Justin’s Notes
The orthodoxy maintains that the average genetic differences among people grouped according to today’s racial terms are so trivial when it comes to any meaningful biological traits that those differences can be ignored. The orthodoxy goes further, holding that we should be anxious about any research into genetic differences among populations. The concern is that such research, no matter how well-intentioned, is located on a slippery slope that leads to the kinds of pseudoscientific arguments about biological difference that were used in the past to try to justify the slave trade, the eugenics movement and the Nazis’ murder of six million Jews. I have deep sympathy for the concern that genetic discoveries could be misused to justify racism. But as a geneticist I also know that it is simply no longer possible to ignore average genetic differences among “races.”
— David Reich How Genetics Is Changing Our Understanding of 'Race'

Filed under

Forbidden InquiryHeritability of IntelligencePolitics Shaping ScienceThe Biological Reality of Race

Topics

David ReichEugenicsPopulation Genetics

Pollinations citing this note