The Epistemic Usefulness of Race in Approximating Diseases in Medical Genetics

Abstract

This paper critically investigates whether there is a racial scheme that is epistemically useful in approximating disease in biomedicine. Quayshawn Spencer, Risch et al. and Burchard et al. argue that racial schemes are classified based on the different continental populations that exist according to the US census data of 1997. These continental populations have diverse genetic differences that could account for various diseases that exist in the different populations. I argue contra this view from Quayshawn Spencer, Risch et al., and Burchard et al. It is my contention that race is not genetic and/or biological. I contend that race is socially constructed due to some social features; as a result, this social constructivism of race gives clear epistemic insights about diseases and how they can be approximated. I conclude that what these theorists conceive as genetic diseases is mistaken. Instead, these diseases occur due to the divide amongst the different populations based on social grounds such as skin colour, financial affluence, and environmental differences.