The reason Watson recanted is simply because he faced near universal condemnation and no support. To the extent that other geneticists and scientists weighed in at all, they seemed only to join the chorus of those saying Watson didn't know what he was taking about, was going senile, was patently racist, or all the above.

Now, it so happens that there are many population geneticists and psychometricians who secretly harbour similar beliefs. And not all of them are racists.

But they remained silent while one of the greatest scientists of this century was vilified for stating, as Saletan says, an eminently reasonable and testable hypothesis (that has a decent amount of supporting data).

Can you blame the guy for recanting?

i want one of these scientists to define what they mean by race. i think the thing is that he used terminology that was imprecise and not scientific and if you are going to make such a loaded assertion, you better be able to back it up and be scientific about for people to take you seriously.

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I tried to read that fairly lengthy post, but I'm afraid I couldn't get much past the first point: that race is a social construct. I've heard this canard too many times. It simply defies all common sense. Yes, it's true that the human race can be divided in any number of arbitrary ways, just as the visible spectrum of light can be divided in any number of ways, but that doesn't mean that the colour "red" isn't objectively different from the colour "blue".

As Steven Pinker has observed, "races" are nothing more than large, extended families. We don't expect genetic traits to have similar frequency in every family, so we shouldn't expect it in races, either.

This much is just common sense. Those who argue that there is no such thing as race are trying to eliminate uncomfortable questions before they are even asked.

mnemon:

We don't expect genetic traits to have similar frequency in every family, so we shouldn't expect it in races, either.

You have confused "race" with "population." This is a common mistake.

Inter-breeding populations frequently have distinct genetic medical histories. The Euro-American notion of race attempts to subsume thousands of genetically and environmentally distinct populations under the category of one race.

To take the examples from my earlier post, the nomadic-pastoral Meru of East Africa are superbly adapted to lactose-digestion, have a very tall average height and limb length, and tend towards dark brown fleshtones. The Igbo of equatorial West Africa are stockier by comparison, tend to have a darker range of skin tones, and suffer sickle-cell anemia in greater numbers. Finally, the hunter-gatherer Khoisans of southern Africa tend to have a lighter/yellower range of skin tone and epicanthal eye folds.

Anthropologists refer to these as three genetically distinct populations. In the United States, members of all three groups would be offered the "Black" check-box and dumped into one overarching "racial category."

I don't think I'm confusing anything (although it's always possible!).

Nobody believes that all Africans, or all "blacks" form a perfectly homogenous group. Of course there are distinctive subgroups, or "populations" if you like, within the greater whole. But you rather give the game away when you say the Igbo suffer sickle-cell anemia "in greater numbers". By that, I take it you mean in greater numbers than the other African populations (who have it in lesser numbers).

But hold on, non-blacks don't suffer from sickle-cell anemia at all. So, it would seem that for sickle-cell anemia, "black race" is a pretty good predictor of having that gene in the gene pool, though sometimes in greater and sometimes in lesser numbers.

Isn't this discussion just another version of the age-old "lumpers vs splitters" argument? Acknowledging the existence of sky-blue, light blue, blue-grey and aquamarine doesn't mean that I have to give up the concept of "blue". Acknowledging your "populations" doesn't mean there's no such thing as "race".

So, I am quite willing to take you at your word that the Igbo and Meru are not the same, but I would hazard they are more similar to each other than to the Han Chinese or the Celts. And Japanese and Chinese are, I would guess, more similar to each other than to the Igbo.

Mnemon,

(fairly long post follows)

On genetically inherited blood disorders:

I should have made more clear my earlier statement, and apologize for the vagueness. Equatorial West and Central Africans suffer sickle cell at "higher rates" than most other human populations. These two groups happen to correspond to the U.S. conception of "Black."

However, there exist many other populations outside Africa with high rates of sickle cell; rates much higher than Africans from savanna, desert, or highland environs. All of these populations--for example, indigenous tribes in central-eastern states of India--live in regions historically plagued by malaria. Sickle cell is a genetic response to the malarial environments of one's ancestors. [For more information, see the research of such scientists as R.S.Balgir, G.V. Ramana, or P.G. Nietert, one of the biologists tracking high sickle-cell prevalancy in populations across the world, from Saudi Arabia to Bangladesh and even a small pocket of rural China. ]

Human environment is human biology; the former has shaped the latter to an astonishing degree. Most environments, no matter how distinct and unusual, find a counterpart elsewhere on the planet. Again, for example, thalyssimia is rampant both in North Africa and parts of Arabic-speaking West Asian countries and in unrelated indigenous Indian groups (with no links to the conquering Mughal empires of the Asian subcontinent) thousands of miles away, in similar environs.

