on skin pigmentation makes one shallow and an imbecile.
15
Thank you for finally confirming that the old notions of ethnic 'ranking' are disproved by genomics.
This is a great era for humanity. All of the pseudoscience of racialism is irrevocably obsolete.
Now could somebody please break it to David Duke & all the KKK & neonazis & neoconfederate racists & white supremacists that their entire ideology is a hideous lie.
People may adopt cultural affectations or influences, but those are not heritable characteristics. Racism has been disproved.
9
The title of this piece includes the word "dated" - dated notions of race certainly involve ideas about skin color. Also, if you look up the word 'race' skin color is one of the first things that's mentioned, so it's not just dated notions, but contemporary interpretations about what race means.
It's such a loaded term, and that's doesn't seem like it's going to change. Perhaps it's time to come up with a new word to describe the differences among humans that express themselves in more or less superficial ways. I wouldn't be sad to see race go.
22
How about ethnicity? Moreover, the ethnic difference between two people of two different Australian Aboriginal groups and an individual of one Australian Aboriginal group and a Swede is simply a matter of degree.
Does this mean the ignorant and racist whites who are the Trump base, are comparable in human qualities to the rest of us? If that is the case, what explains their inferior thinking abilities? What explains their proclivity for getting addicted to opioids? Their incredible hate and resentment? Their aversion to knowledge?
Something isn`t right here, it seems.
6
It's almost a controlled experiment, where one group watches FoxNews all the time, and the other does not. Over a 20 year period, there are statistically significant differences between the groups.
7
You forgot to add their insistence to create stereotypes.
Race exists. African Americans targeted by racists live this truth everyday. The point is that race is a social construct not a scientific one.
28
Of that must be why I cannot tell Asians, Africans, and Caucasians apart. I have the same problem with Chihuahuas and Great Danes when I don't see them in their "social context" such as in a dog show.
Silly!
1
I imagine that there are still some evangelical groups out there that equate dark skin color with the biblical "mark of Cain."
3
No, since according to the Biblical view, there was that bottleneck at Noah, from whom everyone is supposedly descended. So it wasn't the mark of Cain, as they see it, but rather the curse of Ham, cursed for not covering up his drunk and naked father. Just as nonsensical.
What each individual believes about race is established by observable differences in ethnicity, rooted in DNA, filtered and amplified by politics and other learned social constructs. Our understanding of race, flawed as it is, diminishes with distance. Thus white Americans tend to clump all Asians or Africans as one race, a classification that people in those areas don’t share. At the same time, people from those regions regard every ethnicity from west Asia (Europe included) as white, regardless of whether they are Persians, Jews, Celts, Anglo Saxons, Arabs, Latins , mixed or some other relic Eurasian ethnic group, also an agglomeration that self identified whites tend not to share. The “not like me” basis of racial identification is a weak and lazy way to try to understand the world.
47
Junk, faulty usage of the concept White. Persians, Jews, Arabs and Latins are Not White. Your White if you identify with the Enlightenment Project, regardless of skin colour.
1
What all the pro-race commenters are missing is an understanding of what "race" is. Race is not genetic variation. Race is the system by which people assign categories of social status and limitations. Races range from white (pure, intellectual, special) to black (contaminated, lustful, vulgar). Why is Barrack Obama a "black" man, when his mother is a white woman? Where is the genetic logic to that? Why don't white people see and recognize Obama's genetic European whiteness? If race is supposedly universal, then why don't all cultures recognize it? Why do other cultures refer to whites not by their skin color, but their lack of refinement and spiritual values?
Calling it a "construction" is too weak. Race is a fiction. It's amazing how stubbornly people refuse to let go of it in spite off all evidence to the contrary. After centuries of scientific inquiry, it is deplorable that people can't accept the results. It's like a 40 year old insisting that Santa Claus is real simply because gifts appear on Christmas day. Christmas is real; Santa is fiction. Genetic variation is real; race is fiction.
The singular purpose for race is racism, and the only purpose of racism is oppression. That does not mean you can't celebrate your heritage and roots. It does mean you can't claim superiority or lump character traits and abilities with skin pigments. To argue for the existence of race is to justify collective brutality. To reject the science simply exposes one as irrational.
72
The social constructionism of race is ultimately based on genetic variation, or the concept of race would never have arisen. Attempts to separate the two reeks of egalitarianism.
The purpose of racism is categorization and hierarchy, both positive values for civilized society. Racism in the oppressive sense is but one small side effect.
3
There is only ONE race living on Earth today, the Human Race.
Every single Human on Earth is a member of the species Homo Sapiens Sapiens.
But if we go back about a million years ago there were many different Homo sub species that lived on Earth, often at the same time for a time between then and today. Those other Humans included:
Homo Heidelbergensis, Homo Floresiensis, Homo Erectus, Homo Neanderthals and Homo Habilis.
Each of these members of the Homo species were Humans as much as we are Humans except now they are all extinct, only Homo Sapiens still roams the Earth.
But all were members of the Human Race...there is , has been and always be just one Human Race...
76
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_(biology)
clapping. mic drop. thank you.
Except one wonders what they would have called themselves if they would have had the words to have labelled themselves!
And we have been forever fighting, killing, degrading humans over a fundamental difference which is really no difference!!
4
Genetics is interesting. Race is neither interesting nor even defined. But let's continue blabbering on.
6
I’m very confused. My skin color is somewhere between milk chocolate and dark chocolate. What is my race?
1
Whatever you want it to be. Or none at all.
2
You don't have a race. You have a species: Homo Sapiens Sapiens - the Wisest Wise Man. And doesn't that tell us something about our collective ego.
1
Human. Highly likely descended from an ethnicity of long residence in an equatorial region. Could be an African ethnicity, or south Indian, or Melanesian, or Australian Aboriginal or other. More information is required.
