More attempts by scientific community to speciate a "Mormon race"

So, I like Discover magazine.

I like science.  I'm not religious, although I grew up that way. 

But, I think it's interesting the subtle ways that some of them still fall prey to a kind of snarky racism, a la Social Darwinism or eugenics.  I may be overstating my case a little bit, but.....

I suppose if I'm honest, I just viscerally disliked being thrown into a category when I first took this genetic test.  (The whole "CEU" thing.)  I didn't choose to be born Mormon, even though Mormons think I did.  (A Pre-existence condition.... inside joke, possibly influenced by current news.)

I had to make peace with the idea that I was genetically part of a group.  I also liked the genetic test for the ability to deconstruct that identity into its component parts, to better understand myself and my environment.  And now that I've been made into an ethnicity (let's go all the way, and call it a race), I can be actively offended at racial slurs that stereotype me according to my presumed background and presumed beliefs. (tee hee)

And just now, as I am looking at Discover magazine, and I am a little appalled at the way they talk about Mormons.  Do a search term for "Mormon" on their website.  It appears that since Mormons are the least favorite group of mainstream Christians, they are ripe for a flogging from the snarky bloggers who verbally strut their stream of consciousness over yonder.

I'm just not sure how an article with a title like this, especially in a blog called "Gene Expression," would get past a thoughtful editor:  Is Mormonism relatively weird or absolutely weird???

Two years later, the author appears to have a change of heart, or more like he feels some social pressure to not be so, um, xenophobic -- Mormonism isn't that weird  he lets us know, as he has crowned himself Decider of the Weird.  Interesting, since my Super Scientific Face Peering Technology has alerted me to the fact that in the US, he is a genetic outlier.   (That's what the scientists call oddballs, and I've seen a few comments on 23andme boards where some of them are happy that they aren't THAT....)







Then we have this one -- What does a generic Mormon look like? The answer probably won't surprise you.

So, I am trying to figure out just why I am offended by this.  It's kind of funny.  I think we all do it. My husband and I claim to have Mo-Dar -- the analog to gaydar, where you just kind of know when a person is Mormon.  "It's just that special spirit."  

I think it goes back to being pigeonholed. 

 No one has mistaken me for a Mormon recently, so it isn't that.

 I think you have to be actively living the lifestyle to give off the aura.  It could be the "eternal smile" of special underwear peering through one's shirt that really lets people know.  The lowdown from the urban mythology in Discover appears to be that Mormons are more shiny or something because of their intense spirituality....

"Perceptions of health were also responsible for differences in perceived spirituality, explaining folk hypotheses that Mormons are distinct because they appear more spiritual than non-Mormons."

Yes, they misspelled "Background".  And what the !@#$ is an "ecologically important group distinction"?  By face peering (it's like Joseph Smith and his peepstones, yo), you are saving the environment...?  I guess the "ROFL" is a clue that this is done at least partly in jest.

For some reason, the face in H reminds me of the Nauvoo Temple sunstone.  It's probably the focus on the face....