The biology of race in the absence of biological races: Rick Kittles at TEDxNorthwesternU
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- Опубликовано: 24 янв 2011
- Defining "race" continues to be a nemesis. Knowledge from human genetic research is increasingly challenging the notion that race and biology are inextricably linked, engendering tremendous ramifications for human relations, identity and public health. It has become fashionable for geneticists and anthropologists to declare that race is a social construction. However, there is little practical value to this belief since few in the public believe and act on it. Thus race is mainly a social concept which in the US has been based on skin color and ancestry. Yet biomedical studies continue to examine black/ white differences. Kittles discusses why using race in biomedical studies is problematic using examples from U.S. groups which transcend "racial" boundaries and bear the burden of health disparities.
Rick Kittles, PhD, received a BS in biology from the Rochester Institute of Technology in 1989 and a PhD in biological sciences from George Washington University in 1998. He then helped establish the National Human Genome Center at Howard University. Currently, Kittles is an associate professor of medicine in the Division of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), as well as the associate director of the UIC Cancer Center.
Kittles is well known for his research of prostate cancer and health disparities among African Americans. He has also been at the forefront of the development of ancestry-informative genetic markers, and how genetic ancestry can be used to map genes for common traits and disease. His work on tracing the genetic ancestry of African Americans has brought light to many issues, new and old, which relate to race, ancestry, identity, and group membership.
In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized. 
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great talk really lousy cameraperson.If he is talking about something in his powerpoint, you really should show the powerpoint.
Why doesn't camera show all what he shows on the screen?
@@MJ-hg1mk that seems really random
They do it on every ted talk. Every single one.
@@MJ-hg1mk You are truly onto something there! 🤦♂
I continue to be amazed as how often people argue about a word as if there can be only one concept for race, and it must be the one they are trying to prove exists or doesn't exist. So often the arguments are semantically circular, relying on everyone using a specific chosen meaning for the word which makes their assertion true.
If someone says "race is a social construct", that is absolutely true - for some meanings associated with the word "race" and not for others. If they were speaking more clearly, they would say "when 'race' refers to the social construct of race, it is a social construct", in which case the circularity would be more obvious. Leaving out the explicit qualifiers can disguise the meaninglessness of the argument.
Someone else might refer to a set of fuzzy categories based on multifactor cluster analysis of measurable biological traits. Race in that sense is not a social construct in the sense above, it emerges from mathematical analysis of physical traits. A Martian anthropologist with no ax to grind and no knowledge of human cultures would find the same clusters. Of course, by changing parameters and thresholds, you might get different numbers of clusters, so a cluster analysis is meaningful (the strongest clusters will remain in all cases) but not comprehensively definitive (eg: the number of minor clusters depend on your arbitrary thresholds).
These two conceptions of race will correlate to some degree, but inexactly (see Kittles' slides). And of course, we cannot categorize every individual as being exactly one of N races (from somebody's favorite set, socially defined or as biological trait clusters). For example, the boundaries of clusters are fuzzy and there are many data points between the clusters. Just as the concepts of day and night are meaningful concepts that should not be discarded, even tho the existence of twilight means that we cannot meaningfully categorize every single moment of the day as always being either day or night (and our chosen thresholds between day/twilight/night are arbitrary).
Kittles parses this in part by distinguishing between social race and biological ancestry, acknowledging that both exist - rather than fighting endlessly for the existence or non-existence of one these different concepts which are often subsumed under the same word "race".
It's important to keep in mind his purpose - identifying meaningful groupings for things like medical statistics. For example, is some medical condition statistically associated with people with a strong African genetic ancestry, or with a socio-economic status which in turns correlates to some degree with social race (environment, behavior)? He's saying you have to tease these our before you can make scientifically strong associations which could guide research or treatment.
How do you explain the higher likelyhood of depression and other potential cognitive differences between those w Neanderthal DNA and those without? Race is obviously not a construct but that should be OK! Acknowledgement of the existence of races in no way condones racism.