1
Not sure I understand the point of the article. How do we go from "we've identified the genes that determine skin color" to "there's no such thing as race"? "Race" is simply the name humans in our place and our time have given to various skin colors.
So you've identified the genes that determine skin color...and that makes race, which is the label we assign to skin color, false? Isn't that a bit like saying we've identified the genes that determine hair color, so calling someone a blonde or a brunette or a redhead is false?
5
You need to reread it. It tells how we all have all of those same genes. It just depends on what ones switched on or mutated etc. my kids Muse magazine did a great job on this awhile back talking about the vitamin D and folic acid possible connections to what gets expressed. I.e. northern fish eaters as opposed to valise to the sun at equated, over millenniums.
3
So....maybe we can stop collecting data on race in the census, stop wasting time on affirmative action programs, and generally put an end to the race-industrial complex.
11
Unfortunately race is a lie but racism is real and so efforts to negate will still be required into the future.
3
Absolutely wrong Sandra.
Read the next two Reader Picks who reveal that they know something about biology and the concept of a "race," a widely used concept to discuss consistent differences found among members of a species, typically associated with geographic separation, and that has allowed modest genetic differences to evolve.
6
Actually Russ, Sandra is right, because there are HUGE differences in people that are lumped into the "races" we refer to today. There are more differences than similarities. Yes, people evolve to their environment, so look at geographic separation. It makes sense to do so. I'm afraid, though, that you may be suffering from the cross-race effect (where one has difficulty distinguishing differences between people they have too little exposure to). If you actually look, you'll see that the categories of race we have constructed fail to adequately describe the multitude of humanity. Humans ancestrally from one valley differ immensely from humans ancestrally from the next mountaintop, yet we categorize them all the same. "Race" served a social project of a different time.
4
In an anthropology class in 1982 we were shown a composite photograph of individuals around the globe that when arranged from dark to light represented a smooth gradation of color from dun white to a deep blue black. Race is a pernicious persistent cultural construct foisted on humanity to artificially stratify people. Yes, cultures have long existed around "racial" identity but is a sad myth steeped in blood long past its expiration date.
73
Racists point at superficial characteristics and say people who look like that person are ... (some term to signal inferiority of the other, superiority of himself and those like him)
Colour is simply the easiest trait to use.
I have met people in Papua New Guinea (and other countries) whose genetic ancestry may have arisen by an exodus from Africa that predates my ancestry. People who ancestors had first contact with outsiders in 1935 - before that zero exposure to western/eastern culture, in fact any culture other than highland Papua New Guinea.
In a Turing test for race - conversations through email - they would be inseparable from me.
Yes, trivial cosmetic variation exists.
Most real variation is based on culture and can be picked up by any child in the first decades of life.
The bad news - American culture is spiralling into a black hole. It does not matter what genes you have, the culture is dooming you to failure.
The good news - cultural collapse is not irreversible.
6
I don't get it. The research demonstrates the genetic basis of skin color, but skin color has nothing to do with race? Are they saying genes don't determine skin color? If it doesn't, what does?
Of course we all know there is wide genetic differences within any race, but that doesn't mean race is a mere social construct. To those who think race is nothing but a social construct, I will bet a significant sum of money that all of the finalists in the Olympic 100 meter dash will be of West African descent, and the Olympic marathon will be dominated by individuals of East or North African descent.
16
I think the point is that the the DNA determining their skin pigment will not contribute to the victories In the Olympics.
2
Race is a social construct; body type is not. Body type is genetic, and in many instances, is "regional" if I may use the term loosely.
2
Reread the article. It says we all have all those genes in each of us, across groups. It just depends which get switched on or mutated , generally by vitamin d sun, or diet or etc. across millennium. But at the gene potential level we are all roughly the same.
3
Race does not exist.
Evolutionary adaptation of the physical characteristics of humans in response to climate conditions, does.
10
If you have light skin and live in a sunny place, use lots of sunscreen.
If you have dark skin and live in a less-sunny place, takes lots of vitamin D supplements.
3
Regardless of skin color, if you live in the tropics use lots of sunscreen and if you live in high latitudes take vitamin D.
I'm really baffled by this article. Different subsets of humans have unique biological characteristics, and we've decided to label these groups races. Not sure how this research rebuts this reality.
Racism is very bad, by the way and should be crushed out of society. But that doesn't mean races don't exist.
16
As you say "we've decide to label those groups races". Hence it's cultural not natural. For instance, why are all "Africans" regarded as one race and not "West Africans" as one race and "East Africans" as another and "South Africans" as another? Get it? By the way there is more genetic diversity within Africans than there is within all non-Africans combined.
Racism primarily exists because of the superiority complex of the majority, which is found just about everywhere that exists a majority of any kind.
I do not know what different race is, but I know different races when I see them!
It seems that humans have a need to sort everything, and one quick way is by "race", skin color. And even in each skin tone category, we have further sorting--by national origin, language, religion and so on. But I suppose it does not really matter, as long as the sorting is not used to facilitate government oppression or discrimination.
5
Problem is, it does.
1
The NYT writer is playing with semantics. The research shows that genes that determine skin color (at least as far as the specific genes they studied) are shared by all humans. That means there is not a particular gene that determines white skin color AND only white people have it.
So if your definition race is skin color AND that color is determined by one gene unique to people with that skin color, then your definition is vacuous, there are no humans with that condition.
The research does NOT show there are no differences between groups of people that live separate from other groups. And it does NOT show that those differences are not explained at least in part by genes.
22
' “If you ask somebody on the street, ‘What are the main differences between races?,’ they’re going to say skin color,” said Sarah A. Tishkoff, a geneticist at the University of Pennsylvania.'
The writer is quoting one of the authors. If that's "playing with semantics", so is all writing.
'The research does NOT show there are no differences between groups of people that live separate from other groups. And it does NOT show that those differences are not explained at least in part by genes.'
