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Post by Progenitor A on Jan 14, 2015 10:29:54 GMT 1
This is a troubled area with a great deal of dissension splitting the ranks of scientists However this thread is dedicated to those buffoons, invariably with no scientific background that presume to make sweeping statements on the behalf of science Here are two such: "Science today does not accept that human beings are divided into races." "No geneticist recognises those old crude divisions of homo sapiens into Negro, Caucasian and whatever else it was, marchesa" Of course such sweeping statements can be refuted without evidence, for how can non-scientists possibly know these things; indeed it would be foolhardy of any scientist that does reject the concept of race (there are many) to make such foolish statements that simply reflect a prejudice The statements are also intellectually lazy (a common correlation with stupidity) Well here are some direct refutations of such arrant ignorance - others will follow: www.nature.com/ng/journal/v36/n11s/full/ng1435.htmlynn B Jorde & Stephen P Wooding Department of Human Genetics, University of Utah School of Medicine, Salt Lake City, Utah 84112, USA. Correspondence should be addressed to Lynn B Jorde lbj@genetics.utah.edu New genetic data has enabled scientists to re-examine the relationship between human genetic variation and 'race'. We review the results of genetic analyses that show that human genetic variation is geographically structured, in accord with historical patterns of gene flow and genetic drift. Analysis of many loci now yields reasonably accurate estimates of genetic similarity among individuals, rather than populations. Clustering of individuals is correlated with geographic origin or ancestry. These clusters are also correlated with some traditional concepts of race, but the correlations are imperfect because genetic variation tends to be distributed in a continuous, overlapping fashion among populations. [Therefore, ancestry, or even race, may in some cases prove useful in the biomedical setting, but direct assessment of disease-related genetic variation will ultimately yield more accurate and beneficial information. www.nature.com/ng/journal/v33/n4/full/ng0403-435.htmlClassifying humans Francesc Calafell Unitat de Biologia Evolutiva, Departament de Ciències Experimentals i de la Salut, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, 08003 Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. francesc.calafell@cexs.upf.es Recent papers have shown the feasibility of classifying humans into categorical populations from their genotypes. How can this be reconciled with the claim that human races are biologically meaningless, and what are the implications for medical genetics projects? Recent papers in Science1 and the American Journal of Human Genetics2 have shown that genetic polymorphisms can be used to predict the population of origin of an individual. In both reports a large number of polymorphisms were genotyped in population samples from around the world, and a model-based clustering method3 was used by the authors to ascertain how many distinct populations can be found in the global sample and estimate the probability that an individual belongs to one of these populations. www.nature.com/ng/journal/v36/n12/full/ng1204-1243.htmlgenetic control of disease, does 'race' matter? David B Goldstein1 & Joel N Hirschhorn2 1. David B Goldstein is in the Department of Biology at Galton Labs, University College London, London, WC1E 6BT, UK. 2. Joel N. Hirschhorn is in the Divisions of Genetics and Endocrinology at Children's Hospital/Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA and in the Program in Medical and Population Genetics, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA. Abstract As geneticists begin to identify gene variants associated with common diseases and responses to treatment, it is increasingly important to determine whether these variants have consistent effects across different 'racial' or 'ethnic' groups. Until recently, too little was known about either disease genetics or pharmacogenetics to make a detailed assessment. Now, a new study reviewing 43 disease-associated gene variants suggests that the effects of gene variants may be largely consistent across different 'racial' or 'ethnic' groups.An important question in human genetics is whether gene variants have the same effect in different 'racial' groups (in this context, groups with different self-described ethnicities). We know that mendelian mutations that cause disease in one 'racial' or 'ethnic' group almost always cause disease in other groups (when they are present). www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2982533/?page=1
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Post by fascinating on Jan 14, 2015 14:11:21 GMT 1
