Reading Reflection: Fullwiley

In Duana Fullwiley’s “The Biological Construction of Race”, Fullwiley discusses the research of two laboratories that are searching for biological evidence of race. For a long time people denied that there was a biological basis for race and that instead it was solely a social construct. However as technology improves and allows us to analyze people on a smaller and smaller level, scientists have once again become interested in determining whether race does have a biological basis. The scientists that Fullwiley observed used AIMs to analyze study participants and assign percentages to their “African”, “Native American”, “European” and “East Asian” ancestries. However boiling race down to the above four groups is an oversimplification. Some of the data they gathered that seemed to support their hypothesis, while on one hand could be said to provide a biological basis for race, could also just be the result of similar environments producing descendants with similar genetics as a result of adaptation and natural selection. I personally do not believe that there is enough evidence as of yet to say that there is a biological basis to races. Though I do believe that people of the same race are likely to have similar health risks, I think that this is due to their ancestors having grown up in similar environments resulting in similar adaptations being selected over the generations rather than this being an innate feature of specific races. The second scientist that Fullwiley observes, Burchard, claimed that he wanted to study minorities, specifically Mexicans and Puerto Ricans, in order to better their health care as those groups are often overlooked. I respect his reasons for his research but I believe that there will be more benefits found from researching how social aspects can influence the health risks of different racial groups and other groups.