Evolutionary biologist Armand Marie Leroi argues that "race" studies are worth protecting in this NYT editorial. The author of "Mutants" riffs off an Indian newspaper article that reported worriedly after the tsunami of the possible demise of several Andaman tribes. He uses the threat to these tribes to argue for more aggressive genetic research for racial identification.
One of the potential benefits of the analysis he says, is that understanding the genetic make-up of individuals is critical to appreciating the aesthetics of humanity-- as knowing the painter is to appreciating art. He also proposes that racial identification is an important screen for disease:
"various American health agencies are making race an important part of their policies to best protect the public..."
Protect the public against what? He does not say.
In what could be taken for grant justification heroics but is probably simple academic exuberance, the author glaringly fails to acknowledge the role of epigenetic variation. He also glosses over the unsavory economic and political injustices that would likely occur while scientists sought to elucidate genomic flaws and phenomic variation.
As far as the Andaman tribes goes, the tsunami spared some but not all:
"The [Andaman] Negritoes...descended from the first modern humans to have invaded Asia, some 100,000 years ago...seem to have survived December's tsunami...but the fate of...the Sentinelese, remains uncertain"
But there's hope...
"an Indian coast guard helicopter sent to check up on them came under bow and arrow attack, which is heartening."
While this may be "heartening" to him, perhaps the tribes wished they had more modern weapons- cannons or missiles.
The potential demise of the Negritoes is inevitable, according to Levoi:
"..after they have gone, the genetic variants that defined the Negritos will remain, albeit scattered, in the people who inhabit the littoral of the Bay of Bengal and the South China Sea....But the unique combination of genes that makes the Negritos so distinctive, and that took tens of thousands of years to evolve, will have disappeared. A human race will have gone extinct, and the human species will be the poorer for it."
According to the author, this is another key reason for embracing race identity:
"There is a final reason race matters. It gives us reason - if there were not reason enough already - to value and protect some of the world's most obscure and marginalized people."
How would that work? Would it be like the spotted owl---or the monarch butterfly---just keep the loggers out of their habitat? What if the islanders decided they wanted to work at the Andaman Sheraton resort in order to buy their family shoes, for instance?
Or would they end up with the same fate as the Padung (Karen) "tribes" of northern Thailand? Many tourists are fooled by these "tribal villagers". But the Karen are diminished and in many cases the "villagers" are actually immigrants brought in by businessman, promoted by Thai tourism, and "enticed" to dress up in costume and skeletal compromising neck rings in order to earn tourist dollars. The immigrants have no Thai citizenship, no rights under the law, and can't protest their employment. Lest you think it's all just quaint like colonial Williamsburg.
The fate Leroi wishes on the islanders is perhaps it's better than that of the Emu, but the tsunami wrapped sentiments are at best paternalistic.
Are we preserving a species for study? Epigenetics is important. One gene does not necessarily translate to one protein. We are not just our DNA. While genomics is valuable and interesting, isn't it ignoble to want to preserve a race? And what of all the species that die out as we preserve only the ones that look us back in the eyes and shoot at us with bows and arrows?
