Award Abstract # 1331110
WORKSHOP: An Interdisciplinary Conference on the Nature and Reality of Race bringing together Philosophical and Biomedical Perspectives, University of San Francisco, Spring 2014.

NSF Org: SES
Division of Social and Economic Sciences
Recipient: UNIVERSITY OF SAN FRANCISCO
Initial Amendment Date: September 4, 2013
Latest Amendment Date: September 4, 2013
Award Number: 1331110
Award Instrument: Standard Grant
Program Manager: Frederick Kronz
SES
 Division of Social and Economic Sciences
SBE
 Directorate for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences
Start Date: September 15, 2013
End Date: August 31, 2014 (Estimated)
Total Intended Award Amount: $21,514.00
Total Awarded Amount to Date: $21,514.00
Funds Obligated to Date: FY 2013 = $21,514.00
History of Investigator:
  • Quayshawn Spencer (Principal Investigator)
    qnspencer@usfca.edu
Recipient Sponsored Research Office: University of San Francisco
2130 FULTON ST
SAN FRANCISCO
CA  US  94117
(415)422-5203
Sponsor Congressional District: 11
Primary Place of Performance: University of San Francisco
2130 Fulton Street
San Francisco
CA  US  94117-1080
Primary Place of Performance
Congressional District:
11
Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): EA2TGNNYQZ36
Parent UEI:
NSF Program(s): STS-Sci, Tech & Society
Primary Program Source: 01001314DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT
Program Reference Code(s): 0000, 1353, OTHR
Program Element Code(s): 760300
Award Agency Code: 4900
Fund Agency Code: 4900
Assistance Listing Number(s): 47.075

ABSTRACT

Project Overview

The PI requests support for a two-day conference to bring philosophers of race into conversation with biomedical researchers. Within the last 20 years, there have been substantial developments in the use of race as a biomedical category as well as in the philosophy of race, but there have been few meaningful exchanges between scholars in these areas.

Intellectual Merit

The conference agenda is designed to promote effective, fruitful discussions. It will create a structure for potentially transformative discussions between highly qualified and well-situated key actors in each field. It will do so by implementing a novel strategy for promoting interaction; particular positions are to be assigned to invited guests who are then to argue for or against particular points of view.

Potential Broader Impacts

The conference will promote interdisciplinarity and will involve participants with very substantial racial and ethnic diversity. In addition, the PI will videotape the conference proceedings, and she will post them on a web site. An edited collection will also be published consisting of workshop proceedings. These materials will be of broad interest well outside of the disciplines involved in the conference including members of the general public.

PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT

Disclaimer

This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.

The intellectual merit of the conference was to advance knowledge and understanding about race by bringing two groups of academics together who have previously been working on race in isolation from one another: philosophers of race and biomedical researchers.  Philosophers of race have been working on the nature and reality of race and biomedical researchers have been working on the genetic usefulness of race in biomedical research.

The broader impacts of the conference were to put philosophers of race into conversation with biomedical researchers working on race, to put population geneticists working on human diversity into conversation with philosophers of race, and to have the published conference proceedings make an impact on future biomedical research dealing with race.  The outcomes and findings that address the intelelctual merit and broader impacts of the conference are the following.

Knowledge and understanding about race was advanced by bringing together philosophers of race and biomedical researchers.  First, we learned that there was a lot more agreement among philosophers of race and biomedical researchers than commonly thought.  For instance, the philosophers who were advocating for the non-existence of race or the pure social construction of race were really just advocating for that position in a particular context that was logically compatible with using race as a genetic variable in biomedical research.  This is because, and as we all acknowledged, 'race' meanings change across contexts.  For instance, two biomedical scientists clarified that they were only interested in exploring the utility of current U.S. census racial groups in biomedical research, and especially medical genetics.  However, the philosophers were more interested in "ordinary" as opposed to government race talk, which led to logical compatibility of different metaphysical positions on race.  

Second, we learned that philosophers who were advocating for the non-biological reality of race were actually more interested in establishing that race is not very important in biology.  For instance, one philosopher was willing to grant that census racial groups might be useful in certain projects in medical genetics as long as we acknowledge that this doesn't make those groups biological subspecies or hugely genetically different in ways that many ordinary Americans think (e.g. intellectually different).

However, one point of disagreement did arise among some philosophers and some biomedical researchers.  There was a clear disagreement about whether the genetic usefulness of current U.S. racial groups in biomedical research was an artifact of epigenetic confounding or due to underlying causally relevant genetic differences between census racial groups.  This led to the novel discovery that no one has developed a good conceptual distinction or operational test to distinguish between epigenetic and genetic causes of complex diseases, and espeically in the case of racial discrimination as the epigenetic cause.  The problem can be highlighted by the following hypothetical.

Suppose all and only people with dark skin are hit over the head at birth in a particular society, call it "S".  Also suppose that in S there is a greater incidence of complex mental diseases in dark skinned people versus non-dark skinned people in S.  Then, if biomedical researchers search for a genetic difference between dark and non-dark skinned people in S that is highly correlated with acquiring complex mental diseases, they will find it.  They will at least find the alleles that code for dark skin in humans.  However, do we want to say that dark skin alleles cause complex mental diseases in S, or do we want to say that hitting people over the head at birth causes complex mental diseases in S?  If the...

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