# At what level is racialism accepted in the scientific community? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 10, 2014, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-level-is-racialism-accepted-in-the-scientific-community/695257 "2014-08-10T18:55:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2014, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-level-is-racialism-accepted-in-the-scientific-community/695257/161 "2014-08-17T03:10:37Z")
[Here is a better link to the above article on ACE and ACTN3 genes](http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0054685) ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2014, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-level-is-racialism-accepted-in-the-scientific-community/695257/162 "2014-08-17T03:23:39Z")
GIGObuster, if you are looking for a simplified blog and want one on the non-egalitarian side, start with [Jon Entine’s comments in the Daily Beast.](http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/08/11/what-makes-a-great-olympian-sometimes-it-s-genetics.html) One of the more memorable quotes: _As UCLA’s Jared Diamond has noted, “Even today, few scientists dare to study racial origins, lest they be branded racists just for being interested in the subject.”_ ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2014, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-level-is-racialism-accepted-in-the-scientific-community/695257/163 "2014-08-17T03:27:43Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > The evidence is clear that you miss the point. > > IOTW, it is more important to you to deny that experts are the ones that are being pointed out, and the pondering of ones that are not experts are just opinions. Opinions that are as valid as anyone. It is also noticed that instead of dealing with the flaws of the surveys or what the proper experts from the OP are telling us it is more important for you to play the ad hominen card. > > My area of expertise is in the areas of information technology and social studies, with history as a big component. What I have been learning here in the SDMB and in other places (and one should never stop learning BTW) is that it is not impossible to investigate what others did, to investigate the history of scientific racism and use logic to realize that people more clever than us investigated already what the proper experts are reporting. > > [IQ and race - The Skeptic's Dictionary - Skepdic.com](http://www.skepdic.com/iqrace.html) > Serious sceptical sites like that can lead us to recognize that **also** among the ones investigating pseudo-science report what the proper experts are telling us. Not what the opinions of the ones not investigating genes are. Okay, so no expertise then. Just as I thought. Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2014, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-level-is-racialism-accepted-in-the-scientific-community/695257/164 "2014-08-17T03:41:54Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > GIGObuster, if you are looking for a simplified blog and want one on the non-egalitarian side, start with [Jon Entine’s comments in the Daily Beast.](http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/08/11/what-makes-a-great-olympian-sometimes-it-s-genetics.html) > > One of the more memorable quotes: > > _As UCLA’s Jared Diamond has noted, “Even today, few scientists dare to study racial origins, lest they be branded racists just for being interested in the subject.”_ “Differences don’t necessarily correlate with skin color” ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2014, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-level-is-racialism-accepted-in-the-scientific-community/695257/165 "2014-08-17T03:43:25Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > Okay, so no expertise then. Just as I thought. Thanks. And of course you use that to not look at the evidence or what experts are telling us, I prefer to rely on them than rather rely on sources like V-DARE or the scientific racists. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2014, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-level-is-racialism-accepted-in-the-scientific-community/695257/166 "2014-08-17T04:00:53Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > [Here is a better link to the above article on ACE and ACTN3 genes](http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0054685) As pointed before, not what I’m discussing, I already granted that there can be a genetic influence on the difference of physical performance, but the evidence is still not a very conclusive one and it remains underwhelming regarding the differences of intelligence between the races. > [@](#): > > There are some limitations of this systematic review that should be kept in mind. First, the potential confounding effect of performance level was not considered in present study because of the different criterions of elite athletes. > > Second, because not all necessary information could be obtained from all included studies, more detailed sub-analysis was limited. For example, the crude division of ethnics groups into ‘Asian’, ‘African’ and ‘Western’ may make the analyses be prone to bias. Therefore, further studies from different populations are warranted to verify the current findings. > > Third, only articles provided data on both athletes and sedentary controls were included in this present study, which might introduce potential selection bias. > > Fourth, although studies reporting negative genetic association are less likely to be published than others showing ‘statistical significance’ (‘positive results’), no evident publication bias was observed in our present analyses (p\>0.05). > > Finally, due to the variety of definition of endurance/power events and some studies reported data of mixed sport disciplines, phenotypic heterogeneity cannot be excluded. ---