At last you have done some research that might possibly take forward this debate. Of course, you cannot avoid making unwarranted insults nevertheless. You quoted that abstract from Jorde and Wooding before, and I read it closely and responded showing you why it does not state that, scientifically, humans are divided into races. I can copy and paste my response here if you like. The Calafell abstract is only in the form of a question. The part you have quoted from the body of the paper nowhere mentions "race". It refers to three earlier studies, the first being by Rosenberg et al about genetic clustering. (I gave information about this in the last link I provided in the "Moslems Slaughter Moslems" discussion.) Rosenberg has stated that their findings “should not be taken as evidence of our support of any particular concept of biological race (...). Genetic differences among human populations derive mainly from gradations in allele frequencies rather than from distinctive ‘diagnostic’ genotypes.” The second study referred to is new to me though it has Bamshad, Jorde and Wooding et al as co-authors. I cannot see any specific mention of "race" in it, but it does say "Membership in these groups is commonly inferred by use of a proxy such as place-of-origin or ethnic affiliation. These inferences are frequently weakened, however, by use of surrogates, such as skin color, for these proxies, the distribution of which bears little resemblance to the distribution of neutral genetic variation. Consequently, it has become increasingly controversial whether proxies are sufficient and accurate representations of groups inferred from neutral genetic variation....We note that, whereas some proxies correspond crudely, if at all, to population structure, the heuristic value of others is much higher. This suggests that a more flexible framework is needed for making inferences about population structure and the utility of proxies." I don't see any indication here that races within humanity are recognised. The third study, mentioning the gene cluster analysis, is discussed in the main body of the link I gave in gave in the last discussion, here it is again en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_genetic_clustering#Studies. This doesn't mention race either, though it does talk about "assigning individuals to populations" by this clustering method used in genetics. The "does 'race' matter" article you refer to (which mrsonde might dismiss out of hand because it is from Nature) mentions "races" but just like that, always in quotes. It makes it clear that, in this context, that "racial groups" means "groups with different self-described ethnicities" - meaning not scientifically defined. I'm not sure (I can't access the whole article) but it seems to be saying, in the final sentence that you have quoted, that genetic mutations which cause disease in one 'racial group' will have the same effect (ie cause disease) if they occur in other racial groups - so there is nothing here to distinguish between racial groups. Your last link shows an article from 1964 about eugenics, thus is not appropriate to science today. I stand by my statement "Science today does not accept that human beings are divided into races."
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Post by Progenitor A on Jan 14, 2015 14:24:16 GMT 1
atvb.ahajournals.org/content/20/8/1932.shortAbstract Abstract—Abdominal obesity is associated with numerous metabolic alterations, such as hypertriglyceridemia and low levels of high density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol. However, compared with abdominally obese white individuals, abdominally obese black individuals have been characterized by higher plasma HDL cholesterol levels, suggesting that the impact of abdominal fat accumulation on the lipoprotein-lipid profile may differ among ethnic groups. Therefore, we have compared the associations between body fatness, visceral adipose tissue (AT) accumulation, and metabolic risk variables in a sample of 247 white men and 240 white women versus a sample of 93 black men and 143 black women. Although no difference in mean total body fatness was found between the 2 race groups, white men had higher levels of visceral AT than did black men (P<0.001). Despite the fact that black women had a greater body fat content than did white women, black women had levels of visceral AT that were similar to those of white women, suggesting a lower susceptibility to visceral obesity in black women. This lower accumulation of visceral AT in blacks was accompanied by significantly reduced apolipoprotein B concentrations and ratios of total cholesterol to HDL cholesterol as well as higher plasma HDL cholesterol levels (P<0.05) compared with those values in whites. Irrespective of sex, higher postheparin plasma hepatic lipase (HL) and lower lipoprotein lipase (LPL) activities were found in whites, resulting in an HL/LPL ratio that was twice as high in whites as in blacks (P<0.005). Although differences in lipoprotein-lipid levels were noted between whites and blacks, results from multiple regression analyses revealed that after control for morphometric and metabolic variables of the study (body fat mass, visceral AT, LPL, HL, and age), ethnicity had, per se, only a minor contribution to the variance in plasma lipoprotein levels. Thus, our results suggest that the higher plasma HDL cholesterol levels and the generally more cardioprotective plasma lipoprotein profile found in abdominally obese black versus white individuals are explained, at least to a certain extent, by a lower visceral AT deposition and a higher plasma LPL activity in black individuals.