Group separation is not co-extensive with racial difference (and how could it be, since the latter is a largely social and subjective concept?) The onus is really on you and other "scientific" racialists to back up such a loaded and divisive hypothesis. History has provided many examples why this should be avoided and why this species of propagandistic research should be allowed to die a death.
1
If there is no such thing as race, how is it possible to spit in a tube and have the results come back showing where your ancestors came from--and have those results pretty well match up with how you probably look?
17
Because the lack of movement between geographically separate populations led to the emergence of specific adaptions (mutations) in specific genes in said populations, and those mutations can be tested for? That's how they can say you're 3% Scandinavian - among the hundreds of things they're checking, you show a variant (mutation) known to have occurred in that population only.
Origin testing is fun, but it's not all that useful, unless you're looking for a mutation that's known to be dangerous - you come back more than 60% Eastern European Jewish, for example, and there's an increased likelihood of BRCA2 mutation and that's a risk worth further testing. Nothing to do with 'race', everything to do with population interbreeding.
6
that s because people constantly confuse race with ethnicity. we all all homo sapien sapiens, but we have different subspecieses which is our ethnicity.
3
Because there is such a thing as ancestry, and this is not what most people mean by "race".
The word "race" itself has many species. The original use referred to direct lineage, cf. the Bible's "the race of Abraham" etc. This sense was "internal" and objective, i.e. it pointed to a real, causative commonality. The meaning of "race" was extended during the European colonial period to refer to people and peoples perceived as the same. This was an "external", subjective and political sense, used by outsiders to organize people they saw as radically different and (thus) ripe for exploitation. This subjective and exploitative sense has predominated ever since.
Ancestry is determinative and objective but can be covered over. As your "pretty much" and "probably" show, race is not - it is ambiguous and probabilistic and can reduce to (1) how people treat you, and (2) how you view yourself. Go read "The Human Stain" and other books on passing. Read about Keith Jarrett and Jackie McLean.
4
Read the book The Myth of Race. Read genetic books. Scientists know that there is only one race: the human race. If you believe in there are different races, you are ignorant of science. Go back to school.
19
there is only one genus and species of dog YET the breeds all breed true: german shepherd beget german shepherds, dalmations beget dalmations...there has to be SOMETHING to be said for human phenotypes?
5
Only if they breed with the same other breed. It's active manipulation. If you let all dogs run free and breed wherever, eventually you'd have mainly one breed, dog.
3
Now how will racists justify their prejudices, seeing that we all have several shades of skin color in our evolutionary heritage, and we all originated somewhere in Africa?
9
This information reinforces the "no-mixing" mantra of racists . . .in the version that bubbles down to their terrain/brain.
They are already on this thread, citing certain largely debunked papers alleging lesser intelligence. One had the gall to suggest black people would be better if we funneled them away from college to labor and trades. It's quite alarming how ok they think it is to sound like 1930s......
3
Well, no, not exactly. The notion of “race” is based on phenotype - observed characteristics. If this research finds skin color does not have a clear genetic basis that only means the factors producing the differences are still unknown.
Nonetheless physical appearance is not an indicator of anything more than superficial characteristics, regardless of the genetic or epigenetic basis underlying them.
16
With kindness, Jeffrey, you're creating a strawman argument. The research is not discussing all phenotypes, its more narrow. They are simple stating that we do refer to "non-whites" as "people of color," for example, a profound statement about race and Orientalism. They are dismantling race constructions block by block. Another question might follow, as it sounds like you may agree, does one's nose shape determine anything other than the shape of one's nose and perhaps breathing patterns? Its a topic for another article. On your points I don't believe the researchers would disagree with you.
1
With equal kindness, George, the strawman is the article and that's the point of my comment (and many others). Simply because the researchers didn't discover a single gene for skin color does not mean "races" don't exist. And I did make a point to stress that "race" is mostly superficial.
A germane (and less politically charged) topic is the genetics of horse coat colors. Short summary: Horses have combinations of genes that produce the various colors, patterns, and hues. One "dilution" is called "cream" - it's what makes a horse "blonde (palomino)". Two copies of the cream dilution makes a "cremello" - a very light colored horse. I suspect that humans have a similar blonde gene; one copy produces various light colors, but two copies produces the white-blonde. I have seen several times families with a black father and a white-blonde mother, and the children have light brown skin and blonde hair. Very intriguing.
https://www.aqha.com/daily/pages/quarter-horse-markings-and-color-genetics/
2
Rather doubt anyone aside from children would say that skin color is the main difference between races.
8
Repeat after me: Race is a social and political construction, not a biological fact!
117
Then what accounts for empirical differences, even if we are all the same human?
the colours of peoples are inherited and the phenomenon is called phenotype. it" but these are heritable and very visible characteristics. to say that humans have no recognizable separate phenotypes would show zero lack of observation
And then look at the actual science, and realize what a goose you've been.
2
This is a non-story. Of course, "race" has nothing to do with skin pigmentation. "Race" is a description of skeletal and cranial characteristics, such that a skeleton's "race" can be determined without any pigmentation evidence whatsoever. The Caucasoid race, for example, can be identified skeletally in spite of dramatic variations in pigmentation from northern Europe to southern India.
9
There is no such thing as "race". Different skeletal or cranial characteristics are not a sign of the existence of the artificial social concept "race" in human society. As Sandra said above, "race" is a social and political construction, not a biological or scientific fact.
11
This idea was debunked scientifically in the 1800s.
4
These findings are very interesting in terms of the evolution of skin colors but they don't say anything about notions of races. Only in America where people are still being asked officially to assign themselves to a particular race (ironically, even though most are mixed to various degrees) would this science be buttonholed into the race angle, with the insinuation that races don't exist.
Yes, the notion of races is a historical one that was developed based on phenotypes (sum of features, including but not limited to skin color) way before any details on the underlying genetics were known. As such, it necessarily is a very simplified concept but there is no scientific reason to consider it as politically incorrect. What needs to be eradicated is discrimination, not the still popular concept of races.
