It has been a popular defense of the genetic egalitarians/anti-nurturing group to discard “scientifically” the concept of race. What they do is set up a straw man (“Define race genetically”) and then jump to the assumption that if this cannot be done, then there isn’t any point in saying one “race” has an average under- or over-performance than another based in part on genes.
This strategy is effective, but completely misses the point.
If we allow people to completely and arbitrarily self-identify, we still find that the groups with which they self identify have–on average–different prevalences for various well-defined genes. In general, these gene prevalences will reflect ancestral pools from that SIRE group. In short, whether or not there is such a thing as genetic definition for “black” or “white,” I can say with complete scientific authority that the group self-identified as “black” in the USA has, on average, darker skin and a higher prevalence of Hemoglobin S. The “white” population, on average, has lower testosterone in its male population, along with lower levels of creatine phosphokinase. And on and on the list goes, all broadly accepted and all completely independent of whether the SIRE group of “black” is otherwise internally related to one another, otherwise has more variation or should be considered a genetic grouping.
Despite genetic flow among populations, despite any arguments about genetic markers for “a” race, and despite protestations from the Religion of Genetic Equality, there is absolutely no getting around a simple truth: Different SIRE groups have access to different gene pools, on average.
Now the question then becomes whether the default (not the “null”) hypothesis should be that these gene prevalences can drive phenotypic expressions beyond simple physiology. Can they drive aggression? Can they drive intelligence?
I think the default assumption is that they can and they do. I see examples of genes in any given individual driving those sorts of things, and so I think its reasonable that two different groups with different prevalences for genesets would have different genetically-underpinned average performances.
Real life confirms that default assumption on two grounds for me. First is the consistency of the pattern across cultures and political systems, and second is the refractoriness of the pattern to all efforts at eliminating nurturing variables.
I agree with the complaint about “race” as a category. If, for example, there are 7 subpopulations within the “race” of “black,” and one of those populations is so outstanding at power sprinting that the whole category of “black” has its average lifted up even though most of them are marginal power sprinters, what is accomplished by talking about the “black” power sprinting superiority?
But this is NOT the discussion we are having. This debate is about whether or not a SIRE population can have its average affected by genes as well as nurture. And if a SIRE group can be shown to have different genetic prevalences than the next SIRE group over, then of course those different gene prevalences can be a factor, and of course it is not “insane” to think they might be.
I would be tickled to eliminate “race.” In my own social circles it is rendered irrelevant, since in my circles we tend to group by profession or social class and nobody gives a crap about genetic ancestry or SIRE group. But as I mentioned earlier, there is a cost to discarding SIRE categories, and the cost is that it becomes vastly more difficult to drive a societal structure in which every group has a shot at the pie. Since our average genetic differences also drive average appearance differences, there is a natural social grouping attached to SIRE groups. If we refuse to recognize SIRE groups, we cannot stamp out appearance-based discrimination where we do find it, and we cannot give a helping hand up to groups that would otherwise be markedly under-represented. That may not matter in the NBA, but I think it does matter in professional and business circles, and it matters even in the ordinary job market. We see this play out over and over again, from Regents of U of C v Bakke, to Ricci v DeStefano.
We should stop this ridiculous charade that pretends “race” has nothing to do with gene prevalences or that our groups showed up on the planet 5,000 years ago and forgot to evolve.