You make a good point. I do use the word as it was originally intended, as a determinable sub-species taxonomy that has predictive ability. I would call what the Americans have as "caste".
Zeph Smith -- Your comments in this context are uniquely thorough and meaningful. If I understand clusters, it should follow that while some people may be strongly associated with a certain group, there are too many whose position is transitional--part of overlapping groups.
@@anominousanonymous9344 well even Sub-Saharan africans have a tiny bit Neanderthal DNA, it's just that the others have a lot more of it
@@misterlyle. exactly, everybody can be categorized in a certain way, but what's important to know is that the point where you would draw the line can't be really found, because the transition from one to the other is fluid
It's almost like you could say that "race" is like a spectrum, everybody can be placed somewhere and some may be closer together on it than others but nobody will be on the same spot
People need to understand the difference between race ethnicity and nationality ...... and inbreeding to understand genetics and origin
I REALLY enjoyed listening to this brutha! There is still so much we don't understand about ourselves! It's going to see how genetics plays a part in the ethics of Health care delivery. ☺❤👨🏾⚕️🔬📚💊
This guy really broke it down, people in the comments are idiots for bashing his segregation of biological and social factors. And the odd importance to keep race in the discussion in a world that wants it out (baby with the bathwater statement)
We can substitute the term race with ethnic groups which are groups that come from certain geographical and cultural backgrounds making the diagnosis based on ethnic group more accurate depending on where specifically in the world they came from
yeah i can read some coments
people arownd here are ingnorant and maby geneticaly idiots
hahahah this kind of idiots think that they are superior
ha ha ha , the best advice LOL , Go Back To School
@Techroach Darwin recognized biological race is impossible to define. He did that in the 19th century, more than 100 years before genomics.
I think it's clear that he was wrong...…………………………...the features clearly result in three clear groups
@@robinsss Why only look at features like skin color? If you group people along eye color there are 4 races, green eyed, blue eyed, brown eyed and mixed color, why aren't that races?
Very enlightening. I've also realized how use of the gentleman's census tracts can be of invaluable assistance with my Economic Awareness Seminars
A great talk and super helpful!
He's talking about disease being more prevalent in particular ethnic groups than others, but he has to define ethnicity before making that claim. Is not the definition of ethnicity just as slippery as race?
sleepyeyeguy Ethnicity includes cultural factors and this probably is publicly known.
sleepyeyeguy yeah what he should have said is breed.
I am trying to hear more people who disagree with race realism, just trying to hear both sides. Any good people to listen to?
Their is no such thing as race other then that we have all been conditioned from birth in believing their is and people have died and been made slave's and law's and policies have been created based on race, so on a societal level race is most definitely real it's just not real biologically so on a biological level their is no hearing the other side because their is no different race's so an opposing opinion on race biologically is irrelevant socially now that's an interesting debate to have.
Darth Skater no. Science completely disproves race realism and race science and puts them in pseudo sciences.
I’m here, there is no scientific basis for race because white ancestors couldn’t even say what was white. For a while Irish, polish, Italians, Scottish, and Slavs weren’t considered white
Jermaine Edwards On a biological level all dog breeds are the same Race
@@jermaineedwards8384 what the average person sees as race, are people that evolved in different directions, and that undoubtedly happened, race just may be the wrong term for it
"Human beings are born with different capacities. If they are free, they are not equal. And if they are equal, they are not free."
- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn -
Culture is just the fenotype of a population.
Iq is genetic like everything else.
There will always be deviants and outliers.
Haplogroup is a better term than race.
Plato described this 2500 years ago in the myth of the metals
Crime is not a result of poverty, its a result of RELATIV poverty.
Mixing groups with large diffrence in iq creates RELATIV poverty and political polarisation.
great video
i understand the genes and race a bit more clearly
thanks TEDx
"Race and biology are inextricably linked" is a fact.
How? race is not identifiable
@@lot110
Being pedantic is not an argument.
@@Bocbo Then define the human races.
@@LesterBrunt
This usually gets censored.