A bioinformatics computer program will easily cluster the genome sequences of, for example, Africans, East Asians, Europeans, and native Americans into four distinct groups, without any human bias involved. The statistical distribution of skin color gene variants will be largely follow this clustering as well. Obviously we now know much more about subgroupings and ancient admixture than our grandparents did. It's best to let science speak for itself.
82
That's because the idea of 'race' is a human construct, it does not exist outside the human mind.
3
This is "the science."
On those forms asking about "race,"
I always check off Other,
and then fill in "Human."
4
Race is used in medical testing and treatment, because there are differences between normals in ethnic groups for lab testing. Sophistry doesn't change facts. Is it news that we share similar DNA?
19
You are equating race with ethnicity. As such, you are confusing phenotype with genotype.
2
Race is real. Another skewed study by Sarah Tishkoff attempting to dis-empower African people. Her conclusions are bizarre and so are the reporters. Ask her what she means by genetic diversity since many scientist and institutions have different definitions for the phrase.
3
Really, does it dis-empower people to know that ll the arguements that have held us in the race thing have nothing to contribute to the conversation. At least you have to give her credit for bringing this fact to our consciousness.
But for my curiosity, I would be intersted in how we can understand race in ways the might be usefull to this conversation.
1
Race is a social construct used to separate people from one another, when, in fact, every human being has the exact same arrangement of 46 chromosomed body of cells that prove the individual is human. There are only a few differences that help us recognize each other (unlike identical twins)--hair color and texture, skin color, facial features, body build. Then there are mistakes of nature, or anomalies, which produce illnesses, deformities, and other differences in human form or function.
There is no doubt that to be human, one must consist of an ordered network of 46 chromosomed cells fashioned into the usual human shape. Race is a meaningless social construct......makes me wonder when people first started seeing diversity in color, customs, and body features. What a silly game we have been playing on each other!
52
No it is not.
2
As others have noted, the headline is misleading. Human races are the same as animal subspecies: geographic variants within a single species that hybridize where they meet at boundaries (due to modern travel, there are no boundaries among humans today). All subspecies of any species share most of their genes; the fact that the same skin color genes are present in all human populations is hardly surprising and certainly does not refute the reality of human races.
There are many other physical differences characteristic of the different human races: nose shape, skull shape, eyelid anatomy, height and body dimensions, hair color and curliness, etc. Because human skin color is a response to varying levels of sunlight, it is not a good characteristic by distinguish races: Australian aborigines, Africans, and some south and southeast Asian groups are all similarly dark but have consistent anatomical characteristics within each group. Skin color does not correlate as well with human races as do other anatomical characteristics.
Social scientists might prefer to deny the reality of human races, but they are as biologically real as the myriad subspecies recognized among animals. Medicine is beginning to recognize important physiological differences between races; even if race has no social significance, sociologists do their credibility no favor by denying the biologically obvious.
29
No, not really, because a subspecies has enough genetic variation, that you can tell the difference quite easily from their DNA. There is no such difference in the DNA of a 'White' person or a 'Black' person. It's all in your head.
4
If you are claiming that race is a group of genetically related individuals, fine. But once you bring physical characteristics into it you lose your footing - large amounts of research show that physical characteristics are not good predictors of the genetic relatedness among groups. You may be able to assemble a suite of traits that characterizes most individuals in a genetic grouping, but what is the point of that? Such features are not diagnostic of membership in a genetic group, so why not just use genetic similarity and dispense with inaccurate phenotypic shortcuts?
2
Dad - You misread me. I acknowledged that skin color is not a good criterion for human races, whereas anatomical variation is. And you are also wrong about the genetics because obviously genetic differences create the physical differences that allow us to predict with high accuracy where in the world someone originates. Some alleles and allele combinations are more frequent than others among geographic variants (races), which is why 23andme can usually tell with considerable accuracy where your ancestors came from, and why a Kenyan can tell what tribe another belongs to with a mere glimpse: even small scale geographic differences are reflected in anatomical (= genetic) differences that are readily discernible.
Schlicht - if a suite of traits characterizes most individuals in a genetic grouping, how is that different from the traditional definition of subspecies? And obviously organisms living in proximity will be more closely related among themselves than with more distant groups. They will also tend to resemble each other more closely compared with distant or isolated conspecifics.
None of this suggests that any race is superior to another; it merely acknowledges that humans are subject to natural selection and evolution like all other organisms. Denying basic biology may make for good virtue signalling but does not help us understand human variation.
Race may not be real genetically, but it is real societally. Our first impressions of other humans are based on what we see, and we all immediately make judgements in significant part based on skin color that lead us to classify these people. No different than dogs sniffing each other. So race, in this sense, is very real. The issue is whether we use our initial judgements to come to firm conclusions about other people that we will then use to guide our interactions with them, including to decide to avoid any interactions. That's racism, and it doesn't matter that it doesn't have a genetic underpinning because it's based on our concept of race.
8
You are just trying to justify racism. There is no justification for believing two individuals must be alike as people because they look alike.
The alleged advantage of lighter skin allowing more Vitamin D absorption has always seemed ridiculous to me. Dark-skinned people living in northern climes don't seem to have any health problems stemming from a Vitamin D deficiency. And everyone spends much more time indoors, and covered with clothing, than people did long ago. So where is the need for the alleged advantage?
2
On the contrary, dark-skinned people in northern climes are found to have Vitamin D deficiency, which leads to health problems over time. They typically have a reduced immune response, which is hard to detect, until a pattern of repeated infections occurs.
The VItamin D is not "absorbed" it is made out of another molecule when sunlight hits.
8
That's an absurd argument. Regardless of skin tone, the amount of sun exposure an average person who goes outside during daylight hours everyday provides them with more than enough UV light than will be used by their body to synthesize vitamin D. Further, even an extreme deficiency that causes osteomalacia would be minimally influential on general reproductive fitness.
