I believe there is one human race and the details and differences within that race is based on geography and cultural variations. Birds are all birds but look at the differences in appearances, dogs, apes and monkeys, elephants to just name a few example of other species that come in all shapes; humans are a species too, let's not forget.
Science and anthropology can clarify the "differences." However, the religious right does not recognize science, it's "science" texts come from the Bible.
Good luck introducing scientific methods to the children of the religious right in schools. It won't happen. The embracing of the uniqueness of of different peoples on earth is anathema to these sefish narcissists because the conclusions will erase their fantasy of being superior to everyone else.
I'm not saying it can't be overcome because we did transcend some racism during the Civil Rights movement, not to mention the Civil War. It showed us that a racist country could do the right thing; however, the lunacy of the religious right is a formidable foe still for change.
10
We have a right hand. What do you call the other hand. Left hand. We are known for discrimination, racism, abuse, and you can call it whatever you like. Even racism, if you are determined that you actually hate that person.
Me#2, sexual advances, But that happened in the past. With today’s standards we want to hold the past, present! I wonder later, as has happened in the past, we will redo it. Which will sound good on paper but the people affected, are not here.
Whomever designed this media loves the car wash.
4
Since the word "race" is so politically charged, perhaps we should use the term "skin color".
2
"Biology textbooks used in American high schools do not go near the sensitive question of whether genetics can explain why African-Americans are overrepresented as football players .."
-------------------------------------------------------
I think that African Americans are over-represented in professional sorts, except for hockey, due to the origin of species argument. When slave traders looked for able-bodied black men they were concerned with two primary business goals:
1) that the capture slaves would survive the sea journey to America's plantations; and
2) they would fetch a premium price for young strong men.
Selection was done in Africa and continued with mating African men with African women with similar strong and healthy features. Today we see the results of genetic selection in professionl sports. Most professional players in key sports are African Americans - foot ball, basket ball and baseball - to a lesser extent.
Hockey is an exception. It is predominntly a white man's sport. African slaves had no history playing a sport on ice with sticks and a little "puck". To-date, there are very few African origin hockey players.
The selection process began in Africa. American slave-trader breeding of Africans combined to mix healthy Africans that gave birth to generations of children that inherited their parents genetic profiles.
3
Eugenics... Is practiced by, for instance, every young human that intentionally limits their scope of prospective mates to persons with physical and mental traits they prefer, traits they think will complement their own which they hope to pass on to their progeny.
6
There are two rather equalizing things that I've encountered as a scientist in the genomics/biotechnology side
(1) Since 96% of the human genome is still in Africa, that means that we were all once black. I think that puts an end to notions of racial purity nonsense.
(2) It seems pretty irrefutable now that our genome is mixed with some Neanderthal genes. So be careful the next time you call someone a neanderthal.
2
Four hundred years ago convoys from England arrived in America. The people who arrived did not mix with the people living in America, and this is where their intolerance comes from. The Spanish did mix, and were able to create a new civilization in America. The English should be given an ultimatum: either you get with it, or leave, because your attitude is unacceptable, it's destructive.
1
This course is a brilliant idea. In fact, it's a good idea for all ages, but, people have to be willing listeners.
Explaining that race us a social construct, and proving it with genetics, will help change attitudes on the idea of race and it's stereotypes.
There will always be "true believers" in notions like Aryan superiority, coaches who search for fast, strong, young black men, people who think anyone from a "race" other than their own all look alike, and a fervent belief in ancient stereotypes.
These beliefs lack proof and are akin to belief in god. That's why they're difficult to change -- they'rr not based on science, fact or reason. It's why well-educated people can be racists. Changing deeply held beliefs is incredibly difficult.
But this genetics course is one positive way forward, If racist parents and school boards don't get in the way.
1
I live where the winters are mild, the animal shelters are full, and people have a hard time affording veterinary care. Strays show up, begging for a home, and we encourage our friends to keep them: “Oh, the orange tabbies are the sweetest!” “Oh, the tuxedo cats are the smartest!” “The black panther cats have the best sense of humor!”
Yay for uniqueness, and if you can hold onto that kitty for a few days, you will be charmed.
Mostly people won’t spend money on a fancy cat here, but they will spend money on a fancy dog. The shelters are full, but they need that specific breed because they are bred to the sweetest, smartest, or most loyal. It’s mostly hooey.
You can’t draw a bright line between human “races” either, and we are all “mixed”.
3
“Race, a social concept bound up in culture and family....”
That makes things even more politically dangerous, as instead of looking at skin color (which is what the sensitivity is all about), we’re now encouraged to instead look at the impact of the culture and families (of people with a certain skin color). This is reductionist, to say the least. And leads to a problem:
With respect to the marginalized, disadvantaged, or underachieving individuals of that skin color, we will have to be openly critical of aspects of their culture and family life (certainly with respect to, say, educational achievement). And this will of course result in — accusations of racism.
11
In the very pages of this fine paper, David Reich argued that our concept of race maps onto gene clusters with great accuracy, and that there are statistical differences between these clusters. He clearly suspects that future GWAS studies may indeed support cognitive differences between these clusters. I suspect Robert Plomin believes the same thing, but knows it would be professional suicide to go near it—
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/23/opinion/sunday/genetics-race.html
12
We should be getting far off the topic of ‘percent similarity’, and CLOSER to the topic of the incalculable value of modern dna, which is contained in whatever small difference there is between the modern races that observational science can easily identify.
The fact that we don’t indicates a liberal bias toward the subject, effectively tying it into a knot that children are not ‘allowed’ to untie. This bias must be eliminated, before humans can teach the topic in public schools, or we can never reach acceptance of what race is in society, which is the scientific object-subject to begin with.
1
The writer says, "Robin thinks that the genetic differences within a racial group are small and that most genetic differences exist between people of different races.
The truth is that neither has a completely accurate view.
As human populations spread around the globe, with people living in relative isolation for millenniums, some differences emerged."
OK, I guess, but how does knowing this help us to identify who in our cultural mix is genetically "black" and who is genetically "white"? The "African-Americans" who are identified as black are geographically/genetically from all over the map, as are those who are identified as "white." And until you can reliably give a scientific accounting of who is genetically "black" and who is genetically "white," how can you bring any rigor to the question of whether "black" people are naturally more athletic than "white" people?
I worry about this reporter's conclusion that each fictional student, Taylor and Robin, is partly right. Robin seems totally wacko to me. Maybe talking about genetic differences of people in a time when generations of people were born and died within a 20-mile radius of their birthplace makes sense. Talking about it in connection with modern day individuals, almost all of whose ancestors come from all across the globe, makes none, at least IMHO.
5
23 and Me will quickly and easily tell you what continent what percent of your ancestors came from, i.e. what race(s) you are. That is the “scientific accounting” you are looking for.
6
Unfortunately this “experimental approach” promulgates the idea that race can be impartially specified and that only one definition of “race” is applicable.
The meaning of “race” depends on the definition being used. Examples:
“people of all races, colors, and creeds”
“people of mixed race”
“we Scots were a bloodthirsty race then”
"the upper classes thought of themselves as a race apart”
“the race of birds”
“a prince of the race of Solomon”
“people have killed so many tigers that two races are probably extinct”
Only the last example uses the definition in biology.
Race is a construction, even in biology where it is a way of classifying animals of all sorts [including humans]. And that biological classification can change. So can ethnicity.
1
This ain’t your great-grandfather’s peas.
A huge mistake is being made when this study talks about “genetics” and “DNA” (and it may be in the reporting and not the curriculum): more and more research is finding that it is EPIGENETICS, the combination of “heritable DNA and histone modifications that affect the expression of a gene.”
Epigenetics explains how some aspects of environment, experience — and culture can be encoded and passed to children and grandchildren (across a single generation) without either changing the underlying DNA and without those children directly experiencing the same environment and experiences.
While it is liberating to understand this process (look it up on Wikipedia for a quick overview) it throws cold water on the central thesis of the study, because genetics DO transmit some of the very traits that the study’s authors hope to dispel.
The epigenetic expression of traits doesn’t limit those possessing those “advantages,” just as the lack of an expressed trait doesn’t limit developing a skill. But if science teachers fail to acknowledge this emerging genetic reality, we’ve just gone back in time to a different age of ignorance.
2
This ain’t your great-grandfather’s peas.
A huge mistake is being made when this study talks about “genetics” and “DNA” (and it may be in the reporting and not the curriculum): more and more research is finding that it is EPIGENETICS, the combination of “heritable DNA and histone modifications that affect the expression of a gene.”
Epigenetics explains how some aspects of environment, experience — and culture can be encoded and passed to children and grandchildren (across a single generation) without either changing the underlying DNA and without those children directly experiencing the same environment and experiences.
While it is liberating to understand this process (look it up on Wikipedia for a quick overview) it throws cold water on the central thesis of the study, because genetics DO transmit some of the very traits that the study’s authors hope to dispel.
The epigenetic expression of traits doesn’t limit those possessing those “advantages,” just as the lack of an expressed trait doesn’t limit developing a skill. But if science teachers fail to acknowledge this emerging genetic reality, we’ve just gone back in time to a different age of ignorance.
The most boring class of my lifetime (3 degrees) was biology. Taught so poorly I gave up goals of being a doctor. I continue to beg all STEM educators to master the power of ENGAGING STORYTELLING. But all, including the Gates Foundation, ignore me. Realize that students are right- and left-brained, and the current ladling a biological facts and lessons bores the heck out of half of us. Engage us. Share relevance. Let us "see" processes. FASCINATE US. LEARN TO TEACH EFFECTIVELY.
A much needed beginning! What are the additional viable frameworks for enabling a diverse group of students to both know and understand:
• the implications and outcomes of questing;with relevant questions,simple
“answers,” which are descriptive mantras, and not valid explanations, as one moves from relevant data, to analyzed-derived information, to created understandings, helpful insights, and at times to achieved wisdom. A complex, dynamic, nonlinear, multidimensional process which needs ongoing reassessments ALL the time.
• that as one learns, there is the “trap” of simplifying and homogenizing into the misleading constricting of a complicated “either/or,” when a DIVERSE reality is more likely to consist of,complexities and ranges-continua; which are known/knowable; currently not known due to gaps in needed information and technologies, as well as possible unknowables.
• that as one explores, studies, learns, questions, our efforts occur within realities’ interacting, ever-present uncertainties.Unpredictabilities. Randomness. Outliers. Lack of total control notwithstanding one’s efforts; timely or not.
• a major barrier to needed understanding is our acculturated fear of failing; not relating to the opportunities to “Fail better” each time;learning, understanding and derived changes are incremental.
• that both words and numbers, used to derive information,create understanding, transmit, mislead in their essence.No word or number ARE what they were created to represent!
My concept of race was seriously challenged when my wife and I were sitting waiting for a train in London and a young girl whose complexion was light brown said to me, "Are you mixed race too?" By way of background, I spent my 6 elementary school years in Alexandria, Virginia, commencing in the year of Brown v. Bd. of Education. During these six years, the schools in Alexandria remained strictly segregated, I went to a "white" school and never once was treated as black. But the girl in the London train station must have focussed on my curly/kinky hair and sure enough when I didn't cut my hair in college I ended up with an "Afro" rather than hair down my shoulders. Really, what defines whiteness or blackness? Returning for a moment to the old segregated South, under the law of "hypo-descent" anyone with any fraction of "Black blood" was considered black rather than white for segregation purposes. Ditto for affirmative action today. But legal definitions aside, in the mixing pot of today's world I don't think racial definitions make much genetic sense. For example, take Corey Booker or Kamela Harris: what per cent black are they? What would be a "pure black?" Would two folks living in their ancestral villages in Africa, both with very black skin but whose villages were separated by 2000 miles be the same genetically? Of course not? Would your "pure white" be someone in Norway or the Caucasus Mountains?
We are far from a conducting a scientific inquiry if we start out with a purpose of showing that racial differences have no genetic basis or must be immaterial. Are all races e.g. equally tall, on average?
6
Biology can’t convince the average person of the validity of evolution.
1
It is acknowledged that genetics does influence intelligence to some extent and there is no scientific reason that there should be less variation between geographically isolated population groups due to different evolutionary pressures than there is in other multifactorial traits such as height or disease susceptibility. There is no escaping this fact.
7
I was fortunate to have known and work with a great biochemist, the late Dr. Cyril Ponnamperuma (16 October 1923 – 20 December 1994), Cyril was a Sri Lankan born scientist in the fields of chemical evolution and the origin of life. He was also a professor at the University of Maryland and each year gave a lecture to the entering class at the University. With his deep voice, Oxford accent, very dark skin, and working at the frontier of our understanding of human evolution, he was a natural to discuss the evolution of the homo sapiens species and the role played
by environment isolation of our gene pool, the random mutation rate and the roughly predictable result of the mating of mating.
Predictable is too strong of a word but clearly the process is much more efficient than random mutation and its outcome due to generational exposure to environmental factors and what we eat. For example, many believe that shifting from cooked versus raw food changed the brain size of our genetic ancestors. So, in the evolutionary history of our species there are a many interesting traits to study in addition to race.
I believe behavioral traits and the origin of instincts and social behaviors including our fear of foreigners to be extremely interesting, my intellectual mentor is E. O. Wilson and his findings and formulation of the science of sociobiology.
My recommendation to the educators who are going after this curriculum challenge is to consult with E.O. Wilson and Jared Diamond.
1
I was having a manicure in a shop that was owned and run by people from Asia. My manicurist, who wore a uniform left her seat for a few minutes and I turned around looking for her to ask a question. I could not identify which one she was in the group of coworkers. I was surprised and embarrassed.
I shared this with her and her response was she had a hard time identifying an individual of my white race as well. We both smiled and talked about all sorts of personal stuff like family, likes and dislike. It turned out that we shared similar life issues but, the culture we lived in played into different perspectives, response, and behavior.
When I left we shared a brief hug, and came to the conclusion that we are wired the same but, appearance and cultural upbringing is where we parted.
This is great, but are students also going to get social science instruction to understand how and why inequities and biases exist in spite of the minimal genetic differences?
1
A question for the people who say "race exists":
OK, what is it?
We can make up any number of arbitrary phenotype categories. How about people with red hair? Are they a "race"? What about all the people who are 5' 10" tall? How about people who have red hair *and* are that tall? And so on.
So, when we say "race is a social construct", that is precisely correct. It wouldn't exist in current form but for accidents of history.
Now, if you want to actually look at genetic differences, then we should have a system like in that movie Gattaca. Everyone has a tattoo, and you can scan it with your phone. And if there is a scientifically determined, *cause-and-effect* relationship between an individual's genome and some significant characteristic, you could make decisions about hiring someone for a particular job.
That would be science, but most people who think race exists probably wouldn't like it.
2
US scientists began researching the human genome in the early 1990's.They discovered distinct genetic differences from Northern European caucasian ,or white and Asian and African.The differences in cranial bone structure and blood types is commonly used in modern day forensic anthropology.The US genome project was ended when publication of certain results were considered to be socially and politically unacceptable at the time.Actually a few careers were ruined in the process.Basically, Persons of European extraction are the only race which has the genetic attributes of multi colored hair and eyes and light skin developed through evolution exclusively.Defining race by physical or intellectual ability may originate from the ability of the brain to process more advanced programs due to size and evolution of the thought processes.
7
This is dangerous. Although great effort is being made to contextualize the genetic contributions to what we understand as racial difference, it still provides fodder for the question, "What exactly are the genetic differences between races and what role do they play?"
