“Biological race, modern genomics and DTC ancestry testing.”

Anthropology Speaker Series Fall 2021: K. Ann Horsburgh

In 1942, Ashley Montague published “Man’s Most Dangerous Myth: The Fallacy of Race” in which he argued that socially-defined racial groups do not align with biological variables. Fuelled by technological developments in molecular biology in recent decades, significant voices within the academic community have argued, and continue to argue, that Montague’s assessment of the patterning of human biological variation is in error. In particular, it is argued that races are meaningful biological units, and that those biological units differ significantly in important traits. This talk will consider the case for the existence of biological races in humans, and float the possibility that the salience of these arguments beyond the academic community is being enhanced by the extraordinary success of direct-to-consumer genomics companies.

Please pre-register here to attend this event:
https://mcmaster.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJYkd-ygrzoiH9MU75MzttMgZjlIQTyTAMk4