**Author:** ![Belowjob2.0](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Belowjob2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Belowjob2.0)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2014, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-level-is-racialism-accepted-in-the-scientific-community/695257/167 "2014-08-17T15:44:57Z")
> [@](#): > > One of the more memorable quotes: > > As UCLA’s Jared Diamond has noted, “Even today, few scientists dare to study racial origins, lest they be branded racists just for being interested in the subject.” Apparently, Tishkoff and the other Penn scientists are fearless then: > **[03\_Tishkoff.pdf](https://www.genome.gov/Multimedia/Slides/HGP10Symposium/03_Tishkoff.pdf)** > > 25.60 MB ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2014, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-level-is-racialism-accepted-in-the-scientific-community/695257/168 "2014-08-17T18:58:02Z")
> [@Belowjob2.0](#): > > Apparently, Tishkoff and the other Penn scientists are fearless then: > > [https://www.genome.gov/Multimedia/Slides/HGP10Symposium/03\_Tishkoff.pdf](https://www.genome.gov/Multimedia/Slides/HGP10Symposium/03_Tishkoff.pdf) I’m not sure your linked presentation really gets at the issue, but there is some silly stuff in there, including the implication idea that (all) unrelated humans differ by 1 in a 1,000 base pairs. First, it’s not the number of base pairs that makes a difference; it’s what the genes are coding for. For example, on average a single base pair substituting C for T in HMGA2 is thought to make an average difference of 2% in brain capacity and IQ psychometrics. That’s an incredible amount of difference for a single base. So the wordsmithing which implies that how much we differ by groups is somehow related to the quanitity of genes which differ is really quite silly. Second, I don’t get these numbers. For example, in a study by Eric Wang using genes from self identified Han, black and european groups, 1800 genes were shown to (probably) have been positively selected for. From the cite: _“These results were confirmed on an independently generated data set of 1.0 million SNP genotypes (International Human Haplotype Map Phase I freeze). Simulation studies indicate that the LDD test, at the megabase scale used, effectively distinguishes selection from other causes of extensive LD, such as inversions, population bottlenecks, and admixture. The ≈1,800 genes identified by the LDD test were clustered according to Gene Ontology (GO) categories. Based on overrepresentation analysis, several predominant biological themes are common in these selected alleles, including host–pathogen interactions, reproduction, DNA metabolism/cell cycle, protein metabolism, and neuronal function.”_ Third, where do we get the 1 in a1,000 from when it is commonly accepted that something like 1-4% (and perhaps more in some lines) of the gene pool for descendant lines from out-of-africa groups post L3-M-N split are introgressed from Neandertal and Denisovan archaic lineages? See more discussion [here](http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/abs/nature12961.html), _"Genomic studies have shown that Neanderthals interbred with modern humans, and that non-Africans today are the products of this mixture. "_ [here](http://www.sciencemag.org/content/343/6174/1017) , _“Anatomically modern humans overlapped and mated with Neandertals such that non-African humans inherit ~1 to 3% of their genomes from Neandertal ancestors. We identified Neandertal lineages that persist in the DNA of modern humans, in whole-genome sequences from 379 European and 286 East Asian individuals, recovering more than 15 gigabases of introgressed sequence that spans ~20% of the Neandertal genome (false discovery rate = 5%). Analyses of surviving archaic lineages suggest that there were fitness costs to hybridization, admixture occurred both before and after divergence of non-African modern humans, and Neandertals were a source of adaptive variation for loci involved in skin phenotypes. Our results provide a new avenue for paleogenomics studies, allowing substantial amounts of population-level DNA sequence information to be obtained from extinct groups, even in the absence of fossilized remains.”_ and [here,](http://www.plosgenetics.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pgen.1002947) among many articles on the topic. _“One of the key discoveries from the analysis of the Neandertal genome is that Neandertals share more genetic variants with non-Africans than with Africans. This observation is consistent with two hypotheses: interbreeding between Neandertals and modern humans after modern humans emerged out of Africa or population structure in the ancestors of Neandertals and modern humans… We estimate this date by measuring the extent of linkage disequilibrium (LD) in the genomes of present-day Europeans and find that the last gene flow from Neandertals into Europeans likely occurred 37,000–86,000 years before the present (BP), and most likely 47,000–65,000 years ago. This supports the recent interbreeding hypothesis and suggests that interbreeding occurred when modern humans carrying Upper Paleolithic technologies encountered Neandertals as they expanded out of Africa.”_ So what’s with this commonly-cited crap that tries to pretend the current thinking is we are all from about the same gene pool? Those Neandertal and Denisovan archaic lines introduce brand new genes into descendant non-african lines which are not nearly as broadly distributed into sub-saharan populations as they are to eurasian populations. ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2014, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-level-is-racialism-accepted-in-the-scientific-community/695257/169 "2014-08-17T20:08:09Z")
