One of the things I enjoyed this year was this interview with Rasmus Bitsch where Tessa (@tessamuldvarp.bsky.social) and I discuss the work we have been doing mapping the history of racial classification in South Africa. You can listen to this interview here: podcasts.apple.com/za/podcast/a...

📣 Our second call for abstracts for our special issue is out! 🙌 If you work on the intersection of human microbiomes, ethics and society in Africa, this call is for you! Check it out there: sajs.co.za/call-human-d... If not, you can still spread the message widely! #histbio #philbio🐋🌱

Last night I had the honour of being inducted into the South African Young Academy of Science.

Today was a good start to our second week at the Berlin Institute for Advanced Study where Jonatan (the PI of our project) presented on the questions that have brought us together. The Q&A that we all participated in was quite interesting, too.

Here I was talking about the consequences of the changes in classifications (and who was labelled as belonging in them) for conceptualising biological studies. Our discussion focused on the use of such classifications in microbiome research.

I’m looking forward to this conference by the Azanian Philosophical Society that will be hosted at Fort Hare this week. See the full conference programme at the bottom of this page: www.theaps.org/conference-a...

We are also pleased to announce that our special issue for this event will be published by the South African Journal of Science.

Save the date! Interdisciplinary Workshop: The Human Diversity Dilemma: Navigating the Intersection of Microbiomes, Ethics, and Society in Africa #hpbio #histbio #philbio 🌱🐋 Check the Call for Abstracts for our special issue on our website: perspectivesrace.wixsite.com/the-human-di...

Here is an infographic that Tessa Moll (@tessamuldvarp.bsky.social) and I made about the development of racial classifications in South Africa from 1652 to the present. A paper explaining its content is in the works. For now, feel free to download the infographic here: dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.f...

New today: Iyer et al., "African Genetic Ancestry, Structural and Social Determinants of Health, and Mortality in Black Adults," jamanetwork.com/journals/jam.... Tl;dr: It's the 2nd (social determinants) that most effect the 3rd (mortality), not the 1st (genetic ancestry). Yet look where funding is!

"...for protests to succeed, they must be backed by movements with the ability to promise to withhold—labor, debt payments, rent payments, or consumer support—and to follow through if demands aren’t met." Glad to have gotten the opportunity to push this line in Time time.com/collections/...

I enjoyed giving this presentation and the discussion that followed. I am thankful for the ROTO Research Group for having me.

Great lineup including our favorite philosophers Aline Potiron www.uu.nl/staff/AIPoti... and Phila Msimang @msimang.bsky.social. Don't miss these talks! #hpb 🐋🦠

Here is a new blog post from our collaborative work in the CAT (Constructive Advanced Thinking) group on the history and ethics of the use and management of human remains.

A sunny day out and about in Stellenbosch

Trump has sanctioned SA on the basis of misinformation produced and distributed by organisations like Afriforum (who went on a roadshow in the US spreading the myth of White genocide) and the SAIRR who misrepresent issues of race & policy in SA (e.g., see here: www.researchgate.net/publication/...).

Lawyers are lobbying for the premature adoption of heritable human genome editing in South Africa. In this blog post, I describe the situation and why this should concern us all. The risks are not limited to South Africans but extend to humanity as a whole. #BioSecurity #HHGE #HealthPolicy

Had a great Gender, Race, & Science class today discussing @msimang.bsky.social's article "Prescribing Race: No Blank Scripts for Using Race & Ethnicity in Health" www.argumenta.org/wp-content/u... #philsci #MedSky #hpbio

I decided to go ahead and make a starter pack of historians, scientists, and others who work on scientific racism. If you’d like to be added to the pack (or removed from it), let me know. go.bsky.app/E9PN3oG

We made another thing! Here is a pretty great 'HPS Starter Pack' so you too can follow all the awesome history, philosophy and social studies of science (and #metasci #histSTM #philsci #philsky #hps #histsci 🧪) accounts on Bluesky. Please share widely #academicsky :)

SciSci starter packs! Adding a second starter pack here since we ran out of capacity with the first one: go.bsky.app/NeZvnb5 The first one can be found here: go.bsky.app/2R1E4TD Please nominate or self-nominate with an example work. Please share! #AcademicSky #SciSci #SciPol #metascience

Gentle bits of snow in Freiburg ❄️

We are giving our first presentation about this project today.

If this interpretation of the new national guidelines is correct, this should be much bigger news than it is. We seem to be inviting a trouble that we are not ready for in respect to heritable human genome editing 🧬 theconversation.com/south-africa...

Your paper "Prescribing Race: No Blank Scripts for Using Race & Ethnicity in Health" gives a great philosophical overview of many of the issues! #philsci #bioethics www.argumenta.org/wp-content/u...

The NASEM have just released their report on the use of race in biomedical research. I look forward to seeing how they have approached this challenge because it is a central concern in some of my own research. See the report (and other resources) here: nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/2791...

We’re extending the deadline for our special collection on scientific racism to 31 August 2025. This is an important topic & we want to give more researchers the opportunity to contribute, & those committed more time to produce considered work. Manuscripts will be published online once accepted

Greetings everyone! I am a philosopher that primarily works on the philosophy of race and its intersections with the sciences and social issues. I have interests in the philosophy of science (esp. biology), African philosophy, and epistemology. It would be great to connect with you. I am new here.