Celebrating human genetic diversity
sara abdulla
Wednesday, 30 September 2009 13:43 UTC
Credit: Atlantide Phototravel/Corbis
Is genetic diversity, including group diversity, among humanity’s greatest assets?
Society is ill-prepared for results from genetic research showing group variation in biologically important traits according to Bruce Lahn and Lanny Ebenstein in Nature this week.
Studies of human genetic diversity are increasingly finding evidence of biological variation among groups of people, not just among individuals. Some of these traits are superficial, such as skin colour, or non-controversial, such as lactose intolerance, but to ignore the possibility of group diversity is to do poor science and poor medicine, the Opinion authors say.
Scientists are naturally wary of making claims that may be interpreted as favouring one population group over another, especially when it comes to important biological traits such as brain biology. Some have even called for a halt to such studies of genetic diversity to prevent any misuse of the information. See previous forum discussion on Untouchable Science here.
In recent decades, ‘biological egalitarianism’ − the view that human groups have no, or very few, meaningful genetically based biological differences − has emerged as the dominant moral position say Lahn and Ebenstein. The authors argue that this position is dangerous. Instead, they urge the science community to embrace genetic diversity, including at the group level, as one of humanity’s chief assets.
What do you think?
- Are the fears of scientists who don’t wish to engage in this research natural and understandable?
- Will genetic information be misused however the debate is framed by scientists and ethicists?
- Do you steer away from controversial areas for these reasons?
- Have you ever had your work misused or misrepresented?
Please share your views and experiences with the rest of the forum. The Opinion authors will also be joining in the discussion.
Updated 07 October 2009 17:08 UTC
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Anonymous argues that emerging research is revealing the POSSIBILITY of a nontrivial amount of genetically determined group differentiation in traits beyond just skin color […] and that given this POSSIBILITY, scientists and society should adopt a moral position that would not fall apart if this possibility (or just some part of it) turns out to be true.
This is a very peculiar trend of thought, since it advocates changing the ethical position of a society prospectively, to accommodate a mere possibility.
Logically that does not make sense. One might just as well argue for a change in the society’s mores in view of the possibility that ETs do exist and visit earth periodically, or of the possibility that homeopathy works in a non-placebo way, or of the possibility that, to quote Bertrand Russell, right now there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit.
Science just does not work like that. There is something called the burden of proof. Only if bona fide experimental evidence promotes something from possibility to certainty or high probability, will we then accept it into the canon and adapt our moral views accordingly.
Lanny Ebenstein, also addressing me, states that the is “Good evidence exists to support the following views:
1) There is more genetic diversity at individual and group levels than thought a few years ago,
2) Some of this diversity is functional,
3) Human evolution, rather than having stopped in the past 50,000 to 40,000 years, may have increased.Of course, I agree with all of them. What we really have to ascertain is how big “some” is.
Moreover, one might add to point (3) that although it may be of historical importance, the tempo in human biological evolution may. for the future, have been rendered irrelevant by the enormous speed and efficiency of human cultural evolution.
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Sergio D. J. Pena raises important methodological and ethical concerns, but I cannot see that they follow from the argument he makes. He writes: “Only if bona fide experimental evidence promotes something from possibility to certainty or high probability, will we then accept it into the canon and adapt our moral views accordingly.” I see this as a position that would preclude almost any perspective on group diversity. What views are seen as currently rising to the level of “canon”?
From this writer’s perspective, the position that group genetic diversity exists has been established in a number of papers in recent years. Moreover, it appears that human evolution did not stop some 45,000 or so years ago. Sergio D. J. Pena apparently agrees with these views. These are different views than those that have characterized much discussion in recent years.
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Anonymous
To Sergio Pena,
I was rather taken aback by the way you argued your point because it seems to me that you are no longer making arguments based on the underlying substance but rather nitpicking on semantics. When I said “POSSIBILITY”, it was clear in the context of my discussion and the discussion of the original article that it meant something that has a reasonable, even if not extremely high, likelihood of being true. You then misrepresented this contextually clear meaning of “POSSIBILITY” into something totally different, namely, something that has no or extremely low chance of being true but cannot yet be completely rejected, such as the example you gave about the possibility that “there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit”.
