"The Inequality Taboo," Charles Murray,
Commentary, September 2005
The Harvard geneticist Richard Lewontin originated the idea of race as a social construct in 1972, arguing that the genetic differences across races were so trivial that no scientist working exclusively with genetic data would sort people into blacks, whites, or Asians. Inhis words, "racial classification is now seen to be ofvirtually no genetic or taxonomic significance. Lewontin's position, which quickly became a tenet of political correctness, carried with it a potential means of being falsified.
If he was correct, then a statistical analysis of genetic markers would not produce clusters corresponding to common racial labels.In the last few years, that test has become feasible, and now we know that Lewontin was wrong.
Several analyses have confirmed the genetic reality of group identities going under the label of race orethnicity. In the most recent, published this year,all but five ofthe 3,636 subjects fell into the clusterof genetic markers corresponding to their selfidentified ethnic group. When a statistical procedure, blind to physical characteristics and workingexclusively with genedc information, classifies 99.9percent of the individuals in a large sample in thesame way they classify themselves, it is hard toargue that race is imaginary.
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I wish Charles Murray posted a website naming this experiment. Nevertheless, it is a good experiment because it is double blind, and can easily be reproduced.
Putting this in my own words I will say that a person's race can usually be determined by appearance, and always by DNA analysis.
Once we acknowledge that race is a legitimate biological category, it becomes legitimate to document the way the races differ in average qualities important to civilization. It is also legitimate to look for genetic reasons for the differences. That research is already being done.