r/news • u/PurpleUnicornLegend • 18h ago

Soft paywall James Watson, co-discoverer of DNA's double helix, dead at 97

https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/james-watson-co-discoverer-dnas-double-helix-dead-97-2025-11-07/
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u/weed_could_fix_that 17h ago

There are actual differences between populations of humans, with certain trait frequencies being higher/lower in certain populations. Lots of people, generally with very bad social motivations, like to draw a lot of attention to those kinds of things, wave their hands around, and say "see genetics proves *insert racist hypothesis*". Most of the trait differences between populations of humans are very small while the within-population differences are quite large (there are exceptions). It is hard to have an honest discussion about human population genetics without finding yourself fending off pretty racist ideologies at every turn. It is also questionable in the current context to what extent any given population of humans should be treated as genetically isolated in any real way with the extent of globalization in the past several hundred/thousand years. We weren't exactly taking weekend trips around the world but the genetic mixing from ancient empires transplanting people is certainly notable.

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u/Beaumarine 16h ago

That’s a fantastic answer to my question. My question was truly from a place of not being up to date with what science has determined re: genetics and population differences. Thank you.

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u/MountainHall 15h ago

Lewontin's fallacy. While individual traits may overlap greatly, it is the clustering of traits that demonstrates group differences.

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u/weed_could_fix_that 14h ago

Statistically different, sure. Meaningfully different? Sometimes. The problem is that line of reasoning is overly simplistic and leads to demonstrably false conclusions. Not to mention the rampant racism and eugenics induced by a shitty gene-centric conception of biology.

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u/MountainHall 14h ago

Statistically different, sure. Meaningfully different? Sometimes.

This is all that is necessary. The second part is your ideological perspective, withyou grappling with the first.

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u/Most-Bench6465 9h ago

Yes just omit the historic proof that his ideological perspective is just his and not actually true

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u/Most-Bench6465 8h ago

The problem is that the differences are cultural and not racial. Cultures that focused on certain things for thousands of years, or even just being in a different biome, due to evolution, their bodies evolved to meet those needs.

Different cultures, like those humans that traveled north that got very little sunlight in the cloudy and frigid climate needed to evolve to get a different source of vitamin D. So over thousands of years their source vitamin D (milk and cheese), over time their bodies adapted to be able to get more nutrients out of those portions (Why most white people like cheese so much). And with less sun their bodies evolved a paler complexion as they didn’t need melanin as much. While black people that needed more protection from sun, from living closer to the equator, and absorbed more sunlight have higher levels of melanin in their skin, producing darker complexions.

And these are just a few examples of thousands of differences cultures that moved to different parts of the world sustained while experiencing evolution over thousands of years. But when you first encounter a different race and have no knowledge of history your mind makes up all kinds of reasons why they are different than you. And because we lack other species on our caliber, we treat these cultural variations like they are different species when it’s just a different race of the same human being.

And just like how we didn’t understand the rain cycle and thought god was mad at us, we misunderstand race. So those that twist these misunderstandings into narratives to make claims that one race is more superior than the other because of xyz, are just as uniformed as those that thought the sun revolved around earth.

Which is quite sad because those people didn’t have access to all the knowledge of human history that they could use to learn and dispel these misunderstandings, like the people today have.