Race and the Genetic Revolution

by Krimsky, Sheldon; Sloan, Kathleen; Hammonds, Evelynn M.

• ISBN13: 9780231156967
• ISBN10: 0231156960
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2011-08-31
• Publisher: Columbia Univ Pr

Summary

Leading scholars from a range of disciplines, including law, biology, sociology, history, anthropology, and psychology, examine the impact of modern genetics on the concept of race. Does mapping the human genome reconstitute a scientific rationale for long-discredited racial categories? Contributors trace the interplay between genetics and race in forensic DNA databanks, the biology of intelligence, DNA ancestry markers, and racialized medicine. Each essay explores commonly held and unexamined assumptions and misperceptions about race in both science and popular culture. Divided into six major categories, the collection begins with the historical origins and current uses of the concept of "race" in science. It follows with an analysis of the role of race in DNA databanks and its reflection of racial disparities in the criminal justice system. Essays then consider the rise of recreational genetics in the form of for-profit testing of genetic ancestry and the introduction of racialized medicine, specifically through an FDA-approved heart drug called BiDil, marketed to African American men. Concluding sections discuss the contradictions between our scientific and cultural understandings of race and the continuing significance of race in educational and criminal justice policy, not to mention the ongoing project of a society that has no use for racial stereotypes.

Table of Contents

Foreword	p. ix
Acknowledgments	p. xi
Introduction: How Science Embraced the Racialization of Human Populations	p. 1
Science and Race: Historical and Evolutionary Perspectives
A Short History of the Race Concept	p. 13
Natural Selection, the Human Genome, and the Idea of Race	p. 31
Forensic DNA Databases, Race, and the Criminal Justice System
Racial Disparities in Databanking of DNA Profiles	p. 47
Prejudice, Stigma, and DNA Databases	p. 68
Ancestry Testing
Ancestry Testing and DNA: Uses, Limits, and Caveat Emptor	p. 99
Can DNA "Witness" Race? Forensic Uses of an Imperfect Ancestry Testing Technology	p. 116
Racialized Medicine
BiDil and Racialized Medicine	p. 129
Evolutionary Versus Racial Medicine: Why It Matters	p. 142
Intelligence and Race
Myth and Mystification: The Science of Race and IQ	p. 173
Intelligence, Race, and Genetics	p. 195
Contemporary Culture, Race, and Genetics
The Elusive Variability of Race	p. 241
Race, Genetics, and the Regulatory Need for Race Impact Assessments	p. 255
Conclusion: Toward a Remedy for the Social Consequences of Racial Myths	p. 271
List of Contributors	p. 279
Index	p. 285
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