In other words, the student says, "I get it. The genetic aspect is only one part and not a very big part. Regardless, I am extremely interested in learning more about exactly that. Isolate the genetic differences and teach me all about that."
Of course, if you reject that race is even a scientifically valid concept, then there is nothing to discuss. Or maybe instead of saying "race" you could talk about genetic variation between populations based on geographical ancestry.
I suspect that most thoughtful people are suspicious of claims such as "race is a social construct", but they don't dare admit it in public. The example of using racial characteristics to legitimately tailor certain medical treatments is convincing proof that race is real and biological.
One test that I use for a suspicious claim in this regard is to compare it with an analogous claim about differences between breeds within animal species, whose "racial characteristics" are not so contaminated by politics. Instead of lying to students or pandering to prejudice we should admit that racial differences exist and, as we do for other species, celebrate the power of genetic diversity and specialization. We could not have evolved without it.
6
Biology classes that explain human genetics may produce students who understand more about the function of DNA, but I doubt that they will do much to dispel racism.
Why? Because race is still a matter of life and death in this nation.
If I go to prison, I will be labeled by my fellow prisoners according to my visually-perceived race tag and if I try to be color blind, I will be beaten up.
If I apply for a job, I’m encouraged to pick a racial category:
Hispanic or Latino; White (Not Hispanic or Latino); Black or African American (Not Hispanic or Latino); Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander (Not Hispanic or Latino); Asian (Not Hispanic or Latino); American Indian or Alaska Native (Not Hispanic or Latino); and Two or More Races (Not Hispanic or Latino).
The category that I pick may influence whether or not I’m hired, depending on whether the person doing the hiring is looking to diversify or exclude.
If I apply for a college, whether or not I get accepted or receive financial aid is influenced by my race.
A mere “social concept” will determine whether I get a diploma, a job, a house or good medical care. Or whether or not I get shot by the police.
Lessons learned in classrooms will still crash headlong into lessons learned on the street.
13
The fact that biology teachers are trying to suggest that genetic differences is the reason for more white scientists than black scientists is ridiculous. Try looking at the resources provided to these students if you’re going to decide that nature is the overriding determinant at least give each student the same nurture then do your study. The schools/teachers/resources/home are the nurture and that is the root of racism (giving one group more/better resources based on their nature; race)
3
@Anne Forbes, the resources provided to black students are actually greater than those society provides to white one in terms of funding, scholarships, programs, etc. Likewise, teacher quality doesn’t differ as much as you think it does. In schools with mixed populations, where white and black children have the same teachers, the achievement gap problem looms large. Home life and parental behavior is not something society can do much about but, for what it’s worth, the racial achievement gap actually widens at higher income levels, so poverty per se isn’t the root cause.
5
Anne, the cadre of teachers who are piloting this curriculum have the opposite intent. The article explicitly stated that there is no significant difference in genes across race. The purpose of talking about the genetic similarities is exactly to get students to discover your point: that differences across race are due to social and historical inequities.
1
I am all for this as long as people are ready for data that they may find uncomfortable. There are likely distinct genetic differences between populations along many traits. We should explore these differences honestly, by the data, and understand they dont say anything about individuals, only populations on average.
13
Race is not a social construct, and race is real, but there is only one. Human race. The socially constructed racial categories are not scientific or consistent, and are necessary, but insufficient substitutes for the determination of biological and genetic race.
Socially constructed racial categories are necessary to define and maintain the perceptions of racial superiority, a racial hierarchy and actual racial advantage and disadvantage. This is where racism has meaning and power, and serves the very essential role of making racial differences and inequities seem reasonable and justifiable. “Race (socially constructed racial categories) is the child of racism, not the father.” Coates
If and when you examine the racial hierarchy, you will find the most rigid hold on racism located with the most privileged socially constructed racial category in the hierarchy. Racism still pays but who is the beneficiary?
2
There is a way to demonstrate for a science class the importance of life experience on the success of an organism. Years ago, my husband and I studied how to grow the largest pumpkin for our state fair. Of course, you must start with seeds from big pumpkins. But when you plant and how you feed it can make a huge difference in pumpkin size even though the seeds you start with are identical. Set it outside after the last frost but when it is still too cool and it will be a smaller plant and make smaller pumpkins no matter how much you water and fertilize it. Wait until days are routinely warm and you'll get bigger pumpkins. Similarly, forget to water so that it struggles for a while - ditto - you'll get smaller pumpkins. If you want to win, you must plant when conditions are right and water and fertilize reliably. Genetics are not everything--by a long shot. (And yes, my husband won the NM State Fair one year for the state's largest pumpkin--it wouldn't even fit in the case they usually used to hold the prize winner.)
12
Basic genetics were on NYS curriculum 50 years ago and thus, I’ve known for most of my life that genetics don’t determine individual ability. How appalling that kids today have not been taught this.
1
@Lawyermom Genetics don't determine individual ability? I don't see many short people in NBA
6
One hears of the excessive workload placed upon high school teachers. It is admirable that armed with a bachelor’s or occasionally a master’s degree, perhaps in a science other than biology, and possibly on top of coaching duties, these teachers have time to keep up with the latest post-doctoral research, to a point where they can tell students with complete confidence that the complex biochemistry of genetics and of the brain are beyond a doubt un-linked, and that changes such as those introduced by Einstein and Heisenberg to physics are relatively certain not to occur in biology.
Once they have been taught that group genotypes do not exist, students will be able to limit their preferences to actual phenotypes, such as size, strength, agility, intellect and beauty.
2
Yesterday I was listening to a program (NPR, of course) about the future of the human species. The geneticist who led the discussion described it in convincing detail. Two things he said were particularly useful here. First, we ALL emerged from a single gene pool of about 20,000 people. These humans migrated out of a single place we now call Africa. Second, the future of humankind will be a merge of genetically renewable parts, computer-assisted function, and heart/mind. The only truly original part will be the heart/mind - which is what all of us are in our essence, and is the only thing that makes us truly what we are.
1
I'm an 8th grade ELA teacher on the West side of Chicago, and Facing History has some beautiful resources for this. One lesson in particular has students reading 4 definitions of race from multiple lenses: literal, sociological, biological, and metaphoric/interpretive-bases-on-context. It's only one lesson, but they offer the best resources and I built it out into a unit about race. Last, please watch, "Race: The Power of Illusion" - it's a multi-ep Frontline documentary and I love it.
12
@Missy
You should never rhetorically introduce a subject to the young, it assumes what is yet to be proved to them; in this case that race is some sort of illusion. You are asking the question of non-scientists, a question that scientists cannot yet answer and it may be a century or two.
4
I was an evolutionary Anthropology major in college. I found it fascinating how the human genome changes and evolves in response to changes in the environment to help ensure survival. It is miraculous and true. Thank God we are all not alike, forever stuck with rigid genes that cannot cahnge and adapt. What a boring (human) race we would be and we would probably have gone extinct long ago. How sad facts about what lead to our glorious variety is perceived as "racist" in many circles. Unfortunately, what all human beings DO seem to have in common is the propensity to be overly defensive, reactionary and deeply tribal and narcissistic.
64
@Laura Philips
If all human beings have these propensities in common, then is it not clear that they must have survival value?
The thing that always puzzles me is why so many deplore what human beings actually are. Tigers are what they are, elephants are what they are. People? Somebody's always deciding what the should be, not what they are.
The world is a place of strife and conflict, and that's a good thing-- or at least it just is how it ever shall be. It's how I made my living.
11
@Laura Philips Yes. Not sure if "Biology Class" can reduce Racism -but certainly studying Human Evolution should be a wake up call for a lot of folks. After all, we all came out of Africa. Too Bad so many discount science.
14
@Questioning Everything
People can only follow science where science has reach clear conclusions, and that hadn’t happened with human race. Right now, even scientists are at the point of subjective opinion making, as if by analogy ‘all rocks at pretty much the same, so who needs geology?’ should be the assumption. But that’s just not the case. People just don’t understand the science yet.
2
I had a Professor, who was also a Rabbi.
His father was a Rabbi and his mother was the daughter of
a Rabbi, his grandfathers were Rabbis and his grandmothers fathers were Rabbis - this family 'trait" went back for at least 8 generations.
He had a fantastic memory for what he had read and heard.
He knew the Jewish and Christian scriptures in Hebrew/Greek
and Latin in addition to English, French and German by heart.
He knew the extant works of Plato and Aristotle in Greek and
English by heart.
I asked him why he had such a fantastic memory and he said
two things:
a) I had a deep and abiding interest in the subject matter.
b) Rabbis were expected to have the Scriptures memorized and so coming from a family where Rabbis were found on both sides could only have helped.
Genetics accounts for some differences among humans, and
where and when you grow up accounts for others, as for any other differences - who can say ?
What is odd among those deeply involved in the Nature/Nuture
debate is what would be their response if most players in the NBA were not "African - American" or if most of the fastest runners were " White " - how quickly would the charges of Racism be leveled ?
11
@John Brown
"He knew the extant works of Plato and Aristotle in Greek and English by heart."
Sounds impressive, but anybody can memorize extant works. It's the guy who knows the non-extant ones that gets my vote.
4
@Longue Carabine
Try to learn what he learned by heart.
It wasn't just simple memorization
his understanding was profound.
2
"what would be their response if most players in the NBA were not "African - American" or if most of the fastest runners were " White " - how quickly would the charges of Racism be leveled ?"
They would just find something else to latch onto.
2
East Asian Americans on average have better grades in school than whites, Hispanics or blacks. East Asian countries have been under the influence of Confucianism for over 2,000 years. Civil servants were selected based on their academic achievements. It's not totally crazy to hypothesize that these populations have been selected based on their academic abilities (i.e. academic ability translated to higher income positions, which enabled these individuals to have more offspring and the feedback loop continued for thousands of years).
9
The problem with this argument is that most people neither studied for nor passed the exams to get into the civil service that required this huge level of study. I think a better explanation is cultural. My friends from Korea describe going to formal studying and tutoring after school and not getting home until 11pm. My child is half Asian and many of his friends are Asian. The ones who do well in school have parents who push them hard. 2nd, 3rd, 4th generation Asian Americans don't necessarily do better in school cause at that point they're culturally American.
@Buckeye
People with high incomes tend to have fewer children than people with low incomes.
But the children of people with high incomes experience a healthier environment and better education and higher expectations from their parents.
So, if the very first Confucian civil servants had been selected at random, without regard to any academic achievement, future generations would still have ended up in positions like their parents.
Your reasoning is not "crazy", but it is *circular* reasoning, because you assumed that the first generation did better academically because of genetic characteristics.
Hope this helps.
@Buckeye
It is crazy. As there is no evidence to support such (racist) suppositions. The racist always seeks answers in genes (racism).
Very importantly, there is no science/evidence that supports the idea that behavior, scholastic achievement is tied to genes. (It is a dogma to think otherwise.) The appeal to genes is the racism of the 21st century.
Pretending genetic differences between populations don't exist is asinine. Individual humans have different genes and traits. When said humans reproduce over extended periods of time with other humans that share similar traits, of course races are going to have genes that are more dominant and prevalent than in other races. This article even acknowledges that in a "but it doesn't really matter" 2019 PC way. As this article also acknowledges, culture plays a big part as well. Culture correlates with race. The races have obvious differences. That doesn't mean any should be treated any differently than the other. Human beings all deserve respect and equal treatment. Acknowledge that differences exist instead of pretending we're all the same and we'll start getting somewhere.
63
@Tony
That says it all.
Hear! Hear!
5
@Tony
Why (politically, socially) categorize people along "ethnicity" at all? Let's just treat everyone as the individuals that they are.
3
There are more differences within a race than between the races. We just nurture some traits and expect some traits within racial groupings.
1
Capitalism is a better tool to reduce racism than biology classes. Racists are at an inherent disadvantage in a capitalistic society e.g. by not hiring qualified people from a certain race or not selling to them. A racist organization will increase its costs and reduce its revenue. These would be business opportunities for entrepreneurs to take advantage of. The fact that such opportunities for the most part don't exist suggests American society and American economy, by and large, are not racist.
8
You discount 400 years of oppression. You also act as if we all start from an equal playing field.
Everyone can participate in sports, and continue that participation based on talent.
Everywhere else, there is a weeding process where people are weeded out based on subjective attributes as much as objective ones.
If you goal is to teach "against the unfounded genetic rationales for human difference that become the basis for racial intolerance", the best thing you can do is have kids spend time around other kids from the same class but different races, then spend time with kids from the same race, but drastically different races. American kids will quickly discover that they have far more in common with kids from the same class but different races than they do with kids from the same race but different class. Of course this will also debunk the utter nonsense that "racism has produced profoundly different environments for black and white Americans."
9
"Race, a social concept bound up in culture and family, . . . "
Er . . . It's exactly this woke fantasy which makes progress impossible. Clearly there are genetic differences which is why (for example) some groups have distinct health issues. Some groups are also better at some sports - for example, Polynesians have great success in Rugby but are generally not built for basketball. Some groups from opposite ends of the Earth look quite different in case you hadn't noticed.
Preventing discrimination (positive and negative) on the basis of race is the challenge. Ensuring equal opportunity for all is the imperative. Petending there is no such thing as race is absurd.
49
There is no such thing as race as a biological concept because what set of genes and traits are you going to say comprise race? Populations across Africa have greater genetic diversity than across the entire human population outside Africa but all African Americans who came from different parts of Africa are all put in the same race in this country. As the article says, biologists talk about populations, not races because race is a cultural concept, not a biological one. I took a Biological-Anthropology class in college in the early 80s and they taught this very concept then so this is not new understanding. It's just new to most people.
3
You may be referring to ethnicity. Race is a social construct.
@Mark
There is no such thing as race because humans from everywhere can procreate -- one race, one people, one civilization.
It’s just good teaching.
Tell the truth-best we can tell... then wait for questions... then wait longer -perhaps a lifetime - for answers that will undoubtedly change.
1
Hopefully they expand to examine gender similarly. There are still teachers, even science teachers, teaching gender (not biological sex, gender) as genetic.
1
Anthropology is far more nuanced than biology at addressing the concept of race because of its interdisciplinary & holistic approach. Studying“race” from both a cultural & a biological perspective — that is, combining cultural & biological anthropology — provides students with the intellectual tools to assess the concept critically. Unfortunately anthropology tends not to be taught at the high school level, and even in college many students are not exposed to it.
57
Biology is far superior to any other discipline in understanding race. Biology has been on the record for decades with the knowledge that there is no genetic basis for dividing humans into race categories. Along with epigenetics, evolutionary psychology, and evolution- no other discipline come close.
5
@Ann P Maclean
On the contrary, if genetic biology cannot answer the simple question, ‘how did modern dna evolve from more primitive dna in Europe, or in Africa, or in Asia?’, then it is not well equipped to tell us how much racial genetic differences matter in the human species as a whole. In archeology, the differences between less advanced to more advanced human is partly in fact measured in technology’s advancement, and this advancement must somehow correlate to the evolution of the brain. But that puzzle is not solved and may not be in our lifetimes. Therefore, biology cannot possibly answer questions about race similarity since gaps in the archeological record are large on any continent, and the brain’s evolution is not that well understood. Genetic data has its limited usefulness.
3
@Lisa Valkenier On the contrary, the scope of anthropology should focus sharply on past culture and archeological evidence, and not attempt to draw conclusions where it cannot ‘see’. Further, as a matter of logic, one reconstructed archaic genetic pinpoint on a map or another is simply not comprehensive enough data to draw major conclusions from regarding human race evolution, particularly when sparse statistical evidence is the only tool available to use for analysis.
