New York Times Re-discovers Race
When the
Human Genome Project (the vast plan to decode and
map all the genes of the human body) was completed last
year, the
first pronouncement about it from many scientists
was that it proved
"race doesn`t exist."
The claim was not new. The notion that race is merely
a "social construct" and a
"biologically meaningless" concept as the New
England Journal of Medicine editorialized had
prevailed among most
biological and
social scientists for decades.
Now, however, the scientists have made yet another
discovery: Race exists.
One scientist who says race exists is Dr. Neil Risch
of Stanford University. His claims were
surveyed in the New York Times Science
section last month, and a good many of his colleagues
are agreeing with him. Dr. Risch points out that some
variations in human genetic endowment largely correspond
to common ethnic and racial categories and, most
importantly for his purposes, that the variations have
immense medical significance.
In fact, that has long been known. As the Times
article points out, Africans tend to have a genetic
mutation that causes
sickle cell anemia, while another that causes a
certain metabolic disorder is rare among Chinese and
Indians but present among Swedes. There are similar
racial variations for such disorders or diseases as
cystic fibrosis, Tay-Sachs syndrome and the
ability to digest milk. Put simply, different racial
groups inherit certain diseases or tendencies to
contract them, and therefore there are genetic
differences between the races. Race exists.
Dr. Risch isn`t the only one saying this these days.
As the Times notes,
“Many
population geneticists … say it is essential to
take race and ethnicity into account to understand each
group`s specific pattern of disease and to ensure that
everyone
shares equally in the expected benefits of genomic
medicine."
Dr. Risch argues that race
"has arisen because of the numerous small genetic
differences that have developed in populations around
the world,"
and he points to studies showing that
"these differences cluster into five major groups,
which are simply the world`s major continental areas."
Dr. Risch is not using his claim to justify donning a
bedsheet, and so far nobody seems to have accused him of
that (give them a
little time, though).
His point is simply that denying the existence of
race, largely for ideological reasons, is not only
scientifically false but also medically harmful.
Knowing that racial variations in diseases exist is
immensely helpful to doctors and researchers trying to
cure or prevent the diseases.
Denying the reality of race doesn`t advance such
efforts. It`s a little like trying to develop a space
program if you assume the earth is flat and rests on the
back of giant turtle.
The "race doesn`t exist" school of thought, of
course, has been invoked to discredit segregation, white
supremacy and apartheid (though all of those
institutions developed well before any scientific
concept of race existed at all). But challenging and
abandoning the very concept of race when white racial
power was the target was not exactly consistent with
programs like
affirmative action that
counted by race.
Nor were the supposed racial egalitarians able to do
without the concept of race when they wanted to dole out
special privileges and
treatment for the races they favored.
In short, when whites used race to justify and
entrench their privileges, race didn`t exist; when
non-whites used race to justify and entrench theirs, it
did.
Denying that race exists, therefore, doesn`t mean
that it can`t be used to serve a particular group`s
political agenda, nor does affirming that race does
exist necessarily imply that it will or should be used
to serve another group`s agenda.
It does mean that
scientists, of all people, ought to face the truth
about what they study.
And it also means that race may mean more than
differences in diseases. If race "has arisen
because of the numerous small genetic differences that
have developed in populations around the world,"
then there logically ought to be other differences
between the races than merely their proclivity to
different health problems.
Each race, developing in a different environment,
came into existence because of the need to adapt to such
environments. It makes sense to believe that there may
be many other differences between the races in addition
to those we are—painfully—finally acknowledging as real.
Now that we know that race is real, the thing for
serious scientists to do is to stop denying its
existence and get on with finding out what else is real
about it.
Once we know what race really means—not just for
disease and health but also for
intelligence, temperament and behavior—we`ll be able
to forget about
some agendas and pursue others that are based on
something
closer to scientific reality than to racial and
political ideology.
COPYRIGHT CREATORS
SYNDICATE, INC.
August 26, 2002


