"Rossianin"

[Daniel Rancour-Laferriere]

Dear not so fast,
The higher probability of a specific medical condition in persons who
self-identify with a certain ethnic group does not define that group
biologically.  For example, the same condition may occur in persons of
other groups.  A specific biological marker does not a race make.  I am
aware of the literature in this area.  The human genome project did not
identify a gene for Russians - or for any other etnnic/national groups (and
there are hundreds of them - how could they have missed them all?).

Cheers,
Daniel RL

PS:  What are "THE five races of MAN"?


At 11:20 PM 9/1/2002 -0400, you wrote:
>Daniel Rancour-Laferriere wrote:
>
> > Another issue: "blood."  Not only is there no such thing as a
> > "rossiianin" "by blood," there is also no such thing as a "russkii"
> > "by blood."  To assert that one is an ethnic Russian "by blood" is to
> > assume that there is a Russian race.  There is no Russian race because
> > there are no races in humans generally.  Racism is both morally and
> > biologically unfounded.
> >
> > To put it another way.  "Blood" or "race" is a metaphor for genetic
> > distinction.  But human genes have clinal rather than racial
> > distribution (unlike some non-human organisms).  So, there is no such
> > thing as a gene (or genes) for Russianness.
>
>Not so fast...
>
>I would be the first to decry racism and bigotry and the other abuses
>to which race has been put throughout history, but science is now (re-)
>discovering that there are medically significant differences associated
>with the five races of man.
>
>Here are a couple of articles from reputable publications:
>
><http://www.iht.com/articles/67698.htm>
>
><http://www.frontpagemag.com/../articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=2258>
>(NY Times science article reprinted on a right-wing site)
>
>The original article by Neil Risch et al. is available at
><http://genomebiology.com/2002/3/7/comment/2007> (you have to enroll
>for a free trial period; click the blue button at right)
>
>Google produced 275 hits from all over the political and scientific
>map at
><http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=risch+race+genome>
>
>Obviously, this is not to say that the other 99.999% of our genes are
>not the same.
>
>Whether there is a Russian subrace and who might belong to it are
>questions none of us is prepared to answer at this point in history.
>But in an age of ever-finer distinctions and ever-more sophisticated
>analyses, it seems likely that mankind will soon be amenable to
>infinite classification by whatever number of parameters we desire.
>I hope we have the wisdom to put the information to good use.
>
>--
>War doesn't determine who's right, just who's left.
>--
>Paul B. Gallagher
>pbg translations, inc.
>"Russian Translations That Read Like Originals"
>http://pbg-translations.com
>
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Daniel Rancour-Laferriere
Professor of Russian
Director, Russian Program
University of California
One Shields Ave.
Davis, CA 95616 USA
530-752-4999
darancourlaferriere at ucdavis.edu

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