Apr 6, 2024 05:01 PM
https://geneticliteracyproject.org/2024/...d-biology/
EXCERPTS: Using biology to determine the racial ancestry of human remains is racist. Except when it’s done in the name of anti-racism.
Biological ancestry, moreover, plays no role in susceptibility to disease. Except when it does.
Artificial intelligence (AI) systems identifying ‘race’ from medical images perpetuate systemic racism. Except when doing so ameliorates racial health disparities.
Above all, ‘race’ has no basis in biology. Except when it has.
Such contradictory conclusions can be drawn from an increasing number of studies of ‘race’, health and disease. The mixed messaging here is not merely contradictory and confusing; it potentially harms those from racial populations already bearing the brunt of health inequities, while also hindering efforts to close these often deadly divides...
[...] The point is that simply blaming racism for all disparities in disease susceptibility and mortality may blind us to potentially crucial biological or genetic factors.
Exacerbating this issue is the insistence that race has no biological basis beyond, at most, superficial physical traits. This directly contradicts overwhelming evidence of meaningful genetic differences between racial groups (as discussed by GLP director Jon Entine and me with racial differences in the effects of Covid 19 and HIV/Aids). Ignoring this data, (as many scientists did even two years into the pandemic), risks derailing efforts to effectively tackle diseases that disproportionately affect marginalized communities.
For example, ‘biobanks’ (repositories of human genetic data) are already hugely skewed towards those of European ancestry. Take the UK Biobank, a biomedical database of “genetic, lifestyle and health information and biological samples from half a million UK participants”. While this is an invaluable resource for “the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of a wide range of serious and life-threatening illnesses,” it only reflects the genetics of the British population as a whole — that is, overwhelmingly northern European. It is much less useful, however, in predicting health outcomes of those from other racial populations, whose genetic traits may differ across thousands of small genetic variations.
As psychologist Jonathan Anomaly points out, the lack of similar biobanks in, say, Africa or South Asia (that is, areas with poor health infrastructure and greater disease prevalence) means many of the most marginalized people in the world will be far less able than Europeans to “mitigate genetic risks through lifestyle changes and early medical interventions”. Further, Anomaly argues, that potential parents from other racial groups attempting in-vitro fertilization will also miss out on the choices increasingly available to prospective European parents.
Research taboos on ‘race’. In explaining this mismatch among different racial groups in the collection and use of useful genetic data, Anomaly points to “taboos surrounding research into genetic differences in socially significant traits” — that is, as highlighted above, the reluctance of many Western academics to accept that biology plays a part in racial variation and in differences in health outcomes.
Anomaly goes on to suggest, “Many social justice advocates say they want to help disadvantaged or poorly performing racial groups. But the taboos they’ve helped create in modern genetics research may end up depriving some ethnic groups of the opportunities that others will have.”...
[...] Fortunately, at least as yet, the scientific establishment has not embraced another feature of activist ‘scholarship’: a relativist approach to ‘truth’ (the idea that factual truth is relative to individuals’ cultural or social background). [...] However, by its own logic such relativism is incoherent and self-defeating; any claims made by relativist researchers are no more valid than any alternative ‘perspectives on truth’ that argue the opposite.
Interestingly, the relativist authors of the plague study demonstrate that they do accept some absolute truths — for example, in their claim that “the truth is that race (structural racism) was invented, refined, and rehearsed in medieval England”. The truth, it seems, is relative, except when it suits a specific ideological agenda... (MORE - details)
EXCERPTS: Using biology to determine the racial ancestry of human remains is racist. Except when it’s done in the name of anti-racism.
"We urge all forensic anthropologists to abolish the practice of ancestry estimation."
Biological ancestry, moreover, plays no role in susceptibility to disease. Except when it does.
"Despite social scientific perspectives that endorse a nonbiological basis to race, within biomedicine, biological uses of race remain entrenched due to their utility for identifying the causes of the disease."
Artificial intelligence (AI) systems identifying ‘race’ from medical images perpetuate systemic racism. Except when doing so ameliorates racial health disparities.
"AI models can predict the demographics of patients, including race, directly from medical images, even though no distinguishing anatomical or physiological features are evident to human clinicians."
Above all, ‘race’ has no basis in biology. Except when it has.
Such contradictory conclusions can be drawn from an increasing number of studies of ‘race’, health and disease. The mixed messaging here is not merely contradictory and confusing; it potentially harms those from racial populations already bearing the brunt of health inequities, while also hindering efforts to close these often deadly divides...
[...] The point is that simply blaming racism for all disparities in disease susceptibility and mortality may blind us to potentially crucial biological or genetic factors.
Exacerbating this issue is the insistence that race has no biological basis beyond, at most, superficial physical traits. This directly contradicts overwhelming evidence of meaningful genetic differences between racial groups (as discussed by GLP director Jon Entine and me with racial differences in the effects of Covid 19 and HIV/Aids). Ignoring this data, (as many scientists did even two years into the pandemic), risks derailing efforts to effectively tackle diseases that disproportionately affect marginalized communities.
For example, ‘biobanks’ (repositories of human genetic data) are already hugely skewed towards those of European ancestry. Take the UK Biobank, a biomedical database of “genetic, lifestyle and health information and biological samples from half a million UK participants”. While this is an invaluable resource for “the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of a wide range of serious and life-threatening illnesses,” it only reflects the genetics of the British population as a whole — that is, overwhelmingly northern European. It is much less useful, however, in predicting health outcomes of those from other racial populations, whose genetic traits may differ across thousands of small genetic variations.
As psychologist Jonathan Anomaly points out, the lack of similar biobanks in, say, Africa or South Asia (that is, areas with poor health infrastructure and greater disease prevalence) means many of the most marginalized people in the world will be far less able than Europeans to “mitigate genetic risks through lifestyle changes and early medical interventions”. Further, Anomaly argues, that potential parents from other racial groups attempting in-vitro fertilization will also miss out on the choices increasingly available to prospective European parents.
Research taboos on ‘race’. In explaining this mismatch among different racial groups in the collection and use of useful genetic data, Anomaly points to “taboos surrounding research into genetic differences in socially significant traits” — that is, as highlighted above, the reluctance of many Western academics to accept that biology plays a part in racial variation and in differences in health outcomes.
Anomaly goes on to suggest, “Many social justice advocates say they want to help disadvantaged or poorly performing racial groups. But the taboos they’ve helped create in modern genetics research may end up depriving some ethnic groups of the opportunities that others will have.”...
[...] Fortunately, at least as yet, the scientific establishment has not embraced another feature of activist ‘scholarship’: a relativist approach to ‘truth’ (the idea that factual truth is relative to individuals’ cultural or social background). [...] However, by its own logic such relativism is incoherent and self-defeating; any claims made by relativist researchers are no more valid than any alternative ‘perspectives on truth’ that argue the opposite.
Interestingly, the relativist authors of the plague study demonstrate that they do accept some absolute truths — for example, in their claim that “the truth is that race (structural racism) was invented, refined, and rehearsed in medieval England”. The truth, it seems, is relative, except when it suits a specific ideological agenda... (MORE - details)