The science and scientism of race

Posted by Guest Blogger on Sunday, 30 January 2005 09:57.

A short time ago in this forum I was inspired by some recent reading to make a longish comment on the “Race Does Not Exist” (RDNE) debate. My own views on this are that this issue is too important to be left to experts who should be on tap, not on top. Also the issue is not wholly a scientific debate and the scientific view should be welcome but is not the deciding factor. The reading that has got me going is the Jay Klein and Naoyuki Takahata book mentioned below and “The Restitution of Man: C S Lewis and the Case against Scientism by Michael Aeschliman.

I think there are two “polar opposite” pitfalls within the RDNE debate.

Science deified

First, “Scientism”. The inappropriate use of scientific theories in social and political life. Although the debate about scientism can be nebulous at times, the threat it poses to liberty and common sense is great. Especially in our era in which science has made great strides, has largely replaced religion and has it’s own charisma.

In the 1920s and 30s, G K Chesterton fought the scientism of the
eugenicistsand social darwinists. Marx tried to repackage socialism as a scientific belief. The Nazis took an older German / European / Christian prejudice and discrimination against jews and turned it into a doctrine of racial extermination, thanks to scientific racialism. C S Lewis in “That Hideous Strength” satirised scientism and Hayek in his “Counter-Revolution of Science” attacked the same dragon from a secular point of view.

(I would argue that the old eugenicists’ nightmarish goal of preventing the criminal classes from breeding has now largely been achieved thanks to the promotion of abortion rights agenda by the p.c. left. Although I wouldn’t go so far as to say this is an example of some successful “Boys from Brazil” conspiracy by eugenicists-disguised-as-feminists there are some uncomfortable parallels here. The failure to cremate all social Darwinists equally of course helps obscure the links.)

Just because scientists working in the field of human genetics think ‘race does not exist’, and it might not be a relevant definitional category for the purposes of their particular investigations, is no more reason for John Citizen to change his mind, than when a previous generation of anthropologists told him that race x was inferior. The scientists make interesting observations but they are not the be all and end all.

Western man has been bitten by scientism before with eugenics and social darwinism. Once bitten twice shy. Just because the latest round of scientism is wearing attractive new politically correct dentures is no reason to tolerate a second bite.

Science defied

The second pitfall is the opposite tendency. The politicalisation of science. This is kind of scientism-in-reverse.

Max Planck Institute’s Jan Klein and Naoyuki Takahata, both heavy hitters in the field of human genetics, in their acclaimed 2002 book Where Do We Come From? The Molecular Evidence for Human Descent argue that the RDNE approach is politicalised science.

Over a few pages, Klein and Takahata outline a key part of the history of the RDNE thesis. (There are some parts of the story they miss out that we can discuss another time.) They point out that L.L.Cavali-Sforza (circa 1966) was the first geneticist to survey genetic differences between distinct populations as defined by classical physical anthropology. He found ~15% variation between groups. K&T mention that Sforza didn’t consider this important enough for commentary. ~1977 Lewontin did make a splash with essentially the same findings.

Lewontin’s study revealed that 85.4 percent of the genetic variation that exists within the human species is contained within individual populations and the remaining 14.6 percent is accounted for by differences between human groups. Of the 14.6 percent, 8.3 percent accounts for differences between populations, as defined by Lewontin, and 6.3 percent for differences between races. Of course, since Lewontin’s distinction between populations and races is arbitrary, some anthropologists might want to call some or all of his “populations” races.”

Lewontin and others have thus come to the conclusion that “racial classification is now seen to be of no genetic or taxonomic significance”.

“This view is echoed by most authors of similar studies, who seem surprised that genetic variation within populations is greater than that between them. By contrast, Sewall Wright , who can hardly be taken as a dilettante in questions of population genetics, has stated emphatically that if differences of this magnitude were observed in any other species, the groups they distinguished would be called subspecies.”

K&T go on to point out that the famous 200 plus species of Lake Victoria cichlid fish differ from each other much less than the human races in their neutral genes, although they are presumably distinguished by genes that control external appearance.

(Note- The genes that control human external characteristics are still undiscovered. At least they were when K&T wrote in 2002. Their discovery will be the next major step in the scientific debate on race).

K&T argue that scientists should be frank about differences and that those who argue the differences are trivial without establishing any yardstick to determine what is trivial and what is not is are engaged in politicised science and actually play into the hands of racists.

