Diminishing races, growing family

In the January 22, and 2009 edition of Nature (available only to subscribers online), Aravinda Chakravarti explains that our simplistic notions of "population" and "race" will need to be revised as we enter the age of "personal genomics." Chakravarti teaches at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Traditionally, we've used geological records to trace our family histories. We are now approaching a time where we will be able to use DNA databases. Whereas our traditional human records take us back several hundred years, our genomes will allow us to explore our ancestry for hundreds of thousands of years. Chakravarti argues that we will be entering unknown territory riddled with surprises and stretching the meaning of the word "family." How close knit is our human "family"?

All living humans are related via a set of common ancestors who lived in Africa about 200,000 years ago. Other studies have since shown that the world beyond Africa was settled even more recently. From 100,000 years ago, descendants of our African forebears spread out to populate other continents . . . the striking implication of this is that all living humans are mosaics with ancestry from the many parts of the globe through which our ancestors trekked. In other words, each of us has around 6.7 billion relatives.

Chakravarti points out that our genealogy-based record-keeping is often riddled with error. It fails to indicate our interrelatedness to each and every other human being, for example. Further, evidence shows that at least one out of 20 people do not know the identity of their genetic father. Thanks to the falling cost of examining entire human genomes (Chakravarti indicates that it has fallen 1000- fold or more), we now have abilities we could only have dreamed of a few decades ago. Personal genomics might well destroy our simplistic notion of "race." Human populations are not intact groups. There is no such thing as genetically characterized racial categories. We are all "multiracial, related to each other only to a greater or lesser extent." Detailed surveys are making it clear that there is no such thing as a discrete racial group. Rather, it is clear that there is a "continuity in variation across the globe, not abrupt transitions between population-specific sequence patterns." Personal genomics would allow us to focus on individual human beings, instead of artificially constructed "racial" populations.

Genome-wide studies ... could result in the individual identity and kinship coming to define populations rather than the other way around. We could test once and for all whether genetic race is a credible concept. This would be tremendously exciting. It is bound to stir up our deeply held notions of who we are, where we came from, our history and thus our politics. .. . it may be time for science to reshape the views of society. By dismantling our notions of race and population, we may better appreciate our common shared and recent history and perhaps more importantly our shared future.

I recently posted on the topic of whether science should study race and intelligence. I think this would be a worthy topic of science (just as is every other potential field of study), but I warned that our current definition of "race" is horribly muddled. We need to get clear on this term, if that is even possible. I found Chakravarti's article to be a refreshing reminder that there might not even be a worthy scientific definition of "race." In fact, it might well be that, once we look carefully at the evidence, we will find that there are actually 6.7 billion "races" out there. Or is it more accurate to conclude that there is only one human race?

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Educational Ruins

Anyone who has actually visited and studied ruins knows that they are created from orderly structures by a particular combination of forces. First comes neglect, when people either lose appreciation for the value of the thing and stop maintaining it, or they simply abandon it. Next comes vandalism, when people actively damage the structure to scavenge materials and souvenirs, to leave their own mark, or to intentionally destroy it. The latter is usually for religious reasons, as in purging earlier figureheads like Hatshepsut, Trotsky or the Bamiyan Buddhas. But this post is about an institutional edifice. Education in the United States is falling into ruins. Sure, it still is funded in a nominal sort of way. But people have forgotten its value. They even vote against tax increases necessary to maintain current standards. Schools are closing; one K-12 building in my neighborhood is now condos. My Junior High school was razed for a housing development. Pharyngula points out how the University of Florida is now planning to shut down its geology department as a cost cutting measure. Geology is the science that gave Darwin the leg up to understand how natural selection works before anyone else. Geology and its understanding affects meteorology, biology, sociology, history, exo-planetary studies, and more. Florida is one of the states in which regular attempts are made to insert Creationism into school itineraries. And geology is the biggest stumbling block to accepting a Young Earth. But I hope that is not their underlying reason. It is simple neglect of education in general. But there is a strong vanadlism movement afoot in this country. Anti-science forces are working hard to put non-scientific ideas into science classes. Texas is a recurring battleground as school administrators attempt to keep up education credentials in spite of the onslaught. Recently, a doomed law is running the gauntlet in the Texas legislature to allow unaccreditable private schools to offer advanced degrees. See Hank's A Master’s in Creationism. If that seemed too harsh, try Pharyngula's If you fail an IQ test in Texas, do they automatically put you in the legislature? Hank is Australian. Yet he cares about how this sort of behavior is making the United States seem ever goofier. To let our once-admirable education system crumble is a step backwards for the world.

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“Extenuating circumstances” for faking drug testing data?

I don't get it. The Wall Street Journal recently reported that

A prominent Massachusetts anesthesiologist allegedly fabricated 21 medical studies that claimed to show benefits from painkillers like Vioxx and Celebrex, according to the hospital where he worked.

This fabrication is not surprising in light of the fact that Vioxx has now been shown to be of highly questionable effectiveness and based on real world use that has arguably caused tens of thousands of deaths--people who had heart attacks because they used Vioxx when they could have, instead, continued to use the extremely safe over-the-counter drug Naproxen. But then comes the good part, a claim by Dr. Rueben's attorney:

"Dr. Reuben deeply regrets that this happened," said the doctor's attorney, Ingrid Martin. "Dr. Reuben cooperated fully with the peer review committee. There were extenuating circumstances that the committee fairly and justly considered." She declined to explain the extenuating circumstances.

There you have it. There were "extenuating circumstances" for faking data in 21 medical studies. I wonder what those "extenuating circumstances" were? The desire to get rich by conniving with a dirty drug company (see the article for the evidence)? Our did those "extenuating circumstances" include the lack of any sense of professional responsibility? Or did those "extenuating circumstances" include sadistic impulses to endanger the lives of thousands of people?

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Freedom of Speech as Religion

I think it should go without saying (but of course, nothing does) that anytime someone wants to protect something from "denigration" or other forms of criticism, we should all grab hold of our rights and hang onto them with a death grip. To put this case most eloquently, I offer the following.

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Linking to Wikileaks could cost you $11,000

Well, it will if the Australian government gets its way on its internet censorship bill. That's right. The ACMA seems to have placed Wikileaks on its potential web blacklist and seems set on throwing fines of up to $11,000 at anyone who links to it. I'd happily go all out on this one, but a fellow Antipodean has already got this one in his sights:

I'm posting this on my American blog because the Australian government, through the Australian Communications and Media Authority is fining people on Australian sites who give the links below the fold $11,000/day. Pretty well everything I feared about censorship by the internet filter and heavy handed government action is coming true. First of all, it transpires that only one bureaucrat at ACMA is required to block and ban a site, with no further oversight or redress. Second, it turns out that yes, ordinary and popular pornography sites are being blocked, so that if the filter becomes mandatory, these legal sites will effectively become censored for no apparent reason (other than political whim or special privileges). Thirdly, the whistleblower site Wikileaks is blocked by the ACMA blacklist.
John follows with the excerpt from a Crikey article:
Like New Labour in the UK, the ALP has now abandoned that [civil liberties movement], for a number of reasons. Once it committed itself to neoliberal economics ("social capitalism") Labo(u)r became freaked about the social dissolution and rupture, the desocialisation created by turning the polis into a giant market of winners and losers. The tough answer to this is genuine social democracy, in which people have a social being not entirely defined by whether they're a "winner" or a "loser". The easy answer is to let the market rip, allow it to change the culture, and then seek to control and reshape people's behaviour, selling it to them as "protecting the many against the few".

Continue ReadingLinking to Wikileaks could cost you $11,000