DNA studies challenge the meaning of race
Marshall, E.
Science 282(5389): 654-655
1998
ISSN/ISBN: 0036-8075 PMID: 9841421 Document Number: 495058
A special section offering a sample of progress in the genome analysis of a variety of organisms. DNA studies are challenging the definition of race. Anthropologists have long criticized the stereotypes used to classify human populations into racial groups, and in 1997 the American Anthropological Association urged the government to dispense with racial categories and allow people to define their own ethnicity in political matters. The strongest challenge to the classification of human populations into racial groups comes from genetic studies of human origins. In the late 1980s, researchers concluded from studies of mitochondrial DNA that modern humans originated in Africa and migrated around the globe. Geneticist Kenneth Kidd of Yale University says that the DNA samples he has examined show that there is a virtual continuum of genetic variation around the world.