If one goes by the more reasonable definition of “POSSIBILITY” as used by me and the article, namely, a possibility with a reasonable likelihood, then there is every reason that society should, from time to time, reconsider its moral and political positions based on the possibility of a new reality even if there is also a reasonable chance that the new reality won’t ever transpire. To name just a few examples: (1) a catastrophic version of global warming that would wipe out much of humankind, which is clearly just a possibility because the extent of global warming and the damage it might do is still a big unknown; (2) pandemic of H1N1 flu killing millions, which is clearly just a possibility and for which the likelihood is still hotly debated by experts; (3) nuclear annihilation during the cold war, which remained just a possibility throughout the cold war; (4) in fact, we act on possibilities, many of which are just probable but not extremely likely, every moment of our lives, including, for a scientist, performing experiments that only have a small likelihood of producing interpretable results and submitted manuscripts to top journals for which the chance of acceptance has declined to less than 10% for journals such as Nature (not high at all but it has not stopped hopefuls from submitting their work). If as individuals, we stop acting on possibilities that are not yet certain or extremely likely, then we will pretty much cease to exist. In fact, society has acted time and again, sometimes extremely forcefully, on mere possibilities that are not yet shown to be certainties or extremely likely, as long as those possibilities have reasonable odds and the consequences are grave. I am not saying that the possibility of human group genetic diversity can necessarily equate the possibility of nuclear annihilation in its gravity, but the point remains that as long as this possibility has a reasonable likelihood of being true, which the article argues to be the case, and also given the profound moral and political ramifications that this possible reality could engender, it makes sense for society to consider whether a new moral position would better serve the long-term interest of most people.
By the way, I feel that it would be a lot more productive to focus discussions on substance rather than semantics, especially when it is pretty clear what was meant by the discussants irrespective of their choice of words. Otherwise, the discussions can quickly degenerate into nonproductive chaos.
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Lahn and Ebenstein’s argue that “to ignore group diversity, is to do poor science” (p. 727). Their essay clearly shows that the difference between poor and proper science is not solely demarcated by methodological or empirical concerns. Lahn and Ebenstein rightly argue that pointing out human genetic differences on group or population level – or worse, studying it – was morally disputable. The aftermath of WWII, as well as the many problems many societies continued to face with discrimination and racisms afterwards (to this day, sadly) contributed to a society and a science that focussed on ‘sameness’ rather than ‘difference’. This prioritisation, based upon a moral position, resulted in a subset of empirical evidence supporting ‘sameness’ over ‘difference’, especially on a group level. Proper science sought markers for sameness.
Moral positions change over time, as a result of new scientific evidence or as a result of changes in which we organise society. But the way we organise society, as well as which scientific evidence we pursue, is informed by the dominant moral positions.
Scientific inquiry and our moral positions coevolve. They gradually change what proper science is, what sort of questions science deems important and interesting. Lahn and Ebenstein, just like all of us, manoeuvre this moral and scientific landscape. With their essay, they rub against the boundaries of what we consider proper science. They essay highlight how proper science is both a methodological and empirical issue, as well as a moral issue.
A productive and constructive debate about whether and how to organise inquiry into genetic diversity on a group level requires methodological, empirical and moral arguments to feature side by side without one taking precedence over the other.
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John Skoyles’s well-intentioned suggestions for equalizing performance between ethnic groups at the Olympics, and Daniel MacArthur’s reply, make for an amusing discussion. While it might be nice to live in a world where there were “Gold medals for everyone,” this is not the world that we live in, and never will be. Competition—winners and losers—is precisely what makes the Olympics so fun to watch; competition also has been a key ingredient in the evolution of life on earth. Skoyles’s comments are interesting because they tangent upon an important point that Lahn and Ebenstein make in the article—that it is better to embrace human diversity rather than deny it. Perhaps there are other ways to motivate Chinese and Indian people to prevent diabetes with more exercise than by using fancy formulas to alter the outcomes of Olympic events. Similarly, if there are significant differences in neurocognition among various genetic groups, it might be better to accept and embrace these differences rather than simply denying that they exist (or as Skoyles suggests, by introducing formulas and quotas to ensure “equal” outcomes).
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In 1870, Henry James wrote: “An American, to excel, has just ten times as much to learn as a European”. Lahn and Ebenstein: (Let´s celebrate human genetic diversity, Nature 461:726, 2009) suggest that the situation is now the opposite: “Arguably, the United States is one of the most innovative, successful and culturally vibrant countries in the world. It excels in numerous and wide-ranging areas, such as art, sport, business, science and political and economic thought". Whilst they believe that the reason for the success lies in the genetic and cultural diversity of the country, European history suggests that such diversity is not needed. Habsburg Austria, for example, produced Haydn, Mozart, Schubert, Bruckner and Mahler in a mere 140 years before Vienna had even 200 000 people. A more likely explanation was noted by one of Mozart´s librettists, Lorenzo Da Ponto, who came to the United States in 1803 and became the first professor of latin at Columbia University in 1825 and opened New York City´s first opera house in 1833. When trying to introduce Italian opera in the country, he noted that: “The Americans are almost all business men … they turn everything into business, even their amusements.” Economic excellence, perhaps the main phenotypic expression of the hypothesized genetic diversity, is why there are more Degas paintings in America than in any other country; Manet, Monet, Money, its a rich man´s world (Philip Hook: The Ultimate Trophy: How the Impressionist Paintings Conquered the World. Munich Prestel, 2009).
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