SOCI 1F90 Lecture Notes - Lecture 11: Eurocentrism, Sickle-Cell Disease, Infant Mortality
Document Summary
Racial traits non-concordant - meaning they are not necessarily expressed together: Skin colour or eye colour or hair colour is not correlated with more complex traits like intelligence or athletic performance. On average, 85% of human variation occurs within any local population. 94% of human variation can be found on any continent. There is more variation within any racial" group than there is between. 75% of all genes are identical, regardless of our background. Race" is a poor explanation for distribution of sickle cell trait - occurs in particular regions of africa while also occurring in parts of asia and europe. Decades of eurocentric medical research tried to locate the cause of the high rates of diabetes among indigenous populations to their genes. Decades of eurocentric medical research tried to locate the genes responsible for the persistent high rates of low birth weight and infant mortality of black babies.