I find this NYT essay on genetics and race really troubling—it muddies the waters on what we know in a really ominous way. (Thread.) nytimes.com/2018/03/23/opi…
Its seeming premise is that recent scientific advances support the idea that biological differences between human races are real and significant, but it provides not a single example of such a finding.
Reich offers copious examples of genetic differences between localized human populations, but those aren't evidence of differences between races. In fact, most of his examples are of differences WITHIN racial groups.
Reich wrings his hands about "well-meaning people who deny the possibility of substantial biological differences among human populations." But who is he talking about? He gives no examples. Certainly no prominent critic of "race science" takes such a position.
Tay-Sachs was described as occurring primarily in Ashkenazi Jewish families in the 1880s. Sickle cell was identified with the US black population by the early 1900s.
So the question isn't whether human populations can differ genetically—we know that they can, and do—but whether race is an axis on which such variation occurs. THAT is the crucial issue at hand.
And does Reich provide any evidence for the idea that genetic differences between human populations can accurately be described as racial differences? No. He does not.
To the extent that Reich has an actual scientific argument, it's this: If Trait X is disproportionately common in Group Y, and Group Y is disproportionately represented in "Race" Z, then Trait X may be more common in "Race" Z than in other "races."
This is, as a matter of logic, obvious. It's also utterly uncontroversial. Public health policy, for instance, relies heavily on such formulations. BUT IT IS NOT A CLAIM ABOUT GENETIC DIFFERENCES BETWEEN RACES.
Reich claims to be worried that we will discover that certain population groups differ in cognitive abilities, that racists will pounce on such findings, and that we, as a society, are unprepared for such a situation. But his "solution" is utterly wrongheaded.
Here's a thing Reich could say, but doesn't: "Races are non-scientific categories that don't describe genetically homogenous communities. Knowing someone has been identified as a member of a certain race tells you literally nothing about their genetic makeup."
Another thing Reich could say, but doesn't: "We know that the population of every region of the world is immensely genetically diverse. The likelihood of discovering a genetic trait linked to cognition that is predominant in one race and absent in another is essentially nil."
Another thing he could say but doesn't: "Even traits that are statistically correlated with race are not racial traits. Sylvester Stallone is at higher demographic risk for sickle cell than Nelson Mandela was, since sickle cell is more common in Sicily than southern Africa."
Reich expresses the fear that if we learn that certain human populations have genetically-grounded differences in cognitive ability, racists will pounce on such findings as support for their views. So why is he unwilling to say that such a reading is flatly wrong?
It's telling that Reich's proposal is that we treat race more like gender—a category that he describes as having a straightforward genetic basis, a clear dividing line between groups, and "profound" biological significance.
Set aside the obvious criticisms that could be leveled at this understanding of gender. None of these characteristics—none of them—are true of race.
The suggestion that we could accurately say "black people and white people are genetically different, like men and women are, but less dramatically" is absurd. The claim that such an approach would be an appropriate antiracist strategy is mind-boggling.
A little more about sickle cell, since it comes up every time I talk about this. "Genetically, black people are predisposed to sickle cell" is a false statement, since many populations we identify as "black" have no such predisposition.
"Statistically, black people are more likely than white people to have sickle cell" may be true or false depending on the population under consideration and the sociocultural definition of "white" and "black" that's being invoked.
Americans whose last name ends in the letter O are (I strongly suspect) more likely than Americans whose last name ends in the letter Z to have sickle cell, but we wouldn't call sickle cell a name-linked trait because we understand that names are social constructs.
What's galling about all this is that it's coming from someone who presents himself as an opponent of the current fad for scientific racism, and who calls out several important figures in that tendency by name.
His approach is "THESE racists are bad and wrong, but ultimately we need to go where the science leads us, even if we don't like what we find."
But the problem with "go where the science leads us" isn't the science. I'm not afraid of the science. It's the framing.
That study he talks about, the one that looked at a genetic link to educational advancement in Europeans? The effects it found were miniscule.
The most powerful genetic determinant of educational advancement found in the study accounted for 0.035% of the difference in educational attainment between those who had it and those who didn't.
You probably didn't hear about that study, because (1) its real-world implications are essentially nil, and (2) it doesn't reinforce any pre-existing narratives about human populations and genetics.
Now imagine if the same study had found a similar magnitude of difference, but one of the negative genetic markers was more common in Polish people than in the study's full sample?
There would have been a solid week's worth of Polish jokes on social media, a bunch of articles explaining why the study didn't mean Eastern Europeans were stupid, and an endless stream of op-eds debating what this meant for the study of race and intelligence.
The science would have been the same. (Presumably some of these markers varied in frequency according to national origin.) Only the framing would have been different. And the framing would have been a gift from the gods for know-nothing racists.
And Reich's own framing was just such a gift. He referred to it as a "line [that] has already been crossed," whether we "like it or not." He didn't mention the size of the effect. He also didn't mention that some of the genes studied are associated with genetic disorders.
He did, however, find space to suggest that the effect might have been due to delayed childbearing, because of course "the wrong people having too many babies" fits the narrative in a way that "people with disabilities might drop out of school" doesn't.
Was it his intention to reinforce such stigma and stereotypes? I'd be shocked if it was. But did he?
This stuff legitimately scares me. Not the data—the data isn't a big deal. What scares me is the way that scientific racism is being normalized even by those who claim to oppose it.
Trump is a taboo-breaking figure, and we're in a taboo-breaking historical moment. These folks are coming out of the sewers, and what we've seen so far is just the first wave. It's going to get a lot worse.
I don't actually care about the relationship between genes and intelligence. I don't find it intellectually interesting and the research isn't relevant to my politics, my work, or my hobbies. But I've been studying up. Because it's going to get a lot worse.
Oh, one last thing: I'm not a scientist. If any of y'all who are actual scientists notice that I'm getting any of the particulars wrong when I'm talking about this stuff, I would be very much grateful to hear about it, privately or publicly.
