Race is sort of a cliché in social science. There are numerous readings on race. In fact, many journals are so overwhelmed by race research that a report focusing on racial issue will have difficulty to get published unless it is from influential studies or bears big names. Interestingly, despite the consensus of the existence of racial disparity, the draft of 2004 National Health Disparity report bluntly hinted that there were little if any racial disparities in health. This certainly disappointed many people working on race issues. For example, Jack Geiger sent a comment to NYT alluring that the national health disparity report was altered to favor (or under the pressure of) the Bush’s government. The Committee reluctantly retracted many statements and vowed to reconsider them. Last month, the report was finally sneaked into the public. No media exposure.

However, recently race research is stirred up again by a new form of racism—associating (again) race with genetic patterns.

The linkage between genes and race was not new. Eugenicism and Nazism are earlier infamous forms. The modern debate on genes and race can also be traced back to decades ago. For example, Wilson had a wild idea (in 1991) about why Blacks were more prone to hypertension. By studying slave trade, he proposed that those who survived during the transportation from west Africa to the US (Middle Passage) might be able to more efficiently retain salt than those deceased (due to genetic difference). Wilson’s hypothesis was widely criticized. Curtin pointed out that Wilson had cited some irrelevant and even wrong historical evidence. Some authors refuted the salt hypothesis based on evolution possibility. Nevertheless, a few days ago, a Harvard economist claimed (again, and as a new idea!) that genetic factors such as salt retention contributed to the higher risk of hypertension in Blacks. What a bummer!

Two years ago, when the draft of human genome was completed, population geneticist Neil Risch from Stanford bravely declared that race indeed had genetic basis. Genetic journals such as the Nature Genetics, online Genomic biology, and others apparently endorsed similar views. This definitely upsets many people who hold the social view of race. Finally, these two schools of thoughts confronted each other in the New England Journal of Medicine in March 2003. Cooper and Kaufman firmly stated that race was a social construct. Any attempt to associate genes with race was a form of new racism. On the other hand, while acknowledging that race was a social construct, Neil asserted that due to evolution process, endogamy, and human immigration patterns, there was genetic basis for race. Race was an important biological concept in this sense. Many genetic analyses flooded into publication to support this view.

In the March 14 issue of New York Time, the British biologist Armand Marie Leroi reiterated the genetic basis of race. He agreed that human genetic variations within population were much greater than between populations (90% vs. 10%). However, he pointed out that it was not the variations that mattered, but the correlation between genes mattered, i.e., the pattern of gene combination in each population determined the race. The gene pattern was an analogy of taking skin color, noses, eyes, and body shapes together to distinguish different races.

Most studies on genes and race are based on gene variation among population. For example, Microsatellites, nonfunctional single nucleic polymorphisms (SNPs), or Alu patterns don’t have functional meanings (junk DNAs). Thus, they don’t suffer from natural selection pressure. These junk DNAs serve as an excellent evolutionary record for human immigration and for comparison with other species.

All racial groups have similar frequencies of common SNPs, while Blacks have significantly more rare SNPs than other racial groups. Rare SNPs are thought to be relatively new mutations than common SNPs. Therefore, Blacks are considered “older” than other groups because they have longer time to develop many rare mutations.

Furthermore, by clustering these junk DNAs–hundreds of genetic markers are sufficient, one can divide the human population into five groups which are parallel to five continental groups. Using more gene markers, the grouping scheme becomes more precise and eventually reaches individual fingerprint by sequencing a large number of SNPs.

The coincidence between race and genetic clusters won’t surprise anyone. The distinctive genetic patterns are formed by sex selection, endogamy and founder effects. The physical characteristics, geographic barriers, and culture differences among racial (and more broadly ethnic) groups ensure endogamy and founder effects. The genetic differences are by-products of the separations. In other words, race and genes indeed say the same thing.

Based on this, the new racism suggested that race was a good “shorthand” to represent the genetic topography. There was nothing wrong to associate race with genes because they were highly correlated. They were just there.

They are wrong. The danger lies exactly in borrowing race to serve the genetic purpose.

Race, from the very beginning, was used on social class profiling. Genes was a posteriori explanation for race. The obnoxious history of race is fraught with pseudoscience such as human eugenicism. The 21st century genetic racism is no exception. They both try to attach genes to race.

The five genetic groups generated by genetic clustering are way too broad. There are hundreds of ethnic groups whose genetic differences are of more clinical importance than those of race. Bipolar in Amish is one example. Another example is about racial mixed groups such as Hispanics. Some Hispanics are racially classified as Whites in some countries while they will be grouped into Blacks in other countries. The race may have no biological meaning for many Hispanics.

It is also well established that common diseases such as hypertension and diabetes are polygenic. If there are polymorphisms associated with these diseases, they may be common polymorphisms. As have been indicated before, there is little difference in frequencies of common polymorphisms among races. Even considering the popular thrifty genes hypothesis in obesity and diabetes, they may work on all populations till recent due to the fact that human beings were still in constant hunger 200 years ago.