1
So, do you not believe in the converse? Pale skin people having issues when living in areas with more sun exposure. I personally know people who have left Florida because they were very pale and had issues with the sun (painful sunburns and risk of skin cancer). And though these things can also happen to dark-skinned individuals, this happens far less often to them.
2
This study's limited findings only add to the confusion about skin color. Zimmer's story makes no mention of the humanoid fossil study released in May by European researchers that concludes humans originated in Europe (Greece and Bulgaria) 7.2 million years ago, far earlier than the fossil record in Africa. What does Zimmer mean to imply by his word choices, that the "pale skin variant" gene common in Europe arose "just 29,000 years ago" and was widespread "only in the past few thousand years"? And, what is meant by saying "our species evolved in Africa 300,000 years ago" and then the "Neanderthals split off from our own ancestors an estimated 600,000 years ago, spreading across Europe and eastern Asia" and declaring it's "possible" that Neanderthals "were light-skinned, and others dark-skinned"? Perhaps citing a variety of sources and scientists would clear up the confusion next time.
33
The family of pongidae was only recently discarded as phylogenetics had made it abundantly clear that humans and the great apes were very closely related, to close to not share the same family name. Academics had fought the classification for years because it seemed obvious that humans were unique and super special but as scientists they had to bend before the mounting evidence. We are all hominids.
The Graecopithecus fossil you reference is a single pre-hominid jawbone found in 1994. It is interesting in that it shares some dentition common with later hominids but arguing that it *is* the progenitor species for all hominids is a stretch at best. It also doesn't really matter in terms of this discussion because the remaining fossil evidence *clearly* indicates that our hominid ancestors evolved in Africa. Is it possible that these ancestors descended from Graecopithecus? Sure. It's not settled and highly controversial. It's also possible that this was an individual at an outside range of a Graecopithecus population that originated in east Africa (continental drift could have made this a possibility). So the fact that he didn't bring up a a recent controversial position that runs counter to the accepted science isn't surprising in any way.
1
"The widespread distribution of these genes and their persistence over millenniums show that the old color lines are essentially meaningless, the scientists said. The research “dispels a biological concept of race,” Dr. Tishkoff said."
This is one of the single stupidest statements I have read in my life. A good indication of what happens when solid science is dragged into the muck of ideological confirmation bias.
Few people today believe that skin color reflects anything other than adaptation to local conditions. This has long been established.
Race, on the other hand, can be identified through DNA testing and physiognomy. To say then that it has no scientific basis is absurd. The races are simply large groups of people who are, on average, more closely related to one another than to others -- a natural consequence of geography and barrier. There is no race gene -- it is not an either/or phenomenon -- but there are statistical differences in genetic distance.
It is a classification and it is nothing less than absurd to pretend that it does not exist, as opposed to debunking racist claims about its significance.
109
This is actually incorrect. The scientific literature has been unable, despite extensive testing, to find a genetic or biological basis for race. The best possible explanation for similar genes across groups is based on geography rather than race; yes, groups from certain regions may share clusters of genes in terms of skin color or other physical features, yet there is no biological study that is able to cleanly sort these clusters into distinct racial groups.
61
Spot on, Elena, thanks. Better articulated than I could manage.
1
Elena, with all due respect, nonsense. The sceintific literature has been quite able to find a genetic or biological basis for race, which is why, if you send your DNA off to 23 and Me with a check for $99, you will receive a very nice accounting of your racial makeup, courtesy of the polymorphisms in your autosomal DNA.
The implication that one cannot sort genetic clusters into racial groups is absurd, as a quick glance at a map of genetic distance will show you. Indeed, the sophistry in your assertion lies in the word "cleanly," as "cleanliness" is not necessary to classification; if it were, we could not say that there is such a thing as an Englishman or a Pole.
You state too that "the best possible explanation for similar genes across groups is based on geography rather than race," perhaps not understanding that race is a consequence of geography -- something that has been understood since before we were born.
17
Well, it is interesting that they have found almost 1/3 of the genetic cause for differing skin colors.
And interesting as that is, I would not want to drive across a bridge built by an engineer that understood only 1/3 of the principles of bridge building.
This discovery may well be over-hyped.
20
Yes, the other 71% will no doubt be interesting too.
Back in the 1960's there was a book by Carlton Coon about the living races of man that detailed all that was known at the time about the specific physiological differences between people. It was fascinating to see that geography makes us all -- move someplace else for a few millennia and we become a different 'race' based on how our skin color, nasal shape and so forth changes due to the different climate, diet and so forth. As with many things the gap between what is scientifically known about people and what is believed in some circles is 'Huge'... Sad!
4
@ Greg Latiak Canada - Yes, I usually put "race" in double quotation marks, you in single to make clear what you and I state in our comments. Interestingly, the commitment to using race is so deep in the USA that even geneticists do not succeed in avoiding using it. Tishkoff could have said, "What are the main differences between people of apparently different ethnicities" but no, she said "race".
Now for a classic example of a believer read tekfr33kn Earth 51 minutes ago comment. tekfr33kn Earth is not going to let any mere geneticist tell him/her about "race". There will be many variants of this, and there already is one on disease and "race". In my comment I cite Dorothy Roberts paper in Science and her TED talk directed at any comment writer here who tells us, "you have to realize, different races are subject to different diseases."
I will be reviewing all comments in an effort to get Race/Related Newsletter to see that it finally has to add science to its interviews that are mostly about racism, not "race"
my info is in my comment right below yours.
3
Very fun to see someone cite Carlton coon. As a child I lived down the street from him as an old man. Our mothers took us on a field trip to see him and his various artifacts, but I always remember by then he halfway believed in Sasquatch and had a plaster foot print....as I say, he was a little old and senile by then.....
Fine reporting by Zimmer and important research by geneticist Sarah Tishkoff and her colleagues. Once again, genetic research demonstrates that we humans have been sharing the same genes for a very long time and have, so to speak, been able to make use of them when needed - for example up here in sun-deficient Sweden.
