Conversations about race with scientific experts who are tackling this charged topic from a variety of angles – how skin color is an adaptive trait and varies widely across the planet, how race is a social, not biological construct and how humans are in fact 99.9% identical, plus how even our technology is influenced by implicit bias.
Skin Color Is A Human Adaptation
Dr. Nina Jablonski, professor of anthropology at Penn State University and author, The Biological and Social Meaning of Skin Color (2012) discusses how skin color is an adaptive trait by humans who migrated out of Africa 100,000 years ago and is tied to exposure to UV rays.
Race Is A Social Construct
Dr. Ann Morning, associate professor of sociology at New York University and author of The Nature of Race: How Scientists Think and Teach about Human Difference (2011) discusses how early scientists erroneously categorized peoples of different colors and explains that race is a social construct, not a biological one.
Humans Are 99.9% Genetically Identical
Dr. Charles Rotimi, director of the Trans-National Institutes of Health (NIH) center for research in genomics and global health discusses the human body on a genetic level and explains that we are all 99.9% identical.
Implicit Bias In Technology
Kelly Capatosto, senior research associate at The Ohio State University’s The Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity explores how implicit bias plays into our everyday lives and even impacts our technology.
QED with Dr. B, is a fun and informative science series, co-produced by WOSU Public Media and COSI, that talks one-on-one with the scientists, engineers and innovators who are redefining how we interact with our world. Watch the series online or on WOSU TV on Wednesdays at 7:30 p.m.