THE MEANING OF RACE IN SCIENCE - CONSIDERATIONS FOR CANCER-RESEARCH -CONCERNS OF SPECIAL POPULATIONS IN THE NATIONAL-CANCER-PROGRAM

Popular conceptualizations of race date back several centuries and, in particular, are rooted in 19th and early 20th century scientific thou ght. Such racial categories are based on externally visible traits, pr imarily skin color and facial features, but also on the shape and size of the head and body, The presumption was that immutable visible trai ts produced the measure of all other traits in an individual or a popu lation. This presumption persists although scientists now estimate tha t all externally visible traits represent only 0.01% expression of the 100,000 genes that each individual has. In the past, some scientists used observations of racial differences to support racist doctrines su ch as the superiority of one race over another. An important example o f this is illustrated by the studies of Samuel George Morton in the mi d-19th century. One of the most respected scientists of his time, Mort on published three major works on the sizes of human skulls. Morton's craniometry concluded that blacks and Native Americans had smaller bra ins and, therefore, less intelligence when compared with whites, an ar gument supporting the concept of polygenism that held that human races were separate biologic species.