Homosapien sapiens
Homosapien x Neanderthal
Homosapien x Neanderthal x Denisovan
@@Bocbo so how would you recognize those genetics by someones skin color or eye shape?
Where would Indians (dot, not feather) be within those catagories?
perfect
He should do this over! After he firmly defines the terms he is using, and stops conflating them. An American geneticist of color should know better and must do better.
All these race isn't real videos are pendantic and dishonest.
Bocbo
The way race has been used to categorise people thus far has been dishonest.
@@stephenrochester6309 Even been debunkend in the 50's/60's.
@@stephenrochester6309 we should be able to detect "race" without automatically categorizing it
@@Bocbo Unfortunately for you, that's called scientific consensus.
Stop calling it race. It's ethnicity. Not all blacks are "Africans".
Ethnicity is not the same as race. Ethnicity is culture and language, race is biology.
@@overtonpendulum2071 No such thing as race. There's only one. HUMAN.
@@4TIMESAYEAR Wrong.
@@overtonpendulum2071 Wrong.
@@4TIMESAYEAR Race is subspecies. The genetic distance among many widely recognized animal subspecies is equal to or less than among human races. The fact races aren't called subspecies is entirely political.
I disagree with him. We don't "need" race today to study certain American groups. Most groups disenfranchised today are struggling from either past social mistakes or modern class struggle. We may need the idea of race to study the lasting effects of slavery, jim crow, etc...but we only need to understand it as a crazy idea that previous generations made up.
Example: We don't need to see the sun as a god to be educate ourselves about how past civilizations were influenced by this idea.
He's looking at populations of different "ancestry" without clearly defining ancestry beforehand. Is it based on self report or what? And how is that in any way scientific or reliable?
You sad because you wish race exist sorry it NEVER HAD AND NEVER WILL EXIST ! ! ! !
Nefertiti QueenOfEgypt I agree that race is a social construct, but you literally made no attempt at arguing his points, instead you go straight to an ad hominem, that says more about you then him. It says alot about your ability to critically reason with someone.
Nefertiti QueenOfEgypt I award you no points, and may god have mercy on your soul.
@@nefertitiqueenofegypt4964, woke clown
search "Douglas Whitman: "Amazing Racial Differences""
Good job at recommending pseudo scientific nonsense that's been thoroughly debunked and unambiguously rejected by the scientific community. Racial realism is at odds with what's known about genetics
bastardtubeuser at the end of the day it all began in Africa so chew on that.
Andre Knowledge357 you understand that most of those things you said are because of geological isolation right? IQ is not inherited at all, there are so many other factors that contribute to low IQ right? Socioeconomic standing, motivation, education. You can’t sit here and say race is “biological” than go off and point physical and geological features. The wonder of the human gene pool is how diverse we are.
@@abdihakimhashi8621 ?? man... evolution it's about adapting to the enviornment... geological features are going to made a change... it's obvious. geological isolation its what's make differences in our genes and phenotype.... so... race is biological. ¿whats the problem with races after all? it shouln't make any differences in human rights, respect and fairness, etc.
@@calroach1
And at the end of the day Africans were eaten and bred out of existence north of the Sahara.
Neanderthal admixture... It's a thing.
Crusaders are like remoras...
I like his laugh.
My fav part is 12:00
I'm glad that he was willing to admit that there's no such thing as race, but I don't see the need to continue to use such a false term.
what disastrous consequences?
And the truth shall set you free.
Agree. African ethnicities are more specific and useful. Afro-descendants are real and nobody denies that. Euro-descendants are no less real. But most Americans are simply Afro-European or Afro-Indian or Euro-African without even knowing it.
@Jarod Rieth Italian is a nationality bud
@@PlzPr3sspl4y Race is historically geographically mostly separate genetically-morphologically distinctive populations.