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Post by Progenitor A on Jan 14, 2015 14:26:47 GMT 1
ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/abs/10.2105/AJPH.2005.068668ABSTRACT Latinos are the largest minority population in the United States. Although usually classified as a single ethnic group by researchers, Latinos are heterogeneous from cultural, socioeconomic, and genetic perspectives. From a cultural and social perspective, Latinos represent a wide variety of national origins and ethnic and cultural groups, with a full spectrum of social class. From a genetic perspective, Latinos are descended from indigenous American, European, and African populations.We review the historical events that led to the formation of contemporary Latino populations and use results from recent genetic and clinical studies to illustrate the unique opportunity Latino groups offer for studying the interaction between racial, genetic, and environmental contributions to disease occurrence and drug response. Read More: ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/abs/10.2105/AJPH.2005.068668
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Post by Progenitor A on Jan 14, 2015 14:30:44 GMT 1
muse.jhu.edu/journals/pbm/summary/v045/45.2braun.htmlAbstract Over the past decade, numerous studies have documented profound racial and ethnic disparities in disease in the United States. This essay examines how popular and scientific concepts of race and ethnicity converge with dominant understandings of genetics to inform the design and interpretation of research, public health policy, and medical practice. Although there is some acknowledgment in the biomedical community that racial and ethnic categories are social and not genetic, ideas about race and ethnicity that circulate in biomedicine are contradictory. Thus, in practice genetic explanations for observed differences are common both in the scientific literature and in popular media accounts of biomedical research. Such explanations naturalize racial and ethnic difference and create a conceptual barrier to developing a research program that explores the complex ways in which social inequality and experiences of racial discrimination interact with human biology to influence patterns of disease. Importantly, genetically based ideas lead to disease prevention policies that are bound to be ineffective.
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Post by Progenitor A on Jan 14, 2015 14:35:05 GMT 1
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Post by Progenitor A on Jan 14, 2015 14:37:38 GMT 1
sss.sagepub.com/content/38/5/643.shortIntroduction: Race, Genetics, and Disease Questions of Evidence, Matters of Consequence Joan H. Fujimura1, Troy Duster2 and Ramya Rajagopalan3 + Author Affiliations 1Department of Sociology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 8128 Social Science Building, 1180 Observatory Drive, Madison, WI 53706, fujimura@ssc.wisc.edu 2New York University, troy.duster@nyu.edu 3Department of Sociology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 8128 Social Science Building, 1180 Observatory Drive, Madison, WI 53706, USA, ramya@ssc.wisc.edu Abstract This special issue of Studies of Science highlights ongoing debates concerning race, genomics, and disease. Some of the papers examine the production of disease etiology research, pharmaceutical drug response, or DNA genealogy tests, while others analyze institutional consequences and challenges arising from contemporary biomedicine, such as medical education and recruiting subjects for clinical research. In this introduction, we outline major issues that provide background and foreground for the specific studies that follow, and end with a brief description of the papers. First, we briefly outline the debates around contemporary genetics research on race, ancestry, population, and disease. Second, we describe genomics and disease research projects on the genetics of populations that provide the ground on which the past debates have played, as well as introduce very recent projects that may change the tenor of future debates. We discuss why some scientists argue that their research does not biologize race, while others argue that their findings do demonstrate racial differences. Finally, we relate these complex genomic sciences and their biopolitical debates to relevant STS themes.
