Bio 103, Week 10, Genes and Humanity; "Energy" and the Link Between Improbability and Probability

And now Im reading through the posts and my questions are being answered! sorry to be repetitive!

During dinner this weekend, I brought up genes and the supposed nature vs nurture controversey. I told my family, based on what we said in class, that genes dont determine anything, but that they do make people more inclined to act or become a certain way. Ok... so in other words, so just because a person has a certain set of genes does not necessarily mean a person will be a certain way because nature and nurture both play a role. But then I was thinking about homosexualiy (or really any trait). Is there a gene for homosexaulity? I guess what Im really asking is are there genes for behaviors? And do these genes determine behaviors? Based on what we discussed, I dont think they do, but Im just a little confused.

The class discussion was very interesting on friday. Race? Ethnicity? Culture? There is not just "one meaning" of of these three terms. In fact their meanings are some what correlated with each other on a social level. Society connects all of the three terms to eachother, so when asked to define the three one find a relationship of the three in all of thier defintions.

As I mentioned in the class discussion, when the word "race" is used or brought uip in a converstaion I think of the terms 'Black' and "White". I think of it as "black' and "White" because what I've been taught or exposed to in "African American Culture', in AMERICA. Society has provided a clear difference of the two races; growing up reading texts that aklways considered race to be "Black vs. White"....

just some thoughts!

I am glad that we got a chance to talk about that article in the New York Times.  I feel that if we didn't discuss the article at lenght like we did, I propably woud have dismissed a lot of the assumptions made about race in the article.  And I feel that a lot of other people read the article and believed some of the notions made in the article.  This has taught to not always rely on others for our information because it is not always the whoke truth.  We, as individuals have to take it upon us to educate ourselves, and to read actively.  I have basically learnd that "race" is a ridiculous word that should not exist, and its even worse that people are trying to have ways scientifically to reinforce this race concept. 

Friday's discussion on race was very interesting to me. I have always been confused on what the difference between race, ethnicity, and nationality was. I have come to the realization that race may not even exist at all. I recently read an article on genetic testing done on Penn State University students who took part in a race relations project. When the student's results came back many if not all of them found that they were made up of variety of ancestry that they were not aware of. The reactions of the students were different because some were very excited to learn about their differences while others were devastated. I guess this goes to show us that we are much more closely related than we think.  

I still wish we could have made a distinction between race, ethnicity, and nationality during our talk. I know that we learned in my Ethics class for example, that sex is actually biological while gender is a societal construct. I wonder which of these is the case with the terms i mentioned before. Plus where does culture come into play here? I feel like I am African American in race, ethnicity, and culture and based on our discussion, I'm not sure if that's actually an accurate description. Lastly, I feel as though there has to be something genetic explanation for many of these questions that we're asking. As i mentioned in my last web paper, scientists believe they may have found a gene in black women that makes them more prone to deadlier breast cancer. I wonder if this suggests a deeper genetic difference between Whites and Blacks than what we have discovered to this day. Again, how does this fit into the equation and what does this mean for the people that identify as different groups within these larger categories?

Friday's discussion on race was very interesting. Firstly, I felt that I learned nothing from the article that we had to read, except that scientists are finding ways to worsen race relations in America. By "genetically proving" that one race is more intelligent than another can only cause trouble for future generations. I am shocked that the NY Times-such a notable periodical source that is read by millions of Americans- would print such an article.

Usually talks about race on this campus are tense but I liked the one on Friday because we got the chance to define what we thought the word "race" actually was. Wil told us an interesting thing, that humans are 99% the same, in respect to DNA, which further proves my previous thinking that race is purely based on one's society and culture and not so much on skin color. One person in our class mentioned that some African Americans and some Indians have the same skin color but they are different culturally which makes them of a different race. This seems like a likely story but I feel that the word "race' could never be sufficiently defined, but stories can be created so that the word/concept can make a little more sense.

i thought the discussion on friday was a uniqe one..

like what other students said, race and ethnicity is not as clear cut as they are often portrayed to be...  i guess this is especially true in the us ( unlke korea, where i am from ) since it is the home country to a very diverse ethnic group..

There seems to be very little difference amongst us in terms of the complexity of race and ethics and that it would be simply silly to classify indiiduals simply based on their genetic information.

but i was just curious what other people think about the possibility altering ones genes? ( for those who have seen it, like the movie gattaca )

Yes it is very true that there are other elements in live ( such as socio economical background, education and etc ) that play a much larger role than genetics in ones development. However ( assuming that we have been able to reach that lavel of maturity in bio science which we clearly are far away from today ) wouldn't it be also true that by altering genetic one can be better suited for certain tasks? ( i mean we are already making genetically engineered crops to make them more resistant to pest right? )

to make the long story short, what do people think about this issue? should this be covered under the right to pursue ones happiness, a fundamental idea of the founding fathers of america?

i would appereciate any comment or feedback regarding this issue

thanks

andy

As others have posted above, I believe that Friday's class was important in that we started to try to define the differences between race and ethnicity, as I know I have always been confused about the difference. Going back to other conversations that we had in class earlier in the week, in which we talked about how processes are constantly breaking down (becoming probable) and being built back up (improbable), I thought that it made a lot of sense and helped clarify what we were discussing.  The idea of the sun as "breaking down" to become a probable assembly makes sense, even if it did seem sort of strange to me at first-I've never thought of the sun as falling apart, even though I know that the sun will eventually burn out in another couple billion years.  It's  just another way of looking at the importance of the sun to life on earth, and how dependent we are on it.

Friday's discussion was very essential for the purpose of clarifying the misleading information of the article.  It seems very ridiculous to claim that because of the new data found, for example, there may be some correlation between a person's race and intelligence.  This brings me back to the question of 'what is race?'  As a class it was impossible to define what race exactly is.  Also, as stated in another response above, how does a difference in genes conclude that one race is better than another? As Will stated in class, we all essentially come from Africa.  If this is so, we are all equal in that sense.  I believe that it is absolute nonsense to believe that because someone is of a certain race they are better than others.  This reminds me of our discussions in my sociology class that in America there used to be this power-struggle for whites because they believed they were the pinnacle of all creation and that they were the only species that had fully evolved. As we know, this was a ridiculous thought.  One would expect that as humans we are intelligent enough not to go backwards and believe that because of a 1% difference in our DNA there is a difference in our intellectual levels.  I think the class was right in stating that this difference means nothing.  History has shown that people from all races have accomplished many great things, and just by looking at different schools around the world, there is a great variety of 'races' in the top schools.  Therefore, not only does the article not define what race exactly is, it does a poor job of validating its findings.  I believe that we are all one race...the human race.  What also really bothered me about the article was that the writer kept stating that society perhaps is not ready for these 'new findings' yet, here she is publishing it in the New York Times.