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January 03, 2001

DNA & Race

"If DNA can provide proof that a people are descended from another group, doesn't that alone imply that race is a valid distinguishing feature among the people of the Earth?"

dna can prove that you are not a rapist in a particular case. a urine test can prove that you are not a drug addict. there are tests which can prove that you are allergic to strawberries or that beans make you fart more than the average samoan teenager. before you posted it, i have never heard of tooth concavity in asians. i never cared. should i?

the most significant word in you question is 'valid'. we all have distinguishing features, and as science of studying the human body advances, all of those distinctions can and will be cataloged. there are millions of them today. my wife has morton's neuroma. my youngest daughter has beta thalassemia minor. i have never had heartburn in my entire life.

so the entire question is valid for what purposes? but there are even simpler questions than that. you've got the entire genome, chromosomal and mitochondrial dna to choose from. who decides, and for what purpose, which of the millions of genes to aggregate into racial categories?

imagine that we decided to legislate colorblindness. we 'fingerprint' everyone but we leave eye color, skin color, facial, hair and body characteristics OFF of the fingerprint. in fact we reduce the entire genome to 5 characteristics (which i'm not going to tell you) and then order that into 7 races. what is the point of such an exercise? it is political. it is always political.

Posted by mbowen at January 3, 2001 02:53 PM

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