WW examines
race links
DNA, not color, is the tie that binds the human race
By Callan Bentley
Flat Hat Variety Editor
If you look at the breadth of the human population, you can see a lot of variation between its members. Quite simply, people look different from one another. Even identical twins exhibit some differences. Since our ancestors became intelligent enough to start thinking about these differences, there has been categorizing of the different types. It is quite natural that this differentiation between "us" and "them" has become increasingly negative.
The question of race and racial distinctions has become a volatile subject in recent years and opinions on race as a concept are as varied as human skin coloration itself. Every day the newspapers are filled with stories of racially based crises, violence, and injustice around the world.
On the other hand, some researchers have gone so far as to say that races do not even exist. They base this statement on genetic analysis. Of the six feet of DNA that is stored in each of our cells, a 1972 study by Harvard geneticist Richard Lewontin determined that there is an average 0.2 percent difference in DNA content between any two randomly chosen people on Earth.
Of that 0.2 percent molecular diversity, only six percent represents differences between races (the remaining 94 percent is attributable to local variation and differences between the ethnic groups of a given race). Keep in mind that this is six percent of 0.2 percent, which is to say that race accounts for only 0.012 percent of the differences in our genetic material.
Because the differences are genetically so small, perhaps the physical expressions of these differences are small as well. They are certainly ambiguous. A recent study found that in the early 1970s, 34 percent of the people participating in a census survey changed racial groups from one year to the next.
How can this be? What exactly is a race? According to Yale anthropologist Jonathon Marks, "Race is supposed to be a strictly biological category, equivalent to an animal subspecies." Subspecies are groups of individuals that share several common characteristics and, while able to breed with other subspecies, often prefer to stick to their own kind. An example would be a Great Dane and a Chihuahua, as different subspecies of the same species, the dog.
It turns out that, physiologically, what separates blacks and whites is a collection of tiny genetic differences which determine how much of a certain enzyme (called tyrosinase) is made in a certain form which, in turn, determines how much of a certain pigment (called melanin) is made by the skin cells called melanocytes. It hardly seems wise to base social order on such a thing!
The concept of race really began in the Renaissance, with the invention of long-distance ocean-going transport. The quick transportation from one area to another without seeing any intermediate peoples proved to be a bit of a shock to early sailors.
Reflecting that sensitivity, controversy surrounds the Human Genome Diversity Project. This project is a coordinated effort by scientists to record the world's dwindling regional genetic diversity. Their approach is to sample the DNA of several hundred human populations and store the samples in gene banks for later analysis. This analysis would examine evolutionary histories of populations and their resistance to certain diseases. Some people see this project as racist because they view it as "scientific colonialism," using the genes of the Third World to provide expensive medical cures for the privileged, "civilized" world. They also fear that close scrutiny of DNA will provide more fodder for current ethnic battles.
Of course, this research would suggest other racial boundaries besides skin color - resistance to disease, for instance, or ability to digest milk - that could radically change the traditional racial groupings.
Whatever the boundaries we set for a given suite of races, there will probably always be people who will persist in looking down on other groups. The question of whether science should investigate the concept of race further or drop the matter altogether, is complicated by the fear of supplying racists with any more fuel for their hate.
Christopher Wills made a good summary of the tragic irony of the world's racial situation in his article "The Skin We're In," in the November Discover. "Over a span of millions of years our remote ancestors probably had to change color repeatedly for a great variety of reasons," Wills wrote, "long before they had enough brains to be prejudiced about it."