And it may not be how you think.
From the lengthy New York Times Op-Ed piece (for the post-literate TL;DR era crowd) from Harvard geneticist David Reich, full details in the hyperlink below. Anyone who studies or works in human genetics, molecular biology or bio-chemistry has known this but it's a rather controversial and emotive subject to speak about publicly even on a scientific level. It's a fact that any two humans are 99.9% genetically identical, but that's kind of misleading in a way considering the 0.1% accounts for some three million differences across the genome with 20,000 of them being protein coding genes.
It's rather easy to see why a prolific evolutionary biologist like Jerry Coyne opts to use the term 'ethnic groups' when he writes about "race" even though it's yet another relative social construct which doesn't quite match, but at least with that there actually are loose associations to be made such as with Y-DNA haplogroups and specific SNP's although it's by no means some kind of rule. Every country in Europe has several prominent groups within its own population, but at the same time you could look at me and guess (accurately) that I'm not O-M175, for instance.
How Genetics Is Changing Our Understanding Of 'Race'
(Excerpt)
In this way, a consensus was established that among human populations there are no differences large enough to support the concept of “biological race.” Instead, it was argued, race is a “social construct,” a way of categorizing people that changes over time and across countries. It is true that race is a social construct. It is also true, as Dr. Lewontin wrote, that human populations “are remarkably similar to each other” from a genetic point of view.
But over the years this consensus has morphed, seemingly without questioning, into an orthodoxy. 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.
As a geneticist I also know that it is simply no longer possible to ignore average genetic differences among “races.”
Groundbreaking advances in DNA sequencing technology have been made over the last two decades. These advances enable us to measure with exquisite accuracy what fraction of an individual’s genetic ancestry traces back to, say, West Africa 500 years ago - before the mixing in the Americas of the West African and European gene pools that were almost completely isolated for the last 70,000 years. With the help of these tools, we are learning that while race may be a social construct, differences in genetic ancestry that happen to correlate to many of today’s racial constructs are real.
Recent genetic studies have demonstrated differences across populations not just in the genetic determinants of simple traits such as skin color, but also in more complex traits like bodily dimensions and susceptibility to diseases. For example, we now know that genetic factors help explain why northern Europeans are taller on average than southern Europeans, why multiple sclerosis is more common in European-Americans than in African-Americans, and why the reverse is true for end-stage kidney disease.
I am worried that well-meaning people who deny the possibility of substantial biological differences among human populations are digging themselves into an indefensible position, one that will not survive the onslaught of science. I am also worried that whatever discoveries are made - and we truly have no idea yet what they will be - will be cited as “scientific proof” that racist prejudices and agendas have been correct all along, and that those well-meaning people will not understand the science well enough to push back against these claims.
This is why it is important, even urgent, that we develop a candid and scientifically up-to-date way of discussing any such differences, instead of sticking our heads in the sand and being caught unprepared when they are found.
Mod Note: This forum is not a platform for IQ/Biological racism, which is a violation of forum guidelines. Discussing science is one thing, claiming that science supports racism is another. If you feel like you're crossing a line, you probably are. Don't post it.
