
What ancient DNA says about us - kawera
https://newhumanist.org.uk/articles/5335/what-ancient-dna-says-about-us
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Jun8
It's interesting to read the open letter that 67 researchers posted on
Buzzfeed that's referred to in the article (article calls them social
scientists but there are many people from biology and related fields:
[https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/bfopinion/race-
genetics...](https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/bfopinion/race-genetics-
david-reich). Their basic point:

"Reich critically misunderstands and misrepresents concerns that are central
to recent critiques of how biomedical researchers — including Reich — use
categories of “race” and “population.” "

A personal anecdote: Colorectal cancer (CRC) seems to be more prevalent among
the African-American population in the US (for an analysis of why see
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4977418/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4977418/))
A close colleague's wife was diagnosed with CRC (she's OK now, after chemo).
He was putting off colonoscopy until at least 50 but after looking at the
stats and his wife's prognosis got it done in a heart beat. They're both
black.

Moral of this story to me:

1) Don't delay your colonoscopy, schedule one asap is you're close to 50.

2) The "race has no biological basis" concept may be fine on a theoretical
level but when you're at the crosshairs of a racial group related disease
things take another dimension!

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cmrdporcupine
But the point is that 'black' is not really all that meaningful because it
encompasses potentially dozens of very disparate quite genetically distinct
populations and lineages -- I mean what's CRC prevalence like among
continental Africans? Maybe it's possible that CRC is more prevalent among
African-Americans because of some higher occurrence in the west African
populations where most slaves came from. Or maybe it developed in North
America. But to talk about it in terms of race implies that black skin and
African origin is the most important binding element -- when in fact what we
are talking about is a specific African-American population.

~~~
cm2187
It is pretty relevant to a dermatologist. Racial statistics are banned in
France so dermatologists have to resort to code words, because skins of
different color behave quite differently.

~~~
Iv
Just to nitpick: racial statistics are not banned in France. But they have to
be voluntary and anonymous. What is forbidden is to make a file telling if a
specific person is black... or jewish, as has been the case not too long ago.
So the census (which is mandatory) is banned from asking questions about
ethnicity, religion or political affiliation.

You can however make a general statistics about blacks or muslims as long as
you guarantee anonymity and consent of the participants.

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nyolfen
reich's book is really fantastic, totally readable for non-specialists. i
liked razib khan's review:

[https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/03/book-review-david-
rei...](https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/03/book-review-david-reich-human-
genes-reveal-history/)

