Talk:Race and genetics

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The article begins with the false statement that race is a social construct. No biologist can subscribe to this, as biology has no use for social constructionism. Furthermore, the idea that people vary more within than between groups (Lewontin's fallacy) is now seen as irrelevant to the clustering of differences in different ethnicities. Very misleading article. 86.6.148.125 (talk) 19:24, 19 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

There is a strong consensus on the matter, both among scientists (see e.g. ^[1] ) and among the Wikipedia community. You're not likely to get anywhere trying to relitigate this. Generalrelative (talk) 20:52, 19 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Even sub-species and species fall under a weak form of social constructivism, as does practically any human-created taxonomy. Though perhaps the terminology of race as a social construct should be changed to terminology I have seen used more often in biology whitepages, such as that race is really just a way to say subspecies, and it is due to a conflation of social vs. biological race. The idea that humans cluster among Blumenbach races based on their perceived racial identity is true, but that depended upon the social classification of those races in the first place. Captchacatcher (talk) 22:22, 20 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Much of this article make bombastic claims about race and only supports them with two or at times one reference. This is very misleading. 86.6.148.125 (talk) 19:26, 19 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

See my comment in the above section, and feel free to add sources from the main article Race (human categorization). Generalrelative (talk) 20:54, 19 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

"...with human genetic code being approximately 99.6%-99.9% identical between individuals and without clear boundaries between groups."

This seems misleading. The range 99.6%-99.9% may seem significant, but is indeed less so when one takes into account that human beings and chimpanzees similarly share upwards of 98% of their DNA.

Additionally, the second assertion is not entirely correct. It has been demonstrated multiple times through genetic principal component analysis that individuals from the same region, roughly corresponding to racial categories (e.g. "White" = European, "Black" = Sub-Saharan African, etc.), tend to form clusters. Here is one study observing this phenomenon https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20643205/ (see Figure 3). While a continuum can be observed (specifically along the PC 2 axis), it would be fatuous to conclude that no boundaries or categories can be determined. This would be akin to claiming that no meaningful distinction can be made between X-rays and ultraviolet rays since both sit along a continuum (i.e. the electromagnetic spectrum).

As such, I think the clause quoted above should be removed from the article. 129.137.96.1 (talk) 16:57, 31 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Nah, the statement is well sourced, and clearly WP:DUE since these are facts that are highlighted in the WP:BESTSOURCES. See e.g. the American Association of Biological Anthropologists' Statement on Race & Racism.

Race does not provide an accurate representation of human biological variation. It was never accurate in the past, and it remains inaccurate when referencing contemporary human populations. Humans are not divided biologically into distinct continental types or racial genetic clusters. Instead, the Western concept of race must be understood as a classification system that emerged from, and in support of, European colonialism, oppression, and discrimination. It thus does not have its roots in biological reality, but in policies of discrimination. Because of that, over the last five centuries, race has become a social reality that structures societies and how we experience the world. In this regard, race is real, as is racism, and both have real biological consequences.

Humans share the vast majority (99.9%) of our DNA in common. Individuals nevertheless exhibit substantial genetic and phenotypic variability. Genome/environment interactions, local and regional biological changes through time, and genetic exchange among populations have produced the biological diversity we see in humans today. Notably, variants are not distributed across our species in a manner that maps clearly onto socially-recognized racial groups. This is true even for aspects of human variation that we frequently emphasize in discussions of race, such as facial features, skin color and hair type. No group of people is, or ever has been, biologically homogeneous or “pure.” Furthermore, human populations are not — and never have been — biologically discrete, truly isolated, or fixed.

See also e.g. this recent consensus statement from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine:

In humans, race is a socially constructed designation, a misleading and harmful surrogate for population genetic differences, and has a long history of being incorrectly identified as the major genetic reason for phenotypic differences between groups.

Generalrelative (talk) 23:31, 31 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Again, the 99.6%-99.9% is a misleading statistic. As mentioned before, humans also share 98%-99% of DNA with several primate species, making that statement irrelevant at best and statistical manipulation at worst.

Regardless, the cited article by the AABA is a statement of the AABA's position (with no supporting evidence included in the article, might I add), and if we're going to include it, we should clarify this (e.g. "According to the AABA..." etc.). Additionally, if we are going to include sources which support that position, we should include other sources from which other conclusions can be drawn, such as this study https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06957-x on genetic ancestry from the All of Us Research Program, which shows that individuals' self-identified race/ethnicity does in fact largely correspond to their genetic ancestry.

The AABA's position that no distinctions can be observed between groups is not an indisputable fact and should not be presented as such. 129.137.96.16 (talk) 12:35, 1 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The sources provided treat it as a meaningful statistic, specifically placing it in context that makes its relevance to this topic clear. Your gut feeling that it's misleading can't overcome that - you would need other sources directly contradicting the ones we're using. --Aquillion (talk) 20:40, 26 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

A recent edit of mine was reverted for enigmatic reasons. I simply added a WP:DUE clarifying statement containing a fact backed by two WP:BESTSOURCES explaining why some geneticists consider race useful when considering genetic background. This cannot be POV as it contains no original interpreting of data nor make any implications based on stated facts, and it cannot be original synthesis as both sources make the respective claims that race is a "nearly perfect indicator" of genetic background and that race and genetic background are "highly concordant." Both sources are claiming the same thing, thus it cannot be original synthesis. Additionally, the age of a study does not inherently render said study out-of-date unless the methods or analysis are out-of-date, which was not demonstrated. Frankly, the reverting of this edit could far more easily be classified as POV-pushing via poorly-justified deletionism. 129.137.96.20 (talk) 14:09, 22 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

No input; I've undone the revert. 129.137.96.19 (talk) 13:07, 26 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

These are not the BESTSOURCES. One is a news report on a single study from 2005. The other is a single study from 2024, which is pretty good (it's published in Nature) but you are misrepresenting its findings. On the other hand we have position statements by professional scientific bodies (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine & American Association of Biological Anthropologists), which I've quoted in the above thread, contradicting the language you're seeking to add head-on. There is no contest here. Generalrelative (talk) 20:27, 26 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Stanford Medicine and Nature aren't best sources? Also, I would like an explanation as to how I am misrepresenting their findings. The respective studies say race and genetic ancestry are "highly concordant" and that the former is a "near perfect indicator" of the latter. And, once again, the articles you link contain criticisms for the aforementioned view on race, but they never claim that such a view has "fallen out of favor among experts." As such, that statement would fall under WP:OR. 129.137.96.13 (talk) 13:23, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• Your changes aren't an improvement. The current wording summarizes the overarching academic consensus in a more neutral and comprehensive manner, saying that Some researchers have argued that race can act as a proxy for genetic ancestry because individuals of the same racial category may share a common ancestry, but this view has fallen increasingly out of favor among experts; this is broadly true. Your change would place WP:UNDUE weight on a specific narrow argument from a single news report from 2005 for using it as a proxy, while downplaying the academic consensus into mere weasel-worded "criticism"; the sources you've provided can't really support such a shift. --Aquillion (talk) 20:38, 26 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  On the contrary, "may share" is a much better example of weasel-words. "May share" downplays the scientific evidence regarding this established fact. Individuals of the same race don't "may share" a common genetic ancestry; they almost always do, as corroborated by the two studies I linked.

  Further, the academic articles that you mentioned nowhere claim that such views "have fallen out of favor among experts," but rather they contain criticism and arguments against them. As such, that statement would fall under WP:OR. 129.137.96.13 (talk) 13:32, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]