Of special interest to me is that Dr. Tishkoff states so clearly and directly that the research ("further" - my addition) "dispels a biological concept of race". Why so? Two reasons: 1) Tishkoff's University of Pennsylvania colleague Dorothy Roberts has been dispelling the biological concept of race for years, first in her book, "Fatal Invention..." and then in a Science article and a TED talk arguing that American medical researchers must also end their use of race as a variable in their studies. 2) In a comment over at Thomas Edsall I called attention today to the column by Thomas Chatterton Williams that he ends by stating - time to get rid of race.
I hope that this and Williams' article signal the beginning of a serious treatment of American concepts of race in the Times. The need is great as illustrated by the comment by tekfr33kn Earth who is not going to let a mere geneticist tell him/her that there are no biologically distinct races.
tekfr33kn carries on the tradition founded long ago by racists in their founding of racial orders.
Give us more, Carl Zimmer.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Dual citizen US SE
5
We share the same genes. We don't share equally the same variants of those genes.
There are differences, even if "race" overstates that, drastically.
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@ Mark Thomason-Mark, I do not understand your reply. In any case, you can see by reading all 187 comments that not one person who supports assigning people to races tells us how an individual race is to be defined. The USCB officially relies on self-identification but Kenneth Prewitt told me that census takers may enter the race they believe is appropriate. Race as defined in socially constructed terms says nothing at all about genes. My current example of a person registered as black who then gets her 23andMe report and becomes troubled is Jesmyn Ward. professor, author of praised novels, editor of The Fire This Time. In her essay in that book she tells us that 23andMe says she has 40% European line of descent - 23andMe does not use race but rather geography. She writes that she is conflicted about this finding. She is a new MacArthur Fellow so she will have lots of time to think about who she now is.
I mention her also because so many commenters believe that race determines health. What these commenters do not do is consider how a 40% European black differs as concerns possible health problems as compared with a 20% European black. I have filed a new comment with full reference to a paper in Science by Dorothy Roberts and Sarah Tishoff on using race as a scientific variable. I have the paper somewhere in my collections.
Larry
Larry -- You are right about race making no sense as a rigorous scientific concept. What we have is overlapping ranges. Human migration and mixing over millennia has spread everything everywhere, only the percentages varying.
However, there is a distinction between a gene, and the variants of that gene. That distinction is being glossed over, and creates confusion.
We all have the same genes, meaning the same sites that do the same things, near enough. That is why we are one species and can interbreed.
However, for each gene there are variants. That is why we are not all identical twins.
The range of those variants can be mapped, but the mapped areas will not be exclusive, just proportions. In one place there will be a higher or lower percentage of a specific variant than in other places, but the variant will most likely appear in some percentage everywhere.
That is because the human population is so mixed, and because we have a relatively recent DNA bottleneck from a near extinction event.
This is magnified because no one gene entirely controls most features. There are 8 sites for skin color identified in the first 29% of the work, so the remaining 71% is likely to find something on the order of 20 more, plus or minus some unknown number.
If there are something like 30 gene sites controlling skin color, and those variants are present in varying proportions everywhere, there can't be distinct "races" based on the combined effects of those.
1
A quick look at CNN diversity report is worth noting.
http://money.cnn.com/interactive/technology/tech-diversity-data/
Most of the "Asians" hired by the tech industry are South Asians. Many of them are very dark-skinned.
Skin color is not the issue. The perceived behavior of a group, sometimes justified, sometimes not, is the issue for most people.
Genetic testing seems to identify "race" with perfect accuracy. To claim that skin color genetics refutes the idea of race is silly.
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Yes, it's quite amusing to see some people (a scientist no less!) claiming that race has no biological basis when it can be identified with a $99 DNA test!
I'm reminded of "The Emperor's New Clothes" . . .
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@ Michael H. Alameda CA - Michael you will be one of many comment writers who make clear that you know far more than any silly geneticist.
Visit Dorothy Roberts TED talk as a possible means of awakening you to science.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Dual citizen US SE
4
It is obvious that neither of you understand how the genetic tests (and probably any other aspect of science) work. The genetic tests do not identify race or skin color-they identify the area of origin of your ancestor. For instance, one of the leaders of a major white supremcist group recently took one of these tests to demonstrate how "white" he was. Imagine his horror to find out that he was 15% "African". Many "white" Americans whose ancestors came to this country before the Civil War have some "African" ancestry due to the widespread rape of slaves by white owners. When black Americans have the testing done, they are not told that they are black, but the areas of Africa where their ancestors originated, as well as the percentage of "European", not "white", ancestry.
Skin color leads unfortunately leads to the "perceived" behavior of a group. There are many African Americans who are not gang-bangers, just like there are many white Americans who are not mass murderers (see Las Vegas, Charleston church, Oklahoma City bombing, Sandy Hook) or meth dealers (have never seen any reports of black meth cookers or dealers). Yet you never hear these assumptions about white people, while you often do about black people.
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And interesting article, but with an unrelated and unsupported conclusion.
The author states that it is a "profound error"to say that the main difference between races is skin color. The issue in that statement is the definition of race, which is not discussed in this article. In fact, the entire article is about the differences in genetics that cause different skin colors. If skin color is included in the definition of race, then this article supports the connection between genetics and race. Whether or not skin color is included in the definition of race, which is at the heart of the article's conclusion, is not discussed in the article.
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"“If you ask somebody on the street, ‘What are the main differences between races?,’ they’re going to say skin color,”
Sorry, but I find it appalling that any scientist interested in genetics would pay any attention to "somebody in the street" - in regard to what "race" actually might mean.
As an evolutionist interested in speciation - it has never even occurred to me that "skin color" would be of any significance in regard to what makes different populations of humans - different.
