The Return of Scientific Racism

The Independent [UK] reports:

Scientists have discovered a dramatic variation in the genetic make-up of humans that could lead to a fundamental reappraisal of what causes incurable diseases and could provide a greater understanding of mankind.

The discovery has astonished scientists studying the human genome - the genetic recipe of man. Until now it was believed the variation between people was due largely to differences in the sequences of the individual "letters" of the genome.

It now appears much of the variation is explained instead by people having multiple copies of some key genes that make up the human genome.

Until now it was assumed that the human genome, or "book of life", is largely the same for everyone, save for a few spelling differences in some of the words. Instead, the findings suggest that the book contains entire sentences, paragraphs or even whole pages that are repeated any number of times.

The findings mean that instead of humanity being 99.9 per cent identical, as previously believed, we are at least 10 times more different between one another than once thought....

And then there is this chilling observation:

The scientists looked at people from three broad racial groups - African, Asian and European. Although there was an underlying similarity in terms of how common it was for genes to be copied, there were enough racial differences to assign every person bar one to their correct ethnic origin. This might help forensic scientists wishing to know more about the race of a suspect.

Read it here.

BBC report here.

Let's see now..., hereditable differences among people are more significant than has usually been thought or admitted, and characteristics tend to cluster along racial lines. These are fundamental tenets of "scientific racism." Just a few years ago any such assertions would have been widely denounced, but now they pass without negative comment and are held to be positive developments that might hold the key to curing a wide variety of human ailments.

The times they sure are are a'changin'.

UPDATE:

Clayton Cramer spells out the implications of this recent work when he writes:

the widespread claim that race is entirely a social construct collapses.

This is big..., really big. The idea that race is a social construct is the bedrock upon which our moral and political cultures have been based for more than half a century. Are we heading toward a time when calling someone a "racist" will be a complimentary observation on his scientific literacy?

Read Cramer here.

AJ Strata look at the implications of this research for the debate over research based on embryonic stem cells. His conclusion is that this provides further proof that research based on embryonic cells rather than adult cells is far less likely to yield benefits. Read it here.