Maybe it is in this quagmire of illogic that bias regarding race is getting in the debate, and then spreading into confusion out in society at large.
2
There are a number of popular abstractions that lack a generally accepted operational definition yet are (ab)used commonly.
One of my favorites is "health".
That doesn't mean that an operational definition is impossible, though.
But, at this point, lacking one, we get confusion and contention from the (mis)use of such terms.
Again, using the example of "health", we get all kinds of services and products which promise or imply that they will make or improve health.
Such as health insurance, healthy foods and of course "health care".
Stephen Rinsler, MD
(disease care "provider")
4
The whole concept of "race" is distracting and pointless. Are there groups of populations that are distinct from each other with respect to phenotypic and genotypic groupings, or not? If so, what are those populations, and what are those differences?
I understand that "race is a social construct," but surely there are definitely differences between groups of people, roughly defined on ethnic and geography-of-origin boundaries.
13
@MG
Why focus on these superficial, (socially, politically) irrelevant differences?
“Race” is something most Americans genuinely believe exists. Remember when Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, in Jacobellis v Ohio (a First Amendment obscenity case), 378 US 184 (1964) famously wrote, “I know it when I see it”? Biological anthropologists wisely steer clear of any scientifically based, objective definition of race, with good reason. “Race” exists only in the mind of the beholder. It cannot be denied that *racism* exists; race, however, does not.
2
Justice Stewart was referring to pornography. what place does his phrase have here?
5
@rlschles
Sorry if the analogy wasn’t made explicit enough. Justice Stewart was convinced that, as long as *he* was capable of recognizing pornography (which met *his* definitional criteria), ipso facto, it existed, in some objective sense. Most Americans, I believe, employ similarly faulty logic. A four year old can (honestly) believe that The Easter Bunny exists; s/he may even have seen it (at a shopping mall, or on a TV advertisement). That doesn’t make it REAL. Critical thinking makes demands on us, but that shouldn’t excuse us from seeking to meet them.
1
Thoughtful idea. Should be implemented.
I believe it is a good thing that biology teachers are making the effort to address racism. But if it is going to be successful don't they have also to explain why certain disease like sickle cell disease is more common among certain ethnic groups?
I have also heard that if anthropology is taught in school it may reduce racism and would like some comment on that.
5
GREAT animated, clever-and-captivating illustration sequence by David McLeod!
3
Racism is a mental disorder where a group feels superior to another group based on such things as color of the skin. The group that feels superior feels entitled to everything and feels that others are not deserving of anything. They command attention, material wealth and social standing based on their skill pigmentation. The group on the receiving end of racism understands that the group afflicted does become violent if confronted with their disorder, so they stay quiet and let them do whatever abuses they want to commit such as bombing churches, and police unarmed individuals on their backs. Of course, the abuse may become so oppressive that those who are oppressed may revel as it was the case with Gandhi in India, or Martin Luther King or the end of slavery in the Americas. MDS III needs to include racism as a psychiatric disorder and provide recommendations for treatment.
6
Is there evidence that these genetic rationales are "unfounded"? Is a genetic rationale for the fact that champion marathoners are mostly East African while champion sprinters are mostly West African (or of West African ancestry) "unfounded"? How do you know? They may be unfounded, but do you have evidence for that?
Denying obvious but discomforting facts is like denying the fact of global warming. It only exposes you, and science if you claim that denial is based on science, to ridicule.
41
East Africa lacks jungle and vegetation. This is good for long distance running. West Africa is full of jungle and vegetation. This is good for developing sprinters but not long distance running.
@Jonathan Katz
This is a famous but unfortunately very simplistic way of looking at this subject.
@Frank Might race be an extension of closer relations in blood of people to the old monarchial states, expanding monarchs to also include all rulers & their blood lines. As many, in olden days, suggested that pharaohs were descended from gods and even the thoughts of most, if not all, religions. Extending that, the closer you were related to a god or monarch, the less toil you had to do and endure. That seems to me to resolve race.
On the other hand, I look at the influence of culture or dominant figures in the subcultures to drive the output of abilities of that population. This is the only thing that explains to me the dominance that Kenyans have on the top tiers of marathon racers. The racers of other groups do not come near them, not even other Africans from neighboring countries. Football & basketball are the holy grails in many if not most predominately black neighborhoods. Those 2 are the "be-all" as well as the "end-alls" in the subculture. It also provides the ones most likely to father the next generations with the best received females of the group. I am using closely defined terms here, "best received" being colloquial for what that subcultures deems most desired in a woman.
Different cultures & even coexisting close subcultures often have such starkly different value systems that they might well be on different continents though they are/may be next door neighbors.
With race being so divisive now in all world places, anything that tries to repair this is OK.
3
This is what anthropology does well. Sadly, anthropology is not taught in elementary or high school, nor normally is it prominent in the portfolios of K-12 teachers. From Anthro 101 through graduate studies, these questions are confronted head-on, within the historical context of human ethnocentrism, colonialism & enslavement, and various pseudo-scientific rationales for these institutions, as well as drawing on contemporary studies in genetics, biochemistry, socio-economics, et al.
Does your middle or high school really want students to confront & query these issues? Hire an anthropologist well-grounded in the "four-fields" approach, both to teach students and hold workshops with teachers who managed to get BAs & teaching certificates without this crucial background.
4
I am transfixed by the illustration. What is it?
5
Racism is not actually based on race, it is rooted in culture.
People can be the same race and still look down on each other based on tribal cultural groups.
To study race as a thing that separates people is actually meaningless.
It is all culture groups in the end.
66
@Jane racism in the United States is based on white supremacy just get that straight please so we are clear about our own culture.
13
@Jane Okay. In the United States, it's based on race. Did you want to point out any other irrelevant distractions?
5
@sedanchair "Irrelevant distractions"?
"Where you stand often depends on where you sit." Understanding how people are differently situated due to white supremacy belief makes a big difference in one's ability to empathize and work to remove inequities for people of color.
2
The theoretical efficacy of such scholastic efforts as are here suggested nothwithstanding, I believe that a much more primary corrective effect on our persistent racial biases would be to take necessary action to level the playing field for all students so that the once highly-vaunted opportunity in this country for educational advancement no matter what social or economic class persons find themselves born into could be realized.
The presently increasing differential between the entitled wealthy and the marginalized lower classes is arguably a more primary issue to be addressed, so that high-quality education can be accessible to everyone, no matter what their financial status.
What good is education if the student hasn't a stable financial, familial and social environment to form a foundation upon which they can steady themselves to concentrate on the schooling that is proposed in this article?
Considering the above, I believe that this article is putting the cart before the horse. The upper-class remains the upper class because their children are more likely to go to the best schools as their parents went to the best schools, and racism persists because attitudes persist.
We must address the fragmentation of our society, and ideas alone will not suffice.
4
Why is it racist to say that certain people are better at sprinting or long distance running than others? It seems that blacks who come from the Caribbean or border the Gulf of Mexico (Florida, Texas, etc.) are best at sprinting and African highlanders (Ethiopians, Kenyans) are best at long distance running.
What other possible explanations besides genetics are there? There are other peoples who live in the Caribbean but they are terrible sprinters. There are many peoples who live at high altitudes, but for the most part, they never develop into top marathon runners.
I don't see how training or the will to become a great athlete will make you a great sprinter, or a great marathoner.
This is what confuses people: they see something obvious such as all Olympic sprinters being black and they draw the conclusion that the reason is because of genetics and then the scientific establishment, says, no, wait a minute, don't draw such a conclusion.
Blacks are the best sprinters, so what?
I don't however, apply the same thinking about intelligence. I don't know (and neither do scientists) what contributes the most to intelligence.
The reason this all becomes a sensitive issue is because society does not give all workers dignity in a capitalist system. If all workers received fair wages and everyone, regardless of their intelligence level, had dignity and didn't have to worry about whether they can make it, we wouldn't care if environment or genes determined intelligence.
5
I think such a course should be mandatory in the U.S. given the extreme level of rasicm in your history.
3
@Bis K
Thanks for the advice! How are the Aboriginal groups making out these days?
1
And Australian treatment of aborigines?
Race does not exist. Sorry to rehash an old issue, but the NYT has clearly settled this. It's a wonder why it even enters the popular discussion these days. Do people no longer listen to the scientists?
"As it turns out, scientists say, the human species is so evolutionarily young, and its migratory patterns so wide, restless and rococo, that it has simply not had a chance to divide itself into separate biological groups or ''races'' in any but the most superficial ways."
''Race is a social concept, not a scientific one,'' said Dr. J. Craig Venter.
https://www.nytimes.com/2000/08/22/science/do-races-differ-not-really-genes-show.html
2
@dad
"Race does not exist.
''Race is a social concept . . .
And the implication is . . . ?
3
@dad
That’s nonsense. ‘Race does not exist’ is what scientists declare when there is not yet enough data to be able to answer questions intelligently about the topic. We have a serious bias problem in the media and in some science circles, especially anthropology, from my estimation, that is the reverse of what previously existed, with regards to the fact of the mere existence of race. It’s apparently upsetting to some that races exist.
But, evidence to the contrary has been accumulating right along. For example, it has been recently shown that blood transfusions for weak patients go best when donor/recipient races match. And the ‘twins paradox’, where one biracial twin looks more one race than the other, could possibly be best explained through sub-species resiliency, where the cellular reproduction phase of human development shows genetic or epigenetic tendency to either one race or the other at the level of cells.
1
@Eric
The implication is that social concepts do not exist, because they aren't 'science'. Does no one listen to the scientists anymore these days?
As a high school teacher, I’ve found myself having to say, “So what’s the alternative, then? Dodge the challenge of some questions? Ignore social factors? Perhaps blame individuals, while also preaching a message of inclusion and equality and not completely dismissing the role of genetics? I prefer the choice presented here, even though it can in fact be scary and psychologically combustible for some. If done right, having the conversation is always better for everyone.
44
" both understand that the differences between the DNA in any two people make up about one-tenth of 1 percent of their genome."
Given that the percent difference in DNA between humans and chimpanzees is only 1.2%, and that humans and worms share 70% of our DNA (look it up) statements like this are really meaningless.
As a commenter below (who participated in the course) pointed out, this was a very science-light course.
32
@JerseyGirl - Thank you for pointing this out. Considering there are countless diseases (e.g. sickle cell) caused by a single point mutation, when people pull out the old percentage trope it only reveals their ignorance of biology.
15
@JerseyGirl
1.2% is 12X 0.1% so even the most different human from you is only 1/12 of the way from you to a chimp. How reassuring.
Having forgotten much over the decades, I glanced at a Wiki page on the genome.
It is thought (for the moment) that there are about 25,000 genes. Thus a trait influenced by 1000 genes is influenced by only 4% of them.
But then there are over 3 BILLION nucleotide pairs, and those 25,000 genes (the ones that code for protein) use up only 1% or so of the 3B, so who knows what the other 99% are up to?
How does Ancestry.com sequence 3B nucleotide pairs for $69, anyway? (Yes, presumably they hit the "highlights," and Venter spent a bit more.)
I'm cherry-picking, but it's sobering to think that in the epistemology of the education establishment a field so clearly in its infancy can be presented as a done deal.
Which I think was your point.
3
About time!
1
I just wanna know about the hypnotic animation at the top of this article.
42
@Andrea
I think it's supposed to represent the editors' view of the topic, and to signify that anyone who sees it differently is anemone.
2
“If I was a student asking about race and my teacher said, ‘Race is a social construct, we’re not going to talk about it in science class,’ well — that’s not an explanation of what students are observing in their world,” Ms. Reeves-Pepin said" LOL sorry, that ship has sailed. -TDP He/him
4
Nature? Nurture? Socialization? Urbanization? Parents, Grandparents, friends, classmates, teachers? Where one lives? Genealogy? Rome in 500BC has Etruscans living there. By 300BC there were roads and aqueducts. Which meant construction and those who worked in it. Fast forward to the renaissance and Da Vinci painter, inventor and Michelangelo sculptor, painter. Fast forward to the 20th century and an Italian grandfather from the Campagna, is a construction worker, sculptor, inventor. His granddaughter, can construct items, fashion clothes (Mother), trained to dance (Father a musician), loves learning about words and languages and history (college education). This person's antecedents include Caucasians from Georgia, Yakuts a Turkic people, Basque, Sephardic and Ashkenazic Jews, and Mediterranean people. Nature? Nurture? Which ethnic group? Every person wants to point to some group/groups with pride. Some way of living in this world that reaches back into human history, past and gives us our history, present. It is our human-ness which may need to evolve more to accept differences as only that. We are not others but another. All members of the human species with interesting differences. And maybe there is a overrepresentation in football, baseball, basketball of African-Americans because they have ability, skill, interest, and those sports can make them money.
5
As Asian, I would say some "history culture" may have influence on studying. If you are poor and want to change your life, study hard (no matter you like curriculum or not) and you may have a better future. This common sense is still surrounded and popular in many Asian countries.
This kind of "culture" lasts for at least 500 years in China. The ranking of government officials (the only exception is King) are initially determined by "score" of entrance examinations in Chinese history.
I think this is part of evidence how environments have an influence on race in terms of capability of study.
6
Instead of basing discussions about "race" on the familiar black/white divide, curriculums might more usefully study non-European "races" where genetic differences are not so easily mapped onto socio-economic outcomes. So, for example, what are the biological differences between, say, Chinese (Han) people and South Asians. In fact, just studying the huge spectrum of phenotypes that encompass South Asia is deeply instructive. Someone of Punjabi ancestry looks very, very different from someone of Sri Lankan/Sinhala ancestry. And no one can claim that these differences can in any way be mapped onto socio-economic outcomes.
5
@TexasBrown , actually, when these groups are transplanted into the shared environment, there are statistically significant differences in the academic achievement of their American born children. High caste Indians, Han Chinese, and Koreans come out well above southeast Asian groups. Those differences in academic ability then lead to economic differences in later life.
6
I wove this topic into a unit on the integumentary system (skin) with my dual enrollment biology class this year. Thanks to their curiosity and intellectual engagement, it was the most rewarding biology unit I've ever taught. And really, the lesson is this: from a genetics perspective, there is no such thing as race. But as my students can attest, there is definitely such as thing as racism. They experience it on a daily basis.
10
Until there is real research involving physically measurable brainwaves and connections, we simply don’t know enough about how to measure intelligence.
It is irresponsible to teach nature against nurture on strictly observational basis. Children should learn science not far fetched theories.
2
You know plenty without “brain waves. “
A dog is more intelligent than a salamander but less intelligent than a chimpanzee. You don’t need to measure their “brain waves. “
Some of your friends are more intelligent than others (of whatever race). As you well know.
I consult with neurologists every day. None of them have ever correlated “brain waves “ to intelligence.
10
@Marian
And exactly how do you define intelligence? Answer? You can't.
The same behaviour, action, comment or conclusion might be very intelligent in one context and extremely unintelligent in another.
King Solomon's decision about dividing the baby equally between the two putative mothers comes to mind.
A class about the brain and association can reduce racism.
Functional MRIs (fMRIs) have proven the "common sense" reason for things like racism and sexism.
Take words. When you see the use of the term "black" or "dark" it has to do with what's bad. "White" or "light" or "bright" tells of everything that's good.
And we need a biology class to reduce racism?
No. We need to understand that the brain engages in association.
Or, to prove my point without the fMRI, just open your dictionary and look up terms like "dark" and "bright"; "black" and "white".
The choice of meaning will help you understand racism.
