Very strange times this morning. I actually find myself in agreement with a Guardian article on race. In essence, except for a few genetically determined diseases and their statistical prevalence, there is nothing very much valid with the idea of dividing humans into races at all. A bit like PJ O’Rourke’s views on sex differences, there are times when acknowledging the differences are important, when making babies, and times when they are irrelevant, when trading bonds.
I rather like seeing actual evidence of one of my own prejudices, that variations within a so called race are greater than variations between such so called races:
In 1972, the evolutionary
geneticist Richard Lewontin pointed out that 85% of human genetic
diversity occurred within rather than between populations, and only
6%-10% of diversity is associated with the broadly defined races.
I’d agree whole heartedly with the general conclusion:
Broad racial
classifications mask great genetic diversity within them. Thus
sickle-cell anaemia is prevalent in people whose ancestors came from
malaria-rife regions, including the Mediterranean coastline, not simply
Africa; and Ashkenazi, but not Sephardi, Jews have a higher risk of
Tay-Sachs disease and breast cancer.
The
consequence is that, as a scientific concept, race is well past its
sell-by date. The study of biological difference needs a new concept –
one that makes possible sensitive recognition of the diversity of
health risk, and of tracing our own ancestral roots through DNA
analysis. And we need it to be a concept fit for the longing for a
post-racist 21st century. So let’s hear it for the clunky, let’s hear
it for the precise – hooray for biogeographical ancestry.
Although I do admit to being a little puzzled by this:
For instance, there are
average gene differences between the populations of north and south
Wales, which contribute to different geographically distributed disease
susceptibilities, but it would be a bold scientist or politician who
would argue that here are two distinct races.
Well, as we’ve already insisted that race itself is not a relevant term to apply to humans, I suppose so. But the explanation of the genetic differences is fairly simple. North Wales is (mostly) populated by the descendants of the original Celts, while South Wales is by the descendants of those Midlanders who flocked in to work in the Marquis of Cardiff’s coal mines. A gross simplification, of course, but an element of truth to it.
Anyway, now that we have rejected the idea of race who’s going to tell Trevor Phillips that he’s out of a job? We’d only save 50 million or so directly, but if we take the idea to heart, we would and could destroy the whole Race Relations Industry, at great benefit to both the tax coffers and the population at large (plus screw the Guardian’s job advertising sales). Sweet, eh?
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