Does history matter?

Weiss, Kenneth M.; Lambert, Brian

doi:10.1002/evan.20261

Cited by 10 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…However, if many loci are considered genome-wide, the multi-locus genotype similarities are much greater among people from the same continent than among those from other continents. [10][11][12] The continent of indigenous origin is unambiguous, even if no two people from the same continent have exactly the same genome-wide genotype. Genome-wide, humans carry polygenic genotypes that differ probabilistically much as many phenotypes are polygenic.…”

Section: How Close Are Our Evolutionary Cousins?mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Seeing the forest through the gene‐trees

Weiss

2010

Evolutionary Anthropology

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Section: How Close Are Our Evolutionary Cousins?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It is obvious that individuals from the same geographic area are far from identical. 12,15,16 This is strange! If races exist according to the usual notion, mustn't there be genetic variation common on one continent but absent elsewhere?…”

Section: How Close Are Our Evolutionary Cousins?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Seeing the forest through the gene‐trees

Weiss

2010

Evolutionary Anthropology

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“…However, controversy over the nature or existence of races did not go away, despite increasing role of genetic factors, and awareness of the history of physical anthropology as a mouthpiece for scientific racism and eugenics (Carlson, ; Weiss & Lambert, ), and see recent discussions by Relethford and Marks (Little & Kennedy, ). Racial traits, however, they were defined, clearly showed overlapping distributions within and between groups, however, they were defined.…”

Section: Ontology and Epistemology In Genetics: What Is The Nature Ofmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…I think the anthropological uses of structure programs risk mis presenting that history (Weiss, ; Weiss & Lambert, ; Weiss & Long, ). Structure analysis assumes that parental populations as such do or did exist.…”

Section: Analysis Of Global Sequence Variationmentioning

confidence: 99%

The tales genes tell (or not): A century of exploration

Weiss

2018

American J Phys Anthropol

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| I N TR ODU C TI ONOnce, not so long ago, the origin myth of Western civilization was that supernatural events had independently produced the various life forms that have trod upon the Earth. But close inspection of creatures both long dead and still living revealed patterns and relationships that seemed to connect all these diverse forms, notably including humans. Seeing this, Darwin and others realized that what was responsible was a process rather than a series of events, and this, at least in scientific circles, uprooted the Western belief in creationist origins. We call that process "evolution," whose essential core is variation and its transmission from parent to offspring.But how does that process work and in particular, how are life's evolving and diverging traits produced? Thanks to ideas first stimulated by Mendel, and pursued enthusiastically by countless scientists through the twentieth century, a single answer seemed to appear, and it applied to origins, variation, and function alike. That answer we now call "genes."The excitement has not abated, but in what ways and how well do genes answer the basic questions about human life? Even after a century of tremendous progress, the answer to that question is not so obvious. As I will try to explain, the century's progress has brought us back to the fundamental questions about biological causation with which it began, providing new leads to follow if we are willing to accept what we do not know but thought we did.New ideas are often born of facts simple enough to lead to insight.We took from Mendel the idea that life's traits are causally determined by genes in ways simple enough that details did not impair the basic vision. But the more closely that vision was examined over the past century, the more we learned that the truth is not as simple as it seemed. Accepting that fact can set the stage for us to learn deeper truths behind the original insight.This, at least, is the story I will try to relate about the past century and how it applies to the questions we ask in anthropology and in evolutionary genetics more broadly. However, I must warn that the past century has been so productive that what follows is a conceptual overview, not a literature review: in terms both of ideas and citations, while I hope my sins of commission be few, those of omission are a great many. | ON TOLOG Y A N D EP I STE M OLOGY I N GE NE TI CS: WH AT I S TH E NA TU R E OF CA U S A TI ON?In assessing the role of genes in our traits, our history, and our evolution, the question of causation is central: what is it that genes actually do, how do they do it, and how do they (and we) evolve?Those questions involve both ontology-the actual nature of genetic causation, and epistemology-the ways we try to understand it.Anthropology has generally been an observational rather than experimental field. We deal with causation in both the present and the past, and often must rely on indirect inferences. If our universe is a causal place, as it seems to be, then genetic causation must involve ...

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“…BOX 1 simulation was done using our program ForSim (Lambert, Terwilliger, & Weiss ); the program or details of this example are available on request. For interested readers, ForSim has been used in more complex examples (Weiss & Lambert, ; Shugart, Zhu, Guo, & Xiong, ; Chan, Lim, Sandholm, Wang, McKnight, Ripke, & Consortium, ; Kessner & Novembre, ; Weiss & Lambert, ). We welcome comments on this column: kenweiss@psu.edu. KW has a blog on relevant topics at http://ecodevoevo.blogspot.com.…”

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confidence: 99%