For example, I have Epilepsy. The average person who knows little about this neurological condition would assume that when someone has a seizure he or she will definitely lose all of their neurological control, hence they'll definitely lose total consciousness, hence falling, unable to breathe etc.
But that's because of their neurological association with Epilepsy versus facts.
It's the same with how someone dresses. A suite leaves many with the sense that that person definitely is a good person.
But is he, or she, always good?
Research the brain and association. Take a look at the results of functional MRIs as images and terms are seen and heard.
Racism is learnt behavior, complements of "neurological association" and "ignorance".
2
@Nigel
The reason dark shows up as bad in languages is that night is dark and you can't see in it, which makes it dangerous. Miscreants also can hide in the dark.
Light and bright are good because you can see things. They are not hidden.
Pretty straightforward, not ominous in intent.
2
Theses 2 sentences:"But that has not stopped many Americans from believing that genes cause racial groups to have distinct skills, traits and abilities. And among some biology teachers, there has been a growing sense that avoiding any direct mention of race in their genetics curriculum may be backfiring.: illustrate the errors in language. Race is used twice I stead of ETHNICITY. The first step needs to be that media needs to follow the science, and emphasize there is only ONE human race. Differences in appearance are ETHNICITY. Differences in actions are due to environment of the region, not due to ETHNICITY. This article should be edited to follow the science, not the prejudices of ignorance.
5
I have lived in this country for well over 50 years. I have come to the conclusion that the USA is more a color conscious country than a race conscious. Just like the country where I was born.
5
Aren't we over-thinking this a bit too much? Why not teach students that certain genetic traits such as skin color, the relative curliness of hair, the shape of eyelids, etc. are inherited through sexual reproduction but that behavioral qualities such as proficiency at certain physical activities or academic disciplines depend on any one individual's environment? Do educators truly believe students are not capable of grasping this distinction?
Gregor Mendel's peas make no conscious decision regarding their shape, size, or amount of wrinkles, and you can't teach a pea to dance. I think students can grasp this.
1
@Jose Pieste
A strong genetic factor in IQ? Says who?
I think you are confusing genetics with learnt behavior.
@Nigel
"These days the heritability of intelligence is not in doubt: Bright adults are more likely to have bright kids. The debate was not always this calm. In the 1970s, suggesting that IQ could be inherited at all was a heresy in academia, punishable by the equivalent of burning at the stake."
14
@Jose Pieste
"no behavior-geneticist who values his or her hide will touch that question with a 10 foot pole"
One of the main reasons we have so many disastrous public policies: taboos.
4
To begin with, there is NO Afican race. The genetic difference between whites and Ethiopians is basically zero. That is because it is the Ethiopians who settled Europe and in the process loss their dark skin. How much melanin they lost depends on the latitude of the final settlement with quite a nice gradient from Ethiopia to Lapland. However, white skin or black skin all Caucasians ARE Ethiopians.
There are differences between Ethiopians (whites) and the other African tribes. But we are ALL Africans. We all come from the same continent and we ALL belong to the same African race.
2
@Tony Mendoza
23&me can tell the difference
6
@Tony Mendoza this is incorrect. There is a vast amount of genetic variability between people in East African and much less so than among Caucasian’s because of the founder effect. And there is no proof that the first people out of Africa for Ethiopians. Plus people crossed back and forth multiple times and there were several exoduses.
5
It’s safe to say that I haven’t been in a grade-school biology class in quite some time, so my views may have been made obsolete by any biological truths which may have come to be understood differently. Mnemonic devices still work fine, though.
Kings Play Cards On Fat Green Stools. Nowhere, among any taxonomical nomenclature, does the word ‘race’ appear, in any way which humanity has used except as a purely fabricated construct of societal engineering.
We are one species, and it’s ‘H. s. sapiens’, ostensibly because we waste too much time thinking about mindless nonsense.
1
""I am worried that well-meaning people who deny the possibility of substantial biological differences among human populations are digging themselves into an indefensible position, one that will not survive the onslaught of science."
––David Reich in NYT, May 2018
45
@David
The Times it is a changin'
a lot, and in a short time.
2
It’s culture, not genes.
There are cultures that emphasize and promote education and intellectual curiosity.
There are cultures that emphasize delayed gratification.
There are cultures that promote saving over spending.
It’s the culture, stupid.
6
Cultures to a significant extent are determined by biology.
Not absolutely but significantly.
11
@G
There is a discrepancy between expert knowledge and conventional views . . . because IQ can be an uncomfortable topic in a liberal democracy. The reality of innate differences between individuals and groups is often difficult to accept for those with an aversion to inequality. . . . journalists and academics in other fields are naturally attracted to scholars who downplay the role of genes in determining IQ, even if these scholars are a distinct minority." From Doctor Richwine's thesis.
10
I am a college freshman who participated in this study as a high school senior last year. Dr. Donovan and his team came to my high school and helped teach us the curriculum from this study.
I had mixed feelings after I completed the study. On the positive side, I broke down some important misconceptions I had about "race". For example, I was unaware of how genetically similar humans were prior to the study.
However, I was not a fan of the curriculum. First, I felt that the curriculum was painfully long and drawn-out for a second-year, AP/IB senior-level biology course. The entire process took about 1-3 months; in reality, I felt that simply being lectured about the topics in 1-2 days would have been plenty sufficient. It's not like we were taking DNA tests to prove the stated learning outcomes of the curriculum nor were we reading peer-reviewed scientific papers; we were often given large packets that described different claims made by fictional students about race and genetics and asked to evaluate the fictional student's claim by making diagrams with squares, triangles, and Venn diagrams. In the end, we had a class discussion about the right answers and claims without much discussion about the evidence (as in specific scientific papers). I was not skeptical of the correct claims, but I felt that the "learning outcomes" of each lesson were meant to help us answer the survey better the next time we took it – not necessarily change the fundamental beliefs in the skeptical.
150
You are a “really” insightful 18yo. Seem to know study weaknesses and limitations as well as folk with many years of graduate study. Good for you :)
26
@Freshman I agree that your concerns are valid. I point out:
1. This is a first cut at a program. But I think you get that; they should thank you for your input, and hopefully participants had a chance to provide such officially.
2. A long term, true educational program would not be evaluated by one survey, so that situation is probably because of the unique situation and (I hope) not representative of how things would be if this kind of thing was adopted as an integral part of high school education.
3. Some of this stuff needs to get into kids' heads at an earlier age, to truly combat the garbage so many have absorbed by the time they get into high school, when such views sink into the subconscious and are so much harder to change because one doesn't even realize one has them. We'd probably need to include parents in the education, too, or a lot will be undone outside the classroom.
15
@Barry Williams Yup, I totally agree with what you said. I didn't have enough room in my previous comment to write it, but I wanted to add that Dr. Donovan asked us for constructive feedback at the end of the study.
If the curriculum is improved – to tailor it to the correct level of student that it is targeting – and is widely-applied, I think Dr. Donovan's effort will see a long-term attitude shift in Americans toward race and hopefully break down racial prejudices.
26
Just looked at that wonderful water creature but please leave it alone let it and for G-d sake don’t identify politic nature.
James Watson won the Nobel Prize for discovering the 3D structure of DNA, a prize that he shared with Francis Crick. You'd think that that would make him on of the great scholars of the 20th Century. And he was, for biophysics.
Unfortunately, Watson suffered from the Dunning-Kruger Effect, believing that being an expert in biophysics made him an expert in subjects like the genetic basis of intelligence. He used data from IQ tests to draw the racist conclusion that genetics made African Americans less intelligent than other races. Watson knew nothing about the fact that intelligence is affected by multiple genes, by early childhood experiences and brain development or the severe limitations of the IQ test. William Shockley, who got the Nobel Prize for inventing the transistor, had a similarly misguided theory of racial intelligence.
Do genetics affect racial differences? As a scientist, I can say almost certainly that they do. But, unlike Watson and Shockley, I know that there are very few examples where this is understood.
If Nobel Prize winners can't get this right, I have no confidence that middle and high school science teachers will do much better.
6
I WANT that for my screen saver!
20
The warning to students that this course of study would likely make some uncomfortable tells more a story than test tubes, petri dishes, and microscopes ever could. That's socialization and psychology, the latter getting little, if any, mention.
Two hundred-thousand years in our current form with a developed consciousness of both our mortality and the magnificence of the cosmos, and we still can't beyond the animalistic fears of me vs. you.
And now that we've mandated our own extinction, it doesn't seem very likely this even matters much anymore, does it?
Environmental Biology, anybody?
7
The problem is that especially in America, we can not have an honest, open, and objective conversation about genetics and race. And until we do, there will be confusion, intolerance, and debate.
Even this article can't be honest. Race is certainly more than culture and family. A Caucasian child raised in a black household will be different, and vice versa. But "race" itself IS a social and political construct used to divide people. Some people even think Jews are a different "race."
But certainly there are visual aspects to different "races" and it only stands to reason that the differences aren't just skin deep. The problem is that those differences SHOULD be meaningless. Different people have different abilities, even within races. Forcing people to pretend otherwise just generates friction.
As cultures globalize, the human genome with homogenize to a certain extent, and will happen no matter how fiercely racists fight against it. It is well too late to put that genie back in the bottle, and will just make the visual differences between us that much less distinct.
11
@BillG
In America, we can not have an honest, open, and objective conversation about most issues.
4
Animals and plants are genetically altered and bred to emphasize certain traits and it works. Humans are no different. Two tall parents are likely to have tall kids. It also applies to intelligence and many other characteristics.
41
@Aaron Adams
Sure, but does that apply to an entire race?
2
Amy Harmon's timely question has one serious flaw, in my humblest opinion, to wit: Students who study biology seem to me to represent a level of student ability that stands a cut or two above people who cannot master biology's basic tenets. I have noticed that people who cannot master biology are the ones who claim that natural selection, for instance, could never ever possibly explain something as sophisticated as human vision let alone the human eye. In short, because they cannot fathom biology, they deny its teachings. Those who deny biology's basic truisms will likely be the ones who will never reach the plateau of giving up racist ideologies.
Let's face it: They cannot think, cannot learn cannot put themselves in someone else's shoes.
Thank you though for trying . . .
2
@tomclaire
I have always felt that if humans were "designed" it could have not been by a very "intelligent" designer. As a bi-pedal organism why do we have a skeletal structure designed for quadripedal locomotion? Why would we be designed to have offspring that cannot survive on their own until almost 15 years have passed, if then, when most mammals are free from parenting in one year? the list of design flaws is endless
Confession: I have just had a double knee replacement because the human knee is simply not designed to go up and down mountains for decades, no matter how enjoyable that activity is.
Of course the race does not determine one's intelligence. However, there is no question that it determines the probability that one will exhibit certain traits, including body type, intelligence, propensity for violence, gender dysphoria, excellence at sports, mental illness and susceptibility to diseases and environmental toxins. The geneticists have learned to keep their heads down in order to keep their jobs and health benefits - inheritability of traits is the essence of both darwinism and lamarckianism (epigenetics). By denying it, social scientists have created the very monster they had been running away from.
47
@Kai -Thank you for stating this. It seems that the article and this program are just parroting the same “Blank Slate” argument that plagues the humanities.
13
@Kai
Larmarckism (Lamarckian inheritance) is not the same as epigenetics. Lamarckism suggests that the characteristics acquired by an organism are passed on to its offspring (i.e., the example of the giraffe stretching its neck so that subsequent offspring have longer necks). Epigenetics describes chemical modifications of an organism's DNA - but not changes to the DNA sequence (ACGT....) itself. See research papers that discuss the effects of famine in Overkalix, Sweden.
9
By far the most intellectually honest public description of this topic and the path forward that I have ever seen is David Reich’s article from March 23rd, 2018 published in the NYT. That article summarized the reality of the current situation more concisely and morally than any other article I have seen before or since.
26
Is this article actually suggesting that genes have nothing to do with a person’s racial characteristics, such as skin color, or with physical or mental talents? And is race now entirely a function of culture with genetics taking no part in it? Wow. A science denier in our midsts. And how can one write an article on this subject without mentioning Hernnstein and Murray’s controversial book “The Bell Curve”? Like it or not, very little is fully settled on this controversy, however the Times wishes to believe otherwise.
49
@Bob Kohn - the article isn’t actually saying that at all. Frankly, I’m not sure how you came to that conclusion, other than skimming it and glancing only at certain things, such as what one of the incorrect imaginary students in the curriculum initially thought. Please do read it again before walking away with the conclusion that this is what the program is teaching.
Yes, let's add race to teaching genetics in schools. Make it ever so nuanced and aimed at achieving social change.
Meanwhile, in China, kids will be learning how to use CRISPR to improve cell lines including, ultimately, IQ.
23
@Rickon
China currently added to its school curriculum and corporate mandates measures intended to address gender inequality, which they view as pervasive and problematic in their culture.
People can walk and chew gum at the same time. I have a BS in chemical engineering, but am interested in discussing and addressing the issues of race that plague this country.
5
@freeform
So you claim that China added unspecified mandates related to gender. Were they added to its biology curriculum? In what way? What about race? The article is about race.
Your personal interest "in addressing the issues of race that plague this country" is arguably not a proper factor to consider when it comes to teaching children genetics in particular. You seem to assume it is, for some reason.
2
@Rickon
We have ideological biases that say, 'Well, this could be troubling, we shouldn’t be meddling with nature, we shouldn’t be meddling with God.' I just attended a debate in New York a few weeks ago about whether or not we should outlaw genetic engineering in babies and the audience was pretty split. In China, 95 percent of an audience would say, 'Obviously you should make babies genetically healthier, happier, and brighter!' There’s a big cultural difference."
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/05/29/wake-controversy-over-harvard-dissertation-race-and-iq-scrutiny-michigan-state
5
The problem is this black and white thinking (no pun intended) that race discussions belong to Biology or Social Sciences. The answer is both, and neither. I think teachers can integrate curriculums so students can spend a few weeks discussing race in both disciplines. The teachers could even lesson plan together. Why do I think this will work? I'm a Clinician in a facility for substance abuse and mental health. In the same day I run small classes on relapse prevention, and managing psychotropic medications and side-effects. Then I pass medications in the evening.
29
Tremendous graphic accompanying this article. It illustrates the complexity involved in developing the traits that make us who we are.
7
This article gives a very misleading picture of current understanding of the genetics of intelligence. In fact, many decades of detailed studies have lead to the conclusion that adult intelligence is one of the most strongly genetically determined human traits, with a heritability of around 80%.
Intelligence does involve a large number of genes, each of small effect, like many traits, but that does not mean that it is not largely genetically determined.
I should add that height, like intelligence, is also very strongly genetically determined, contrary to the impression given.
I write as a retired molecular geneticist from the Australian National University who has followed the literature in this area for many years.
102
@Dr Hugh D Campbell
Height is a number. Ref. intelligence: are you referring solely to IQ? Howard Gardner described a variety of types of intelligence, which most teachers today are familiar with. I teach biology, and a couple of weeks ago, one of my young students handed in homework, which was done fairly well. But when I turned the sheet over, I came upon an unbelievably beautiful rendering of a face which he had drawn. The drawing was utterly unique, and in its way told me a lot about that student that I had never noticed. He has an artistic intelligence that far surpasses mine (and yes, my academic route was riddled with high standardized test scores)....
6
@MsHickory
Height is indeed a number, although it changes with age. Intelligence, whether we are talking about IQ, or the underlying general cognitive factor 'g', is also a number. Research has revealed that these numbers show strong correlations with many different human abilities and outcomes. That is a fact.