Race as construction:

According to a U.S. taxonomy, (South Asian) Indians--no matter how dark-complected--are not of this "black race" you mentioned. Neither are the various other equatorial/malarial-region populations around the world who suffer from sickle-cell.

Add to that the oft-published fact that most indigenous African populations have more (genetically) in common with non-Africans than amongst themselves, and we are faced with the question: Why would some (non-scientist) observers view the Meru, Ibgo, and Khoe-San/Khoisan peoples as simply variations on some amnorphous, overarching "type" of human, rather than distinct populations with different phenotypes and now, with genetic science, genotypes?

The answer lies in what I discussed in my earlier post, which I respectfully suggest you read in full if so inclined. Social conditioning peculiar to Euro-American constructions has caused a certain "suite" of phenotypic traits to become associated with "Black," with "White," and with other such racial types.

For example, Euro-America in the 19th century developed consistent racial typing for the mostly West African peoples involuntarily brought to this continent. Interestingly, 17th and 16th century documents show that "racial" types were not defined in the same ways as in the 19th century, when slavery and slave-owning escalated in importance, visiblity, etc., but those are issues for later posts!) This suite, based on phenotypes common to West and some central African peoples, includes: brown fleshtones; tightly curly hair; and full, rounded facial features such as noses "flatter" on average than the average length of European profiles.

This racial typing became entrenched by the mid-to-late 19th century, such that the "one-drop" rule was in full effect. To recap this notorious "rule," society identified anyone with even a scant ancestral link to Africa--via a single great-grandfather, for instance-- to be identified as "Black," irrespective of how light the skin tone or how European or Native the other ancestry/phenotype suite. This in essence ballooned the number of people who could be considered "Black," and, likewise, slaves/labor.

It thus may now appear "natural" to many Americans to see a certain suite of characteristics and type it as "Black." This is how such vastly different-appearing celebrities as Wesley Snipes, Jamie Foxx, and Beyonce Knowles are typed under a single marker (in other countries, these three would be members of different races). Hence, many Americans' inability to view Meru, Igbo, and Khoisan peoples as different "races," on the basis of only certain features--shades of brown skin, tightly curled hair, etc.--taken and viewed as a suite. It is important to step out of one's own views to see how other groups construct races. As my first post indicated, these three groups would belong to any one of dozens of other races based on the racial typing criteria of non-Euro-American societies around the world.

So, we are left once again with the problem that "Black"--like White (ask certain socially aware Italian-, Irish-, or Polish- Americans what they think of the White construction), like Asian, etc. is an amorphous category impossible to pin down--it exists only in our constructed vision.

A Few Questions:

Where does "Blackness" intrinsically, necessarily (that is, from a universal human perspective) reside? In dark skin?--but Khoisans and Mbuti (formerly Pygmy) people are quite light on the scale of humanity. In a relatively flat facial profile?-- But that is a chracteristic of many East and Southeast Asian and Pacific peoples. In pronouncedly folded eyes?--No, Khoisan people have epicanthal (minimized) eye folds, and huge non-African chunks of the world do not. Does it lie indeed in Africa?--well, what of dark brown south Indians, curly-haired Melanesians?

Racial typing and taxonomy has been practiced by humans in every part of the world for quite a long time. And maybe it is not a matter of huge import for a small indigenous group in a geographically isolated area that persists in its own brand of racial taxonomy.

The question now becomes: in rapidly globalizing and inter-mingling societies, in which urban, suburban and even, increasingly, rural locales are stuffed to the seams with people of every hue, national origin, and language, and in which contradictory taxonomies butt up against one another--is it time for the general public and government to step outside of its old taxonomical shirt, look it over, and hang it up in the back of the closet? Can we move towards more precise, less subjective ways of identifying ancestral origin (and its attendent genetic disorders) without resorting to arbitrarily defined "typing"?

I think so.

Thanks for engaging in the discussion.

