Short Paper #2

How might future genetics research alter our understanding of race? Until recently the consensus was that biology plays an extremely limited role in determining race, though that issue is again open for debate. I want you to explore the relation between biology and race by conducting a thought experiment, which is a philosophical method for exploring and delimiting the realm of possibility. Use your imagination to invent a genetic condition (chimerism would be an real life example) or a form of genetic engineering that has a novel effect on physical (not mental) traits associated with race, and would suggest that biology plays a greater role in determining our understanding of race than we presently believe it does. Describe the condition in some detail, but spend most of your paper explaining how this example would shift the border between the social and biological determinants of race, and perhaps alter our understanding of both aspects of race. As a last resort if you are completely stumped because you can’t think of an appropriate case, argue in support of the view that it is impossible for biology to play more than a very limited role, in part by developing an extreme version of the thought experiment mentioned above and showing that it has no effect on the debate about the nature of race.

No citations (original work only)

Minimum 2 full pages, maximum 3.5 pages (number pages and staple); 12 point type; Double-spaced; 1-1.5 inch margins; Separate cover page; No extra spaces, extraneous titles or headers, or anything else intended to make the paper appear longer than it really is.