Looking for some authortative Bio Sources

[byosys]

As per the title, my English TA is stubborn about something she knows nothing about (Biology). She read one book from way back when (i.e. before DNA) and now has the idea that race is an entirely social construct firmly entrenched into her mind.

Now, I know that DNA differences make a black persons skin black and Asians have different facial structures than the majority of whites, but I don't have any authoritative sources to back that up. I'm looking for articles with complexity all over the map (I'm going to need more than 2 or 3 since my TA is pretty stubborn) but most importantly, scholarly so she can't argue the legitimacy with me.

Thanks

PS Please let's not get into "just agree with her and get a good grade". Her thinking is completely wrong, and destroys a fair bit my paper.

 

[Pulsar]

Look up the gene for Asians that lends itself to getting drunk on microscopic amounts of alcohol. That should be pertanent to both your argument AND being in college =).

 

[f95toli]

Depends on what you mean by "race". To a large extens she IS right, race is mainly a social construct. There are obviously genetic factors which affect e.g. pigmentation but there are never any clear-cut dividing lines; i.e. you can usually find the whole spectrum of genetic variations if you large at a large population. Hence, at some point the concept of race becomes arbitrary (since there is no clear "marker" which can tell you if a person belongs to race A or B) and from a biological point of view the concept is more or less meaningsless. AFAIK the concept is very rarely used (if at all) in biology.

Note that the same thing can actually be said about the concept of "species", the difference there is that there is a "de facto definition" which says that if two animals can reproduce and the offspring is fertile they belong to the same species. However, once again the dividing lines are pretty fuzzy which has been the source of great confusion in evolutionary biology (e.g. the famous "chicken and the egg" problem).

Richard Dawkins writes about this in his book "The ancestors tale". Highly recommended.

 

[bobsmith1492]

From my biology/genetics class, they've found africans and europeans who were more closely related genetically than neighboring europeans. It is mostly a social construct, besides some obvious differences.

 

[byosys]

I understand that race is indeed partly (hell, even mainly) a social construct. However, I can't believe that race specifically excludes biological differences. A black person *has* a gene that says, in a way, skinColor == black (forgive my pusedo code). Same thing for facial structure as well as the enzyme to break down alcohol. My point is that race (as we normally see it here in America) has a genetic component (i.e. a white person has European ancestors and a Asian person has ancestors from Asia) and thus at least partly biological based.

 

[Gibsons]

Originally posted by: byosys
I understand that race is indeed partly (hell, even mainly) a social construct. However, I can't believe that race specifically excludes biological differences. A black person *has* a gene that says, in a way, skinColor == black (forgive my pusedo code). Same thing for facial structure as well as the enzyme to break down alcohol. My point is that race (as we normally see it here in America) has a genetic component (i.e. a white person has European ancestors and a Asian person has ancestors from Asia) and thus at least partly biological based.

The number of those differences is quite small, though. Given only a sample of DNA from an individual, it's non-trivial to assign a race to the sample with any confidence. Sure, if you find a sickle-cell or hemophilia allele you might have really good idea, but that's a rare case.

 

[CycloWizard]

I just Google'd for 'caucasoid negroid mongoloid gene' and this was the first link on Google Scholar:

Evolution of human races at the gene level

It gives related references on the right side of the page, and it's directly from NIH. If you're just trying to show that there are genetically distinct races, then that would be a good place to start. Of course, as others have said, it's not quite so simple, and largely depends on how you want to define 'race'.

 

[f95toli]

Originally posted by: byosys
I understand that race is indeed partly (hell, even mainly) a social construct. However, I can't believe that race specifically excludes biological differences. A black person *has* a gene that says, in a way, skinColor == black (forgive my pusedo code). Same thing for facial structure as well as the enzyme to break down alcohol. My point is that race (as we normally see it here in America) has a genetic component (i.e. a white person has European ancestors and a Asian person has ancestors from Asia) and thus at least partly biological based.