Thanks for your lengthy and informative post. Again, I think that your points (while true) do not preclude the concept of race. I have no doubt that geography shapes genetic destiny, but isn't that the whole point: blacks share a common geographic background, namely Africa. Now, if you're going to tell me that there are microclimes within Africa which have produced indigenous peoples remarkably similar to those produced by the Scottish Highlands, I frankly have a hard time believing it. I suspect there is far greater genetic similarity between Igbo and Meru than between Igbo and Scot. And I believe there is abundant research bearing this sort of thing out:

I'm not intelligent enough (proving that an individual's race means nothing!) to know how to link to another post, so I've just cut and pasted this one from Epicuria:

"Hundreds of studies verify the validity of race as a marker. One such study picked randomly: "We have analyzed genetic data for 326 microsatellite markers that were typed uniformly in a large multiethnic population-based sample of individuals as part of a study of the genetics of hypertension (Family Blood Pressure Program). Subjects identified themselves as belonging to one of four major racial/ethnic groups (white, African American, East Asian, and Hispanic) and were recruited from 15 different geographic locales within the United States and Taiwan. Genetic cluster analysis of the microsatellite markers produced four major clusters, which showed near-perfect correspondence with the four self-reported race/ethnicity categories. Of 3,636 subjects of varying race/ethnicity, only 5 (0.14%) showed genetic cluster membership different from their self-identified race/ethnicity. On the other hand, we detected only modest genetic differentiation between different current geographic locales within each race/ethnicity group. Thus, ancient geographic ancestry, which is highly correlated with self-identified race/ethnicity—as opposed to current residence—is the major determinant of genetic structure in the U.S. population."

I remain unconvinced by you, but thank you for taking the effort to try!

I'm glad you found the information interesting.

I will respond separately to Epicuria's post.To respond quickly to your first point, all Africans indeed share a common continent, but that continent is not, as you suggest, a "common geographic background." Nothing is further from the truth.

On to your other points...

Scots and Igbo

I'm not sure why you have brought up Scots and Igbo more than once. However, I'll be happy to respond to your contrasting of the two:

First, let us caveat that unlike Igbo, Scottish is an ethnic group composed of many different strains of other ethnicities--including, indigenous Scottish and/or Pictish; Scandinavian; Irish; Roman; and in some areas, Teutonic Anglo-Saxon;and Norman-inflected "English."

Having said that, however, the majority of Scottish ancestry has its roots in temperate northern climates--those of the northern British isles and Scandinavia.

We seem to agree that Scots and Igbo are two separate populations with differing ancestral environments (temperate northern-ish latitude region v. tropical-equatorial southern-ish latitude) and thus divergent geneotypes and phenotypes. The questions I asked of you in my most recent post, which you have not yet answered, are why then two other environmentally, genotypically and phenotypically divergent populations--Igbo and Khoisan, for instance--must be necessarily and "naturally" viewed as parts of an overarching type, a "race" as you put it. (Saying "I am not convinced that these two groups are not part of the same race" does not offer reasons to support your conclusion.)

I will again put the question to you: What--if not social construction--necessarily unites Igbo and Khoisan under the same general type? If light-complected, folded-eyed, straight to midly curly-haired Scots are of a different "race" than dark-complected, folded-eyed, tightly curly Igbo, what then makes said Igbo *naturally* share space under the same umbrella "race" as medium-complected, foldless (epicanthal)-eyed, curly haired Khoisan?

So much for phenotype. Let's now apply the same questions togenotype: If High Sickle Cell Prevalency Group 1 (Igbo) is "racially" distinct from High Sickle Cell Prevalency Group 2 (various east-central indigenous Indians), why then do you view as "racially" the same Group 1 and the various indigenous African populations withOUT sickle-cell prevalence?

The Issue of Utility

Researchers from all fields who have rejected "race" have jettisoned the category primarily because of its lack of utility. Separating people into broad groups originally linked by suites of phenotype does not help us, neither in society nor in research at the social AND genetic levels. What are the public health implications of relying on "racial" categories that seek to force together phenotypically and genetically distinct peoples? Where is the utility in studying sickle-cell as a "Black" disease, when not all people defined by the U.S. as "Black" suffer this condition, and when valuable research funds and efforts could be additionally directed towards populations with high sickle-cell but whom some countries do not classify as "Black"? How does the category "Asian" (recently expanded due to lobbying in the mid-20th century to include previously "White" South Asians) help public health officials determine which populations in a city should be targeted for PR campaigns for certain genetic disorders affecting people of only some Asian ecoystems and certain regions of another continent?

You say the research on the subject does not convince you. Fine and well. Whether or not some people are "convinced" of race's status (as a culturally-constructed category that does not correlate with such biologically observable and factually existent categories as breeding population, meme, or ancestral group) is immaterial from a biological anthropologist's standpoint. They will continue to do their research, ignoring those categories that are of little or no use. When studying lactose intolerance, they will ignore the U.S.'s "Black" and "Native Americans" categories and target descendents or residents of historically non-dairying populations around the world. Social anthropologists, psychologists, demographers, sociologists and others, on the other hand, can have a field day with "race," its various constructions, etc--race IS a social reality and problem in many countries of the world, and the fact that race is a social category does not mean that it does not continue to pose a very real threat to people in societies who continue to embrace phenotypically-derived racial categories.

