Genetics Fail

There's ignorance, and then there's horrifying misconception. And individuals like Brian Kilmeade are the reason why websites like Scitable have to exist.

In the Fox & Friends morning show, Kilmeade took issue with a Scandanavian study that reported a decreased risk for Alzheimers among married couples.¹ Kilmeade said of Americans (and this is taken straight from the video footage), "We're...We keep marrying other species and other ethnics..."

Other species?! Really? Why are Americans wasting time looking for intelligent, non-human life forms in outerspace when they're apparently living in our own homes? And where are the half-human, X-men-like hybrids?

While scientists may sometimes argue over species definitions,² for humans, the answer is crystal clear: all people, no matter their shape, size, or country of origin, belong to the same species, Homo sapiens. Species are determined in part by their genetic distance, and with a difference of only 0.08 percent between modern African and European genomes,³ this hardly qualifies them as different species; in fact, many people today descend from post-colonial, "hybrid" children. While the range of people belonging to Homo sapiens may appear wide, we're hardly the most diverse. All dogs, from Chihuahuas to Great Danes, also belong to the same species.⁴ Calling ethnic groups different species does nothing but disguise racism in a cloak of scientific legitimacy. 

If this weren't bad enough, Kilmeade continues to deliver socially-warped science by attributing "social purity" to genes: "The Swedes have pure genes, ‘cause they marry other Swedes. Finland...Finns marry other Finns, so they have a pure society. In America, we marry everybody...so we'll marry Italians and Irish..."

Claiming the study doesn't apply to Americans because we have inter-ethnic marriages is plain eugenic idiocy. Since the early 1900s, individuals have tried to merge Gregor Mendel's discovery of genetic inheritance with Francis Dalton's work on the inheritance of human intelligence.⁵ Further study, however, has never supported the resulting eugenics movement and never will; the most desirable human traits can't be reduced to just having the right genes. Finally, as far as species are concerned, increasing genetic diversity actually improves species' fitness--that's why sexual reproduction is more common than asexual reproduction.⁶

In short, don't attempt to use genetics to support racist claims. And someone please direct Brian Kilmeade to Scitable--he has some reading to do.

¹ Lawson, Richard. "Brian Kilmeade Would Like Species and ‘Ethnics' To Remain Pure." The Gawker, July 8^th, 2009.  

²  Hey, J. (2009) Why Should We Care about Species? Nature Education 2(5)

³ Zhaurova, K. (2008) Genomes of other organisms: DNA barcoding and metagenomics. Nature Education 1(1)
Africans and Europeans share 99.92% of their DNA. Humans and apes share 98.77% of their DNA.

⁴ Adams, J. (2008) Genetics of dog breeding. Nature Education 1(1)
For more on variations among dogs and the genetics behind it all.

⁵ Norrgard, K. (2008) Human testing, the eugenics movement, and IRBs. Nature Education 1(1)

⁶ Otto, S. (2008) Sexual reproduction and the evolution of sex. Nature Education 1(1)

Image credit: Huffington Post