One point often cited by the new genetic racism deserves careful explanation. Blacks don’t response well to many hypertension drugs such as ACE inhibitors. A new drug Bidil has been shown a greater effect in Blacks than in Whites. Does this support genetic idea of race? No. The different drug effects among racial groups just pinpoint the fact that there are possible group differences in some polymorphism frequencies. If we have delineated the polymorphisms, there is no need of involving race concept. The drug can be provided to those having the polymorphisms among any races. The concept of race may serve as a “surrogate” of genetic polymorphisms because we don’t know the genetic profiles for now. It should not be viewed as race REPRESENTING genetic polymorphisms.

On the other hand, race is highly related to socioeconomic status. It is well known that Blacks are poor, undereducated, and live in crowed and hazardous neighborhood. The higher incidences of almost all diseases are more likely due to environment factors rather than genetic factors. Ironically, President Bush recently made an ignorant comment on social security. He stated that Blacks benefit less from social security than Whites because Blacks die young. In fact, it is not Blacks who die young; it is the poor who die young. Blacks are unfortunately poorer than Whites.

In addition, people have already associated race with many negative factors. Destructive behaviors, lower intelligence, irresponsible personality, and even unusual sexuality have been associated with some racial groups. However, they can occur in all racial groups. These factors can be attributed to lower education, family and community influence, and cultural difference. Anyone under similar environment will develop these disadvantages. There is nothing related to genes.

Finally, intelligence, behavior, and almost all diseases can find root in genes. If one believes that race has genetic basis, one may wonder if race is also related to those genes. This is the worst scenario that will lead to prejudice and discrimination against certain racial groups.

Let’s save race as a social term. If geneticists want to describe genetic typography, please invent something new.

As I have said in my previous post, the so-called “good will” definition of race was soon infested with eugenics and Nazism. Blacks, for example, were stupid, lazy, and irresponsible, while Mongolians (yellow Asians) were lazy, stealthy, and physically weak. The history of race is fraught with blood shedding and malevolent discriminations.

Well, human beings are different, hierarchically, claimed by racists.

Yes, people are different. Walking on the street, one can’t help thinking that there must be some major differences among Blacks, Whites, and yellows. They all have distinctive skin colors, noses, eyes, and body shapes. Then, what other things can they differ besides physical characteristics? The English that Blacks speak is somewhat different from what you hear from Whites. In many downtowns, jobless Blacks hang around idly and look dangerous. In an individualistic society where everything is on one’s own, one may wonder what happens to them. Are they just lazy? At least they seem so.

Psychologically speaking, when one evaluates himself, he may tend to attribute his failure to environmental factors such as bad boss, depressing work environment, or even miserable marriage. When one evaluates others, he may simply attribute other’s failure to their personalities. Everybody has this attribution bias. It is not surprising that one thinks the unemployed person must have bad personality such as lazy, bad tempered, or irresponsible.

Most researchers will discard the view that one’s personality causes his unemployment (although in some cases it may be true). Individual education and skills, overall economics, and even luck, are main culprits. So why do people believe that the unemployment in Blacks but not in Whites is due to their personalities?

A dangerous word emerges—stereotype!

Scientifically, stereotyping is a natural way of thinking. Human beings comprehend the world by classifying it. Simplification is the most efficient way to understand the complicate environment. When the whole world was opened up to westerns, human beings from five continents looked and behaved so different. There was a definite need to group human beings into different “species”.

Stereotype leads to prejudice. The “civilized” westerns (and even easterns) would certainly look down on those Blacks who were still living in huts, mostly naked, and hunting with rudimental tools. The Blacks are primitives, all explorers concluded. Slave trade was initiated. Even some American founding fathers concluded that Black slaves should be counted as a fraction of Whites in census, and not be included in the umbrella of federal constitution.

Similarly, when westerns encountered east or south Asians in 16^th centuries, they saw a physically smaller human beings living in agricultural society. Without sophisticated weapons, those Asians were defeated. The large socioeconomic gaps between western and eastern countries made Asians socially lower than westerns. It is interesting that before then, eastern Asians (esp. Chinese) thought that people in the rest of worlds were uncivilized (and it was also based on socioeconomic standard).

Another factor that many scholars ignored also made earlier westerns more prone to prejudice. The religion, esp. Christianity, sows much prejudice in the minds of western people. You may argue that Jesus told us to love our neighbors, how come I accuse Christianity as a prejudice religion? My conclusion is based on history of Christianity, not on the bible. The persecuting of pagans, the killing of many witches, and the hundreds of years of crusade to central Asia, are some well known examples for religious prejudice. Even now, the perceived higher morality in Christians makes many of them think atheists have looser morality.Furthermore, the eager to convert everyone and the wish to live in heaven while curse nonbelievers to be stuck in the hell clearly establish a hierarchy between believers and nonbelievers. The Christian hypocrisy of “love” is just for believers, not for nonbelievers. Unfortunately, modern wars are still having religious elements in them.

Belief leads to action. Prejudice causes discrimination. Along the way were racism, slavery, wars, Holocaust, KKK, racial segregation, and so forth. Fortunately, in modern society, overt racism is rare. Thanks for the great efforts and sacrifices of earlier human right fighters. However, subtle prejudice (or not-so-subtle in the eyes of disadvantaged groups) are still pervasive. That unemployed Blacks are lazy is one of such examples.

Seeing is believing. When one observes some differences among human beings, he is eager to find answers. The simplest answer (or “parsimonious answer”, to be scientific) is because they are different in their bloods. Their genes are different.