[space_cowboy]

>"especially now that it is known that human races have essentially nil biological significance"

Citation? Your doctor isn't going to screen you for sickle cell if you're white.

As far as I know, race correlates with genetic isolation of ancestral groups, and there are differences between races.

Researchers looking for genetic diseases are careful to choose a mixture of races in their control sample.

I agree that people shouldn't be treated differently in civil society based on their race, and who doesn't? But they should certainly be treated differently based on their race by their doctors.

Race may become less significant in the future if more genetic mixture occurs with globalization. But for now, to say it has no biological significance sounds like wishful thinking.

Edit: I make some stronger claims here than I was ready to defend specifically with citations and literature. I overstate my case. However, to the extent of my current knowledge, you can tell where someone's ancestors came from solely by looking at their DNA, and I know that some diseases are more prevalent in people with certain ancestry. That suggests to me that there are distinct genetic lineages in the human population. As far as I know, "race is biologically meaningless" is a stretch.

However, it is true that the popular social conception of race is very different from any biologically defensible conception thereof. For example, a person with significant African ancestry in America is considered "black", even if that person also has significant ancestry from other places.

Saying that race is meaningless sounds to me like saying "there are no large phenotypically distinct subgroups in the human population". I think that is simply wrong.

Since "race" is such a socially charged word, perhaps it should be dropped and replaced with another word.

[tokenadult]

Your doctor isn't going to screen you for sickle cell if you're white.

Another reply has already shown the error of thinking that the sickle cell trait is confined to populations identified as "white." It is not. What is your proposed definition of races on biological grounds, and what is your citation for a scientific consensus on that?

See

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Strange-Fruit-Sides-Wrong-Debate/dp/...

for citations to recent primary research literature backing up the statement that "race" as now construed in society has very little medical usefulness. The author is a neurobiologist.

[space_cowboy]

I agree that race is a social construct to some degree. For example, in America a person is considered "black" if he has one parent of African ancestry and one parent of European ancestry. However, I am not sure that the idea that "race is biologically meaningless" is defensible. I hope it is. But I wonder what we tell ourselves if the evidence says that it's not.

I know you can tell where a person's ancestors recently came from based on their DNA, and that there are certainly distinct genetic lineages in the human population.

I am open to reading more literature and articles on the subject. I am merely stating that according to the extent of my current knowledge, the idea that "race is meaningless" is suspect.

[socjus]

"I agree that people shouldn't be treated differently in civil society based on their race, and who doesn't? But they should certainly be treated differently based on their race by their doctors."

Maybe they should be treated differently based on their specific disease-related alleles rather than a blunt instrument like race.

[space_cowboy]

If your and your spouse's ancestors are from Africa or the Mediterranean basin (as people corrected me above), there is a greater chance that your offspring will have certain diseases. If you meet the above criteria and your child has certain disease symptoms, you might want to spend resources to diagnose certain diseases that you wouldn't check for if your ancestors were, say, Chinese. Are you saying that we should throw out this information instead, out of principle? Should we start screening Chinese people for sickle cell?

[socjus]

It sounds as if you're no longer talking about race but ancestral nationality.

[aswanson]

Your doctor isn't going to screen you for sickle cell if you're white.

Do italians, greeks, arabs, and other mediterreanean europeans count as white? Because doc should take a look at them too, I think:

http://www.emro.who.int/Publications/EMHJ/0506/09.htm

http://www.ornl.gov/sci/techresources/Human_Genome/posters/c...

[space_cowboy]

Exceptions that prove the rule, because of historical migration and trade patterns that link those areas. Identical recurrent mutations in the human genome are rare.

Do you believe that if you took a mitochondrial DNA sample from an Indian, a Chinese person, a person of European descent, and an African living in America that a researcher would not be able to tell the difference?

[aswanson]

Not sure, depends upon the specific case -- probably correct in a wide, stochastic sense.

Immaterial, though. I was merely refuting your incorrect statement in the GP.

[tokenadult]

Exceptions that prove the rule

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exception_that_proves_the_rule

http://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/condition=sicklecelldisease

[davidw]

Sickle cell anemia isn't somehow limited to black people:

http://www.sicklecellsociety.org/information/resrep/res14.ht...

[carbon8]

"Race" is basically an archaic, outdated and inaccurate cultural construct and taxonomic concept. It resulted from perceived differences due to biological traits, cultural differences and self-identification. For a long time there were attempts to keep it in the scientific domain, but it's clear now that it's really just an archaic classification system that people relied on before modern science (racial classification does not accurately reflect human genetic variation, often quite the opposite) and widespread contact with disparate population groups.