Join ARCS OC on this field trip to UCI to attend the Distinctive Voices series Lecture

Thinking Culturally about the Science of Genetic Ancestry Tests

Presented by Jonathan Marks, University of North Carolina at Charlotte

Wednesday, May 6th, 2020
The Arnold and Mabel Beckman Center, 100 Academy Way, Irvine

Direct-to-consumer genetic ancestry testing is a thriving business, and is generating a great deal of public interest in genealogy, genomics, and human microevolution. Its status as science is not in doubt, yet it has properties that are unusual for science: its products are narratives about ancestry, and there is room to reject the purchased narrative on epistemological grounds if you don’t like it. This is clearly not science like evolution, heliocentrism, vaccinations, and anthropogenic climate change. That something as seemingly natural as relatedness could in fact vary widely among peoples, based on ideas that may defy genetic relationships, was one of the earliest discoveries of anthropology. Today we can see genetic ancestry testing as a cultural site for contrasting ideas and assumptions about descent, the nature of human groups, and the role of science in modern life.

Reservations

Tickets are free but limited—online reservations are required.
Please join the Distinctive Voices e-mail list to receive announcements when reservations open 1 week prior to each event.