It is true that Howard Gardner's theory of multiple intelligence proposed in his 1983 book retains some popularity in educational circles. However, it has not stood up to detailed scientific scrutiny: it predicts that different aspects of intelligence will not show a high degree of correlation, which they indeed do. In the intelligence research community, the theory is regarded as debunked.
For a reasonably up-to-date review of some features of modern intelligence science, I recommend the excellent review written by the American psychologist and geneticist Robert Plomin and the Scottish psychologist Ian Deary. Both are leaders in this field.
https://www.nature.com/articles/mp2014105
26
@earthling
Or, you might realize that Dr Hugh D Campbell was reacting to the failure of the article to clearly cite what is fairly well established with regard to heritability of intelligence, height and other characteristics.
13
On another note, I’m mesmerized by that colorful moving blob associated with this article. I. Am. Sooooo.......
11
There is only one human race in the most accepted scientific or other sense, but there are groups of people who differ from each other in some ways. The most noticeable one is that they have lighter or darker skin than other groups. Whether to call these differing groups "races" and to create and enforce different social rules or even separate societies based on these differences is very much not a scientific decision but a cultural one as commonly understood. The question of how the NBA and NFL grew to have predominately people with African ancestry is an interesting and difficult question, but most likely a major factor is white racism.
21
@31today - Actually scientifically biologically speaking, humans are not a race. They are a species.
13
@31today So you are blaming "white racism" on the fact that there are more talented basketball players in the US who are black? Players who are paid well, love the sport, and CHOOSE to play it? What about the many talented white people who do not make the team? DO they cry racism? No. Because they understand that, for whatever reason, some of their black brothers are simply better players. The attitude of @31today is exactly what is casing the backlash that brought us the nightmare of Trump. Many whites are just fed up with unfair and unfounded cries of racism leveled against them.
18
@Jose Pieste
Without the race based slave economy of 17th - mid 19th Century America, there would not have been the pool of people of African ancestry living in the United States to supply all the athletes currently competing in these sports. So racism is a pretty obvious conclusion. I wonder if there would even have been an NBA or NFL without slavery?
2
I would have liked to hear more about David McLeod's amazing computer graphics. What exactly are they supposed to represent? To my view they are not exactly on point to this article. The threads of colors never blend, they stay separate, even though they are eventually subsumed in the roiling mass. When they burst out again they're still separate. If the color groups indicate the biological differences of racial groups, shouldn't they eventually mix to form one color?
7
Sounds like "a science education researcher" (as opposed to an actual biologist) is inserting social studies into a science curriculum.
Scientists interested in studying the effects of genetics on human populations are putting their careers at risk. For society's sake, maybe that's how it should remain; but let us not pretend that social studies are genetics.
12
The problem is that people use genetics all the time to reinforce societal ideas about race. That is the fallacy that needs to be taught.....which is the point of the article.
6
We are plagued by not biological racism but cultural racism.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_racism
4
This is a bad idea and will backfire.
Just think, how many students actually accurately grasp the concepts taught in their biology classes? What's the curve, how many get As, Bs, Cs, Ds, and Fs? The majority won't be As and Bs, thats for sure. Sadly many will misunderstand and will only take away, incorrectly, that there is some relationship between biology and "race" (even though it is a fiction), when in fact there is not. Many will use this as a justification for false prejudices and stereotypes.
Just look how many false theories are peddled, and accepted by the masses, despite accurate information being out there. Many people simply don't, or can't, differentiate between the two when concepts are complicated.
This almost feels like a ploy, to introduce a false concept, under the guise of discrediting it.
1
@marie I think it's a risk when you teach children anything, that they will misunderstand. But the idea that we should anticipate that children are stupid/uninterested and then refuse to give them complex information and nuance... sounds pretty dystopian. How can you expect anyone to learn or grow when you treat them like simpletons? And what is the point of education in a free country if we're too afraid to tackle tough subjects?
2
@Leslie I respect your point of view Leslie. Maybe I can explain mine in a bit more depth sot that you can understand mine. I am a person of color. I see, and live with the consequences of this era of resurgent racism that we are now living though. I see how it works, first hand. The information is out there, right now. It is available, and has been for a long time. That does not meant the people are more enlightened. And I never said anyone was a simpleton. It's more complicated and subtle than that. I know that everything from history to science is used by forces to their benefit (with conspiracy theorists even disputing what is taught in schools, with success: example: creationists that censor the teaching of evolution and even astronomy; or discredit it when taught).
You say I sound dystopian. Have to taken a look at the news lately? At our government? I'll remind you our government ripped children from their families and put them in cages with little institutional or public consequences. A chief executive with authoritarian tendencies employs avowed white supremacists in the White House. Nazi's march with anit-semitic chants and are called "fine people", again, without consequences. And all this defies all reason and education. The problem isn't that people don't know better. It's that those who know better are not successfully standing up agains the loud ignorant voices of those who simply don't care.
I'm not dystopian. The reality of our era is.
1
The problem is that Victorians looked at their successful (they though) breeding programs for plants and livestock and thought "humans next". Their naive and ignorant approach dovetailed cruelly with their sub rosa conceits, so that, sure enough, the "science" showed the clear superiority of the "scientists" to other "subjects", culminating in the horror of Nazi eugenics.
We are better than that now, just like our medicine is better and more humane than what passed for medicine two hundred years ago. Though we still don't know everything, the time has come again to apply our (better) science to these questions, tempered with our greater, hard-won moral understanding. Otherwise, as the article states, we'll delegate the important conclusions to prejudice, anecdote and folklore, and we know how badly that ends.
2
Their agricultural breeding programs were successful, no parenthetical asterisk needed. And, as far as the science goes, humans are just another animal. The same breeding principles apply. Their approach may have had what we now consider ethical and moral problems, but the science was far from “naive” or “ignorant”.
Modern Americans practice eugenics every time they buy sperm or eggs and pick a donor based on reported educational and athletic achievement.
13
The local PBS station recently aired the documentary, Three Identical Strangers. The ending of the film on the nature/nurture divide in explaining a human's character/capability/behavior was a surprise. Must see film for people puzzling over whether race is merely a social construct: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Identical_Strangers
6
Solid basic education, elementary and secondary is a good start. We are losing our edge in these areas and our post-secondary opportunities have become harder for ordinary young people to approach. It should be easier, rather than more expensive or elitist. I have to blame Congress for decades of failed legislation and inaction.
Education is a continuing development, the elite people of 17th and 18th centuries were much better educated then most people today, with lesser resources. Pencil, paper and a few choice texts. We gone backwards with our developing technology!
3
@RAS
Blame local communities for prioritizing tax cuts over funding local schools. Blame those who upon graduation of their children, suddenly lose interest in the civic responsibility of educating all members of their community. Blame the cult mentality of certain religious groups who have not only been removing their own children from public schools and segregating them into religious and home schools during the past fifty years but also actively campaigning politically to defund all government investment in public education.
Everyone needs good public schools, even if, like me, they don’t have children or their children are grown or in private school. It’s just willful folly to expect to live in a safe, capable, self-sustaining and productive society if you’re not willing to pay to create it and that requires a publicly well-educated populace. If you think it’s not your job, then move to a deserted island or any of those other wonderful places where the rich have to live in secured compounds surrounded by large illiterate and diseased populations. But hey, you’ll get to hoard all of your money that you “alone” made.
2
@left coast finch has been blown off course, probably blinded by dust. I am not moving, just downsizing, but I will demand strong federal legislation to stimulate top down incentives for states and localities to follow. This fellow has made some incredibly broad assumptions about living "in a safe, capable, self-sustaining and productive society ..." Exactly who isn't "willing to pay to create it and that requires a publicly well-educated populace." Get a grip finch !
The thirst for power has diluted honest discussion about the race and ethnicity. The parties utilize intellectual dishonesty to divide racial groups for political gain. The discussion about biracial and multiracial identities does not allow people to be corralled like cattle for categorization and carefully scripted manifestos.
2
There are physical traits related yo geography that cannot be ignored. People from warm climates have larger nasal openings than people from arctic climes because letting warm air into your lungs is not as harmful as frigid air. Longer legs are useful for running on open plains; larger appendages dispel more heat. (African vs Indian elephants.)
Sickle cell anemia has benefits against malaria. We all evolved, at some point, to adapt to our environs. More Kenyans will win marathons than Peruvian Indians. It is not racist, it is biology.
153
@ll
Sure, because those are the problematic generalizations that are being addressed by these classes - marathon runners and frigid air processing abilities.
Did you not grow up in America? Do you not live here? There are deeply-held, racist beliefs about the superior intelligence of some groups over others that are deeply intertwined in every aspect of our society. To suggest otherwise or to ignore the damage these beliefs have done to us a nation is disingenuous at best, racist at worst. Everyone knows that black people are considered not as intelligent, not as hard-working, not as diligent or creative or technologically inclined or disciplined as whites. Native American and Hispanics are only a little better, but they'll never reach the status of whites, or their favorite minority, Asians. Maybe you don't like to see that written in black and white, but every American knows that's the prevailing narrative.
You do no one a favor by acting like you don't know what is going on in our country. We are a deeply racist society and I applaud the efforts of these scientists to counter that illness. Let's talk about race, but in a way that is meaningful to our society.
30
@mandalay, you list what “everyone” believes about the mental abilities of various American ethnic groups. What you don’t say is that there is a great deal of empirical evidence, much of it found in graphs of gaps in educational achievement right here in the NYT, that leads “everyone” to make these generalizations about group level attributes. Where is the data to counter “everyone’s” conclusions?
38
@Helleborus
I think he is ignoring that there are 5 African races with dark skins. For instance, pygmies are significantly enough genectically different from other African groups that they used to be referred to as a race, but now it is politically incorrect to say that. Now to be politically correct we must say that there is only one race of many thousands of different ethnic groups. That genetic differences are no longer scientificly significant.
I think it is enough to say that genetic differences are not a valid basis to discriminate, and leave science to science.
13
This is cool. Teach the science
6
Unfortunately I missed the "Race: Are We So Different?" program at the NC Museum of Natural Sciences back in 2017, but the following website is very helpful in starting a discussion on this topic:
https://naturalsciences.org/about/idea
2
In these discussions, I saw no distinction between global racial populations (for which genetic differences in athleticism or academic ability are highly implausible) versus US sub-populations, which have emerged from massive selective processes at the point of immigration (or importation as chattel) and subsequently. Consider Asians who must demonstrate high levels of education in a field that Americans are underrepresented in just to immigrate to the US and have kids here. Is it implausible that this sub-population of Asians is sampled from the upper tails of the global population of Asians in IQ? Similarly, consider African-Americans who are descended from those who have survived 2-300 years of brutal slavery, descended from those who survived an arduous journey by ship. Is it at least plausible that this sub-group has certain stronger physical traits than a random African from the same part of the continent their ancestors came from? The only reasonable way to teach this is to say we really don't know. Until we find the genes linked to IQ and various athletic abilities, and actually conduct the studies on the domestic US sub-populations versus the global ones, this discussion is fairly likely to be ideology driven given the trends in schools. And it does appear that your author is slanted in this direction as well, unfortunately.
6
So the idea that there is no such thing as “race” in biology has been made true by replacing the r-word with words that mean “ancestral population”, which, oddly enough, was exactly what 19th and 20th century people generally meant when they used the words “race”. In other words, race has been relabeled out of science but the underlying biological reality is still there.
79
@Z97 Creation and misrepresentation of racial distinctions has been happening long before the birth of modern science and has been employed as a means of explaining the unknown, and to gain advantage or legitimize artificial distinctions across systems. This is nothing new nor is it legitimate to simplify this as merely an outgrowth of PC culture. The root biology is the same, virtually indistinguishable, with inherent variations within that do NOT legitimize artificial "differences" and hierarchies that the concept rests on today.
6
z97. no. Ancestral race in science means the one we all came from from, out of Africa and the diaspora tribes that settled elsewhere. Ancestral race in the dates you describe meant exactly what it still means now, seperate groups that are not similar, and in many cases inferior to other ones...namely western European white ones. Nice try. but wrong. Go back and hit some real science books.
8
Say we agree that 'race' is a social construct. Do we define the construct or agree not to discuss it? And would it not be productive to have a word for the sum of a human's strengths, differences, and appearance?
What are the "unfounded genetic explanations for racial inequality?"
Why does this article not lay out the decision tree for affects of (1) DNA, (2) epigenetic gene expression , (3) early (before full development of the limbic brain) childhood experience (nurture),
Don't we need an honest discussion of how genetics and nurture interact to create the sum of a human's strengths, differences, and appearance? Absent such honest discussion, we've wasted billions in misguided school funding, among other programs, and established counter productive public policies.
All too often, these programs and policies (a) are unsupported by an adequate framing of issues, and (b) fit the question “Isn’t this just a liberal agenda?”
5
An interesting answer to the nature/nurture/gene question would be figuring out how cuckoo birds learn to lay their eggs in the nests of other birds? They aren't raised by their biological parents.
7
There is only "political" baggage because those who dont understand the curriculum, will judge it as bad, and then rant against it.
There will always be those who fear that by educating the youth out from under their politically and legally enforced Societal Racist Superstructure - will in fact bring that structure down, and therefore they will lose their power.
Fear of losing power is why we - mostly white people - as a nation cant seem to have a reasonable discussion about its systemic and individual racism. Or sexism, or economic inequality. Among other things we are deathly afraid of talking about like reasonable, functioning mature, and evolved animals.
Of course we can educate ourselves out of many -ISMs. But it takes a lot of will to fight against those who don't want such things to go away, for fear of their losses.
Especially when we have people like Stephen Miller in the WH and elsewhere in positions of influence. Unelected sycophants to those in more powerful positions.
4
The extreme right wing and evangelical mind is as incapable of understanding the statistical basis of this argument as a cockroach is of playing Mozart. This will drive them even more raving mad than the teaching of evolution, which they also do not understand. That has negative political consequences, c.f. Trump. But still it has to be done.
2
The animation is really cool
3
biology would be a fine subject,but I believe a course in Cultural Anthropology would be much more relevant to both the topic and it's broad appeal as a class not only for science oriented students, but also to non-science oriented ones. Cultural Anthropology truly enlightens the mind in those areas of Cultural diversity ,bias,etc
2
I was just discussing my daughter's dissertation research with her. She has been working with DNA from black people. She is researching mutations that are more common among blacks in an effort to help drug companies develop more effective drugs. I told her she might be treading close to a controversial area. She responded by referring to recent research focusing on genetic differences among the races that reveal that such research is a valuable tool in the pursuit of medical breakthroughs.
As a scientist, her approach is empirical and she rejects, out of hand, the notion that studies focusing on genetic differences between the races should be answerable to social and political sensitivities about race.
If constructive medical research is limited by the fear of racial stereotyping, lives may be lost.
33
@michjas
Your description of her work suggests that she is researching SNPs - single nucleotide polymorphisms (variations at particular positions in the genome) that are associated with positive or adverse reactions to medications. This is the field of pharmacogenomics - how someone's genes affect the person's response to a drug. Although she is looking at DNA samples from blacks/African Americans, this is just as important to research across the entire populations because SNP variants represent that 0.1% genome difference between one person and the next.
1
@michjas
Epigenetics and genetics are not identical terms. As a black person, descended form slaves, I encourage your daughter's research in epigenetics. Native Americans have ben doing this kind of research for a long time.
1
This is perilous ground.When people look different, it is likely that the differences are more than skin deep.
Take a look at a group of 6th graders. Black students are typically much larger than their Asian peers at that age. While those differences may decrease with age, there can be a powerful impact on who does what. Being tiny at 12 may severely limit success in certain athletic activities. We already know that month of birth has a huge impact on hockey success because of stature/ability compared to one's teammates. So a racial group that develops at a different rate could be shunted in one direction or another at a critical age.
