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MontyCarloHall • today at 1:56 AM • 1 reply • view on HN

The crux of that letter is the "need to recognize that meaningful patterns of genetic and biological variation exist in our species that are not racial." This is true. However, this does not mean that there aren't also meaningful patterns of genetic and biological variation that do stratify according to ancestry (not race!). The letter tries to handwave this away, claiming that "[f]or several decades billions of dollars have been spent trying to find such differences. The result has been a preponderance of negative findings despite intrepid efforts to collect DNA data on millions of individuals in the hope of finding even the tiniest signals of difference." This is simply not true, as studies like the subject of this discussion demonstrate.

The letter also states that "[t]he public should not cede the power to define race to scientists who themselves are not trained to understand the social contexts that shape the formation of this fraught category." Also true! This is exactly why Reich explicitly avoids discussing "races" but rather populations and ancestries, which are rigorously defined strictly in terms of genetics. With respect to population structures and ancestry, Reich is indeed an expert.

I'll add that very few of the signatories of that letter have any experience, let alone expertise in genetics. Here are the first few:

  Jonathan Kahn, James E. Kelley Professor of Law, Mitchell Hamline School of Law

  Alondra Nelson, Professor of Sociology and Gender Studies, Columbia University; President, Social Science Research Council

  Joseph L. Graves Jr., Associate Dean for Research & Professor of Biological Sciences, Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Section G: Biological Sciences, Joint School of Nanoscience & Nanoengineering, North Carolina A&T State University, UNC Greensboro

  Sarah Abel, Postdoc, Department of Anthropology, University of Iceland

  Ruha Benjamin, Associate Professor, Department of African American Studies, Princeton University

  Sarah Blacker, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin

  Catherine Bliss, Associate Professor, Social and Behavioral Sciences, UC San Francisco
Out of the 67 signatories, I counted approximately 5 who might have sufficient genetics expertise to offer a meaningful scientific counterpoint to Reich's work (this is being charitable, as I included titles like "Professor of Biological Sciences," which is no guarantee.) The rest were in fields like anthropology, sociology, law, and history.

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AlotOfReading • today at 2:22 AM

     This is simply not true.
Yes, because it's not an argument the letter is making. Everyone can name a meaningful genetic patterns of genetic variation that follow ancestry like lactase persistence. The argument is in the second paragraph:

    But his skillfulness with ancient and contemporary DNA should not be confused with a mastery of the cultural, political, and biological meanings of human groups.
It's not an argument that Reich gets the science wrong, so other geneticists being on the list is neither here nor there. When he says things like:

    But as a geneticist I also know that it is simply no longer possible to ignore average genetic differences among “races.”
in NYT opinion pieces, it's that he's not understanding how terminology interacts with public discourse. The next paragraph goes on to use the unclear term "west african", not exactly a great example of careful language either.

The list is mainly people in fields that deal with these things, as you'd expect.

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