The Persistence of Race Science

Many geneticists are weighing the societal risks of their work and confronting an unsettling possibility: that some of their field’s most common practices and conventions may serve to perpetuate the myth of race as a biological category and help fuel scientific racism.

The socially constructed racial categories we've inherited are only crude and highly imperfect maps of biological variation, with borders shifting, and even evaporating, depending on how geneticists analyze the data. What group-level truths, if any, can be gleaned from our most basic genetic building blocks?

First used in Europe in the Netherlands in 1999 to determine the biogeographic ancestry of a rape and murder suspect, DNA phenotyping companies now provide police departments with "snapshots" of suspects based on DNA samples. The author of the influential 2012 book "Race in a Bottle" discusses the potential risks of a technology that creates these virtual mugshots.

Critics say standardized tests cannot escape their roots in eugenics and segregation. Supporters argue it’s not the tests that are biased — at least not today — but rather America’s education system. Still others say both things are true, and that the real problem is the tests provide cover for racists.

Researchers and clinicians still rely on race as a vague stand-in for intertwined strands of social influence and genetic ancestry. But as they learn more about how social stress and ancestral genetics drive health and disease, it’s becoming increasingly clear that race is a poor proxy for these influences.

In New York’s acclaimed facility, the Hall of African Mammals is across the corridor from the Hall of African Peoples. Likewise, the Hall of Asian Mammals leads to the Hall of Asian Peoples. The Hall of South American Peoples is located on the same floor. ‍But the museum has no Hall of European Peoples.

The Red Cross’s 1940s policy of racially segregating blood propped up notions of racial difference and Black inferiority. For Black Americans who were already locked in a battle for dignity and civil rights, it was a painful reminder of their second-class citizenship.