"In the recent issue of the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, we invited experts in anthropology, evolutionary biology, government, law, medicine, public policy and sociology to examine the return of racial essentialism and biological determinism. Those are separate but related. Racial essentialism is the concept that people of different racial and ethnic groups possess specific traits and behaviors unique to their group. Biological determinism is the belief that race is a genetic reality that regulates how we behave.
Two of the studies included in the volume look at how misguided beliefs in genetically distinct races with differing capabilities underlie our everyday conversations about race and inequality...
Through a series of statistical models using survey data collected from more than 2,200 whites in the United States, W. Carson Byrd in collaboration with Victor E. Ray of the University of Tennessee found that whites generally believe that personality traits and behaviors are influenced more by environmental influences than by genetics. However, these same respondents believed that genetics were slightly more influential over the traits and behaviors of blacks than whites...
This set of beliefs presents racial inequality as resulting from one person’s individual efforts — efforts that are genetically limited. Gone are any consideration of social and political factors like past or present discrimination, New Deal and postwar law and policies that helped whites acquire property and excluded people of color, the “school-to-prison pipeline,” or any other structural cause."
This set of beliefs presents racial inequality as resulting from one person’s individual efforts — efforts that are genetically limited. Gone are any consideration of social and political factors like past or present discrimination, New Deal and postwar law and policies that helped whites acquire property and excluded people of color, the “school-to-prison pipeline,” or any other structural cause."
Welp.
We need to teach biology better. WE NEED TO TEACH GENETICS BETTER. We live in this world where genes and genetic ancestry are discussed and in the news and in popular culture and in policy and people have such a poor understanding of these concepts and terms. Even me though - I somehow finished 9th grade biology thinking that codons and genes were the same thing and kinda waiting until AP biology to sort it out.
I feel like units on human population genetics should cover this explicitly - that race is not biological, that the genomes of people within a race category vary more than people across race categories (i.e. identifying someone's race isn't going to give you insight into their genome), and that genomes can map peoples' regional ancestry because of genetic drift (i.e. the way that randomness works in population genetics) not selected evolution (except for some pigment stuff). It's useful and important to know, and a great demonstration of a bunch of concepts in genetics.
We need to teach biology better. WE NEED TO TEACH GENETICS BETTER. We live in this world where genes and genetic ancestry are discussed and in the news and in popular culture and in policy and people have such a poor understanding of these concepts and terms. Even me though - I somehow finished 9th grade biology thinking that codons and genes were the same thing and kinda waiting until AP biology to sort it out.
I feel like units on human population genetics should cover this explicitly - that race is not biological, that the genomes of people within a race category vary more than people across race categories (i.e. identifying someone's race isn't going to give you insight into their genome), and that genomes can map peoples' regional ancestry because of genetic drift (i.e. the way that randomness works in population genetics) not selected evolution (except for some pigment stuff). It's useful and important to know, and a great demonstration of a bunch of concepts in genetics.
No comments:
Post a Comment