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Post by Progenitor A on Jan 14, 2015 14:40:16 GMT 1
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Post by Progenitor A on Jan 14, 2015 14:42:28 GMT 1
books.google.co.uk/books?id=Btl6C29xXm0C&dq=genetics+of+race&lr=&source=gbs_navlinks_s Race, Ethnicity, and Nation: Perspectives from Kinship and Genetics (Google eBook) Front Cover Peter Wade Berghahn Books, 15 Dec 2007 - Social Science - 210 pages 0 Reviews Race, ethnicity and nation are all intimately linked to family and kinship, yet these links deserve closer attention than they usually get in social science, above all when family and kinship are changing rapidly in the context of genomic and biotechnological revolutions. Drawing on data from assisted reproduction, transnational adoption, mixed race families, Basque identity politics and post-Soviet nation-building, this volume provides new and challenging ways to understand race, ethnicity and nation.
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Post by Progenitor A on Jan 14, 2015 14:44:21 GMT 1
annals.org/article.aspx?articleid=718877The Practitioner's Dilemma: Can We Use a Patient's Race To Predict Genetics, Ancestry, and the Expected Outcomes of Treatment? Donald A. Barr, MD, PhD [+] Article and Author Information Ann Intern Med. 2005;143(11):809-815. doi:10.7326/0003-4819-143-11-200512060-00009 Text Size: A A A Potential Financial Conflicts of Interest: None disclosed. Requests for Single Reprints: Donald A. Barr, MD, PhD, Department of Sociology, Stanford University, Building 120, MC 2047, Stanford, CA 94305-2047; e-mail, barr@stanford.edu. Article Tables References Comments (0) Recent research has identified genetic traits that can be used in a laboratory setting to distinguish among global population groups. In some genetic analyses, the population groups identified resemble groups that are historically categorized as “races.†On the basis of these associations, some researchers have argued that a patient's race can be used to predict underlying genetic traits and from these traits, the expected outcomes of treatment. Others have questioned the use of race in this way, arguing that racially defined groups are so heterogeneous that predictions of individual characteristics derived from group averages are bound to be problematic.Practitioners today face the dilemma of translating this scientific debate into clinical decisions made 1 patient at a time. Is it or is it not appropriate to use a patient's self-identified “race†to help decide treatment?In contrast to the global population groups identified by genetic studies, the U.S. population has experienced substantial genetic admixture over time, weakening our ability to distinguish groups on the basis of meaningful genetic differences. Nonetheless, many researchers have suggested that these differences are still sufficient to identify racially specific uses for pharmaceutical and other treatments. A review of recent research on the treatment of hypertension and congestive heart failure finds that race-specific treatments of this type carry a substantial risk for treating patients—black or white—inappropriately, either by withholding a treatment that may be effective or by using a treatment that may be ineffective. Only by moving beyond historical concepts of “race†to examining a patient's individual socioeconomic, cultural, behavioral, and ancestral circumstances can a practitioner select the treatment that is most likely to be effective and in doing so, can best serve that patient's needs.
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Post by Progenitor A on Jan 14, 2015 16:40:44 GMT 1
jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=201457ABSTRACT ABSTRACT | CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN RACE AND POPULATION STRUCTURE | GENETIC RISK FACTORS FOR COMMON DISEASES AMONG POPULATIONS | VARIED EFFECTS OF GENETIC RISK FACTORS AMONG POPULATIONS | CONCLUSION | ARTICLE INFORMATION | REFERENCES Race is frequently used by clinicians and biomedical researchers to make inferences about an individual’s ancestry and to predict whether an individual carries specific genetic risk factors that influence health. The extent to which race is useful for making such predictions depends on how well race corresponds with genetic inferences of ancestry, how frequently common diseases in different racial groups are influenced by the same vs different gene variants, and whether such variants have the same effects in different racial groups. New studies of human genetic variation show that while genetic ancestry is highly correlated with geographic ancestry, its correlation with race is modest. Therefore, while data on the correspondence of race, ancestry, and health-related traits are still limited, particularly in minority populations, geographic ancestry and explicit genetic information are alternatives to race that appear to be more accurate predictors of genetic risk factors that influence health. Making accurate ancestry inferences is crucial because common diseases and drug responses are sometimes influenced by gene variants that vary in frequency or differ altogether among racial groups. Thus, operationalizing alternatives to race for clinicians will be an important step toward providing more personalized health care
