Although race is void of biological foundation, it has a profound social reality. All too apparent are disparities in health and welfare. Despite all the evidence indicating that “race” has no biological or evolutionary meaning, the biological-race concept continues to gain strength today in science and society, and it is reinforced by those who design and market DNA-based technologies. Race is used more and more in forensics, medicine and the genetic-ancestry business. Tattersall and DeSalle confront those industries head on and in no uncertain terms, arguing that “race-based medicine” and “raced-based genomics” are deeply flawed. ...Leftist-atheist-evolutionist Jerry Coyne replies:
Although biologists and cultural anthropologists long supposed that human races—genetically distinct populations within the same species—have a true existence in nature, many social scientists and geneticists maintain today that there simply is no valid biological basis for the concept. The consensus among Western researchers today is that human races are sociocultural constructs.
Well, if that’s the consensus, I am an outlier. I do think that human races exist in the sense that biologists apply the term to animals, ...Denying human racial differences is as silly as denying sex differences. It is apparent from the above that human racial differences exist and are significant, but they are too politically sensitive to discuss. Many leftist scientists would prefer that no one even researches those differences.
As we all know, there are morphologically different groups of people who live in different areas, though those differences are blurring due to recent innovations in transportation that have led to more admixture between human groups. ...
Further, one wouldn’t expect human “races” or ethnic groups to show substantial genetic differences—there hasn’t been enough time for those differences to accumulate given that most human groups arose since our migration out of Africa between 60,000 and 100,000 years ago. ...
Everyone wants to know, of course, if different races differ genetically in their abilities, especially intelligence. While I think there may be statistical differences among races in these things, it’s not as obvious that sexual (or natural) selection would operate as strongly on genes involving these traits as on superficial external characteristics. We just don’t know, and in the complete absence of data it is invidious to speculate on these things. It’s just as scientifically unsupported to say, for example, that there is no difference among populations in mathematical ability as it is to say that there are differences. In the absence of data, we must follow the apophatic theologians and remain silent. And, at any rate, any such differences cannot be used to justify racism given the tremendous variation we see in other genes between members of different populations.
One can argue whether it’s even justifiable to scientifically study things like differences in IQ between populations given the political ramifications of finding differences. I go back and forth on this ...
Update: Coyne adds DNA evidence about racial differences:
As I said, this doesn’t show that there are discrete “races” in Europe, and I don’t think there are obviously discrete “races” anywhere these days, though there is large-scale genetic differentiation among worldwide population suggesting that such races once existed as relatively discrete and geographically isolated populations. The discreteness that once existed, or so I think, is now blurring out as transportation and migration are beginning to mix the discrete groups into not a melting pot, but sort of a lumpy pudding of humanity.There are people of mixed race of course, but that does not invalidate the concept of race.
What is clear is that, with considerable accuracy, you can diagnose an individual’s geographic origin from his genes. Nearly everyone’s DNA contains reliable information about their recent and ancient past. We are not all genetically alike.
Another blog comments here.