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Comment by speedgoose | Hacker News Reader

Dear authors, if you are reading this message please consider not using the word race.

> Modern scholarship regards race as a social construct, an identity which is assigned based on rules made by society. While partially based on physical similarities within groups, race does not have an inherent physical or biological meaning.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_%28human_categorization%2...

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"Race" already had a meaning before these "modern scholars" tried to redefine it. If you want to describe ethereal or nonexistent things with some word, go ahead and create your own word.

So what word should they use instead?

If you replace one word by another with the same meaning, you don't fix the problem : the concept of human races. You can read the Wikipedia article and its many sources if you want to know more on the topic.

Thank you. This odd rash of race primacy in the zeitgeist is getting me down. "... by the content of their character.." people, come on.

If indeed the vaccine may be less effective for certain populations then name them and leave the vagaries of race baiting to the tabloids.

If it's a social construct, then it can't have a biological impact on the efficacy of a vaccine.

You see the paradox?

Why not? Money is a social contruct, but dollars to donuts, populations with less of it will have lower vaccine efficacy.

You're right. That would be a counter-example because of non-biological second-order effects.

But in this context, we're talking about first-order biological effects that aren't accounted for because of race. If race doesn't have biological underpinnings then the larger argument is meaningless.

it does if that's the context in which bias is introduced to the medical studies designing these vaccines

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