The racist “one drop rule” influencing science: it is time to stop teaching “race corrections” in medicine

Glomerular filtration rate (GFR) is a key index of renal function. The classic method for assessing GFR is the clearance of inulin. Several current methods using isotopic (125I-iothalamate, 51Cr-EDTA, or 99Tc-DTPA) or nonisotopic (iohexol or iothalamate) markers are available. Clinically, GFR is estimated (eGFR) from serum creatinine or cystatin C levels. Estimated GFR based on creatinine and/or cystatin are less accurate than measured GFR. The creatinine-based equations calculate higher eGFR values (suggesting better kidney function) for black individuals. This upward adjustment for all black individuals is embedded in eGFR calculations on the belief of higher serum creatinine concentrations among black individuals than among white individuals. Thus “race-corrected” eGFR has become a widely accepted and scientifically valid procedure. However, race is not a genetic or biological category. Rather, race is a social construction defined by region-specific cultural and historical ideas. Furthermore, there is no accepted scientific method for classifying people as black or white individuals. Studies typically rely on self-identification of race. However, any person in the United States with any known black ancestry is considered to be a black individual. This is known as the “one-drop rule,” meaning that a single drop of “black blood” makes anyone a black individual. It does not matter if an individual has 50%, 25%, 5%, or 0.5% African ancestry. The limited accuracy and reliability of this approach would not be allowed for any other scientific variable. Admixture and migration have produced such broad variations that race categories should not be used as experimental variables.

The Politics of the Human

This chapter explores the view that, far from being an objective biological category, the category of the human is an ideological construction that is basic to ways that human societies exercise power. In short, the category of the human is a social construction. The chapter points out that when a group of people essentializes itself—sees itself as fundamentally and ineradicably distinct from all other people—the concept of the human becomes indistinguishable from the concept of “our kind.” In ethnically homogenous societies, this means members of the society are human, and everyone else is not. In heterogenous societies where there is “racial” or ethnic diversity—that is, most modern societies—the situation is more complex. In such societies, the concept of the human is an ideological structure. It is a concept that is used to legitimate and regulate relations of domination. If, as is often the case, the dominant group essentializes itself, that becomes the paradigm of the human and all others are either lesser humans or, at the extreme, subhumans. This view of what it means to be human has some important implications for the struggle against dehumanization.

The Biological Basis of Mathematical Beauty

Through our past studies of the neurobiology of beauty, we have come to divide aesthetic experiences into two broad categories: biological and artifactual. The aesthetic experience of biological beauty is dictated by inherited brain concepts, which are resistant to change even in spite of extensive experience. The experience of artifactual beauty on the other hand is determined by post-natally acquired concepts, which are modifiable throughout life by exposure to different experiences (Zeki, 2009). Hence, in terms of aesthetic rating, biological beauty (in which we include the experience of beautiful faces or human bodies) is characterized by less variability between individuals belonging to different ethnic origins and cultural backgrounds or the same individual at different times. Artifactual beauty (in which we include the aesthetic experience of human artifacts such as buildings and cars) is characterized by greater variability between individuals belonging to different ethnic and cultural groupings and by the same individual at different times. In this paper, we present results to show that the experience of mathematical beauty (Zeki et al 2014), even though it constitutes an extreme example of beauty that is dependent upon (mathematical) culture and learning, belongs to the biological category and obeys one of its characteristics, namely a lesser variability in terms of the aesthetic ratings given to mathematical formulae experienced as beautiful.

Governing through Abandonment

This article describes and analyses the “empowerment” form of child rights deployed in the move to democratise Cambodia in the 1990s, as it was embedded in 1990s “abandonment politics” (Povinelli, 2011). I sketch a genealogy for that form, and identify the problematic of abandonment as a generative link between the political and biological category of “child”, rights, and the technologies of liberal governmentality. Though available to other modes of government, these technologies emerged to manage the “condition of abandonment” of neophyte “abandoned beings” (Agamben, 1998:27). In the 1990s, defined largely by “abandonment pedagogies”, a new form of child rights seemed able to address long and short term cross-sectoral issues. To show how this elucidates the content of international child rights as deployed, I describe the international discourse of child rights as it was taught and translated into programs for street children on Cambodian ground.

Zum feministischen Sprachgebrauch „Gendern“ im Deutschen insbesondere in Österreich

Ausgehend von der Frage, ob das sogenannte „Gendern“ mit Schrägstrich Lehrer/in, Binnen-I LehrerIn, Gender Gap Lehrer_in, Sternchen Lehrer* usw. mit der deutschen Rechtschreibung vereinbar ist, werden einige amtliche Leitfäden dazu vorgestellt. Anhand ausgewählter Beispiele wird gezeigt, dass die grammatikalische Kategorie Genus und die biologische Kategorie Sexus zwei grundverschiedene Dinge sind. Ein konsequentes „Gendern“ wäre ein schwerwiegender Eingriff in die natürliche Sprache.Gendering in German language particularly in AustriaWith regard to the question to what extent the so-called “Gendern” is compatible with German orthography, the usage of gendering in the Austrian German language is shown by official guides. The different possibilities of gendering in German are indicated, e.g. slash Lehrer/in ʻteacherʼ, “I within” LehrerIn, gender gap Lehrer_in, asterisk Lehrer* etc. On the basis of well-chosen examples the problems are also explained. It is clearly indicated that the grammatical category of genus and the biological category of sexus are two different things and that the grammaticalization of the biological gender is not possible. A consistent gendering is a serious intervention into the natural language.

Women’s Oppressed and Disfigured Life in Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale

The present study attempts to analyze Margaret Atwood’s (1939- ) The Handmaid’s Tale (1985) based on theories of feminist thinker, Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986) and applies her theories presented in The Second Sex (1949) that leads to better apprehension of sex and gender. Beauvoir’s ideology focuses mainly on the cultural mechanisms of oppression which cause to confine women under the title of Other to man’s self. In her view woman cannot be a simple biological category, and she asserts that womanhood is imposed on woman by civilization. In her idea, the fundamental social meaning of woman is Other. She believes that biology is the main source for woman’s oppression within patriarchal society, and challenges the discourse through which women are defined based on her biology. She also believes that sexuality is another aspect of women’s oppression and exploitation and all functions of women. In Beauvoir’s view, prostitution and heterosexuality are exploitation of woman. She rejects the heterosexuality as the norm for sexual relations. This paper tries to show how Atwood in The Handmaid’s Tale speculates feminist issues such as loss of identity, subordination of woman in a male dominated society and women’s exploitation in consumer society where woman’s body is treated as an object, a tool and consumable item. Atwood focuses on the problems such as gender inequality, and pitfalls of patriarchal system for women’s oppression.

Genetics against race: Science, politics and affirmative action in Brazil

This article analyses interrelations between genetic ancestry research, political conflict and social identity. It focuses on the debate on race-based affirmative action policies, which have been implemented in Brazil since the turn of the century. Genetic evidence of high levels of admixture in the Brazilian population has become a key element of arguments that question the validity of the category of race for the development of public policies. In response, members of Brazil’s black movement have dismissed the relevance of genetics by arguing, first, that in Brazil race functions as a social – rather than a biological – category, and, second, that racial classification and discrimination in this country are based on appearance, rather than on genotype. This article highlights the importance of power relations and political interests in shaping public engagements with genetic research and their social consequences.