Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!xanth!mcnc!thorin!unc!barkley
From: barkley@unc.cs.unc.edu (Matthew Barkley)
Newsgroups: sci.bio
Subject: Re: Hybrid vigor
Summary: what is race, anyway?
Message-ID: <9129@thorin.cs.unc.edu>
Date: 10 Aug 89 16:59:47 GMT
References: <1989Aug10.003610.14496@agate.berkeley.edu>
Sender: news@thorin.cs.unc.edu
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In article <1989Aug10.003610.14496@agate.berkeley.edu>, mkkuhner@codon1.berkeley.edu (Mary K. Kuhner;335 Mulford) writes:
> 
> Some geneticists may find it useful to group all humans together
> without regard to race, but in the population genetics of disease
> it is vital to match the control and disease populations by race.
> The occurence of juvenile diabetes in African-Americans, for example,
> correlates quite exactly with the proportion of Caucasian admixture,
> and Africans almost never get this disease.
>  

"Race" may be a handy label, even in population genetics, but it really
has no scientific validity, IMHO.  How does one tell the "proportion of
Caucasian admixture"?  Remember that Asian Indians are considered Cau-
casian; is that part of the admixture, too?  What objective criteria do
you have for classification?

To put the whole thing into sharp focus:  The singer Don Ho is said to
be of Portugese, Chinese, and Hawaiian ancestry;  what "race" is he?

Matt Barkley                                           barkley@cs.unc.edu
Any opinions expressed are not necessarily shared by anyone else, and may 
not even be my own. How an organization can have an opinion is beyond me.