Race and Reification in Science

@article{Duster2005RaceAR,
  title={Race and Reification in Science},
  author={Troy Duster},
  journal={Science},
  year={2005},
  volume={307},
  pages={1050 - 1051}
}
  • T. Duster
  • Published 18 February 2005
  • Art
  • Science
The use of the concept of race in pharmacogenomics, forensics, and human molecular genetics continues apace, despite the imprecision of the category and the growing number of voices suggesting caution, and even a "sunset clause" for its continued deployment. The new technologies that can generate SNP patterns and profiles for any population have created an ever growing risk that racial categories will be mistakenly re-inscribed as "genetic." The author of this Policy Forum urges geneticists… 
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278 Citations

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Citation Type

Genes, Race, and Population: Avoiding a Collision of Categories
  • J. Kahn
  • Political Science, Medicine
    American journal of public health
  • 2006
TLDR
This discussion focuses on relations between the daily practices of biomedical professionals and federal regulatory mandates and offers a framework to manage the tension involved in using existing federally mandated categories of race and ethnicity alongside new scientific findings about human genetic variation.
Race and ancestry in biomedical research: exploring the challenges
TLDR
The nature of the race controversy in the context of biomedical research is reviewed and several challenges to policy action are highlighted, including restrictions resulting from commercial or regulatory considerations, the difficulty in presenting precise terminology in the media, and drifting or ambiguous definitions of key terms.
Revitalizing Difference in the HapMap: Race and Contemporary Human Genetic Variation Research
  • J. Hamilton
  • Biology
    Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics
  • 2008
TLDR
Post-HGP genetic science has seen a substantial shift toward the use of race variables in genetic research and, according to a number of prominent scholars, is re-invoking the specter of earlier forms of racial science in some rather discomfiting ways.
A post-genomic surprise. The molecular reinscription of race in science, law and medicine.
  • T. Duster
  • Biology
    The British journal of sociology
  • 2015
TLDR
Social scientists in general, and sociologists in particular, have been caught short by developments - relying mainly on assertions that racial categories are socially constructed, regionally and historically contingent, and politically arbitrary.
Genomics and the Conundrum of Race: Some Epistemic and Ethical Considerations
TLDR
Evidence is gathered from philosophy of science, genomics, legal history, and normative ethics in order to ground the biomedical use of race in a converging ethical and epistemic framework.
The Molecular Reinscription of Race: A Comment on “Genetic Bio-Ancestry and Social Construction of Racial Classification in Social Surveys in the Contemporary United States”
TLDR
It is argued that Guo et al.'s main accomplishment is the “molecular reinscription of race” (Duster 2011:104) by providing racial classification categories with a concrete, “measurable,” and “logical” basis against which social construction should be analyzed.
Researching vs. Reifying Race: The Case of Obesity Research
TLDR
To avoid the reification of race, researchers need to be more aware of the fact that continental genetic clusters do not necessarily correspond to the genotypic partitions of interest in therapeutic reaction or disease etiology, and need to take seriously the phenotypic variability of breeding populations within continents.
Thinking Critically about Race and Genetics
  • R. Brewer
  • Sociology
    The Journal of law, medicine & ethics : a journal of the American Society of Law, Medicine & Ethics
  • 2006
We must critically rethink race and genetics in the context of the new genetic breakthroughs and haplotype mapping. We must avoid the slippery slope of turning socially constructed racial categories…
‘Personalised nutrition: studies in the biogenetics of race and food’
ABSTRACT This article articulates a robust study of potentially harmful trend toward personalized nutrition through an examination of contemporary conversations and theories surrounding genetic…
New Genetics and Race
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