There's no reason to blindly conclude that all population groups are blessed with the same genetic endowment. It's important that we don't ignore the biological genetic differences between various population groups. Failure to properly identify the genetic origin of population level differences between groups could cause folks to infer that systematic racism is a greater cause of racial disparities than is really the case. For example, African American students study half as much as European American students, who in turn, study half as much as Asian American students. African American women are more likely to drive a luxury car than European American women. These groups have different locations on The r/K spectrum as well. Even as different dog breeds have different temperaments, different human population groups should be expected to do so as well (perhaps not as pronounced).
Here's a quote about temperament
"Temperament refers to an individual's characteristic or habitual modes of behavioral and emotional responding that are present at an early age and often believed to have some basis in biological processes partly determined by heredity. It is typically discernible at birth. That infants differ systematically is shown by research observations starting in the first few days or weeks of life and extending, in some cases, for over a decade. In their book,Temperament and Behavior Disorders in Children, Thomas, Chess, and Birch (1968) were able to classify babies shortly after their birth into three types-"easy children" (adaptable, cheerful, regular in habits), "difficult children" (irritable, crying, withdrawn, irregular in habits), and "slow-to-warm-up children" (inactive, slow to adapt, gentle). About 70% of the difficult babies later developed behavioral problems calling for psychiatric attention; only 18% of the easy ones had such problems (Thomas & Chess, 1984)."
Is this your measuring stick for racism?
@elzheffner5209 is what my measuring stick?
Dr. Rick is so intelligent! Thank you for showing truth.
We should stop talking about race as if it is a concept which objectively exists.
Biology?
Your biological brother is not the same as you nor is your sister ????
His credibility dropped when he used Hispanic as an example of a race with large variations. Hispanic is not a race.
@Token, Who's the defining authority on what a race is, what races there are, and who belongs to what race?
Ad a Spaniard I would say that Hispanics were those who lived in Hispania, the Roman province of the Iberian Península. Nowadays a Hispanic is somebody who has Spanish as mother tongue.
@Sam Houston
You don't have to have one. But if you are going to play the race game, identify by race, speak that language, The rules, characteristics, and meaning has to be defined.
@Sam Houston Words mean different things to different people. The same word can have different meanings to different people. If races are is a scientifically defined there should be quantifiable, authoritative, genetically determined metrics.
I don't think he's saying it's a race. I think he's using that group designation because it is a designation used by the government. But I think he is trying to show why it shouldn't be.
This is like saying shape is a social construct because you can get hybrid shapes
Autistic comment.
Tyler Rech it’s is? You can’t compare race to “shapes” because “shapes” don’t have genetics.
:l More like, you can go up to infinity in terms of shapes and variation, and never draw the line (heh puns). We decide who is what race depending on clusters of variation. Currently, we base these clusters continentally (but this hasn't always been the case.
@@TOITN, clown comment
This is a really disingenuous discussion. Just because the races often overlap and fade into one another it does not mean there isn't a biological element to race. Our skin color is determined by generic components and therefore is biological. Plus race doesn't just involve different skin colors. Different races of people are different sizes on average, they have different features such as hair and shapes of things like noses. The different races have different brain sizes which do in fact have a significant correlation with intelligence on average. It's not a perfect correlation but it is noteworthy. The different races also have different time periods for things like gestation periods or the amount of time it takes for a baby to walk. Africans tend to develop faster with whites developing faster than Asians in the same way. Race is completely biological and genetic. While it's true that the terms and classifications are social constructs the actual things they are based on couldn't be more real.
There are creams you can buy for such extreme butthurt, in case you're still in pain.
+007MrYang the source is our eyes, noticing consistent morphological differences of populations with traits distinctive from other populations.
Bond Summers That's not exactly a reliable source. Our eyes can be easily fooled, that's why illusionists and "magicians" are still a thing.
007MrYang You're wrong, racial distinctions are very noticeable in a way that is not 'magic'.
Joe Haas so your going this genetists that he's wrong. A person who studied human genetics, able to analyze and isolate DNA , that he his wrong?
