From: Charles Hixson (charleshixsn@earthlink.net)
Date: Wed Sep 25 2002 - 11:22:55 MDT
Lee Daniel Crocker wrote:
>...
>
>A doctor who failed to note the race of his patients, for
>example, and use that information to help guide his diagnoses
>and treatment plans is a bad doctor, and would be endangering
>the lives of his patients. Group features exist: certain
>groups have different likelihoods of different conditions,
>and tend to respond differently to medications, etc. One
>should use that information when it's available. One should
>also /seek/ that information. A medical study that looks
>for and reports correlations by race is a better study than
>one that doesn't, because it enables doctors to use that
>information when they have none better.
>...
>
The studies that I have seen show only a very loose correlation between
race and any particular medical problem. The sickle cell gene does
appear to become more prevalent if a group of people live in an area
infested with malaria, but that's one of the rare exceptions (the
correlation exists because those areas also have intense sunlight).
Even so, the gene did not move into southern Africa, as it was harmful
in the absence of predation (i.e., malaria).
There are particular sub-populations that have particular genetic
problems, e.g., thalassanemia, but I really don't see how you can call
that tangle of overlapping groups "races". That's not what the word
normally means. It normally refers to a set of characteristics that are
visually observable to such a degree that one can classify a collection
of people into groups by "race" from a considerable distance. Such a
concept is useful, as members of strange tribes are likely to be more
dangerous than ones relatives, but the abstract extensions are ... well,
they tend to be very indefensible. But if you look back in history, the
word was once used to denote people from particular areas (e.g., the
Irish race), usually with the intent to discriminate against them. (I
can't recall an exception, but I haven't searched.)
So I tend to consider race to be something that *may* be useful to
consider if I am walking down a dark street, but which has little
theoretical analytic value. Socio-economic status is a much more
predictive measure. Very few wealthy people comit crimes of violence
against anyone that they don't know quite well. (Fraud and implicit
violence are more their style. The payoff is higher and the risks are
less.)
-- -- Charles Hixson Gnu software that is free, The best is yet to be.
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