‘All of Us’ genetics chart stirs unease over controversial depiction of race
By Max Kozlov,
Nature
| 02. 23. 2024
Some geneticists have expressed their unease about a figure in a high-profile Nature paper that was published earlier this week1, noting that it could be misinterpreted as reinforcing racist beliefs. The figure has reignited a long-standing debate among geneticists about how best to discuss and depict race, ethnicity and genomic ancestry, given how these terms can be misinterpreted and weaponized by extremists.
“The problem is, a lot of people will see figures like this as supporting a viewpoint” that race and ethnicity are closely aligned with genetics, says Ewan Birney, deputy director-general of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Cambridgeshire, UK. “And then they build castles in the air from all this.”
Alexander Bick, a physician and geneticist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee, who co-authored the paper in which the figure appears, acknowledged in an e-mail to Nature’s news team that “it’s clear that the figure fell short of our intended goal for this paper”. (Nature’s news team is editorially independent of its journal team.) But Bick defended the analysis, noting...
Related Articles
By Mary Annette Pember, ICT News [cites CGS' Katie Hasson] | 04.18.2025
The sight of a room full of human cadavers can be off-putting for some, but not for Haley Omeasoo.
In fact, Omeasoo’s comfort level and lack of squeamishness convinced her to pursue studies in forensics and how DNA can be...
By Katrina Northrop, The Washington Post | 04.06.2025
photo via Wikimedia Commons licensed under CC by 3.0
China's most infamous scientist is attempting a comeback. He Jiankui, who went to jail for three years after claiming he had created the world's first genetically altered babies, says he remains...
By Anna Louie Sussman, The New York Times | 04.01.2025
When Noor Siddiqui was growing up, her mother developed retinitis pigmentosa, a condition that leads to gradual vision loss. When Ms. Siddiqui’s mother was in her 30s, she began going blind. Last summer, Ms. Siddiqui told a podcast host that...
By Lisa Eadicicco, CNN [cites CGS' Katie Hasson] | 03.30.2025
23andMe, a standard-bearer for the at-home health movement, announced on March 23 that it has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy to facilitate a sale, prompting many of its 15 million customers to wonder: What happens to my genetic data now...