[Another example of gene frequency difference among “races,”](http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2014/140401/ncomms4584/full/ncomms4584.html) \*"In agreement with previous observations, the genomes of contemporary humans of European and Asian descent showed greater similarities to the Neanderthal genome than did the genomes of the three populations of purely African descent… In Europeans, the concentrations of lipids within these seven metabolic categories linked with LCP were more diverged from chimpanzees than the concentrations of lipids in the other nine metabolic categories not linked with LCP (q\<0.0001; q value shows the proportion of the LCP divergence values that were smaller than, or equal to, the divergence values in other metabolic categories). By contrast, in contemporary Africans or Asians there were no differences between the concentration divergence of lipids associated with LCP and the lipids associated with other metabolic categories… Our results show that NLS—genetic variants shared between modern humans and Neanderthals, but distinct from chimpanzees—are specifically enriched in genes involved in lipid catabolism in contemporary humans of European descent… Signatures of recent positive selection associated with lipid catabolism genes containing NLS in contemporary Europeans further indicate that these genetic variants may have been swept to high frequency by positive selection. This notion presumes the presence of functional changes in the LCP associated with NLS ancestry. Our analysis of lipid concentration and enzyme expression levels in brain samples of chimpanzees and contemporary humans of African, East Asian and European decent supports this assumption. …our observations are compatible with both introgression and incomplete lineage sorting hypotheses explaining the excess of genetic variants shared between contemporary humans and Neanderthals in out-of-Africa populations. "\* (See my link above for an article looking at whether or not the cause of this gene pool difference is complex ancestral in-africa populations, or introgressions post-africa…either way, it’s an example of “race” specific gene frequency differences.) ---
**Author:** ![Belowjob2.0](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Belowjob2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Belowjob2.0)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2014, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-level-is-racialism-accepted-in-the-scientific-community/695257/170 "2014-08-17T21:17:59Z")
Personally, I’m going to assume the paper I linked to is a figment of my imagination. Scientists are far too afraid to study the subject matter. They might be branded as racist. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2014, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-level-is-racialism-accepted-in-the-scientific-community/695257/171 "2014-08-17T21:31:44Z")
They might be branded as racist… or they may make a killing branding themselves as ‘a rebel fighting the scientific orthodoxy’ and pandering to racist douchebags like John Derbyshire and Steve Sailer around the world. ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2014, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-level-is-racialism-accepted-in-the-scientific-community/695257/172 "2014-08-18T03:49:25Z")
> [@Belowjob2.0](#): > > Apparently, Tishkoff and the other Penn scientists are fearless then: > > [https://www.genome.gov/Multimedia/Slides/HGP10Symposium/03\_Tishkoff.pdf](https://www.genome.gov/Multimedia/Slides/HGP10Symposium/03_Tishkoff.pdf) > [@Belowjob2.0](#): > > Personally, I’m going to assume the paper I linked to is a figment of my imagination. Scientists are far too afraid to study the subject matter. They might be branded as racist. Was there a paper, or did you in fact create a “paper” as a figment of your imagination from what looks like some lecture slides about some fairly ordinary and non-controversial concepts? The only link I saw was a slide presentation with some general themes about how genes drive functions differently in different populations (and in this case, within african populations). The concluding slide mentions intra-african diversity, intra-frican genetic variation, and the importance of including ethnically diverse africans in genomic studies so that we can identify variant genes which have functional importance. I am not aware that such a position is considered particularly “fearless,” but I may have missed the paper you are referencing. ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2014, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-level-is-racialism-accepted-in-the-scientific-community/695257/173 "2014-08-18T03:58:34Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > As pointed before, not what I’m discussing, I already granted that there can be a genetic influence on the difference of physical performance, but the evidence is still not a very conclusive one and it remains underwhelming regarding the differences of intelligence between the races. I can’t ever quite figure out what it is you are discussing, and for that I apologize. But if the general contention is that “Different outcomes for physical performance at the self-identified race grouping level can be driven by an average difference in gene pools,” are you in agreement with that? If so, then we can move on to wondering why neurobiological function would be exempted where other functions (appearance; physiology; physical performance…) have not been exempted from evolutionary pressures… Would it be your contention that neurobiological function alone has been exempted by nature? ---
**Author:** ![Chuck11](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/96bed5/32.png) [@Chuck11](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chuck11)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2014, 5:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-level-is-racialism-accepted-in-the-scientific-community/695257/174 "2014-08-18T05:58:50Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > Just puffing regarding the experts cites, the ones that they based the survey where researchers for publications like Intelligence, Cognitive Psychology, Biological Psychology, Journal of Mathematical Psychology, Contemporary Educational Psychology, Journal of School-Psychology, New Ideas in Psychology, and Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology. This, of course, includes behavioral geneticists. We disagree in that, while I don’t, you feel that the Sara Tishkoff’s of the world have