Thread by @EricOrcadian

“Humans share the vast majority of 99.9% of our DNA in common..”

After the AAPA released this statement a lot people tweeted with questions and confusion over what this means and how it relates to the question of race.

Lemme try explain...

In April, 2003 The Human Genome Project (HGP) declared that the 3 billion base pairs of genetic letters in human genome were 99.9% identical in every person on earth.

The HGP took great liberty with this statement as it was predicated on the grand assumption that all human DNA is structurally the same except for the very smallest elements that control which alleles of a gene are expressed (implying that only the alleles make us different).

These small elements take 2 principle forms:

Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNPs): 1 base pair/~10 million per genome
Short Tandem Repeats (STRs): 2-16 base pairs/~700,000 per genome

The cumulative total accounts for around 0.1% of the genome.

This small variation in base pairs is occasionally used to erode arguments for biological differences and promote a doctrine that race is an illusion.

There are several problems with this kind of thinking.

The sequences that make up the 0.1% serve as a powerful control..

system that codes for just about every different type of biological expression that occurs between people including the endowment of race.

1 base pair can change the entire allele of a gene, which changes the protein it codes for, which changes structure/function within the body

There’s another problem: It was discovered since the HGPs announcement that large chunks of the other 99.9% of DNA – not only aren’t the same – but can be exclusively characteristic within specific populations and, yes..races.

For details on how this works see the thread below.

https://twitter.com/EricOrcadian/status/1060989879671111680