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Post by Progenitor A on Jan 14, 2015 16:42:23 GMT 1
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Post by Progenitor A on Jan 14, 2015 16:47:33 GMT 1
journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=8385054&fileId=S002193200002321XRace, genetics and growth Proceedings of the Fifth Annual Symposium of the Eugenics Society, 5th, London,. D. F. Robertsa1 a1 Laboratory of Human Genetics, University of Newcastle upon Tyne Much of our understanding of the biological differences between races has come with the development of human genetics. Surveys have established the frequencies of genetic characters known to be under the control of single genes and independent of environmental modification; comparisons of these frequencies in different populations have led to the resolution of many of the earlier outstanding problems of affinities between races and, with the support of experimental and associated investigations, to the identification and measurement of the processes that have given rise to race formation. With this information we can begin to appreciate the extent to which apparent differences are due to racial heritage and to environmental influences
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Post by Progenitor A on Jan 14, 2015 16:54:56 GMT 1
www.palgrave-journals.com/biosoc/journal/v2/n2/abs/biosoc200718a.htmlRace and Genetics: Attempts to Define the Relationship Duana Fullwiley Department of Society, Human Development, and Health, Harvard School of Public Health, 677 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA 02115, USA. E-mail: dfullwil@hsph.harvard.edu Top of page Abstract Many researchers working in the field of human genetics in the United States have been caught between two seemingly competing messages with regard to racial categories and genetic difference. As the human genome was mapped in 2000, Francis Collins, the head of the publicly funded project, together with his privately funded rival, announced that humans were 99.9 percent the same at the level of their genome. That same year, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) began a research program on pharmacogenetics that would exploit the .01 percent of human genetic difference, increasingly understood in racial terms, to advance the field of pharmacy. First, this article addresses Collins’ summary of what he called the ‘vigorous debate’ on the relationship between race and genetics in the open-access special issue of Nature Genetics entitled ‘Genetics for the Human Race’ in 2004. Second, it examines the most vexed (if not always openly stated) issue at stake in the debate: that many geneticists today work with the assumption that human biology differs by race as it is conceived through American census categories. It then presents interviews with researchers in two collaborating US laboratories who collect and organize DNA by American notions of ‘race/ethnicity’ and assume that US race categories of classification largely traduce human biogenetic difference. It concludes that race is a practical and conceptual tool whose utility and function is often taken for granted rather than rigorously assessed and that ‘rational medicine’ cannot precede a rational approach to addressing the nature of racial disparities, difference and inequality in health and society more broadly.
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Post by Progenitor A on Jan 14, 2015 16:57:56 GMT 1
nternational Journal of Health Services Issue: Volume 36, Number 3 / 2006 baywood.metapress.com/app/home/contribution.asp?referrer=parent&backto=issue,8,13;journal,34,176;linkingpublicationresults,1:300313,1 Pages: 557 - 573 URL: Linking Options DOI: 10.2190/8JAF-D8ED-8WPD-J9WH REIFYING HUMAN DIFFERENCE: THE DEBATE ON GENETICS, RACE, AND HEALTH Lundy Braun Abstract: The causes of racial and ethnic inequalities in health and the most appropriate categories to use to address health inequality have been the subject of heated debate in recent years. At the same time, genetic explanations for racial disparities have figured prominently in the scientific and popular press since the announcement of the sequencing of the human genome. To understand how such explanations assumed prominence, this essay analyzes the circulation of ideas about race and genetics and the rhetorical strategies used by authors of key texts to shape the debate. The authority of genetic accounts for racial and ethnic difference in disease, the author argues, is rooted in a broad cultural faith in the promise of genetics to solve problems of human disease and the inner truth of human beings that is intertwined with historical meanings attached to race. Such accounts are problematic for a variety of reasons. Importantly, they produce, reify, and naturalize notions of racial difference, provide a scientific rationale for racially targeted medical care, and distract attention from research that probes the complex ways in which political, economic, social, and biological factors, especially those of inequality and racism, cause health disparities.
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