My last question to you is this: Assuming the continued or increased importance of breeding population as a category for study and/or taxonomy, what utility do broad racial categories (Black, White, etc.) offer that make them worthwhile as either a social organization or scientific research category?

Epicuria’s post demonstrates some of the pitfalls of relying on socially constructed taxonomies. The researchers in the posted study fragment asked individuals in the U.S. to pick from the following categories: White, African-American, East Asian, and Hispanic.

Let’s take a closer look at this jumble of categories.

The category “White” is scientifically problematic in its attempts to unite peoples from several different environments, and is socially problematic in its constant promotion as an immutable “natural” category despite the fact that within the past hundred twenty years in the U.S., Irish- and Greek-Americans were not classified White, while South Asians at various times were. However, there are a few possible reasons why a sample of Americans of different European ancestries might show a strong correlation with one another: the long history of European inter-marriage and migration, both historically within the subcontinent of Europe and more recently between European-Americans in the U.S.; and the relatively less-extreme differences amongst different European environments (for example, no equatorial rainforest v. snowy highlands dichotomies as in Africa/Asia).

Interestingly, the researchers have tried to sidestep the problems inherent in broad socioracial categories by using “African-American” instead of Black. Epicuria has not posted the methodology of this study, but it is highly likely (based on similar research in the U.S.) that the individuals tested for this project were not recent African immigrants/offspring, but rather, people of sixth, seventh, and higher generation on this continent. This native “African-American” population has three major ancestry sources: West/central Africa; western/central/northern Europe; and eastern (Native) North America. To the extent that those studied had significant amounts of West or central African ancestry (and quite a few have far less than popularly assumed), their genetic histories should exhibit similarities with those of the corresponding origin-ethnic groups of West and central Africa.

However, what the study does NOT (and cannot) assert is that the “African-American” subjects’ genetic information corresponded with that of Africans throughout the continent; this is an impossibility, based on the extreme eco-diversity of the African continent and the corresponding genetic and phenotypic diversity of its inhabitants.

The researchers were on the right track in their narrowing of Asian to East Asian. Although East Asian is still a bit too broad, it is true that several East Asian groups, in their sharing of a common northern-temperate region, also many share genotypic and phenotypic traits (the East Asian connection is doubly strong when taking into account historical exogamous breeding such as Mongolian into Korean and Chinese).

The Hispanic category is a national joke. Most Americans are aware that “native” Spanish-speaking populations are, depending on their countries’ location and history, variously linked to Native America, West/central Africa, western/southern/northern Europe, West Asia and North Africa.

In order for this study to have a genetically closely correlated “Hispanic” result, the subjects must be drawn from a region of the U.S. in which the self-identified Hispanic population originated largely in a single country or region of the Americas (e.g. Mexican-American; Puerto Rican). Thus, for example, a large Mexican population would yield high links to Native American and European ancestries, while a predominantly Dominican population would have a much higher link to West and central African groups.

At first glance, it seems to make sense to offer study respondents a choice of categories with which they are familiar; most people born in the U.S. or who have lived here a long time are used to self-identification along the broad U.S.-constructed “racial/ethnic” categories. However, as researchers insist on offering respondents more precise and less subjectively constructed “boxes” to check, research results will become more precise, and both science and society will be the better for it.

mnemon:

Now, if you're going to tell me that there are microclimes within Africa which have produced indigenous peoples remarkably similar to those produced by the Scottish Highlands, I frankly have a hard time believing it.

The Atlas mountain range of Africa has produced a branch of the indigenous people called the Amazigh. This northern (mountain) branch includes many people who, for centuries before the Arab conquest of Africa, were reported by Greek and Roman observers as having the light (i.e. northerly) complection, straight -to mildly curly hair, and folded eyes characteristic of most European populations.

For years (prior to modern understandings of evolution and eco-diversity), European researchers tried to come up with a European point of origin for this group of people, but to no avail. This group has, of late, become more active in African indigneous rights movements.

Do you know where the Atlas mountains are? They're due south of Spain. Not exactly deep inside of Africa. It's like being astounded that there are Spanish speaking people in Texas. What this has to do with what Watson said, I have no clue.

Clearly Dr. Watson said what he meant and meant what he said. He has made his career and does not whink in fear of approbabtion from other non-nobel prive winners.

While his comments were ill-advised, how can they be dismissd out of hand without recourse to a political viewpoint? Does the science that cites in support of his argument inferior to that used to support say.....Global Warming?