But as I have already pointed out the problem is that there is no such thing as a "on-off button" for black/white (or european/asian etc); we all have different skin colours and if you where to travel from central africa to northern Europe you would see a more or less gradual change from "dark" black to "pale" white. Where does the change from "black" to "white" happen?

Another problem is of course is that for purely social and cultural reasons people with one "white" and one "black" parent are generally considered to be "black", regardless of their pigmentation; and it is hopefully obvious that there is definitly no basis for that.

 

[SuperFungus]

I've heard that the bone structures of pacific islanders/Asians are very distinctly different from that of whites and blacks which are relatively similar by comparison, although I'm not sure why exactly. Here's a Times article i found that talks about the evolutionary incentives which led to traits associated with the different races: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/07/scien...6986b0e&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

As far as there not being an "on-off button for black/white" I only partially agree. If you took the mean skin tone of all of the people of direct Nigerian descent and compared that to the mean skin tone of people of direct Germanic descent you would find a clear difference, and since the skin tone trait is controlled by a certain gene, one can only conclude that what makes one Nigerian and "black" vs what makes one Germanic and "white" is real genetic difference. In that sense race is genetic. Culturally, as your example shows, people tend to categorize others based on skin tone, facial features etc. regardless of their actual heritage. This happens on both ends of the spectrum; I for example am Irish, German, and Danish but am categorized as Caucasian just like people from Hawaii and Micronesia are grouped as Pacific Islanders, etc. However, I would call these groupings stereotypes fabricated by culture, not actual race. And you're right, grouping the person in your example as either "black" or "white" is shaky at best, he is equally "black" and "white" and that is the only accurate way to describe his race in my opinion. It seems ridiculous that things like modern standardized tests ask for your racial background, what possible legitimate use could they have for it? Are they trying to show that one race scores better than another, generally or in specific areas? If anyone knows why they ask please let me in on it, because it totally escapes me.

 

[Fike]

I think the reason that they ask for race in government documents is to track the inequity between races. I don't mean some genetic inequity, but it is no secret in the US that on averge blacks make less money and acheive a lower level of education. This inequity is the result of a social history of the US that placed blacks at a disadvantage for any number of historical reasons. The government is interested in tracking this information to see if we are making progress based upon any number of social programs intended to remedy the situation--so programs like Head Start or No Child Left Behind are interested in checking the progress of various subgroups.

I hope that provides a sensitive and helpful explanation.

 

[xtknight]

This may be helpful: http://apologeticspress.org/articles/2007

 

[byosys]

First off, thanks for all the links.

To address my horrible example in the skinColor == black:
I am well aware that what ever gene(s) determine skin color, there are basically an unlimited number of skin colors. I was using it as a simple example, one which I now regret using (since it obviously doesn't hold up or make my point very well).

I am not arguing that race is entirely genetic. Doing so would be stupid. I'm arguing that race, no matter how you define it, has a small biological component. Who your great*100 grandparents were (and where the lived/worked) plays a role in how you look and every thing about your body physically (skin color, hair color, build, facial structure, etc).

I'm having a hard time articulating my exact thoughts as it is late here, but hopefully I'll have some fresh ideas in the morning (or maybe not be so dense you what you guys are saying as that could be the case as well. Traveling does weird things to the brain.)

 

[phisrow]

Your TA is right, in a sense: The set of characteristics we use to assign people to one racial category or another(and which categories we recognise) is largely a social matter. For example, the Irish were, in the relatively recent past, considered to be a different and inferior race. These days they are, at best, considered to be an ethnic group and are frequently just mixed in with "white". Italians, and various flavours of eastern European had similar stories.

