Duster Troy
Warren Institute on Law and Social Policy, University of California; Berkeley and Department of Sociology, New York University.
Br J Sociol. 2015 Mar;66(1):1-27. doi: 10.1111/1468-4446.12118.
The completion of the first draft of the Human Genome Map in 2000 was widely heralded as the promise and future of genetics-based medicines and therapies - so much so that pundits began referring to the new century as 'The Century of Genetics'. Moreover, definitive assertions about the overwhelming similarities of all humans' DNA (99.9 per cent) by the leaders of the Human Genome Project were trumpeted as the end of racial thinking about racial taxonomies of human genetic differences. But the first decade of the new century brought unwelcomed surprises. First, gene therapies turned out to be far more complicated than any had anticipated - and instead the pharmaceutical industry turned to a focus on drugs that might be 'related' to population differences based upon genetic markers. While the language of 'personalized medicine' dominated this frame, research on racially and ethnically designated populations differential responsiveness to drugs dominated the empirical work in the field. Ancestry testing and 'admixture research' would play an important role in a new kind of molecular reification of racial categories. Moreover, the capacity of the super-computer to map differences reverberated into personal identification that would affect both the criminal justice system and forensic science, and generate new levels of concern about personal privacy. Social scientists in general, and sociologists in particular, have been caught short by these developments - relying mainly on assertions that racial categories are socially constructed, regionally and historically contingent, and politically arbitrary. While these assertions are true, the imprimatur of scientific legitimacy has shifted the burden, since now 'admixture research' can claim that its results get at the 'reality' of human differentiation, not the admittedly flawed social constructions of racial categories. Yet what was missing from this framing of the problem: 'admixture research' is itself based upon socially constructed categories of race.
2000年人类基因组图谱初稿的完成被广泛誉为基于遗传学的药物和疗法的希望与未来，以至于专家们开始将新世纪称为“遗传学世纪”。此外，人类基因组计划的领导人断言所有人的DNA具有压倒性的相似性（99.9%），这一断言被大肆宣扬，被视为关于人类遗传差异种族分类的种族思维的终结。但新世纪的头十年带来了不受欢迎的意外。首先，基因疗法远比任何人预期的要复杂得多，相反，制药行业转而专注于可能与基于基因标记的人群差异“相关”的药物。虽然“个性化医疗”的说法主导了这一框架，但关于不同种族和族裔人群对药物的不同反应的研究主导了该领域的实证工作。血统检测和“混合研究”将在一种新的种族类别的分子具体化中发挥重要作用。此外，超级计算机绘制差异的能力在个人识别中产生了反响，这将影响刑事司法系统和法医学，并引发对个人隐私的新担忧。一般来说，社会科学家，尤其是社会学家，被这些发展打了个措手不及，他们主要依赖于这样的断言，即种族类别是社会建构的，因地区和历史而异，在政治上是任意的。虽然这些断言是正确的，但科学合法性的认可转移了责任，因为现在“混合研究”可以声称其结果揭示了人类差异的“现实”，而不是公认有缺陷的种族类别的社会建构。然而，这个问题的框架中缺少的是：“混合研究”本身就是基于社会建构的种族类别。
