Rasmus Winther, Thursday May 1, SFSU HUM 587 6-8pm
"The Genetic Reification of 'Race'? A Story of Two Mathematical Methods"
ABSTRACT
Two families of mathematical methods lie at the heart of investigating the hierarchical structure of genetic variation in Homo sapiens: diversity partitioning, which assesses genetic variation within and among (anthropologically) pre-determined groups, and clustering analysis, which simultaneously produces clusters and assigns individuals to these “unsupervised” cluster classifications. While mathematically consistent, these two methodologies are seen by many to ground diametrically opposed claims about the reality of human races. Moreover, modeling results are sensitive to assumptions such as pre-existing theoretical maps of “linguistic” and “geographic” human groups. Thus, models can be perniciously reified; they can be conflated and confused with the world. This fact belies standard realist and antirealist interpretations of “race,” and supports a pluralist conventionalist interpretation.
The Philpaper link is: http://philpapers.org/rec/WINTGR
And the paper given at BAPS can be downloaded here: http://philpapers.org/archive/WINTGR.pdf
Note that the four files listed below were added to provide further reading.