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Eugenics and Scientific Racism

End of Semester Lecture and Activity

Slides by Dr. Morgan Carter

UNC Charlotte

Spring 2024

Some slides adapted from Dr. Abigail LaBella

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Genetics in Our Current Culture

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From Plato to Galton to now

Plato (Greek philosopher)

believed that an ideal government required control of human replication so “those who are the best should match up with the best”

Francis Galton (Darwin’s cousin)

Coined the term eugenics - “good in birth” – and claimed that only “higher races” could be successful

Eugenics was formalized in the 1900s, especially by the Nazi regime

The United States has a history of forced sterilization especially of indigenous peoples and African American women

North Carolina had one of the most aggressive eugenics boards from 1929-1974

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Eugenics and Scientific Racism

Eugenics:

the study of how to arrange reproduction within a human population to increase the occurrence of heritable characteristics regarded as desirable
the scientifically inaccurate theory that humans can be improved through selective breeding of populations

Scientific Racism:

Scientific racism is an organized system of misusing science to promote false scientific beliefs in which dominant racial and ethnic groups are perceived as being superior

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“Race”

A “race” was considered a group of humans that share visible phenotypes and inhabit (or have inhabited) different regions of the world

These differences are assumed to be genetic

These visible phenotypic differences are assumed to be associated with many non-visible genetic differences

Dobzhansky, a prominent geneticist, believed that race was a valid genetics term in the 1940s

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“Race”

If race were genetically meaningful, most genetic diversity would be found between two races rather than within a race.

In other words, members of one so-called race would be more similar to each other than to members of another so-called race.

That means that one would expect to find more genetic differences between a random person from Africa and a random person from Europe than between two random people from within Africa or two random people within Europe.

But is this really how people sort out?

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Race: The Power of an Illusion

https://vimeo.com/280780216

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What has sequencing human genomes shown us?

Any two humans have the exact same base pair in approximately 99.4%of their DNA

Of that 0.6% difference, only 9.4-11.5% actually impact traits like physical characteristics or disease susceptibility.

So, does that ~10% of 0.6% define a “race”?

There isn’t a specific set of nucleotides that genetically defines a “racial” population carried by every individual in it.

Differences are in the relative proportion of common DNA variants

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Let’s see for ourselves!

We are going to comparing public mtDNA sequence samples from world populations

Navigate to http://www.bioservers.org/
Click the button to LOGIN AS GUEST. This will give you access to the server.
Click "Manage Groups" near the top of the screen. This will open a new window with folders of mtDNA sequences from high school classes around the country.
Click on the tool bar labeled "Sequence Sources." You should see other types of DNA sequence groups in the pull-down menu.
Find "Public" on the list. Highlight this group with your mouse to select it. This will pull up a list of groups.
Scroll down until you find "Race - lesson 2" (09/05/2003). To select this group of mtDNA base-pair sequences, check the box to the left of the group. Select the “Race lesson 2 extension” group as well and click the "OK" button. This will bring sequences from this group into your workspace in the main window.
By clicking on the tool bar, you should see 9 mtDNA sequence files from different parts of the world in the “Race lesson 2” grouping. Ignore the extension grouping for now. At the top of the list is the mtDNA sequence file called "Africa #1." Notice that the computer automatically checks the box to the left of the sequence file. The box must be checked to select this sequence for comparison.
After choosing your first sequence, a second pull-down menu will appear underneath. Scroll down until you see a sequence file called "Africa #2." Click on it to choose it. Notice that the computer automatically checks the box to the left. This box must be checked to select this sequence for comparison.
Compare the two sequences by clicking the "Compare" button in the upper left corner of the page. (When you click on "COMPARE", the computer uses a program called CLUSTALW to align the samples where they have similarities.) Differences will appear highlighted in yellow.�

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Based on your pod number, perform all of the possible base-pair sequence comparisons for your assigned population.

Compare two at a time (not more).

1-2 African mtDNA with African mtDNA

3-4 European mtDNA with European mtDNA

5-6 Asian mtDNA with Asian mtDNA

7-8 African mtDNA with European mtDNA

9-10 European mtDNA with Asian mtDNA

11-12 African mtDNA with Asian mtDNA

Count the number of base differences for each sequence comparison and then calculate that result in terms of a percentage.

Fill in chart

Divide and conquer!

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“NHGRI is committed to taking proactive steps to provide leadership in the field of genomics in addressing structural racism and anything that would foster eugenics-based ideas.”

The National Human Genome Research Institute

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Eugenics and race have been linked together, much like how we’ve used color examples in class – “race” is easy to see and differentiate on.

Many of the most obvious examples of eugenics that we’ve seen targeted racial minorities (sterilization efforts in the US, the Holocaust, etc) or those with mental health issues.

Based on ideas about “racial purity” and “polluting” or “mixing” races.

Arbitrary value placed on the genetics of “superior races” by those in power, with no real scientific basis.

Eugenics and Race

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What happens now that we can screen embryos during IVF and edit them for certain genetic features?

What is the ethical way to do this?

Where are the lines drawn?

Eugenics isn’t just about race

Genetic counseling has basis in eugenics especially pre-1970s

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Who is in power? What do they value?

Do we believe we should be controlling, directing, and limiting such a personal thing as reproduction?

Or as a poster on r/philosophy put it:

*I highly recommend not discussing eugenics on Reddit or anywhere else on the internet…

Eugenics depends on values

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Thank you all so much for being part of my classroom here at UNC Charlotte.

This semester has been so impactful for me and I hope that it was a good experience for you.

I have learned from so many of you and it’s awesome to be a small part in your academic journey!

I hope you are leaving this classroom with a bit more knowledge about the beautiful biological diversity around us and how we’ve arrived there.

OK enough about that