there is no question that individual human beings are different one from the other our eyes confirm this day in and day out skin color, body shape, hair form, eye shape. For several hundred years we have used these visual differences to classify people into four of five groups we call races. We have a notion of race as being divisions among people that are deep that are essential that are somehow biological or even genetic and that are unchanging that these are clear-cut distinct categories of people and the beauty of the race businesses that you can identify people by just looking at them You don't even have to look at their genes, because one manifestation of their genes is there namely skin color, or eye shape or hair shape and then that's the key to everything The idea of Race assumes that simple external differences, rooted in biology, are linked to other more complex internal differences like athletic ability, musical aptitude intelligence This belief is based on the idea that race is biologically real "All of our genetics now is telling us that that's not the case we can't find any genetic markers that are in everybody of a particular race and in nobody of some other race we can't find any genetic markers that define race..." "..and actually what we're going to generate are billions of copies of a little section of your genetic code" These students are gathering for a DNA workshop led by Cold Spring Harbor labs teacher Scott Bronson Marcus, Gorgeous Jackie, Noah, Hannah Jamil and their fellow students are about to explore the biology of human variation. ",,,but there's another time in DNA... Does anyone know what that DNA is?" "Mitochondrial?" "Mitochondrial DNA, very good" They will compare their skin colors "...they're not human colors" They will type their blood, and they will swab cells from inside their mouths to extract a small portion of their own DNA. Once the sample is ready they will compare some of their genetic similarities and differences. "...We're going to look at a very tiny section of this ring." The students begin the workshop with the same assumptions most of us have. "...as you begin to look at the data, you might want to keep in your mind who you think you might be most similar to and who you think you might be most different too." "I think I probably have the most similarities with Mister Bronson, or with Kyrol because we are white males. Both Kyrol and both Scott Bronson and I" "I think I'd have the most differences with Kyrol and the most similarities with Gorgeous, She's African America, I'm African American. I mean, like Black." "I think maybe me and Natalia are mostly alike." "She's Latin American and I'm Latin American. I figure that there'd be tons of differences especially with people who look so different." To understand why the idea of Race is a biological myth requires a major paradigm shift. An absolute paradigm shift. A shift in perspective And for me it's like seeing what it must have been like to understand that the world isn't flat. and perhaps I can invite you to a mountain top and you can look out the window and at the horizon and see, Oh what I thought found was flat I can see a curve in now. that the world is much more complicated In fact that Race is not based on biology But Race is rather an idea that we ascribe to biology ok