[axg11]

Perfect example of citations-driven research. The authors aren’t motivated by a genuinely interesting scientific question (“are anatomical differences between genetically distinct groups of people visible in X-rays?”). Instead, the authors know that training a classifier to predict race will generate controversial headlines and tweets. All publicity, positive or negative, leads to more citations.

[colinmhayes]

> genetically distinct groups of people

Is race a genetically distinct marker though? I guess if you limit the sample enough it is, but I've always thought of race as more of a continuous quality than a distinct one.

[axg11]

Race _is_ a spectrum but genetic differences themselves are distinct (SNPs). It's trivial to train a classifier to distinguish race from genetic data, hence, I'd argue they are distinct groups.

You can draw an analogy to colours in the rainbow: a rainbow is a spectrum but we can still draw lines that demarcate colours. Colour definitions are fuzzy at the edges but this doesn't mean coarse colour labels are not distinct.

[Ekaros]

If we look at many many other mammals it is very clear that there is breeds. And those breeds are noticeably different, just think of cats, dogs, cows, pigs and so on. I really see no reason why this wouldn't extend to humans as well. And that the distinct groups wouldn't have some markers. Like longer than average bones.

Now, issue really is that whole race grouping is extremely murky. And not really anywhere specific enough as used in common speech. White, Black, Asian etc. are way too wide to be very useful. Even inside what we could understand as rather homogenous groups there is lot of difference between areas.

[sudosysgen]

If it's trivial, why are results so variable on different ethnicity websites? And what happens when the definition of "white" changes in 30 years to unambiguously include Latinos?

(Hint : what you want is a classifier on ethnicity, and those aren't trivial either)

[nojito]

There’s nothing trivial about determining race in healthcare research.

Feel free to cite sources.