The American Society for Human Genetics begs to differ.
As the American Society of Human Genetics (ASHG) joins others in deepest sorrow and outrage over the unfathomable recent tragedies in Uvalde, Texas and Buffalo, New York, the human genetics community is appalled at the news that the shooter in the hate-fueled mass killing in Buffalo rooted his racist beliefs by misusing and misrepresenting the science we strive to advance each day. As we have in 2018 and again in 2020, the human genetics community rejects in the strongest possible terms any attempt to twist and warp genetics knowledge to advance bogus racist ideology or try to legitimize through science the fundamental hatred that forms white supremacy’s evil core.
The fundamental fact from human genetics is this: the human genome tells the profoundly powerful story of a single humanity – one species able to thrive by adapting in subtle but important ways to our environmental and evolutionary forces over thousands of years in every corner of the planet. That variation is an enormous and profound strength and is central to efforts to understand and apply this knowledge to serve humanity.
As scientists and citizens in this one humanity, it is our duty to condemn falsehoods that enflame violence and to champion scientific knowledge and fact. ASHG’s hearts, minds and long-term goals remain fully committed to advancing equity, diversity and inclusion in science, health and society.
Genetics is far messier than most people know, so a good rule of thumb is to question simple answers.
I like this. Simply stated and undeniably true.
Unfortunately this very reasonable response is going to be dismissed as “liberal nonsense” by racists.
@PaulBC – yes I thought that was a good way of phrasing that.
I had a brief discussion with Jon Entine over his book “Taboo,” which to me at times came across like a racist screed. I had to point out that while his responses to me personally sounded reasonable, it remained that the words and arguments he used in his book were not, that they were misstatements or worse of what he thought or claimed to be describing. Jon later published a second edition, but I never checked what if anything he changed.
Entine has written several books on this topic…
That’s a pretty good rule pretty much anywhere.
“Genetics is far messier than most people know”
Those of us who studied biochem in college know this. Your genome is NOT a computer program. It’s more like a fluid economy. Genes get swapped all the time. Mutations happen. Retro-viruses happen. Your DNA at 40 is not the same DNA the day you were born. It’s a messy sloppy mechanism loaded with imperfection and copying errors. Now that I think about it DNA has a lot in common with the office printing machine. You ever had a printer that consistently functioned? I haven’t since the old dot matrix days. Man I miss tearing off that ribbon paper.
This also reminds me of a recent Matt Powell video, where he claimed we lose 1% of our genetic information per generation. No idea where he got this from, but he’s completely wrong. I don’t even know how to measure that. I’m thinking a multiyear study of the nematode genome in an isolated system would be a good place to start. They reproduce like every few weeks and are asexual so if there is any evidence of this 1% per generation claim, it should be pretty obvious. Just run the experiment for a year or two and see if their DNA “degrades”. Spoiler alert: it doesn’t. DNA replication is messy but robust. Our perfect creator did a less than perfect job.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, but this statement really doesn’t amount to much, pragmatically speaking.
When just Tucker Carlson alone is counted as having repeated white supremacist conspiracy theory talking points over 400 times in the span of a year, the ASHG making one statement every two years in contradiction to the assumptions behind Carlson’s daily narrative is kind of meaningless.
The bullshit-to-truth ratio being put out into the “marketplace of ideas” is so unbelievably skewed in favor of bullshit being seen, remembered, and believed that the real expert communities need to seriously reconsider how they do science communication, and make it a much bigger priority than it currently is.
@7
one of the problems if not the biggest problem with science communication is as far as science is concerned most of the population is essentially illiterate and ignorant concerning science and has a strong tendency toward various levels of superstition and magical thinking. just look at the difficulty with all levels communicating the nature of covid19 pandemic when people could easily see the results with their own eyes
there are no words I know that I could string together to express the roller-coaster ride we have been on with regard to the reaction and the public policy
How does genetics support racism? Does the concept of genetics get to vote? Can scientific realities vote? This is all sarcasm BTW.
Ray:
Nah. It’s attempted sarcasm, but too weak to actually make the grade.
“The human genome tells the profoundly powerful story of a single humanity”
This is such a creationist way of putting it. The genome doesn’t tell a story, however neat the metaphor is. To the believers its then a question of who can tell a better or more shouty story.
“the human genome shows us we are a single humanity.” Would have been better. And shorter for the attention deficit right wing.
DanDare@11 You’re being too literal. When an inanimate, non-verbal object “tells a story” that simply means it “shows” as you put it. You don’t have to like the phrasing, but I think are reading way too much into it.
Personally, I like it because there is literally a “story” (or history) of a single human species, originating in Africa and migrating all over the world. The story is profoundly powerful (that’s a subjective view but I agree). The genome doesn’t do any “telling” by itself but it carries the evidence of this migration.
“Every picture tells a story.” is a common saying meaning “what has really happened in a situation is clear because of the way that someone or something looks”. Pictures also don’t speak, and are not necessarily intended as narratives (some are). It is clear that the ASHG was using the expression in this sense.
Also an excellent Rod Stewart LP from before he moved to America and sold out.