a better grasp of the issue than the Robert Plomins’. Would you at least agree that the issue has been more frequently and thoroughly discussed in the behavioral genetic/psychometric literature, starting with Galton, than in the population genetic? And that, therefore, behavioral geneticists /psychometricians would likely be more familiar with the totality of the evidence? > [@](#): > > As pointed before they are not really looking at the genetic evidence, nor citing it (it is a survey after all, no room for citations or links) What counts as “genetic evidence”. These are the types of genetically informed lines of evidence available: \*\*a. Biometric modeling \*\* Rowe, D. C., & Cleveland, H. H. (1996). Academic achievement in blacks and whites: are the developmental processes similar?. Intelligence, 23(3), 205-228. **b. Research correlating population level genetic similarity with population level IQ similarity** Rodriguez-Arana, A. (2010, September). Intelligence and the Wealth of Nations: Genetics Matter but there is Still Much Room to Reduce Inequalities preliminary. In DEGIT Conference Papers (No. c015\_038). DEGIT, Dynamics, Economic Growth, and International Trade. Rindermann, H., Woodley, M. A., & Stratford, J. (2012). Haplogroups as evolutionary markers of cognitive ability. Intelligence, 40(4), 362-375. Christainsen, G. B. (2013). IQ and the wealth of nations: How much reverse causality?. Intelligence, 41(5), 688-698. **c. Research looking at the association between ancestry and income, educational attainment, occupation** Florez, J. C., Price, A. L., Campbell, D., Riba, L., Parra, M. V., Yu, F., … & Reich, D. (2009). Strong association of socioeconomic status with genetic ancestry in Latinos: implications for admixture studies of type 2 diabetes. Diabetologia, 52(8), 1528-1536. \*\*d. Research looking at IQ/educational allelic frequencies \*\* Piffer, D. (2014). Simple Statistical Tools to Detect Signals of Recent Polygenic Selection. Interdisciplinary Bio Central, 6(1), 1. > [@](#): > > it has to be noticed that after so many years of pointing at this survey The survey results were only recently presented in a 2014 conference on intelligence. How could it have been pointed at for years? > [@](#): > > the pertinent research showing the genes involved in the differences in IQ between the races has not been identified. Only a few alleles have yet been identified which are reliably associated with IQ/educational attainment; and these more or less show the expected frequencies. > [@](#): > > Based on how the real experts are reacting to Wade and others one has to conclude that that the experts in measuring intelligence are **interpreting** the evidence that other experts are finding Uh, no. For one, those “real experts” merely claim that the “population genetic” evidence doesn’t “support” Wade’s speculations. (a) and (b), above, are psychometric and behavioral genetic. I would like to know why (c) and (d) wasn’t seen as “support”. I asked Jeryy Coyne but he didn’t care to reply. ---
**Author:** ![Chuck11](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/96bed5/32.png) [@Chuck11](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chuck11)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2014, 6:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-level-is-racialism-accepted-in-the-scientific-community/695257/175 "2014-08-18T06:15:10Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > Rather than relying on the idea that “experts” have done a general debunking that can then be extended to a more narrowly-framed contention, it would be useful to have a group of population geneticists, paleoanthropologists, and other such similar pursuits all get together and sign onto the following contention: > > _“It is highly unlikely that observed outcome differences among human groupings by continent of recent origin as determined by DNA microsatellite markers and relevant SNPs are related to gene variant frequency within gene pools created by those groupings.”_ > > This will not happen. When the next 50 IQ/education SNPs show the same regional pattern as the first dozen, what will they say? ---
**Author:** ![Chuck11](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/96bed5/32.png) [@Chuck11](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chuck11)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2014, 6:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-level-is-racialism-accepted-in-the-scientific-community/695257/176 "2014-08-18T06:25:31Z")
> [@watchwolf49](#): > > Wikipedia’s [article on subspecies](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subspecies) states that the Zoological community only recognizes this, and [race](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_%28biology%29) is an informal taxon. > > Racism is strictly social. In my experience, each of the “races” demonstrates financial responsibility is just about the exact same ratios. So as a capitalist, race doesn’t exist in my mind. Certain types of “_racism_” have a partial genetic basis; for example, there’s a genetic component to inter individual differences in own racial favoritism. . ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2014, 11:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-level-is-racialism-accepted-in-the-scientific-community/695257/177 "2014-08-18T11:38:39Z")