A White person is not a Yellow person the same way a Polar Bear is not a Panda Bear. A White Person is not the same as a Red person the same way a Polar Bear is not a American Black Bear. A White Person is not a Brown Person the same way a Polar Bear is not a Sloth Bear. A White Person is not a Black Person the same way a Polar Bear is not a Sun Bear. I can make more examples but I think you get it.
matthew mann except those species of bear can't breed offspring while people regardless of color can reproduce without any problems.
matthew mann
In nature they're separated speices with different behaviors adopted to different environments, although they are still peers, God will punish race mixers.
Humans all over the earth are of one species capable of interbreeding. Those are distinct species of bear. Therefore, your analogy is false.
@@salc8870 all domesticated dogs can reproduce with each other therefore the concept of breeds is useless.
The concept of breeds is distinct from the concept of species. A breed has unique characteristics that humans like in a given species and have selected. It's known as artificial selection. Eugenics would by definition be the attempt to breed humans according to certain characteristics that are seen as favorable or good.
what? ya there are races...what they say is that we are all one species
I think this is the best observation too. It sounds to me like someone is trying to history. This is no different than having 52 genders.
@@masterpalladin No. There's no sub species. The variation is too little and too smooth to be the case.
No white privelige then?
There isnt white perivlige.....you are the product of the all events ....
I guess then I am Irish Scotch French Dutch English an Indian American. Why hyphenate I am American.
You are African.
Because you live in America? There is a difference between race and nationality. You know for a long time Italians, Scottish, Irish, and polish weren’t considered white right
@@abdihakimhashi8621 they've always been white
*_The whole video he spent "uhm"_*
*bold text*
@@nerdhamster3055 *_Italic_*
Patrick Star *_ah frick, you’re right_*
What we all race is actually breed.
Breeds are also not real, look it up
one species......with subspecies
@@supernsansa so every animal has different breeds besides us?
@@mrsgolden6526 Like I said, the idea of dog breeds being equivalent to subspecies of canine is just as fictional as race. Look it up if you don't believe me.
They majority of his talk was ok. I just lost it at the end with his DNA test. He is very wrong in that his siblings or even a twin. They could take the same test and come out with different results. I thought he was a biologist, and was about to ask how didn’t he know this. Overall, I agree with what he said. But DNA doesn’t work that way.
The results are questionable in terms of specificity
The art of the double think
The art of purposely not understanding.
Good speech brotha but your walking to much. Stay still for a second!!!!!!!!
Yes/ NO
Races exist. The idea that it doesn't is a politically motivated logical fallacy.
@Racialist Slayer, are you a clown by any chance🤡
you need to cover or start with who is actually human and who is actually sub-human original vs gmo races
Genetically-modified organism races? What does that mean?
MCPretzelM999
It means he just smoked a biiiiig joint
Hahahahah 😂😂... ..
We’re all the same
We belong to the same species because we can procreate with eachother.
People are people. We're all different but we are all people. No two people are the same. No two are equal.
@Sam Houston genetic heritage does not correspond with skin tone, so race in the classical does not. we all descend from Africans.
Darwin says no.
@Sam Houston how do you differentiate from two different races and what does it mean to you. Ever heard about exposure to the sun??
There is only one race. That is the human race. It doesn't matter the color of your skin. That is not race. There are dog races,horse races foot races, bicycle races.
I do not think the color of your skin or the shape of your eyes or anything else is a race. We all have the same Anatomy do we have to live with.
People will always differentiate themselves from others because we consciously COMPARE OURSELVES to those around us. Whether we give out more energy than your partner or siblings while doing more work around the house or as growing adults we compare ourselves to other online or in our realm
Sounds a little "Uncle Tom-ish" to me
We are all descendants of Adam and Eve. Born again Christians are born from above.
Jamaal Williams ehh Idk about all that but I will say yes we are all human. It doesn’t matter what “race” we are.
Lol.
This brother hasn't mastered the relatively simple English language, forget about the complexities of advanced white discoveries in the field of genetics.
dog breeds are a myth. i use a dachshund as a guard dog. ask me how it's worked out for me. all dogs are the SAME.