On the other hand, the phenotypic attributes that correlate with racial groups tend to be the kind that are quite reliably heritable. With more or less all definitions of race, over time, parents of the same race will produce children who will be identified on phenotypic grounds as of that race. The edges of a racial category frequently get a touch complicated(cases of mixed parentage, etc.) and societies where heavy mixing has occurred usually have to resort to class distinctions to sort people out(For example, the Spanish colonies in the Americas had spaniards, africans, and indigenous populations interbreeding. The very upper crust of the spaniards stayed pretty much unmixed; but below that things got pretty confused).

 

[BladeVenom]

You might want to look up speciation. If people recognize a difference and don't breed outside their group it will create differences until they are considered a different species. But of course political correctness carries more weight in Universities than factual science. So I don't really see you winning your argument even if you could scientifically prove it.

 

[Gibsons]

Originally posted by: BladeVenom
You might want to look up speciation. If people recognize a difference and don't breed outside their group it will create differences until they are considered a different species.

True, but it takes a very long time with no interbreeding. Of course there's all kinds of interbreeding among humans, so it's not particularly relevant for this discussion.

 

[DrPizza]

Hmmm... so if race *isn't* a social construct, then the concept of race wouldn't genetically be limited to humans. Can you name another species in which we refer to different "races"? i.e. poodles may have either white fur or black fur. We don't refer to the two different colors of poodles as different races, or even as different breeds.


look in scholar.google:
Text

 

[dkozloski]

Are you guys trying to tell me that when a forensic anthropologist identifies skeletal remains as coming from an African American, Caucasian, or Asian they're dreaming?

 

[f95toli]

Originally posted by: dkozloski
Are you guys trying to tell me that when a forensic anthropologist identifies skeletal remains as coming from an African American, Caucasian, or Asian they're dreaming?

Of course not. Although I am quite sure they can't identify someone as being "african-american", "Of African descent" maybe.
Caucasian-Asian is also problematic, I assume it is easy to distinguish a japanse and a norweigan skeleton; but what about a skeleton from e.g Pakistan?
Also, there are genetic "markers" for being Icelandic (very small population on an island leading to small gene pool) but AFAIK no one ever speaks of an "Icelandic race".

The point is that the reason why "race" is not used in biology is that it is not very well defined, it is so "fuzzy" that it simply isn't very useful. Moroever, the way the concept of race is used in e.g. politics has generally very little to to with genetics.

 

[silverpig]

Originally posted by: f95toli

Originally posted by: dkozloski
Are you guys trying to tell me that when a forensic anthropologist identifies skeletal remains as coming from an African American, Caucasian, or Asian they're dreaming?

Of course not. Although I am quite sure they can't identify someone as being "african-american", "Of African descent" maybe.
Caucasian-Asian is also problematic, I assume it is easy to distinguish a japanse and a norweigan skeleton; but what about a skeleton from e.g Pakistan?
Also, there are genetic "markers" for being Icelandic (very small population on an island leading to small gene pool) but AFAIK no one ever speaks of an "Icelandic race".

The point is that the reason why "race" is not used in biology is that it is not very well defined, it is so "fuzzy" that it simply isn't very useful. Moroever, the way the concept of race is used in e.g. politics has generally very little to to with genetics.

Using that logic couldn't you then argue that there are no sexes? What with the blurring of the lines with hermaphrodites, people with triple sex chromosomes (XXX, XYY, XXY, YYY), people born with both sex organs or none at all, hormone imbalances etc? Just because your measuring stick is connected in the middle doesn't mean it lacks two seperate ends...

And I'm sure that if you gave Iceland 200 generations of perfect isolation you'd be able to see a distinct difference between them and everyone else. Give them 20000 generations and they might be an entirely different species all together...

 

[bsobel]

New research pulished today actually backs the posters thesis:

"The scientists looked at people from three broad racial groups - African, Asian and European. Although there was an underlying similarity in terms of how common it was for genes to be copied, there were enough racial differences to assign every person bar one to their correct ethnic origin. This might help forensic scientists wishing to know more about the race of a suspect."

