From: Dan Glover (daneglover@hotmail.com)
Date: Sun Jun 27 2004 - 05:58:30 BST
Hello everyone
>From: David Buchanan <DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org>
>Reply-To: moq_discuss@moq.org
>To: "'moq_discuss@moq.org'" <moq_discuss@moq.org>
>Subject: RE: MD immoral irony?????
>Date: Sat, 26 Jun 2004 13:40:34 -0600
>
>Dan Glover said:
>One example of racial difference comes up in the use of DNA analysis during
>crime investigations. From what I understand, a researcher can pinpoint
>race
>
>by looking at just three sections of DNA. That isn't racism. But it is a
>racial difference. I think you could say the same for doctors working on
>cures for the many diseases which tend to run enthically. They're looking
>for racial differences at the genetic level to better understand what's
>going on.
>
>dmb says:
>Hmmm. I think you've missed the point of what we've learned about race from
>genetics. We've learned that the concept has no scientific meaning.
>Genetics
>has taught us that there is no such thing as race. Certain physicial
>features have been construed as racial differences by social conventions.
>You mean to say that these physical features can be detected by genes, not
>that race can be detected - because there is no such thing. Did you know,
>for example, that there are black skinned caucasians in India? There are
>black-skinned Asians too. The categories that we have traditionally used to
>divide people, such as skin color, is shown by genetics to be a relatively
>tiny difference compared to the differences that social convention tends to
>ignore WITHIN so-called racial groups. The fact is, every person on this
>planet is related to you. The greatest distance possible is somthing like
>20th cousin and this would describe the two most distantly related
>individuals on earth. Chances are good that no one is quite that far
>removed
>from you. The 20th cousins would be probably be a Kalahari bushman and the
>captian of the Swedish bikini team.
Hi dmb
I quote from an article entitled "Gene Study Identifies 5 Main Human
Populations" printed in Science magazine:
"The new medical interest in race and genetics has left many sociologists
and anthropologists beating a different drum in their assertions that race
is a cultural idea, not a biological one. The American Sociological
Association, for instance, said in a recent statement that "race is a social
construct" and warned of the "danger of contributing to the popular
conception of race as biological."
Dr. Alan Goodman, a physical anthropologist at Hampshire College and an
adviser to the association, said, "there is no biological basis for race."
The clusters shown in the Science article were driven by geography, not
race, he said.
But Dr. Troy Duster, a sociologist at New York University and chairman of
the committee that wrote the sociologists' statement on race, said it was
meant to talk about the sociological implications of classifying people by
race and was not intended to discuss the genetics.
"Sociologists don't have the competence to go there," he said."
-------------------------------------------
The article goes on to mention genetic research being done on
hemochromatosis, an iron metabolism that occurs in Swedes and sickle cell
amemia which occurs in Africans, and how useful it is for a doctor to
consider race when diagnosing a disease.
Later the article reads:
"Race doesn't exist, the mantra went. The DNA inside people with different
complexions and hair textures is 99.9 percent alike, so the notion of race
had no meaning in science. At a National Human Genome Research Institute
(NHGRI) meeting five years ago, geneticists were all nodding in agreement.
Then sociologist Troy Duster pulled a forensics paper out of his briefcase.
It claimed that criminologists could find out whether a suspect was
Caucasian, Afro-Caribbean or Asian Indian merely by analyzing three sections
of DNA.
"It was chilling," recalls Francis S. Collins, director of the institute. He
had not been aware of DNA sequences that could identify race, and it shocked
him that the information can be used to investigate crimes. "It stopped the
conversation in its tracks."
In large part thanks to Duster, Collins and other geneticists have begun
grappling with forensic, epidemiological and pharmacogenomic data that raise
the question of race at the DNA level. The NHGRI now routinely includes
experts from the social disciplines to assist in guiding research priorities
and framing the results for the public. "The complexities of the DNA
sequence require not just simplistic statements about similarities between
groups but a full appreciation of history, anthropology, social science and
politics," Collins has realized. "Duster is a person that rather regularly
gets tapped on the shoulder and asked for help."
-------------------
(Anyone interested in the complete article may email me and I will send it
along)
From what I read David, it is you who is being a bit simplistic and naive. I
think the MOQ can be used to delve into the matters of race but only if race
exists. Perhaps it doesn't, as you say. Buddha said there is no east and
west in the sky. There are only the divisions we make in our minds and call
east and west. Race may be the same.
>
>Dan continued:
>According to the MOQ, I think these examples might be considered biological
>level patterns of value. DNA can be seen with a scientific instrument and
>analyzed. When you talk about racism though, you enter into the social
>realm. Ye cannae spot a bigot under a microscope no matter how closely ye
>look.
>
>dmb says:
>Right. But more than that. One need not be a hateful bigot to mistakenly
>accept "race" as a meaningful term. Its a social convention and its one
>that
>happens to be contradicted by science. This is a very important thing to
>notice because race only serves to divide and/or oppress people. If there
>is
>a historical case where it was used for good instead of evil, it would be
>news to me. And even if there is such a case, it would only be an exception
>that proves the rule.
In other words according to you a doctor who makes a diagnosis of sickle
cell anemia in an African male in large part because he is an African (and
saves the man's life in the process) is actually being a bigot. I don't
think so. No more than is a medical diagnosis of Tay Sachs disease in a
person because they are of Jewish heritage a racist statement.
Anyway, thanks for your comments
Dan
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