Prisoners of Abstraction? The Theory and Measure of Genetic Variation, and the Very Concept of “Race”
@article{Kaplan2013PrisonersOA, title={Prisoners of Abstraction? The Theory and Measure of Genetic Variation, and the Very Concept of “Race”}, author={Jonathan Michael Kaplan and Rasmus Gr{\o}nfeldt Winther}, journal={Biological Theory}, year={2013}, volume={7}, pages={401-412} }
It is illegitimate to read any ontology about “race” off of biological theory or data. Indeed, the technical meaning of “genetic variation” is fluid, and there is no single theoretical agreed-upon criterion for defining and distinguishing populations given a particular set of genetic variation data. By analyzing three formal senses of “genetic variation,” viz., diversity, differentiation, and heterozygosity, we argue that the use of biological theory for making claims about race inevitably…
47 Citations
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