Projit Bihari Mukharji’s lecture was all about how genetics affect race and the how Indian scientists have considered the dangers about using genetics to categorize people. He brought in many studies, surveys, and examples of how India has gotten their data- a few of them throughout history were significantly questionable ethics wise. Throughout this presentation, I personally found two things in this talk to resonate with me. 1) How genetics can affect racism. 2) The ethical issues regarding consent in genetics. To start, it is interesting to think about how genetic information can be interpreted both in science and more importantly society. In a sense, the material can be used to support racist principles. Years ago, I took Introduction to Anthropology and it within the course we spoke about how intelligence was measured with head size…different races had different measurements, thus some races were perceived to be overall smarter when compared to other races. This is an example of how genetics can be used in society to marginalize a complete race. Lastly, Dr. Mukharji’s lecture touched upon how the methods the IGVDB used to gather data in the genetics field reinforced the Indian caste system. This point pertains to the ethics of consent regarding genetics. What is allowed and how can people give consent when they are no longer living? Are relatives able to consent for those that cannot? Simply put, some sort of standard needs to be regulated regarding genetics and the ability to receive consent for data.
Dr. Mukharji’s talk touched upon race in more than one way. He briefly mentioned the use of genetic variation to establish differences within our species. This idea gives people the ability to marginalize specific races and promote eugenics or supremacy. The act of artificially selecting traits or characteristics can (and has before) create dangerous situations in society. This dangerous idea was essentially contradicted by the Indian Genome Variation, as they claimed that there is unity in diversity.
Dr. Mukharji told multiple stories to the class about how genetics were obtained years and years ago- having to do with blood and bone. One story involved a scientist manipulating others to get bones from a graveyard. Another involved more lies and coercion in order to justify taking blood from someone who declined to give it. These stories were interesting when thinking about the presence of the past and how past genetic work has and will affect the future of genetics. One member of the audience asked about ethics and consent when looking at genetics. I briefly mentioned it at the beginning of this response but Dr. Mukharji’s response was relatively the same- we just don’t know. Ethics in the medical/science field are very touchy and even when looking in the past it is a good thing to acknowledge that sometimes we are wrong. Stories such as the bone and blood ones can be used to reexamine and question whether such a thing would be acceptable today. Both the way that the data was collected or if the actual findings were supported are important things to bring up. Dr. Mukharji’s reply briefly spoke about outdated textbooks used to educate people that still talk about outdated or insignificant studies.