“By mixing science with politics, geneticists and anthropologists are committing the same infraction of which they are accusing other scientists, whom they themselves label as racist. Even worse, by dismissing the genetic differences as insignificant, they play into the hands of genuine racists who can easily demolish this claim and so further their own agenda. It is intellectually more honest to acknowledge the differences and then point out that they by no means imply supremacy of one race over others. This can be done by demonstrating that the differences in genes that cannot be linked to any features that would be be required for the preeminence of a particular race.”

I suppose one could add that the politicalised RDNE advocates (as distinct from RDNE as a genuine sci. hypothesis), in their enthusiasm, also imperil the great indisputable finding of modern human biology, the common origin of all mankind. Something the religious types were telling them all along.

Tags: Science & Technology

Comments:

Posted by Svigor on Mon, 31 Jan 2005 06:36 | #

It looks as if I’ll have to grab that book.

Yep. Been there, done that (many times). The upshot is that academia ends up looking disingenuous to say the least, and all for no gain.

It is intellectually more honest to acknowledge the differences and then point out that they by no means imply supremacy of one race over others. This can be done by demonstrating that the differences in genes that cannot be linked to any features that would be be required for the preeminence of a particular race.”

It’s a pretty tricky landscape for wishful-thinking liberals to navigate. In the end it’s a no-win situation for them, whatever path they choose.

Somewhere in here the entirety of my rational argument for WNism is encapsulated.

Posted by Svigor on Mon, 31 Jan 2005 06:38 | #

Here’s an old discussion about HBD-denial that went on so long I just post the link and move on:
http://www.stormfront.org/forum/showthread.php?t=134317

Posted by Robin Clarke on Mon, 31 Jan 2005 21:22 | #

Dear Dr Dawkins,

[written Sept 2004 but didnt get sent]

I was pleased to see in your latest Prospect article that you perceived (unlike so many) that there was something wrong with the widely-parroted Lewontin thesis about a lack of significant genetic basis underlying races. [The great Professor Steven Rose has just reminded us of it again this week.]

By the way, before saying more about that, the word you missed out is syndrome. Races are syndromes, and in fact so are species (albeit sure there’s an additional aspect). As I mentioned in my successfully-ignored (by the riffraff majority) theory of general impairment of gene-expression, http://www.zazz.fsnet.co.uk/auttheo.htm there, is nothing that uniquely characterises humans. They may or may not have two eyes, a brain, a whole body to themselves, be fertile, etc. Sure, they are all born of human parents, but that just moves us on to the question of what a human parent is. Hence humanness is nothing more than a (fuzzy) syndrome.

Thus your idea that the race-associated genes are correlated rather than just a random bunch also looks sound. Correlation is of course the very essence of any syndrome.

But you appear to have missed the main point. This was expressed by myself in a submission to Brain Behav Sci about 15 years ago which in customary fashion was recognised as far too important to be published. (And it is terribly important to keep up the recognition that the best work can come only from graduates with academic jobs.)

The crucial point is that genes are not equally important units. Many genes are utterly trivial in their effect on the phenotype. Some others by contrast make the difference between life and death. And the race-associated genes are very much of the important kind.

You did mention the impact of skin colour on vitamin D and on radiation protection. But beyond that there are life-saving genes for malaria resistance / sickle-cell-anemia, for thalassaemia, for tolerance of milk products, genes for preferring spicy foods in areas where food-spoilage occurs. I should point out that this is merely the amateurish list quickly drawn up by someone too mentally inferior to be allowed to study for a first degree. And then blushing. My own life has been devastated by blushing phobia - I would just blush at anything for no reason and had to become a recluse in consequence. Blushing is very important in revealing a person’s lack of indifference. And while in theory an African may be able to blush, in practice it is a very different thing from a white person blushing. Is it really coincidental that Blacks are so much less introverted than Whites, or is it that without blushing there is less advantage from introversion?

Then we can add on the list of race-associated characteristics drawn together by Rushton - genitals size, marked divergences of twinning rate, age of maturation, IQ, antisociality etc. Highly influential genes these.

In consequence of that, it accordingly makes biological “sense” for a person living in Africa to prefer a Black mate, and a person living in Sweden to prefer a blond one. A fish living outside of its watery homeland will indeed tend to be disadvantaged even without any antifishism against it.

And far from the least, the mere fact that one’s face is “the wrong color” gets you killed rather than kissed in this or that context. What more important genes could there be?

So, is it not clear that you really have missed the one most important nail there? That genes are not equal units that can be validly percentagised as Lewontin did and so many of my intellectual superiors in “universities” have gone on doing since.

Anyway,
best wishes,

Robin P Clarke