Racial medicine – red herring, or as simple as black and white?
Released: 02 October 2006
Expert in evolutionary biology, Dr Joseph Graves Jr, will explore the controversial link between race and medicine at a lecture hosted by the ESRC Genomics Policy and Research Forum, based at the University of Edinburgh.
Dr Graves is visiting the Forum from North Carolina A &T State University where he is Dean of University Studies & Professor of Biological Sciences. In, ‘The Race Myth: More Sincere Fictions in the Age of Genomics’ he will argue that, in biological and genetic terms, racial categories like ‘black’and ‘white’ are red herrings. Further, that current medical research is being misdirected by a continuing acceptance of ideas proposed by 19thcentury race scientists. Dr Graves will also argue that recent American and UK studies supporting thenotion of distinct human biological races is ill defined. In fact, genetic variation in the human population is extremely small and most of our geneticdifferences are actually found within populations, rather than between ‘races’. Dr Graves states, “ Race is a meaningless concept as far as medicine goes. We need to move away from providing treatments, focusing research or developing drugs based on supposed racial distinctions. The scientific reasoning just isn’t there.” “You have to understand that what biologists term as race is different to what the man or woman in the street would think of as race. There are two parts to the biological definition. First, a race is a population whose genetic variations are so different to other populations, they are considered a sub species. Second, a race is a population whose lineage is sufficiently distinct from other lineages. “There are no subspecies in the humans that live today and historically,there’s been too much gene flow between so called races for unique lineages to exist. So when we use the term race in the biological sense, there’s no scientific support for such groups existing.”
The lecture will be held at the University of Edinburgh's Playfair Library on Thursday 5th October, 5-6.30pm. The event is ticketed. Please contact: 0131 651 4747 for further information.
ENDS
Notes
Dr Graves is available for interview on Thursday 5th October and Monday 9thOctober. For further information, please contact: Emma-Elizabeth Hargreaves, 0131 651 4746
Biography - Dr Joseph Graves Jr
In 1994, Graves was elected a Fellow of the Council of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS.) In 2004 he served as University Core Director and Professor of Biological Sciences at Fairleigh Dickinson University. From 1994 to 2004 he was Professor of Evolutionary Biology at Arizona State University –West, holding a joint appointment in African American Studies at ASU – Main. He has been Secretary for the Division on Integrating and Comparative Issues in the Society of Integrative and Comparative Biologists, as well as a member of the external advisory board for the National Human Genome Center at Howard University, amongst other distinctions.
Graves has published his work in over fifty papers and book chapters and has appeared in six documentary films. He has been a Principal Investigator on grants from the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation and the Arizona Disease Research Commission. In addition to The Race Myth, he has also published another book on the biological theories of race, The Emperor's New Clothes: Biological Theories of Race at the Millennium, Rutgers University Press, 2001, 2nd Printing in 2005. In April 2002, Graves received the ASU-West award for Scholarly Research and Creative Activity. ESRC Genomics Forum Led by Professor Steve Yearley, and based at the University of Edinburgh, the Forum is part of the ESRC’s Genomics Network (EGN) a £12 million investment examining the numerous aspects of the social and economic significance of genomics. The EGN ranges across 6 universities and involves over 100 researchers, PhD students and support staff, as well as a rotating cast of visiting research fellows. The Forum is working to integrate and connect the diverse strands of EGN research with policy makers in the UK and abroad, as well as business, the media and civil society. We also seek to develop links with social and natural scientists working on genomics in areas as diverse as GM crops and food, animal genetics and embryonic stem cell research.
Contact name: For further information, please contact: Emma-Elizabeth Hargreaves, 0131 651 4746
back