According to modern theory, it is likely that members of a species from different parts of the world look different because of the traits necessary to optimize survival in those parts of the world. That people have left their ancestral lands to mingle in our modern cities, does not mean that those differences are not real. We need to acknowledge that people and "races" are different. That does not mean better or worse, and what is better today may not be tomorrow. But we have to take care to avoid pretending that everyone is the same. And while it does make sense to tailor medicine and disease prevention efforts to differences, we must be careful to avoid the temptation to do more. To embrace diversity, we also have to embrace the idea that some groups may inherently be better at some things than others. True diversity is not skin deep.
15
@The F.A.D.
But what you're describing - kids being shunted in one direction (sports) because of early development - has nothing to do with genetics and everything to do with society's response to a physical characteristic. That's the whole point. That's a social issue, not an inherited one.
3
*sigh*
Point is that rate of development is at least partially determined by genetics and may confer actual advantage at acquisition of athletic skills at a particular time that makes it very difficult for someone left behind to later catch up.
7
It strikes me that this approach fundamentally misunderstands the reason “pseudoscientific” rationales exist—not because of true or honest scientific misconceptions, but because they are just that: mere rationales invented to *justify* social inequality.
Tackling this subject in science class also makes it seem as if the irrationality of race inequality is a function of poor factual understanding, and furthermore a matter of individual rather than collective beliefs and how we choose to organize socially.
The reason these beliefs are durable is because they purport to explain why these disparities exist and are even necessary (according to those who cite those beliefs to justify that inequality). Students who observe the way society is organized are susceptible to those explanations for why that’s so. If you eliminate that explanation using science class, you will still need to provide one that adequately explains it, and that’s the one found in social studies class.
2
At some point if things like this are discussed in biology, the difficult subject of IQ test differences across races will have to be addressed, as will the subject of the male variability hypothesis, which explains where there are statistically more male dunces and super-geniuses. Those will be challenging discussions for teachers that will take a lot of training, and courage.
14
@Snowball - Unfortunately, from what I gathered in this article, they will not confront themselves with those topics. Why? They have evolutionary origins which dispel the blank slate myths that ultimately this class seems to perpetuate.
5
I am a high school Biology Teacher in a majority black school. This is a subject I have been wanting to tackle, but didn't have the resources - is there a way to connect with this team?
2
"grasping the complexity of it all made it impossible to argue that there was a gene, or even a few genes, specifically for athletics or intelligence, or that the cumulative effect of many genes could make a definitive difference"
This not helpful, since virtually all scientists studying human cognition understand that intelligence is largely heritable, with a consensus centered around 70%. Of course this says nothing about group differences. Whether or not the differences in the distributions for various groups have a genetic component is extraordinarily controversial for obvious reasons.
No one is much disturbed about observations concerning the prevalence of certain population groups among world's best distance runners or sprinters.
8
This article makes many good points but leans over backwards to ignore the influence of genetic variables on the behaviors of different population groups. Most human traits (for example introversion-extroversion, psychosis, etc.) show an interaction between genetic and environmental (all other factors such as nutrition, social environment, etc.) variables. Observed behaviors, whether admired, such as athleticism, intelligence, sociability and so on, are most probably also jointly determined. The interaction between genes and environment is obviously quite complex, and the usual type of experiment in which different population groups are raised under different controlled environments will hopefully never be run! (Will you enroll your child in such a study?) Why can’t people and groups of people be admired for their accomplishments as we see them?
5
This article sparked a scary thought for me. If we are less about genetic differences between races, and more about genetic differences within groups, then is pain and suffering eventually built into our DNA? Are some of us truly born to suffer? Maybe the answer for mankind is to mingle more and hedge the differences in our genetic pools. Just the opposite of what most of us believe.
I posit that its more a matter of Lexicology than Biology.
Most of the well read/informed know that their's is but a single race, the human race. Differences are merely variations on a theme like types of cats, etc.
But, like most simple things, human perversity knows no limits.
3
“Race” is a political concept whose purpose is to promote the alleged superiority of one social group over another with the goal of achieving social domination and increased wealth of the group claiming privilege at the expense of the disparaged group, often by financial exploitation of the disparaged group.
There is no such thing as race in biological terms. It doesn’t exist except as a fraudulent political concept. I think science is not equipped to deal with a political fraud that many people are emotionally and financially invested in perpetuating.
Of course, it doesn’t hurt to teach the facts, but when dealing with political fraud, it’s usually best practice to follow the money.
4
It's IMPERATIVE that science is brought to bear in educating all people, not just today's students, about the baseless myths underlying much of racism. Especially important is a discussion of DNA, and the evolution of the species. Also important is a review of geological history. The Toba super-volcano eruption of approx. 74,000 years ago, plunged almost the entire planet into a "nuclear winter" condition. It was catastrophic, reducing the human population to as many as some few thousands, in addition to killing off many other species. This evolutionary "funnel" is not widely taught, and it should be, regardless of variations in theoretical estimates of the affect. We are more homogeneous than many would understand. Science education can help everyone "fill in the blanks" caused by misinformation, disinformation, and superstitious nonsense.
3
We see "races" as we know it correspond to different sets of biological (skin color, height, etc.) and cultural (basketball, spelling bees, etc.) attributes.
Denying the existence of race contradicts with our day-to-day observations.
6
@Buckeye: Denying the existence of atoms contradicts our day-to-day observations of the material world.
1
I'm confused. Do schools set their own curricula? The national curriculum board can listen to the experts on this, make a decision, and let the schools know what to do and provide them with the necessary resources of course. Not sure why we need to make it grassroots.
1
@Nate , in the US schools or, at most, states do choose what to teach and with what materials. There is no national authority.
2
Overall, the tenor of the commentary on this provocative article only serves to illustrate why the "experimental" program should be added initially to all teacher training curricula prior to becoming a mandatory addition to all levels of biology instruction in all U.S. schools. Why? For one simple reason: race, like wealth, is a CONCEPT-created by and for, and used and abused solely by human beings. On Earth there is no race save Homo Sapiens--which is the only descriptor that should ever be applied to the current apex predator in nominal "control" of our shared biosphere.
That this is still viewed as something other than an unalterable, incontrovertible FACT is the one and only (seemingly) unsolvable problem afflicting humanity.
Until we, the one and only species that we currently know of in the entirety of the universe that exhibits the quality of intelligence (much maligned, and arguably not much in evidence given the state of the planet and our continual struggles) DEAL with ourselves honestly, I have to conclude that we are doomed to be the cause of our own extinction.
We could not do better than remember the work of RH Ashley Montague who essentially spelled it out for us 60 years ago: there is only the human race. Racism has no biological marker, only the cultural milieu in which one is raised. Geez, even Rodgers and Hammerstein understood that - you have to be carefully taught.
8
@JDStebley
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nature_versus_nurture
It's a settled conclusion that both nature and nurture play a role. Denying nature's role contradicts with overwhelming evidence (just google twin studies).
8
@Buckeye I'm not denying nature's role - obviously, some climates affect change in both behaviors and physiques. But no one of the species born in one climate has a biological advantage over one born in another. They grow into their environment, hostile or otherwise, with guidance from the parents. Race is projected over the innate human mechanisms.
From the scientific point of view I would warn that our current knowledge may not be enough to decide if known genetic differences can sufficiently explain variations in physical and intellectual fitness. Only short time ago, researchers tried to find genetic differences between gay and straight people that looked obvious before all data was collected. Surprisingly, no genetic rationale has been found. So, our knowledge is not as great as we often tend to think and we should be very cautious in using what we know.
4
These conversations are and should be a part of the discussions students have in school. Schools, like our communities are not immune to the social and political forces that permeate society. The work of teaching students about equity, tolerance, and fairness through the lens of biology is a unique opportunity. Yet, if you cannot have these discussion in schools and learn how to navigate them in this setting, then how will students know how to have these conversations outside of school?
3
This is key topic which one day may dispel so many bias about race and origins. But origins are only a starting point. With population migration (Hispanic and Africans basically from the 1500 onward) to the Americas, whether my choice or slavery, only the strong survived. This is a key in 'unnatural selection' we see. A very sensitive topic, indeed.
People can be beaten down by poverty, losing their ambition, as we see around the world. And certain groups can be more physically robust, the off spring of those who survived the famine. the 'middle passage', the whip, or holocosts.
Yes, very sensitive topics, but worthy to be studied. One hopes the teachers are enlightened enough and sensitive enough to create real understanding. This will surely be debated for generations.
3
@AG
“With population migration...whether my choice or slavery, only the strong survived.”
Ooh, dangerous to even state that. I’ve heard it said of slavery (terrible racism in the white evangelical school I attended as a child) that only the docile, submissive, and dependent survived. The strong-willed, “too smart” for their own good, and independent were killed off. Hence, today’s descendant population “clamoring” for government support.
We do need great teachers who are enlightened and sensitive but, more importantly, this incredibly important project needs representatives of all colors and cultures involved in the studies and curriculums created. For all of its many glorious achievements, the most catastrophic failure of science prior to the mid-20th Century was its ruthless exclusion of women and anyone else who was not white male. When only white men design and analyze studies by and for white men only, building entire fields on those studies, it’s no wonder we ended up with Nazi science experimentation and poisonous ideas which still linger today. Many scientists of the past merely followed the prevailing philosophy of their era, often unable to see omissions, errors, and broader perspectives. Only when women and others entered the field and challenged white men, did a more accurate scientific picture begin to emerge.
The same with this project. It must be multi-perspective to ensure that potential biases are not baked into the foundation of this emerging field.
2
If the science educators are going to address this, they'll need to re-examine the overall viewpoint in their biology textbooks that the Main Thing in biology (or the Only Thing) is inheritance carried by DNA. That underlying attitude makes teaching about race and genetics in a nuanced way very difficult. Perhaps they should start with the global statement, usually taught on the first day of biology class, the "DNA is the Secret of Life." DNA and inheritance are very important, no question, but as recent advances in epigenetics have indicated, they're not the whole story -- and the whole story about genes and environmental influence is incredibly complex and not a simple "cause-and-effect" relationship. The book on E. coli that your reporter Carl Zimmer authored (_Microcosm: E coli and the New Science of Life_) gives an excellent introduction to the topic, but can't see high school biology teachers assigning it as class reading. Though perhaps they should. It's worth spending a semester on -- and that's, realistically, what it would take.
5
DNA is still the main thing in biology. Epigenetics is merely a modifier. It should definitely be added to high school textbooks though.
2
Good article, but I want to congratulate David McLeod for that amazing, provocative graphic.
27
The problem is that there is no science behind racism. Racism is not based on genetics. It is a social and political creation, and it is prejudice based on skin color. Black is not a race. "African-American" is not a race. Hispanic is not a race. The federal government policies only prepetuate the ignorance.
21
@Bob we understand that babies notice group difference. And one need only understand the mass disease fueled death of indigenous Americans to understand exactly why an initial fear of “other” is much more than a “social or political creation”, but a practical evolution. This does not mean that racism as we have come to understand it, in it’s many layers, is not a product of society. There is nothing that does not have that software element on top of it. But we should remember that, in the broad strokes, it is our society that has been moving us in the right direction and hardware that we must overcome to live as “civilized” beings.
3
@Matt
You imply babies are born discriminating based on skin color rather than it being learned behavior. I disagree.
Newborn babies even have to learn to recognize their mother's face.
1
The topic, though fraught with untold political baggage, needs to be addressed, precisely because of all the political and emotional baggage. It seems that the best lesson to be derived from this is that we know so little about the power and complexity of genetics it has made it easy for charlatans and shysters to make racist claims.
5
We really need to kill the idea of race altogether. It is not scientifically valid. There are regional geographic phentotypes with certain characteristics (from avg height to propensity to certain diseases), but the genetic variation within groups with certain skin pigments (what we call races) is too huge to be meaningful in anyway. The variation in Africa alone is apparently larger than the variation outside of Africa. Until we stop using the notion of race altogether (and conflating it with culture as the layman and media so often do) we will be doomed to strife and misunderstanding and oppression. Time to teach your children well.
10
@ChinaDoubter
Quote from https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_genetics:
A 2005 study by Tang and colleagues used 326 genetic markers to determine genetic clusters. The 3,636 subjects, from the United States and Taiwan, self-identified as belonging to white, African American, East Asian or Hispanic ethnic groups. The study found "nearly perfect correspondence between genetic cluster and SIRE for major ethnic groups living in the United States, with a discrepancy rate of only 0.14 percent".[29]
Paschou et al. found "essentially perfect" agreement between 51 self-identified populations of origin and the population's genetic structure, using 650,000 genetic markers. Selecting for informative genetic markers allowed a reduction to less than 650, while retaining near-total accuracy.[58]
8
It's a shame that an article about clearing up confused ideas about race should contain the bizarre assertion, "People inherit their environment and culture with their genes." Surely what is meant is "People are shaped not only by their genes, but also by their environment and culture."
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@Cantab84: Not so bizarre, though. People don't just get their DNA from their parents, they generally get where they were born and how they were raised. There will be influences other than just the parents, and a person may well take a dramatically different path than might have been expected: but they are starting from the environment and culture they were born into. That they inherited, you might say.
3
@Cantab84 The issue is that geneticists may find a genuine statistically significant correlation between a particular gene variant and a trait, even though the variant has absolutely nothing to do with genetic inheritance but rather with cultural inheritance. For example you might find a correlation between ability to clap along with music on the downbeat and genes that are different between white and African Americans and come to a conclusion that these genes influence ability to clap along with music. Obviously this is cultural, but it is "inherited with their genes."
It appears to me there is an elephant in the room here: biology, evolutionary thought, and genetics bequeathed to us the scientific notion of race. To simply say "the science doesn't support that anymore" or "you don't properly understand the science" is insufficient. Intellectual honesty demands accepting the ethical responsibility for a history of science that produced biological racism and eugenics, as well as their afterlives. This continues to be true today, when related contemporary fields like sociobiology and evolutionary psychology continue to deliver the message, "the genetic basis has to be in there somewhere." This is why the writings of evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould, populations geneticist Richard Lewontin, and the molecular anthropologist Jonathan Marks are so important. Those who would take refuge in "pure science" wish avoid the uncomfortable truth that biology and genetics, like all fields of inquiry, are always embedded in social, cultural, political and economic practices.
7
In the early 70s, HEW (then, Health, Education & Welfare) funded a doctoral dissertation proposal I'd written identifying the source of American racism in the attitudes, actions and social power structures of the white majority. Up to that time, such federal funding had mostly gone to alleged deficiencies in the non-white minority communities. With funding, I initiated a sensitivity training program for elected leaders of a midwestern city and surrounding suburban enclaves. In it non-white trainers confronted the racial attitudes of white elected leaders. In addition to providing evidence of the non-biological basis of racism, it was the actual responses of participants that became the content of the group interactions. This approach provided a mirror of the emotional component of participant's racial attitudes.
At the end of the first training session, the mayor of one of the suburban townships approached me with a handshake that drew me close to him. Gripping my hand forcefully, he growled into my ear, "You'd better be careful, we know where you live."
The training program showed statistically positive changes in participant's view of racial attitudes and became the model for classes at the sponsoring university.
The lesson learned? Positive changes in white racial attitudes are more effective when rational education is combined with expressed personal emotional considerations.
