Taking race out of human genetics
        
            By Michael Yudell, Dorothy Roberts, Rob DeSalle & Sarah Tishkoff, 
                Science
             | 02. 05. 2016
        
                    
                                    
                    
                                                                                                                                    
                                                                            
                              
    
  
  
    
  
          
  
      
    
             
  Untitled Document 
  
In the wake of the sequencing of the human genome in the   early 2000s, genome pioneers and social scientists alike called for an   end to the use of race as a variable in genetic research (1, 2). Unfortunately, by some measures, the use of race as a biological category has increased in the postgenomic age (3).   Although inconsistent definition and use has been a chief problem with   the race concept, it has historically been used as a taxonomic   categorization based on common hereditary traits (such as skin color) to   elucidate the relationship between our ancestry and our genes. We   believe the use of biological concepts of race in human genetic   research—so disputed and so mired in confusion—is problematic at best   and harmful at worst. It is time for biologists to find a better way.
 
  Racial   research has a long and controversial history. At the turn of the 20th   century, sociologist and civil rights leader W. E. B. Du Bois was the   first to synthesize natural and social scientific research to conclude   that the...
 
 
  
 
    
    
  
   
                        
                                                                                
                 
                                                    
                            
                                  
    
  
  
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