 

[f95toli]

Originally posted by: silverpig
Using that logic couldn't you then argue that there are no sexes? What with the blurring of the lines with hermaphrodites, people with triple sex chromosomes (XXX, XYY, XXY, YYY), people born with both sex organs or none at all, hormone imbalances etc? Just because your measuring stick is connected in the middle doesn't mean it lacks two seperate ends...

And I'm sure that if you gave Iceland 200 generations of perfect isolation you'd be able to see a distinct difference between them and everyone else. Give them 20000 generations and they might be an entirely different species all together...

My point was that Iceland is an interesting example just because you can actually, in many cases, tell if someone is Icelandic just by studying their genes. They were virtually isolated for almost 1000 years so their genepool is quite small (which is quite unique in Europe) and they have record going back many hundreds of years so everyone knows exactly how they are related to everyone else. Several large biomedical companies are using the people on Iceland to isolate genes responsible for various diseases so their DNA is well studied. Hence, if you define race by "a group of people with well defined genetic similarities" instead of skin colour there is in a sense an "icelandic race", a concept which most people would find silly nowadays.

About the measuring stick: I am not saying that genetic differences between ethnic groups are irrelevant. It would be silly to say that, in most cases you can guess a persons ethnic origin just by looking at them (but the key words here are "in most cases", not always). There are also clear links between e.g. the risk of getting type II diabetes and your ethnic orgin meaning campaings that target specific ethnic groups do make sense, so "ethnic origin" is definitly a valid concept in medicine.
What I am saying is that the concept of "race" is no where near as rigid as most people assume and while ethnic origin might make sense from a natural science point of view when you study large populations the concept is very hard to appy to individuals for reasons that have already been mentioned. Moreover, usually the colour of your skin is what defines your "race" in political terms, but a large difference in colour does not neccesarily mean a large difference in DNA and that fact is too often lost in the debate.

 

[dkozloski]

It appears to be easier to sort for structural/genetic differences and more difficult to sort for social purposes. A structural sort is possible with 99%+ certainty and a visual/social sort would have to be resolved with a fist fight in a large share of cases which is what usually happens. Scientists can sort, social engineers cannot.

 

[Howard]

Let's get to the root of things: why are you arguing with a TA for an ENGLISH course?

 

[CSMR]

Originally posted by: f95toli
Depends on what you mean by "race". To a large extens she IS right, race is mainly a social construct. There are obviously genetic factors which affect e.g. pigmentation but there are never any clear-cut dividing lines; i.e. you can usually find the whole spectrum of genetic variations if you large at a large population. Hence, at some point the concept of race becomes arbitrary (since there is no clear "marker" which can tell you if a person belongs to race A or B) and from a biological point of view the concept is more or less meaningsless. AFAIK the concept is very rarely used (if at all) in biology.

But that is true also of socially-determined race, that is social inculcation into a race. That is not clear cut either.

There are two things:
The criteria defining race, dividing up people into races. How race is understood that is.
A person's fitting in to one category or another as a result of biological and social causes.
The question presumably is which one of these causes is greater. Of course that depends on how race is understood.
IMO there are two words race and culture, and race refers to heredity and physical characteristics associated with heredity and culture and culture to the social conditions into which a person comes to live.

 

[MrDudeMan]

Originally posted by: DrPizza
Hmmm... so if race *isn't* a social construct, then the concept of race wouldn't genetically be limited to humans. Can you name another species in which we refer to different "races"? i.e. poodles may have either white fur or black fur. We don't refer to the two different colors of poodles as different races, or even as different breeds.


look in scholar.google:
Text

i like this arguement, even though i think i am of an opposing opinion. it seems to me there are some physical differences between races that are noticeable on a regular basis. ive never met a white person with the type of hair black people usually have, and on the flip side, ive never met a black person with blue eyes. im not saying they dont exist (because i have no clue really), or even that my examples are useful in this arguement, but it is at least worth noting that some things are definitely dependant upon "race"...