13
In my grad seminar on Race and American Political Thought, as well as other in courses and lectures, I often counseled students that the most intellectually sophisticated way to deal with the race concept is that, when anyone invokes it as a natural category, one should hear instead of race "unicorn." A long line of scholars, including Richard Lewontin, Stephen Jay Gould, Jonathan Marks, Sheldon Krimsky and many others, have moreover cautioned of the dangers of taxonomic fetishism -- the belief that, if a conceptual category exists, it must correspond to something actual in the world -- associated with reifying common sense, folk categories, particularly those that have had such decidedly and terribly toxic history as race. These scholars and others have shown repeatedly that marshaling a heavy investigative apparatus to go searching for something can almost predetermine that it will be found -- whether or not it exists. Despite what seem to be the benign, or naïve intentions of those involved in this misguided enterprise, the potential for mischief here is too great. Racism doesn't stem from anything in human biology, and it is in no more a backward rejection of science to posit that fact than it is to cater to the mysticism that presumes that it might.
3
Studying my son's neurological disorder has turned my gaze inward towards my own genetic strengths and weaknesses, and I'm discovering things that would have been of tremendous help in my younger years.
While the truth can be hard to swallow, I can only see good in the quest for knowledge, while the social work can then follow suit in fairly dealing with the likely difficult results.
10
@DF Trees Genetics rarely presents itself as fixed cause of a disorder because genes that are bad for life prior to reproduction were naturally selected against.
Of course, genetics is not just tied to race/ethnicity, but also to sex differences. But these are not to be studied in most universities where reason is overruled by hysteria.
7
That anyone would even attempt to ask this question saddens me about the state of modern science in America.
3
@zigmund Why, ethnicities do have different genetics, some helpful in some environments, others in different ones. There seem to be multiple lines of early humans that would be as different as finches due to physical separation over thousands of years.
13
I don’t understand why this topic is considered so exquisitely sensitive. Even if different races have different strengths and weaknesses generally speaking, individuals within each race routinely defy those propensities ....so it’s a moot point on an individual-by-individual level.
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@GBR Yes, men and women present the most obvious differences based on genetics, but that shouldn't impact equal protection under the law. But it does mean that they are not the same.
13
@GBR And yet, racism is still a huge problem in the modern world, not just America with our history of slavery, but all over the world. It may be valid to say "I don't understand why this topic is considered sensitive" as long as that isn't a rhetorical suggestion that maybe it isn't really such a big problem. We can certainly say in an ideal world it wouldn't be sensitive, but in this world it is, and there are many reasons, and probably some things we still don't understand.
2
@David
I agree! I’m a female, chose not to have children in deference of my career ( medicine), and have excelled in my profession. Others may choose differently ....Some very gifted folks ( male or female) may be able to take on primary caretaker role AND excel in their profession. Kudos to them!
3
According to a lot of research, I'm not sure what's happening in the brains of high school students in science classrooms, but it is not science. The vast majority of adults do not remember the science they learned beyond middle school unless they have significantly more science in college.
As a former high school science teacher, I can also say that it is a mistake to let kids come to their own conclusions on some issues. Whether climate change is real, no; policies to deal with said real climate change, yes. So I'm thinking it may not be wise to let kids reach their own conclusions about race either. Rather it makes more sense to discuss that at a genetic level humans are FAR more similar than dissimilar to each other. We also need to look at the other factors that go into how and whether our genetic traits can be observed in behavior. It also helps to explain that genetically humans are not like peas.
11
@Randi Zimmerman Perhaps, but our genes are very similar to apes, yet nobody confuses the two. Genes make people different, but that doesn't mean the law needs to concern itself any more than it should be based on strength, height, beauty, health, weight, IQ, talents...
6
Excellent article!!! This is an exceptionally accurate and useful exploration of both the concept of "race" as mis-applied to the human species, and ways of combatting racism through education. I applaud the author for putting a LOT of hard work into this, and for presenting it so clearly. One caveat: it's too long for a typical newspaper setting: about a 30 percent reduction in sheer volume could be achieved without shorting the content appreciably.
2
EE >> The animated artwork used to illustrate this article is unique & so fascinating! I wish I could use it as my screensaver!
7
@Joseph Ross Mayhew
Not just too long . . . it could be more complete and better organized, and should end with a meaningful summary, rather than the underwhelming notes that the unit will include “a research-based curriculum designed to teach complex genetics.” and "students were warned that they may feel some discomfort in science class."
I like that ethnic groups can have differences. I think it’s a shame our racial differences have to be ignored and treated as dangerous when they could be seen as the beautiful thing they are. In trying to avoid repeating our history of oppression and violence toward the other we turned something interesting into a taboo.
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@Matt Reed: Race is a distinct and very unnatural human construction. This is the point of educating on this particular (sensitive for many) topic. It is biologically incorrect and historically tainted through false assumptions and legitimization of social hierarchies in societies including the United States. Ethnicity in cultural heritage is distinct from race. You are conflating the two, which is what has been done incorrectly for so very long and to the great disadvantage of many.
4
@Matt Reed: You are right, that differences can be celebrated, and we shouldn't fantasize a world where everyone is totally alike. And hopefully the approach described will discuss this, as they discuss which differences are cultural and historical, and which are genetic.
As a history professor regularly addressing concepts and constructions of race through time & systems, I welcome & encourage these discussions! Introducing students to the arbitrary nature of racial distinctions earlier in the educational process & through complementary disciplines stands to benefit education and society greatly in challenging assumptions rooted in constructions of the past.
4
@Wilks, yes, as long as we are reminded that we all share precisely the same organs, blood, and appendages, that skin color, hair textures and eye color are all that distinguishes us biologically.
@JDStebley These would be considered variations within the whole, I imagine, and not scientific evidence of biological or otherwise racial disparity.
@Wilks The scientific evidence shows that homo sapiens is one species and like all species, none are born with any particular advantage except those that evolve over time, during the offspring's growth - humans having evolved larger brains. Wouldn't you say that racism is layered over the physical "tools" every human is endowed with at birth and not genetically coded?
Its fascinating that we recognize the complexity of differentiation in plant populations far more objectively than we view human populations. This curriculum is on the right track. However, presenting the complexity of of GxE (genotype by environment interactions) might make the explanation so complicated that students shut down and simply find what the want to find in the material...especially as applied to something as culturally freighted as the genetics of race.
6
@Chris: True, students can come out of a class with strange ideas, or none at all. But still, they will have heard it talked about. And we can begin to find ways of discussing the issues, beyond simply repeating "race doesn't exist" and going back to drawing diagrams of recessive genes.
1
How we teach history can reduce racism. I remember high school history (a long time go) being taught about the Civil War. We learned about the battles, the end of slavery, Lincoln’s assassination and probably a lot more I no longer remember. What was not covered was actual slavery, the conditions and abuses that slave were subject to. We also didn’t cover the post Civil War period, the Jim Crow laws, oppression of the freed slaves in the south, the lynchings etc. We were only given a sanitized version of history. And we never got to WW 2 and the holocaust as we ran out of time in the school year. There are lessons to be learned from these terrible events. Kids today should be made aware of the atrocities committed by one race against other races. Hopefully this will make them think twice about the alt-right, white nationalism and evils of racism.
24
Most people don’t understand that skin pigment (melanin) is an evolutionary adaptation by our ancestors in response to the sun’s UV light and Vitamin D and folate production. As humans migrated further from the equator, less melanin was needed.
9
@Susanonymous Race isn't just melanin.
19
@W Racism is based on the varying degree of melanin production a person exhibits. How is a person’s race determined by another person? By their melanin-determined appearance. That’s how.
@W Race is based on melanin. You never hear about the various "African races". Black people are considered as one race. Race is just a social construct, created to legitimize the enslavement and/or abuse of people.
This seems like a great idea -- until it gets spread out to more than the handful of people who volunteer for the project. I'm trying to imagine some of the biology teachers I had telling our class (probably 60% black & 40% other, but the teachers were all white) clearly what this means. I doubt they could, and that tells me that perhaps we will never see this in any real context, though it certainly belongs in science classes and not social studies!
3
At my school, they are making a big push for cheek swabs of POC to join the Be The Match Registry for bone marrow transplants.
If race is just a "social construct" why do they have targeted cheek swab drives?
Or as NPR reported: "The treatment [bone marrow transplants], however, is dependent on the patient finding a donor who shares a similar genetic makeup. In most cases, that means the match is found in someone of the same race."
Puzzling - no?
69
@SteveRR As many have said above, the word race is not a synonym for the average genetic differences between various populations and subpopulation of human beings. As currently used, race is a term developed in the sixteenth century primarily to justify people with lighter colored skins ruling people with darker colored skins. There was lots of "science" to prove that this was morally justified. That is different from acknowledge genetic differences within and between populations of human beings for medical purposes.
6
@SteveRR
Only puzzling if you are really, really not trying to understand.
7
@31today
I don't understand what you are trying to say except that maybe race is a tautology ie. race is what race is.
Which of course is semantically null (empty)
How about we stick to the OED so that when we ask folks to register for critical medical registries so we can somehow all know exactly what we are talking about.
ie. There are racial differences and those racial differences are biologically/medically important and that race is not SIMPLY a social construct.
15
Great subject matter, but even better animation in the digital article. Mesmerizing and relaxing - perfect for a lazy Saturday. Thank You!!
9
@Josh
I liked the animation, too. Also, it reminded me of being in a car wash!
7
@Josh The animation is doing my head in. I haven't even read the article yet because I just keep staring at it.
@Josh Yeah, its pretty trippy but what the heck has it to do with the article?
3
As pointed out by a few other comments, even this article uses the word "race" in various ways, without any objective definition. This is part of the problem - it is noble to try and teach the population genetic perspective to human diversity, though I doubt the complexity of the subject will ever reach the streets. But we could begin by simply elminating the use of the the term "race" as used today - but especially in terms of grouping people by white or dark skin colour, or language (hipanic?), etc. Unfortunately, the average reader would not only be shocked but utterly confused if they would look into the modern genetic literature, where research articles continue, profusely, to aggregate statiscal groups of people into "caucasion", "african" or "asian" categories although every population geneticist knows that these groups do not reflect meaningful entities in nature. If the geneticists themselves cannot stop doing this, what hope is there for the remaining population?
6
Amazing isn't it that we are so afraid of discussing race that we are even afraid of studying it. My family is multi racial, multinational and we don't have a problem talking about race in our family. What I have found is that people outside of our family are really uncomfortable whenever I bring up the subject. I am white and if I try to talk with African Americans they often do not want to talk openly, until they become aware that I have Africans and African Americans in my family, then they feel safe enough to talk with me. As a white person I do not need to feel safe and I do not have to deal with the same fear that minorities have to face sometimes on a daily basis. When we allow our discomfort and fear stop us from studying science then we are giving in to ignorance. Study race more openly and maybe, just maybe it will bring us together. We are so much more alike than different, it is time to give up on fear ang ignorance and move on.
26
@Linda Whatever research finds about race and genetics, nothing will shake my belief that we should be kind and compassionate to everyone and everything to the best of our abilities. Knowing more scientifically will aid our species in fashioning social policies to better support each other. We can use knowledge however we like, so we can choose to favor values that build us up and disfavor values that break us down. Differences are fact; we don't have to listen to the primitive, involuntary part of ourselves that fears this fact. We can be intellectually brave and honest, logical, and intentionally compassionate people.
11
The country was founded on racism and slavery (and sexism). It’s only in the last 50’years that we have started making some progress on racism. But we have a long ways to go... and the past three years have set us back a decade or more.
Are abilities decided by genetics? Or do certain classes do better since they have privilege? Is it nature or nurture? Several incredibly smart, well off friends of mine have kids with autism (anecdotally disproving both the nature and nurture arguments).
Any meaningful answer will be heavily nuanced and contextualized (and therefore fail to grab eyeballs given the general societal levels of attention deficit).
3
Abilities are at least partially determined by genetics. Both research and simple observation tell us that.
I also know many smart, well-off parents who have children with high-functioning (meaning academically able) autism. I suspect that perhaps this has something to do with assortive mating. Now that both male and female high-schoolers are sorted into academic ability bands and then attend college to meet and eventually mate with each other, genes for high intelligence may be getting too concentrated, leading to many children being very smart and some having an “overdose effect” that leads to autism. This was less of a problem when high-achieving men picked mates from a pool that was not strictly sorted for intelligence. Just a personal hypothesis.
1
Autism is a syndrome that evolves heaven knows how, but it doesn't disprove the laws of DNA. Genetic combinations are myriad and, yes, environment over the long run can affect genes. That's how species begin to differentiate.
Interesting Times article today about the ability of bone marrow donors' DNA to take over the DNA of the marrow recipients -- with possible complications in, say, criminal cases.
The human body is endlessly fascinating. Focusing on racism is good, but just as good and perhaps better in the long run is Americans' getting interested in science again.
The acquiring of knowledge, and birth control: the great levelers.
2
Bravo! The world has changed even since the 90’s with 23andme offering DIY DNA testing and sophisticated pseudo scientific conspiracy theories online. Schools can and should provide a bastion of defense against misconceptions by encouraging critical thinking skills with courses like these.
6
I'm a retired science educator. Ten years before retiring I was brought before an African American administrator that observed me teaching a lesson that was on our human evolutionary address on the tree of life using the analogy of our geophysical address. On the evolutionary side our address begins in the animal kingdom as our geophysical address starts on planet earth with subsequent changes in both addresses eventually narrowing the fields to genus/species and street and house number. Chordate phylum and mammal class OK but primate order was too much for the administrator who condemned me for teaching a class that included African American students that there was a connection to mammals with collar bones and grasping fingers or a family of hominids with relatively flat faces and three dimensional vision. I was told that it was insulting to present such information to African American youth and that if I did not change, my career would suffer and I'd be transferred out of my position. I agree that accurate biology/science content would do a great deal to help overcome many scientific misconceptions that are carried into adulthood. Circumstances such as I faced are a reality that science educators will continue to face if evaluated by administrators lacking an understanding of scientific knowledge. A large segment of the American community remains heavily invested in the religious tenets of their church which are at odds with much that is taught as science.
73
I'm a highschool freshman currently in a biology class. My school is mostly white and liberal. I think this is interesting. We're literally doing our genetics project right now (I should be working on it lol).
49
@Gee
Well, I'm sure your high school is not "liberal" in any mission statement (which personally I would have loved to attend). Hopefully it is apolitical.
2
Biological anthropology is also an extremely effective way to educate students about the limitations of the bankrupt concept of "race." Unfortunately biological anthropology is rarely taught at the high school level, but the American Anthropological Association traveling exhibit on race is enormously instructive on this topic.
41
@William O, Beeman , biological anthropology just uses other, perhaps more precise, words for race. That does not make race a “bankrupt concept”. The obvious differences between, say, sub-Saharan Africans and East Asians remain the same, no matter what you call the groupings-based-on-geographic-origin-of-someone’s-ancestors.
9
@William O, Beeman I think it was outlawed. I took a class in the 70s.
Yes, teaching early is an excellent idea; avoiding the subject is a bad one.
And; at the same time; an introduction to "semantics" would be good. Even here in this well done article, I can find multiple places where the word "race" - means very different things, to different people. Clearly the writer knows that; but even so the word is used here in different ways- and the reader is not informed of the large differences in contextual uses.
Also- introducing the brand new ideas and evidence for "epigenetics" would help the kids a lot. "Scientists have JUST started finding that environmental experiences of the parents- can change how the child's, even grandchild's genes work. The genes don't seem to change; but what they are doing - does." Yeah, sounds a little confusing for the wrinkled peas generation; but Truth always illuminates and clarifies.
