Genetics, race and medicine

Abstract

The ‘race’ concept has been entrenched in European culture and literature only since long-distance ocean travel began in the mid-15th Century. Linnaeus, in 1758 classified Homo supiens into four subspecies or races; nearly 20 years later Blumenbach made it five races and introduced a ‘hierarchy of worth’ with Europeans at the top and Africans at the bottom. Throughout the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century, western European and American physical anthropologists were obsessed with race, entrenching a scientific racism shaken off only after the excesses of Nazi anthropology were exposed. With the rise of genetics and the demonstration of the ubiquity of genetic polymorphisms in humans, it became possible to study evolutionary processes in a quantitative way. The completion of the Human Genome Project in 2001 has stimulated scientists to study the genetic variation of humans at a level previously unimagined. Such studies confirm the existence of the major human ‘races’ and will facilitate research into the role of natural selection in human evolution, including race formation, as well into the causation of complex diseases, including hypertension, diabetes, the psychoses, asthma, and many others.