Han Chinese - are different from Polynesians - are different from Arapahoes - are different from Germans - are different from Bantu- are different from - Sammi - based on HUNDREDS of genes. The idea that humans are "not different" from one another is as utterly absurd as the ugly racist claim that one group of humans is "better" than another.
"Better"? Asinine. "Not different?" Equally asinine. Neither concept helps us understand ourselves at all.
85
@ Greenpa Minnesota - I agree with you but in years of studying my fellow Americans writing in this field I find that they are so brainwashed by the census bureau system that they say not so smart things like that sentence by Tishkoff.
My most troubling example is to be found in the opening of the book that became my bible, "Fatal Invention-How Science, Politics, and Big Business Re-create Race in the Twenty-First Century" by Dorothy Roberts. I wrote to her to tell her the title needed America at the end, since Swedish researchers, notably Svante Pääbo, find American use of race as a variable in medical research unacceptable.
So Dorothy opens by writing that when an American walks into a room the first thing she does is wonder about the race of each person. I asked her for the research on which she based that statement. She could provide none. I have never yet found an American who does what she says they do.
Thanks for your comment. Note how many will take the opposite view.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Dual citizen US SE
6
This article does not dispute that people are different. Indeed, it explains differences in skin color. The comment about "somebody on the street" is simply to state that a common conception of "race" is related to a person's skin color.
1
I doubt that there are any Humans who don't know their skin color has resulted from genetic heredity and sun exposure.
Any other explanations for differences are usually a form of self-congratulation.
3
Kate De Braose Verified - Kate I think the opposite is likely to be true, just ask any ordinary American. My NY Times soulmate in this area, Blackmamba has written countless comments explaining to columnists and readers what you note. And here in Sweden we have a very fine science journalist with two books examining first her own lines of descent and then the genetic studies of various early populations in Swede, In both she explains carefully how evolution helped the people who became early Swedes evolve to make the most of the short supply of sunlight - and perhaps to be able to get Vitamin D from milk.
We have a very large population of Somalis here and they and their newborn children suffer from Vitamin D deficiency and are the subject of research in progress.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Dual citizen US SE
14
My kids once had a muse magazine that explained the excellent theories about vitamin d, folic acid in fish etc and skin color. Interesting you not the refugees problem with vitamin d, earlier on this thread there were some people claiming vitamin d couldn't be part of it because no one has problems...
1
interesting, but doesn't overturn much. of course gene variants should be represented across populations, but just selected for more frequent or stronger expression in populations under disparate environmentl pressures.
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Jack T - Alabama - Stated so succinctly and so well but although Kate DeBrose above you believes that everybody knows that, I know from years of reading comments that very few seem to know anything about that. My info at my main comment.
2
Can we finally rid ourselves of this specious word "race?"
7
it has been suggested that "inheritance" be used. it is stupid to deny that genetic differences exist among populations, but political rhetoric excepted, the difficulty with "race" is the conception of it as quasi-speciated subgroups.
1
When it stops existing, no doubt.
1
@ Michael Brooklyn - Michael I have written 100s of comments ever since publication of two essential books, "What Is Your Race-The Census and Our Flawed Efforts to Classify Americans" (Prewitt) and "Fatal Invention-How Science, Politics and Big Business Re-create Race in the Twenty-First Century" (Roberts) presenting the recommendations in those books - end classification by race. A losing battle here in the Times as you will see if you read all comments here.
Thomas Chatterton Williams had a brilliant essay here on October 6, the last paragraph of which says what you say - end classification by race.
Americans, but not this one, appear to be unable to talk about human difference without using "race".
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Dual citizen US SE
2
Dr. Tishkoff and NYT science reporters need to read up on Lewontin's Fallacy https://en.wikipedia.orgwiki/Human_Genetic_Diversity:_Lewontin%27s_Fallacy!
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True but as noted in the same article, the weight given to so called race regarding how human populations are classified and treated may not have much merit given what flimsy characteristic they rest on.
While skin tone is more salient, in a slightly different universe or world maybe what would separate human populations would be the relative length of their picky toes, does that sound like a reasonable basis for the idea of race?
2
So geography is destiny after all.
1
This is a wonderful study and hope it continues to educate the public on how similar humans are.
Sadly, racists are not scientists so to them this will mean nothing. Let's just hope their thinking evolves or perhaps their genes will die off.
11
Most scientist are bias as well. I am not sure why so many layman assume Sarah Tishkoff research is void of an agenda. The conclusions of this study are opaque. By the way, just because someone is proud of their racial makeup does not make them a racist. I find it funny these studies always attempt to broaden the definition of who is an African.
2
"By the way, just because someone is proud of their racial makeup does not make them a racist." Yes it does. "Racial" or "ethnic" chauvinism for those of similar appearance to one's self is just as bad as racism against those of different appearance to one's self. If two men raped and killed your sister would you discriminate between them on the basis that one was "black" and the other "white"? Don't they have more in common with each other than they do with you?
Why on earth would you be proud (or not) of your "racial makeup".? It's nothing you did, nor is it really different by and large...
2
Due too mass transportation now... it is estimated in 10,000 years there will be only one race.... just wish that was now so we could stop all this racism that is getting out of control....
4
This would be such an interesting article for Trump and his white supremacist, neo nazi "fine People" to read. Of course I may be naive to think that they accept scientific inquiry...Of course I am also assuming that they are able to read.
11
A GWAS to study pigmentation? Who paid for this? The argument that this about evolution is laughable. "People have only studied European pigmentation, so we've got a political argument (but not a scientific one) to study Africans." And that argument is that the NYTimes and lots of other non-critical agenda-driven media outlets will hype this skin-color study based on politics, as opposed to it's modest findings which have little to no clinical relevance.
6
@ RP Denver - Best not to reveal that you know as little about science as Donald Trump.
10
Skin color is really about one main thing - balancing a human's need for vitamin D with protection against excess UV light. The notion that it ever became so intertwined with the very subjective criteria for race is as pervasive as it is unfortunate.
