Race: Can We See It In Our DNA?

Science Vs

Spotify Studios

Education, Science, Health & Fitness

4.4 • 12.4K Ratings

🗓️ 19 April 2019

⏱️ 35 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

For decades, we've heard that race is a social and cultural idea — not scientific. But with the changing world of genetics, is race science back? We speak to sociologist Prof. Dorothy Roberts, evolutionary biologist Prof. Joseph L. Graves Jr. and psychological methodologist Prof. Jelte Wicherts. Check out the full transcript here: http://bit.ly/2nTDU8w Selected references: Dorothy’s book on the history of scientific racism One of Joseph’s books unpacking raceThe 2005 paper on population structureA handy FAQ from a population geneticistA paper on the knowns and unknowns about genes and the environment on IQ Credits: This episode was produced by Rose Rimler, with help from Wendy Zukerman, as well as Meryl Horn and Michelle Dang. Our senior producer is Kaitlyn Sawrey. We’re edited by Blythe Terrell. Fact checking by Michelle Harris, Meryl Horn, and Michelle Dang. Mix and sound design by Peter Leonard. Music by Peter Leonard, Emma Munger, and Bobby Lord. Recording assistance from Botte Jellema and Shani Aviram. A huge thanks to Stillman Brown, Morgan Jerkins, Amber Davis, Cedric Shine, Emmanuel Dzotsi, and to all the scientists we got in touch with for this episode, including Noah Rosenberg, Rasmus Nielsen, Mark Shriver, Garrett Hellenthal, Sarah Tishkoff, Kenneth Kidd, John Protzko, Dan Levitis, and others. Finally, thanks to the Zukerman Family and Joseph Lavelle Wilson. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, I'm Wendy Zookerman and you're listening to Science Versus from Gimlet.
0:04.1	To start this episode, we're going back to the year 2000.
0:10.2	It's a warm, June morning in Washington, DC, and we're in the White House's East Room,
0:22.4	where a press conference is set up.
0:24.6	There's an expectation in the air.
0:27.2	Everyone stands and in walks President Bill Clinton.
0:32.5	Clinton walks up to the podium and faces a room full of photographers, reporters, and scientists.
0:38.4	Behind him on a TV screen is some sciencey, but very cheesy imagery, a double helix,
0:45.0	and the words decoding the book of life.
0:49.6	Good morning.
0:51.2	We are here to celebrate the completion of the first survey of the entire human genome.
0:56.8	Clinton is announcing that the human genome project had hit its watershed moment,
1:01.8	and mapped out the human genome for the first time.
1:05.2	Have revealed nearly all three billion letters of armoraculous genetic code.
1:09.6	And on that stage, one idea that was front and center was about race.
1:16.1	Race had always been this concept that carried a ton of weight socially,
1:20.8	but didn't have any scientific meaning.
1:23.8	Well now, this project had mapped the DNA of five people
1:28.0	who had an ancestry from across the globe, including Asia, Europe, and Africa.
1:32.9	So what did they find?
1:35.4	Well that day in 2000, it was announced that on a genetic level,
1:40.4	these people were basically no different.
	...

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