"Robert Karl Stonjek"  wrote in
news:bp3qf9$280f$1{at}darwin.ediacara.org: 

> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Michael Ragland" 
> Newsgroups: sci.bio.evolution
> Sent: Thursday, November 13, 2003 3:43 AM
> Subject: Re: Article] Does Race Exist?

>> This is racist drivel Mr. Stonjek. It is well known certain diseases
>> predominate among particular ethnic groups. Sickle Cell Anemia with
>> African-Americans, Tay Sachs with Eastern European Jews, etc.
>> However, as the article points out there is no ethnic population
>> whose every member possesses a polymorphism which is lacking in every
>> other ethnic population. Race is purely a social-cultural invention.
>> It has no place in the complex science of genetics.
>>
> RKS:

> On race, regional variations, as I have argued before, are far less
> than we perceive them to be because humans are hypersensitive to
> variations in their own species - far less sensitive to variations in,
> say, mice.  So the difference between people hailing from diverse
> regions is far les than we perceive and this has shown up in the DNA.
 
> But from an evolutionary standpoint, it is handy to be able to
> identify regional variations genetically because such a genetic tool
> could be used to trace the migration of humans and establish where
> they came from and what the archetypal human's DNA might be like. 
> Using this research for political ends is, as Michael points out,
> racist. 

The state of California recently rejected a proposal to ban recording of 
race in medical records, even though they have previously adopted the 
elimination of race information on college applications. I think the 
Californians realized that there is some validity to racial variations in 
susceptibility to disease and response to medical treatments. As was made 
quite clear in the article cited in your original post, one of the  
problems with our current perception of race is not that different 
populations (or races) don't exist - the problem is that the criteria 
typically used to determine race (i.e. primarily skin color in the US) 
doesn't accurately correspond to real genetic subpopulations.

Yours,

Bill Morse
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