Eventually.
32
@Greenpa
Introducing new theories much less new thoughts to high school students is unwise.
Epigenetics is mainstream science. Let's just stick to what about it is generally accepted by science.
Moreover I really don't see any connection between racism and epigenetics. You don't need epigenetics to debunk discrimination based on skin color.
1
@Greenpa
Greenpa, please give us even a single example of an epigenetic change in gene expression leading to changed human behavior.
1
I'm a genetics student at a prestigious public research university in the US. The subject of "race" is completely absent from biology education because it's meaningless. It literally has no scientific meaning, so it's not even a word that's used. We do look at populations of people, in relation to genetic diversity, but that's the closest to "race" as we get. We'll study why groups of people in Asia tend to be more lactose intolerant than groups of people in Northern Europe, for example.
A basic biological education, with a even a small emphasis on genetics, would certainly make a big difference to the general population, I'd imagine. Once people learn how genetics work, they'd understand how utterly meaningless (and arbitrary) the idea of "race" is.
140
@Frank Just because you don’t use the concept in science doesn’t mean it’s a meaningless concept. Science tends to be reductionist. Good and bad aren’t used in the lab either when studying bacteria, but these are widely accepted concepts. Trying to a literate a concept just because you don’t use it to write papers doesn’t mean it’s not real.
28
@Matt Reed
Science can be used to clarify the truth. Even "widely accepted" concepts are subject to scientific tests. Historically, as in the case of astrology for example, such concepts disappear from the scientific lexicon as they are shown to be meaningless.
6
@Matt Reed
Race has no scientific meaning, because it's impossible to define. Biologically, there is no way to lump people into "races" using any sort of measurement. What phenotypes make up a "white" person? What genotypes make up a "white" person?
It's a completely subjective idea. Trying to discuss "race" in school would be like trying to discuss whether a banana is "tasty" or not. It's a pointless discussion to have, because it's just a subjective opinion.
15
(Retired biology teacher here, as well as veteran civil rights activist.) I am struck and puzzled that no mention is made of the "race" (socially constructed, but no less relevant!) of the participants - trainers and teachers - in this project. It seems obvious that the topic would be approached differently by teachers depending on their subjective experiences with racism in our culture, and their presentation to students would be significantly different depending on their backgrounds. And most important, the responses of students of different racial identities would be deeply influenced by their teacher's racial identity. As the article says, "much of the opening morning was devoted to brainstorming how to check in with students, especially black students, who seem defensive or scared, sullen or silent, and how to recognize the unit’s fraught nature." Well, it seems pretty obvious to me that this would depend a lot on who is doing the "checking in"! This huge lacuna in the study, or at least in this article's report on it, is extremely troubling to me.
35
@Bensabio How the teachers or students are influenced by their "percieved race" or any other social or biological background factor, we cannot judge. I think the bigger issue is that the science behind the topic is not subject to such influence, and one must start there in order to hope to move forward. The article does a good job in pointing out that the topic is more complicated than most people think, and at the center is the semantics of the word "race" and indeed how different people percieve it or define it. Perhaps we need to either reject the word altogether (as many do already), or more objectively define it (which would be a quite different definition than what is used, still to this day, even in genetic research papers).
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@Steven Weiss You know, I can't imagine your response having been written by a black American (teacher or student) who has lived the experience of racism since birth. Of course it makes a difference who is teaching and who is learning. The whole thing is a social construct, and that's how we must address it, inside and out!
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@Bensabio I don't know what you mean by "the whole thing". Do you mean racism? Yes of course it is a horrible social construct. Do you mean the major "races" that we continue to see in the scientific literature? Yes, I agree again, a social construct. BUT, the article and topic at hand is trying to teach population genetics and how it relates to the discussion and misuse and unending misunderstandings of the term "race". I would hope that the facts surrounding human population genetics, and how they do not support the notion of major races could be delivered without regard to the ethnic background of the teacher. Perhaps I am wrong.
As an avid reader in third grade back in 1953, I went through my high school sophomore sister's biology text. The descriptions (even back then outdated, as I later learned) of the "mongoloid, negroid, and caucasoid, etc." races caught my eye, and I took the book out to my racially and ethnically diverse playmates. We spent an hour or so closely examining each other's facial features, hair textures, and skull shapes, comparing these to the illustrations in the text, trying to figure out who among us matched which of the book's listed characteristics for our various "races." Few of us, we quickly discovered, conformed even roughly with any one of the lists.
I took the book back inside having suffered my first educational disillusionment. If we cannot demand from, and get, accurate, up-to-date information from our schools, there's little hope for our democracy.
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@Jane Hunt and it is a sad and rather confusing state of affair we find ourselves in, when, in 2019, numerous academic publications will still use these precise terms, to group subjects in statistical analyses, independent of any intention on part of their authors, to proliferate racist ideology. It is a convention, that refuses to die. I am a practicing research geneticist, but I do not work with humans. It is harder to group fish or plants or any other organism into such fictitioius groups for an analysis, then for humans. The topic never ceases to amaze me.
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@Jane Hunt I very much agree on the need to update our educational content, and the lesson on race in the article seems to offer a thoughtful update--though I teach h.s. history, I'm intrigued and would like to be in the room for the discussion of this proposal--but from a public school teacher's view, I myself would be leery of initiating that discussion in my classroom and I doubt many others would want to go there--VERY easy to see it going sideways and a student saying something hurtful or inflamatory to another student (before/during/after/online) and blame coming back to the well-meaning teacher. I also frankly don't trust that ALL other teachers would be thoughtful in carryng this out. It's just too fraught.
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@Steven Weiss
I teach freshman comp at a community college in a state that offers little funding for higher education. Many of my students rely on food stamps and/or other forms of public assistance for survival. What, past age and gender, is nearly always the first question they must answer on these government-required applications? "What is the applicant's race?"
Yes, I know the rationale: it's allegedly to ensure that benefits get distributed fairly according to the numbers of applicants in these categories. What evidence do we have for this "fairness" being achieved? Maybe it's time to revise all these applications.
3
It is risible to think that science per se can overcome the racist lie at the very heart of the United States, which is a tool of rule by the wealthy. The malevolent lie of Racism is not caused by "ignorance." That myth is doubly wrong. Racism was precisely created by the 'educated' elites to justify the slave trade in the face of the Enlightenment, and as a tool to divide and rule working people, Black and white, Native American. It is not ill-informed but the ultimate act of dishonesty, given a pseudo-scientific veneer by "scientists." Racism is consciously reproduced, again and again, by the wealthy elites and their government who fear unity of workers who are Black and white. It is grotesque and supremely dishonest that the 'enlightened' elites blame workers who are white as the alleged source of the racism created by those very elites, but that of course is part of how the racist paradigm is reproduced. Good to have scuence classes on the myth of race but that will not end it. Despite all the yowling about "white supremacy" in fact there is less racism today among working people. This is the result of the Civil Rights movement, and the fact that social-economic conditions for all working people are less dissimilar than ever before--worse for all of us. As we fight our common wealthy foe, workers Black and white, will unite and overcome the racist divisions imposed upon us.
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@AR Just one correction: Despite all the yowling about "white supremacy" in fact there is less OVERT racism today among working people.
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I would hope anyone with a basic understanding of biology and human evolution would not be racist. All human life no matter what color comes from the same place
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@Teddy Roosevelt Might be difficult.
Lactose tolerance is genetically determined and the best studied population is northern european (there are more). Sickle cell anaemia is (mainly) restricted to the malarial areas of central Africa. Ditto for mediterranean anaemia, restricted to the malarial areas of the mediterranean sea. A third alteration of haemoglobin is present in the malarial areas of the Middle East.
There are enough such instances to wonder what other and more complex genetic differences there are among populations, including those influencing human behavior.
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The "explanation" that both fictional students are partially right doesn't seem like it is going to change the world. So, there are genetic differences between races, but they aren't enormous. OK. Now what?
The examples in the article don't lend themselves to discussions about averages, anyway. NFL athletes are at the extreme end of the bell curve. So are successful scientists. Therefore, even if - on average - genetic differences are small, are there larger differences at the extremes?
I think the biggest problem with going down this road is that - at the end - what does it matter? Life is complicated, and outcomes will vary immensely from one individual to the next. Rather than categorizing people and measuring outcomes by group, why not focus on setting up systems that help each individual to reach his or her full potential? I don't really care if the racial makeup of top scientists or NFL players reflects the overall racial makeup of society. I just want those individuals who are best at science to be scientists, and those who are best at football to be football players. I don't want the government trying to dictate who should go down which path.
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@Citizen
I really think you're missing the point. Even if you focus on the very best NFL players or the very best scientists, the interplay of many genes as well as the differences of how they are expressed (epigenetics), and environment will still not allow conclusions or predictions of an individual's skills or outcomes.
Although I agree it is better to focus on what allows all to succeed, rather than to focus on the differences, this is not an academic argument starting from a blank slate. The human brain has developed to see differences and to categorize and we see ample evidence that this has happened through all of human history. This science curriculum is designed to address this head on with science facts rather than all too popular fictions.
Where are you getting your comment about the government dictating training or career paths? This curriculum is about education, not some nefarious government action.
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@Critical Reader
I am assuming that the point of this curriculum is to try to combat racism by presenting evidence that there is no substantial genetic difference - on average - between people of different races. This then leads to the question: "If there is not substantial genetic difference, then why do we see different results - on average - between different races in the US?" The desired answer - racism. The solution? Implement government programs to eliminate racism, which will be measured by looking at the percentages of scientists, lawyers, doctors, etc. who are from each race. If there are disparities, it must be due to racism.
This is the whole point of the curriculum.
I do not buy into this method. I do not think the government should be monitoring these types of things and implementing programs to address disparities.
If you think this is about anything else, I think you are mistaken.
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@Citizen
I do not agree that a country that concludes that racism is the cause of its inequalities should not do anything to remedy that problem. After all, the government did plenty to cause it in the first place. Programs that favored native-born white men over everyone else were not seen as problematic by those who benefited, but now a bit of introspection into how we got to where we are is "government intrusion." Interesting.
In any event, I prefer a government that will always address disparities caused by its own policies.
4
“If I was a student asking about race and my teacher said, ‘Race is a social construct, we’re not going to talk about it in science class,’ well — that’s not an explanation of what students are observing in their world,”
Examples of comments like the one in that quote have been what I’ve encountered in classroom discussions about race and prejudice. Not just hard science classes but social studies courses where the argument is that even if we talked about the biology of “race” it would be unproductive since it’s a social construct anyway and very much real on a behavioral level. The social scientists will continue to use the construct of race in discussions of inequality, society and power long after it has been debunked by biologists.
Racism needs to be fought everywhere, including Bio class.
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It will be a short window of time before teachers are fired and schools sued because someone takes exception to what was stated as fact or opinion by a teacher in class. Regardless of how well thought out, or sincere an individual teacher may be, the racial based lawsuits will pile up, to the detriment of the teachers. Then there are the cases where the teacher wonders away from the curriculum while being questioned, inviting the lawsuits. Best to leave it alone unless everyone in class has a parent sign a legal reviewed agreement not to file a lawsuit based on what is discussed in class. If I headed up a school district I wouldn't touch this with a ten foot pole.
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@bart
Although I can appreciate some of your risk predictions, I find it sad that a former educator would so emphatically resist an opportunity to educate.
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@bart It's a sad state of affairs when educators are afraid to teach students scientific facts because they're afraid of lawsuits. It's especially sad when people think this fear is reasonable, and argue it's only sensible to bend our K-12 curriculum around the closed-minded zealots who might throw tantrums.
In a public CA middle school in the early 2000s, my biology teacher talked about DNA, and I naively asked her where DNA came from. She took me aside and whispered that I shouldn't ask questions like that in class, because "they can make people uncomfortable."
Is this what we want to teach our children? Don't ask questions, bury the facts or other people will complain, "best to leave it alone"?
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@bart
Precisely, we need to wait and be patient on these science subjects, when the real truth may not arrive for a century or two. Yet some seem to urge a debate into the masses prematurely!
This is a very interesting project. Another hard but maybe useful class to tackle race misconception would be about genetic anthropology. Thanks in part to advances in genetics we know much more about how early humans migrated and populated the earth, and how much back and forth migration & co-mingling there was amongst early humans and with our close relatives. It might help displace idea that any one of us is "pure" anything as ahistorical fantasy.
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Very few people think of themselves as pure anything or care. Lots of people, however, do have ancestors who mostly or entirely came from Europe or Asia. Most Americans who describe themselves as black have ancestors from both Africa and Europe and sometimes North America. There is nothing wrong with either scenario.
Also, different continental groups interbred with different ancient human cousins. That fact actually increases genetic differences between population groups rather than minimizing them.
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@Z97
"Most Americans who describe themselves as black have ancestors from both Africa and Europe and sometimes North America. "
Are you denying the fact that most "Hispanics" have ancestry from native America, Europe AND Africa? Are you claiming that all "whites" are racially pure?
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@Apowell232, I didn’t say anything about Hispanics, just about Americans who self-identify as black.
As for whites being “pure”, I used the term “mostly or entirely” precisely because there are people who look white who do have a handful of African ancestors. Nevertheless, if you look at all of a person’s ancestors from around 1600, back when most people were still on their original continents, you will find that European phenotype means 90%+ European ancestors.
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The sole way to counteract pervasive pseudoscience narratives is with biological facts. Race is complex, and it is imperative to use classrooms to explain the interplay of environment, genetics, and epigenetics. We owe students the opportunity to grapple honestly and openly with ALL of the known facts; only then can we confront implicit and explicit bias.
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@Biologist
It is heartening to know that you support the teaching of science, wherever it leads. There are some who would suppress the teaching of scientific results they consider unacceptable for social reasons.
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@Biologist
Those facts should importantly include that it is the modern dna evolution after the Africa outward migrations that really make us human the way we comprehend human existence in our present form, and that parallel evolution is irreplaceable.
3
I’d like to bring this to medical schools. Then maybe we could start to correct the misperceptions that many future doctors have, such as that Black patients do not feel pain to the same extent as white patients—me of the many racist beliefs that have been uncovered by social sciences research.
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@Nancy However there exists biological differences between human populations such as the rates of sickle cell disease among African Americans.
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@Nancy I’m a physician and I’ve never heard that, nor met another physician who expressed this idea. The issue with differing responses to patient’s expressed pain isn’t so much racial as it is classist. The stereotypical patient snacking on chips and talking on their phone who claims “10/10” pain gets an eyebrow raise and Tylenol from all of us, regardless of race, but if you looked at 100 pts fitting this description the majority would be considered of a “lower” class. Why? I suspect that they experience more adversity in their lives and thus have more difficulty coping with pain. My husband has a saying, “pain is inevitable but suffering is optional”, and it’s really the suffering that we’re being asked to treat.
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@ED DOC The example (pain thresholds) used by Nancy above is unfortunately thoroughly well-represented in the historical record.
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I majored in biology. Knowledge of genetics, blood, bacteria, bones, all of the components of the human body, certainly enables one to see other humans’ similarities to your own.
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@Mary Ann Understanding how a "colorblind, homogenous" society (we're nowhere close) can still produce non-homogenous results over time requires statistics as well as all the things you mention. Hence, NBA players may have more African ancestors (or be African) than non-NBA players because there are reportedly a higher percentage of tall male people in African-American population than in non-African-American. However, it is my understanding this may be true of people from the Denmark the too. So, that's a complicated subject for a high schooler or anyone to understand. It'd be interesting to see how the instructors in a science class would address the issue.