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SUMMARY:'Wir sind alle Afrikaner': a brief history and philosophy of the b
 iological 'race' concept - Rasmus Grønfeldt Winther (University of Califo
 rnia\, Santa Cruz\, and University of Copenhagen)
DTSTART:20101104T163000Z
DTEND:20101104T180000Z
UID:TALK26657@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Nicky Reeves
DESCRIPTION:Race is a notoriously contentious political\, ideological\, an
 d sociological concept. By definition\, a racial proper name (e.g. 'Africa
 n'\, 'Han Chinese') is meant to refer to\, and identify\, a coherent human
  group (at various levels). But are there really such natural\, biological
  groups\, or are they solely cultural constructs? That is\, are phenotypic
  'racial' differences in hair texture\, skin colour or various morphologic
 al characters (external traits) actually grounded in genetic or other biol
 ogical differences (internal traits)? And if so\, how broad are such basic
 \, reductive biological differences? Do they also explain group-level diff
 erences in proneness to certain diseases or even IQ(!)\, that seem to robu
 stly exist across human groups? Since biology clearly has ideological and 
 social consequences\, much is at stake in scientific attempts to assess th
 e naturalness of 'race'. In this talk\, I critically examine the abstracti
 on of human groups (and 'races') through the use of contemporary data-driv
 en (e.g. SNPs\, haplotypes and microsatellites) modelling strategies (e.g.
  STRUCTURE computer program\, phylogenetic inferences). I employ my philos
 ophical framework of the reification of scientific abstractions. I argue t
 hat the real yet partial population structure of humans across the globe\,
  as well as the various empirically-adequate models of human evolution\, d
 o not justify a reification of the race concept. The concept does not have
  strong biological support\, and I suggest that scientific honesty demands
  that we abandon it. (Even then\, we could still search for genes and deve
 lopmental processes underlying diseases\, as well as try to reconstruct th
 e evolutionary history of genetically diverse human groups.) Indeed\, as i
 ndicated in an ongoing exhibition on human evolution at the Neues Museum i
 n Berlin\, we are all Africans.
LOCATION:Seminar Room 2\, Department of History and Philosophy of Science
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