Saletan especially wants to focus on this fact:
“Race is a less, not more, reliable gauge of physical characteristics than genes are.”
I think he sees great moral danger in this kind of racial categorization, where some scientific research is haphazardly mixed with cultural assumptions and myth. He argues that genetic research doesn’t necessarily nullify many cultural assumptions:
“So, yes, all other things being equal, you can expect this gene to cause Africans and African-Americans to be disproportionately represented at the highest levels of speed and power sports.”
There are clearly genetic differences between different groups of people…yet they allign much more closely to genetic rather than racial categorization….and this is not taking a look aside at many other cultural differences.
Saletan also points out the limits of racial categorization (perhaps even in the social and political realm?) which seems to be a core belief among many equity ideologues, mostly on the left:
I’ve had my share of arguments with people who deny that race is biologically meaningful. Many of them are dedicated to the proposition that all humans are created equal, not just in the sense of moral worth or treating each person on his merits, but literally, in the sense that no genetically based difference can be admitted in average ability between populations. That kind of egalitarian literalism—I call it liberal creationism—becomes harder and harder to sustain in the face of evidence such as the data on ACTN3.
Not bad.
See Also: An interesting essay containing this quote:
“It is now odd to note that Jefferson was under the impression that blacks were physically inferior to whites.”
and:
“The debate between culture and inheritance consequently must still be carried on, with factual reasons, not with moral self-righteousness.”
Is this too much too ask?
