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Race does not exist

Here is another example to illustrate that very point. A few years ago a multidisciplinary group of prominent scholars from Stanford University published an open letter in Genome Biology in which they proposed ten statements that should guide the use of racial and ethnic categories in research into human genetic varia- tion. Their fifth statement was: ‘‘We caution against making the naive leap to a genetic explanation for group differences in com- plex traits, especially for human behavioral traits such as IQ scores, tendency towards violence, and degree of athleticism’’ (Lee et al., 2008). The only argument given in support of that statement was the following: ‘‘Current evidence suggests that for most complex behavioral traits, contribution of any one gene to normal variation is small and these traits may be more fully explained by variation in environmental factors’’ (ibidem; italics added).

An attentive reader will easily spot the fallacy here, even with- out the help of my italicization. In the conflict between two rival explanations of psychological group differences—pure environ- mentalism vs. genetic explanation (which allows for some influ- ence of environmental factors)—we are warned not to leap to the genetic explanation by being told that the impact of any one gene is small and that a better explanation might be in terms of many environmental factors. Why this switch from the singular (when talking about genetic explanation) to the plural (when talking about environmental explanation)? This is a highly tendentious and illogical comparison that cannot advance the debate in any way. What makes it worse is that this obviously flawed inference has been endorsed by distinguished scientists like Marcus Feldman and Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza, and even by the notable philosopher Debra Satz. Now isn’t there at least some value in pointing to such fallacious reasoning in the hope that this would move the discus- sion away from obfuscations and in the direction of really interest- ing questions that might eventually be empirically resolvable?

No referee, no journal editor, and none of many readers has ex- pressed any concern about the part of my paper on psychological differences. It is unclear why making the point about the wide- spread use of bad arguments in that discussion would be inappro- priate. Also, why is there so much repugnance toward the topic that it is called ‘‘a particularly pungent red herring’’?

But this is not all. Commenting on my take on race and psychol- ogy Hochman says that ‘‘claims of moral and intellectual superior- ity should be opposed’’. Notice how Hochman manages here to turn my neutral and purely factual question ‘‘Are there psycholog- ical differences between races?’’ into an ideological statement, i.e. that some races are morally and intellectually superior to others. Needless to say, even if it happened that racial psychological differ- ences existed, this by itself would not establish racial superiority, whatever that phrase meant.

Finally, Hochman goes even so far as to accuse me of writing the paper in the attempt to legitimize claims of racial superiority. What to say? In discussions about race and biology, morphological and genetic differences between human groups can still be debated with impunity. But raising the same issue about psychological dif- ferences among groups apparently crosses the line.

Sesardic, N. Confusions about race: A new installment. Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences (2013), http://dx. doi.org/1 0.1016/j.s hpsc.2013.03.0 05

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