> [@Chuck11](#): > > When the next 50 IQ/education SNPs show the same regional pattern as the first dozen, what will they say? Scientists working in this field have a practical problem: The world is full of racist twits, and world history is full of deeply harmful violations against people who have been categorized by race. At the same time, the scientific data points toward disparate gene pools by population. Migration patterns have some substantial historical splits which have created broad genetic pool divisions marked enough such that descendant lines can be shown to have different gene frequencies. There is a further problem that, at one of these major migration anchor points, descendant lines were separated out which are have retained enough isolation such that modern social constructs of self-identified “race” retain measurable gene frequency differences among those races. Any two groupings with disparate gene pools is likely to have disparate average outcomes. Genes drive our maximum potentials; and they have a role in our development of culture or social organization. At the same time, the modern world is much more fluid from a migration perspective, and for the most part has embraced an effort to erase any effects of biological difference among source gene pools. From a social perspective, and wordsmithing perspective, what scientists will do is make sure to emphasize the hetereogeneity of humans, and draw conclusions as narrowly as possible. Whatever the effect is of genes will come out in the end anyway, unless we completely eliminate paleoanthropology and genetics as legitimate scientific fields. When Svante Pääbo published an article suggesting that eurasian, but (probably) not african descendant lines from 40 kya had introgression of archaic genes, that was an example of the scientific process winning the social wordsmithing. Here you had this scientifically interesting contention that the gene pool of eurasians included enough “new” genes to be represented at an average of 1-4% in modern populations who would identify within groupings that the scientific community was busy reassuring the public were simply “social constructs” without rigid biological boundaries or strict biological meaning. That paper was hard on the heels of the MCPH1 haplogroup D variant fiasco after which Bruce Hahn essentially switched research pursuits. Now it’s pretty common for scientific papers to talk about “african” and “non-african” genes (especially when the topic of Denisovan and Neandertal introgression comes up). The reason is that the facts are the facts, and they have a way of getting in the way of social reassurances. As a practical approach, most public-facing presentations use the general schema that Sarah Tishkoff uses in the link above: Start with a reminder of how we are all the same, and then go present your research showing how gene frequencies vary among populations, and why it’s important to pursue that genetic research. This is why position papers from experts, arguments about “scientific conspiracy theories to repress evidence,” and all of the rest of the careful public-facing wordsmithing become so silly. Science will win. The genome will unfold. Any gene frequency differences will be uncovered, and gene function will slowly be unraveled. It’s a much easier approach to simply point interested parties to the original research and let them make their own conclusions. For the scientific community, if that conclusion were currently “There are no average outcome differences among self-identified races that are driven by average differences in gene frequencies among those groups,” that conclusion would have been stated that bluntly a long time ago. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2014, 11:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-level-is-racialism-accepted-in-the-scientific-community/695257/178 "2014-08-18T11:49:27Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > Any two groupings with disparate gene pools is likely to have disparate average outcomes. You say this again and again, but why should we accept this? Even if there are some different outcomes for some different characteristic, why would _every single of the nigh-infinite human characteristics_ vary? Sense of humor? Musical talent? Knuckle wrinkliness? Sphincter strength? Tongue length? > [@](#): > > This is why position papers from experts, arguments about “scientific conspiracy theories to repress evidence,” and all of the rest of the careful public-facing wordsmithing become so silly. Science will win. The genome will unfold. Any gene frequency differences will be uncovered, and gene function will slowly be unraveled. Of course. So why are you so certain you’ve already won, when we have virtually no idea which genes are responsible for high and low intelligence, much less among which groups they are more prevalent? > [@](#): > > It’s a much easier approach to simply point interested parties to the original research and let them make their own conclusions. For the scientific community, if that conclusion were currently “There are no average outcome differences among self-identified races that are driven by average differences in gene frequencies among those groups,” that conclusion would have been stated that bluntly a long time ago. The consensus, as you well know, is that there is no good data that suggests (and therefore no good reason to believe) that black people have inferior genes for intelligence. ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2014, 12:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-level-is-racialism-accepted-in-the-scientific-community/695257/179 "2014-08-18T12:01:49Z")
[Here’s a YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/embed/eqLB8wyrE_A) skit on how social agreement, and not genetic differences, drove some of the racial disparity we see in sports today. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2014, 12:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-level-is-racialism-accepted-in-the-scientific-community/695257/180 "2014-08-18T12:09:11Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > Why would the field of neuroscience (most of which has little concern with any sort of genetics) have anything to say? [Here is one review](http://www.yale.edu/scan/GT_2004_NRN.pdf) looking at the genes associated with intelligence, along with some editorial comments on both the sensitivity as well as the ethical considerations of looking at the topic. It is, however, 10 years old so the field has progressed a lot since the data talked about here. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-level-is-racialism-accepted-in-the-scientific-community/695257.md?page=8) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-level-is-racialism-accepted-in-the-scientific-community/695257.md?page=10)