American Scientist

To the Editors:

In the article “People Are Not Peas” (Perspective, January–February), author Elaine Guevara discussed Richard Lewontin’s work on human diversity. Lewontin’s flawed interpretation of sparse genetic data has been highlighted in numerous publications. In one refutation, University of Cambridge Emeritus Professor of Biometry A. W. F. Edwards concluded his 2003 article in BioEssays with a sentence as prescient as it is humane: “But it is a dangerous mistake to premise the moral equality of human beings on biological similarity because dissimilarity, once revealed, then becomes an argument for moral inequality.”

All humans exhibit empathy, inner dialogue, a sense of reciprocity, dread interwoven with hope, and on and on. Thus, we are bound by an ethic of equality. Where, one might ask, would Dr. Guevara draw the line on the number of genetic differences that would invalidate such equality? And what of the 15 percent of differentiating variants that Lewontin found? Are these differences enough to serve as grounds for discrimination?

That these researchers come to such varying conclusions shows genetics, as a subject, can be extremely challenging. High school students already have thousands of important things to learn. If racism is a concern— and it should be—then the ethic of equality, informed by a multicultural emphasis, is a more accessible and efficient lesson.

Justin Vaughn

Dr. Guevara responds:

Dr. Vaughn raises several thoughtful points that warrant addressing. Edwards argued that although Lewontin’s analysis was methodologically sound, his conclusion about race was a “fallacy” because individuals can still be clustered using minor allele frequency differences. Indeed, statistical methods such as those used in the genetics software Structure can assign individuals regional classifications using sufficiently numerous genetic polymorphisms, at least when geographic sampling is discontinuous.

But most human population geneticists do not view Structure analyses as validating racial classification. As biologist Rasmus Nielsen at the University of California, Berkeley, noted in a 2021 book chapter: “The discrete categories used in these inferences are an assumption of the model and not an inference from the data. In reality, human genetic variation is not easily apportioned into discrete categories.” Besides, these models typically deviate from traditional continental racial classifications.

D. J. Witherspoon and colleagues in a 2007 article in Genetics addressed in detail questions such as “How can the observations of accurate classifiability be reconciled with high between-population similarities among individuals?”— as have other researchers. Regardless, I agree with Dr. Vaughn that genetics can be extremely challenging and that instilling an ethic of equality in students is also meritorious. Genetics concepts nevertheless appear to greatly influence people’s views, which underscores the need to bring teaching more in line with modern understandings of genetic variation and the complexity of the relationship between genotype and most phenotypes. Plus, genetics literacy is not only valuable in combating racism, as biologist and educator Brian Donovan and others have demonstrated. It is necessary to prepare students for 21st century life. For example, genetic literacy equips them to make sense of complicated genetic associations with health.

To the Editors:

I read “The Science of Hi-Fi Audio” by John Beerends and Richard Van Everdingen (January–February). I’m a big fan of immersive audio; however, based on the article it appears that the authors and I have very different experiences with it.

What information or sources did the authors use to come to their conclusions? My own experience and knowledge in this area suggests different conclusions.

We should separate the recording, mixing, and producing part of audio creation from the consumer playback part of this conversation. It seems overly intertwined in the article. For example, 99 percent of recording and mixing engineers I talk to say the goal is never to recreate a live event exactly how it sounded because people don’t actually like those recordings. The final product is always vastly different from how it sounded, by design. I’d say less than 1 percent of all recordings are meant to capture the live event as it existed.

It’s a fool’s errand for a consumer seeking high-fidelity playback to expect the immersion of a live event if what’s on the recording isn’t meant to deliver such an experience. The goal of high-fidelity in my experience has always been to reproduce what’s on the recording transparently. High fidelity to the source material (CD, download, stream, etc.) is all that consumers can expect, given that they have no idea what the engineers and producers had in mind when creating the recording. Consumers have to assume what’s on the recording is how it’s supposed to sound.

Chris Connaker

Dr. Beerends responds:

As explained in the article, we all have personal experiences and only some of them generalize to shared experiences. However, I agree that the statement “The goal of high-fidelity audio is to capture the feeling of a live musical event” is too strong; it slipped through in the editing process (sorry for that). The essence of the article is that the only shared accepted hi-fi goal is indeed to reproduce what’s on the recording transparently, which comes in two flavors, “here and now” and “there and then,” when dealing with the natural reproduction of live recordings. The statement should therefore more accurately be: “One of the goals of high-fidelity audio is to capture the feeling of a live musical event.”

The statement “For recording live music, we strive to capture an immersive feeling similar to the experience of the original event” is a personal opinion, but it is backed up my studies, many of which were cited in my original draft text (available on my website, beesikk.nl/JohnBeerends.htm).

A final remark for all hi-fi fans: The proof of the pudding is in the eating, so please try the proposed setup in your own home environment. I would love to hear about your results (johnbeerends at hotmail dot com).