Hopefully good research such as this will begin to dispel our misnomers and misconceptions.
25
Skin pigmentation is mainly about two vitamins: vitamin D and folic acid. As hinted at in the article, folic acid is photolabile. As out ancestor's diet began to shift from mainly fruits and veggies to a more meat rich diet, folic acid intake decreased. Combine that with loss of fur to promote using our skin as an evaporative cooling system (sweat) and folic acid deficiency became a potential threat. Increased skin pigmentation solved that problem and as long as our ancestors stayed in Africa they were able to make sufficient vitamin D to maintain calcium metabolism. When they moved out of Africa to northern and colder climates photodegradation of folic acid was no longer an issue because they began wearing skins, etc. to keep warm and thus shielded their skin from the sun for long periods of time (winter). Now the problem became vitamin D. In order to generate enough vitamin D skin pigmentation had to go. The further north they moved the lighter the skin needed to be especially among children. One notable exception is the Inuits where dark skin pigmentation is found. The Inuits survive on a diet poor in folic acid (not much in the way of fruits, etc. in the Arctic) hence they must protect their folic acid from any exposure to the sun. At the same time they tapped into the only ready source of dietary vitamin D, sea fish liver oil (cod liver oil, etc.), thus they didn't need sunlight to make vitamin D for themselves. Lesson: skin pigmentation is purely functional.
62
Very interesting and informative. This is a theory I have long held, but had no scientific knowledge nor ambition to do the research. I will never understand people's fears manifested by racist attitudes. We are all one body--46 chromosomes, variants in our DNA, some genes, but not in our humanity.
5
Very interesting--thank you. I love reading about ancient humans/Neanderthals etc. Seems to help us understand our own times. BTW, 29K years ago does not seem recent to me in so far as some of the most ancient cave art found dates back 39k or so. Meaning that the appearance of the 'light skin gene' about 29k ago is not too far removed from the time where modern humans are generally agreed to have lived. I wonder if the inter-mating of the 2 subspecies (Neanderthals and homo sapiens) led to 'hybrid vigor' and gave an evolutionary boost to our species??
2
Unfortunately articles like this further discourage important scientific investigation of why different ethnic groups respond differently to pharmaceuticals, etc. etc. *Colorblind* medical treatment has been quite harmful to people of African descent in this country, for example.
Doctors need to be able to ask without fear of offending what a person*s ethnic makeup is. There are different risks for various genetic diseases, too.
23
I agree. We are different races (or subspecies of humans). We were separated for 100's of thousand of years. This type of article plays into abstract ideas of humans not reality.
Guess what, individuals within an ethnic group will also respond differently o drugs. It is due to the genetic variability within any group that causes that.
4
SCA NH - You have a very oversimplified view of the subject you present. You can easily get a short introduction by viewing Professor Dorothy Robert's TED talk that deals directly with the subject. Then if you want to get serious you can read her book "Fatal Invention-How Science, Politics, and Big Business Re-Create Race in the Twenty First Century." She is an expert. One of the deepest investigations of the subject is to be found in a book by Professor Duana Fulwiley dealing with the sickle cell.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Dual Citizen-US SE
This is fascinating work! I hope the scientists are able to identify the remaining 61 percent of genes that play a role in skin color. This research demonstrates the genetic similarities among all humans. Sadly, I don't think this will change the mind of any of the white supremacists who believe white skin confers superiority.
3
What a tragic role these trivial variants in pigmentation, unrelated to any other human characteristics, have had in human history.
7
Both the headline and the article overstate what the study found. The findings rebut any notion that race is defined by skin color, not that race does not exist.
18
As Gould pointed out, "That there is only one race of human is a contingent fact"
2
The science is spot on but the thrust of the article is misguided. The relationship of skin color to race (or lack thereof) has been known for a long time in the science community. However, "Rebut Dated Notions of Race" is a bit of a stretch. Race does exist and there are common characteristics for each. Skin is just one of those characteristics that got mixed up in the race discussion when it really should never have been. It was just low-hanging fruit when picking a characteristic. Race has characteristics which include hair (Most East Asians have black, straight hair), bone structure (American Indians have skulls that are different from European or Asian skulls, although it may be an evolutionary trait after the migrations of the Ice Age), height (Most Central Americans are shorter than Europeans or Africans). To say the race is dated is technically correct when talking about skin color but race is still a reality, not a notion. It doesn't mean that one race is better than another, just that they simply exist. Variety is a wonderful thing.
224
Variety is indeed a wonderful thing. But race is a social construct, not a scientific one. "In an article published today (Feb. 4 [2016]) in the journal Science, four scholars say racial categories are weak proxies for genetic diversity and need to be phased out. They've called on the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine to put together a panel of experts across the biological and social sciences to come up with ways for researchers to shift away from the racial concept in genetics research...race is also understood to be a poorly defined marker of that diversity and an imprecise proxy for the relationship between ancestry and genetics." Two European Americans may be genetically more different from each other than they are from an Asian American. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/race-is-a-social-construct-sc...
8
One may consider a set of characteristics to define the notion of race as you noted...however such groupings could just as well be used to defined a notion of race within populations that today are sociologically considered to be the same race.
In other words if we want to start defining race by certain shared genetic characteristics, you'll find that for instance what is called white today could just as well be made of multiple sub-races or even overlapping races...further more, you could find a black person and a white person belonging to the same race....it doesn't take much to see how such reasoning quickly leads to obsurdity...the only reason the notion of race is so potent is because of it's physical markers, particularly skin tone.
6
" To say the race is dated is technically correct when talking about skin color but race is still a reality, not a notion."
It is no more a scientific because it is no longer based on skin color. Race is not a scientific construct.
2
The genetic work is welcome, but the general conclusion is not new. Morphological comparison showed long ago that skin color varies gradually along broad geographic axes rather than provided sharp distinctions among human populations.
22
Great work. I hope to see it progress and develop.
6