Cargando…
The background and legacy of Lewontin's apportionment of human genetic diversity
Lewontin's 1972 article ‘The apportionment of human diversity’ described a key feature of human genetic diversity that would have profound impacts on conversations regarding genetics and race: the typical genetic locus varies much less between classical human race groupings than one might infer...
Autor principal: | |
---|---|
Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
The Royal Society
2022
|
Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9014184/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35430890 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2020.0406 |
_version_ | 1784688154760970240 |
---|---|
author | Novembre, John |
author_facet | Novembre, John |
author_sort | Novembre, John |
collection | PubMed |
description | Lewontin's 1972 article ‘The apportionment of human diversity’ described a key feature of human genetic diversity that would have profound impacts on conversations regarding genetics and race: the typical genetic locus varies much less between classical human race groupings than one might infer from inspecting the features historically used to define those races, like skin pigmentation. From this, Lewontin concluded: ‘Human racial classification … is now seen to be of virtually no genetic or taxonomic significance’ (p. 397). Here, 50 years after the paper's publication, the goal is to understand the origins and legacy of the paper. Aided by insights from published papers and interviews with several of Lewontin's contemporaries, I review the 1972 paper, asking about the intellectual background that led to the publication of the paper, the development of its impact, the critiques of the work and the work's application and limitations today. The hope is that by gaining a clearer understanding of the origin and reasoning of the paper, we might dispel various confusions about the result and sharpen an understanding of the enduring value and insight the result provides. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Celebrating 50 years since Lewontin's apportionment of human diversity’. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-9014184 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2022 |
publisher | The Royal Society |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-90141842022-04-21 The background and legacy of Lewontin's apportionment of human genetic diversity Novembre, John Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci Articles Lewontin's 1972 article ‘The apportionment of human diversity’ described a key feature of human genetic diversity that would have profound impacts on conversations regarding genetics and race: the typical genetic locus varies much less between classical human race groupings than one might infer from inspecting the features historically used to define those races, like skin pigmentation. From this, Lewontin concluded: ‘Human racial classification … is now seen to be of virtually no genetic or taxonomic significance’ (p. 397). Here, 50 years after the paper's publication, the goal is to understand the origins and legacy of the paper. Aided by insights from published papers and interviews with several of Lewontin's contemporaries, I review the 1972 paper, asking about the intellectual background that led to the publication of the paper, the development of its impact, the critiques of the work and the work's application and limitations today. The hope is that by gaining a clearer understanding of the origin and reasoning of the paper, we might dispel various confusions about the result and sharpen an understanding of the enduring value and insight the result provides. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Celebrating 50 years since Lewontin's apportionment of human diversity’. The Royal Society 2022-06-06 2022-04-18 /pmc/articles/PMC9014184/ /pubmed/35430890 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2020.0406 Text en © 2022 The Authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited. |
spellingShingle | Articles Novembre, John The background and legacy of Lewontin's apportionment of human genetic diversity |
title | The background and legacy of Lewontin's apportionment of human genetic diversity |
title_full | The background and legacy of Lewontin's apportionment of human genetic diversity |
title_fullStr | The background and legacy of Lewontin's apportionment of human genetic diversity |
title_full_unstemmed | The background and legacy of Lewontin's apportionment of human genetic diversity |
title_short | The background and legacy of Lewontin's apportionment of human genetic diversity |
title_sort | background and legacy of lewontin's apportionment of human genetic diversity |
topic | Articles |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9014184/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35430890 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2020.0406 |
work_keys_str_mv | AT novembrejohn thebackgroundandlegacyoflewontinsapportionmentofhumangeneticdiversity AT novembrejohn backgroundandlegacyoflewontinsapportionmentofhumangeneticdiversity |