A study is published reporting that a new drug works better in black people than in whites. Is this an informative study
or is it based on archaic, incorrect, even harmful notions of human difference?
Homo sapiens has been called the species that names. An extensive literature reflects millennia of concern over what we humans call ourselves and others. All life sciences are now grappling further with how to categorize and study the nearly infinite polymorphisms within and among species as awareness grows that the species concept itself is inadequate. Human
medicine, however, is in a unique position in that not only must it confront these problems of categorization that plague all life sciences, but this effort occurs in a complex sociopolitical context. As Smart and colleagues recently said, One reason that race and ethnicity are difficult concepts to operationalize or examine in
scientific research is that they have meaning and usage that exists beyond the domain of scientific control .