Nature Genetics has an issue on race that is publically accessible. I don’t have much time to comment now, but I invite those with privs to add their updates or opinions.

Update: I haven’t had time to read it yet, but since razib has left the hard work up to the rest of us, I won’t shirk. As I’m getting started, the first thing I notice is that the word race is in quotes in every article title. — Thrasymachus

Update 2: This seems to be the worthwhile article: Assessing genetic contributions to phenotypic differences among ‘racial’ and ‘ethnic’ groups

From the article:

In this discussion, we define a social category or group as one determined by social factors; an individual is associated with such a category (or categories) based on a set of socially negotiated criteria. Given this definition, ‘race’ and ‘ethnicity’ are social categories, even though some inclusion criteria may be biological. The extent to which ‘racial’ or ‘ethnic’ labels correlate with biological traits varies through time and across the labels themselves.

That might be an interesting approach if the article were primarily concerned with social science. But it’s not. It is mainly an article on genetics. Obviously, it would be far more useful to attempt a scientific definition of race (like Sailer’s extended family approach) and see what results you can get from that. In fact, that is the main objection I have to every article that I have read in this issue so far. — Thrasymachus

Update from Razib: After reading the articles, what can I say…let a thousand data points bloom! I am a believer in the operational unity of an objective reality “out there.” If science looks at a question, given enough time, and assuming that the aims are modest enough, I believe that various interpretations will eventually converge upon a consensus.

What does this mean in the context of the race issue? No matter the semantic quibbles and preambles that preface many of the pieces, it is in the end up the reader to determine whether ‘race’ or intergroup population differences step over the line between trivial and nontrivial. Even if differences are clinal and graded, does that mean genetic variation across populations is irrelevant? Even if change is continuous, it does not imply that it is without import.

Many of us can grant that the Platonic Racial Ideal and the socially agreed upon taxonomies that have grown up around race are problematic. But what does the data say? What interpretive framework are you using? The first step is disabusing the public of the assumption that the “85% of variation is between individuals” (that is, intragroup) is the last word. Nuances that reflect the possible dichotomy between the functional genome and neutral DNA should be brought up. The fuzziness of any circumscribed population group should be emphasized. The final answer is complex, and likely upalatable to ideologues of any stripe.

There may be many more years of debate and discourse on this issue. Some of it imight be ideologically rooted, some of it not. Nevertheless, there will (I believe) come a point in the future where the data will push the consensus toward an agreed upon range of definitions and terms that precisely clarify the race controversy on the scientific plane. Of course, by that time, even if there is an established acceptance of the salience of intergroup differences, advances in biotechnology might begin to make the findings of pure science passe as bioengineering begins to reshape individuals and so shatter the constraints of old categories and destinies.

Posted by razib at 08:30 AM