The Emperor鈥檚 New Clothes: Biological theories of race at the millennium
by Joseph Graves, Rutgers, $28, ISBN 081352847X
IN 1999, the states of Kansas, Kentucky and New Mexico removed any explicit
reference to evolution from their school science curricula. Joseph Graves, an
evolutionary biologist at Arizona State University in Tempe, thinks this kind of
action will promote racism in the US. Controversially, he suggests that it will
foster horrific tragedies such as the Columbine and Granada Hills school
shootings in which teenagers killed their classmates. Many of their victims were
from ethnic minorities.
Graves argues that 鈥渞ace and racism were fundamental forces in the founding
of the United States of America,鈥� but he believes that 鈥渢he survival of the
United States as a democracy depends on the dismantling of the race concept.鈥� We
must show that human beings are all one race, defined biologically as 鈥渁
population of organisms differing from others of the same species in the
frequency of hereditary traits鈥�. And there are dangers in depriving children of
the intellectual discipline needed to grasp slippery concepts such as race, says
Graves.
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In The Emperor鈥檚 New Clothes he sets about showing that from its
earliest days the concept of race has always carried biological assumptions.
These underpinned beliefs that a person鈥檚 superficial features, such as skin
colour, correlated with many other aspects of their character and abilities. But
such racist claims have virtually no scientific basis, whether it is for
differences between the abilities, illnesses or other characteristics of
different ethnic groups.
Graves has the facts to back up his views, drawn from recent advances in
epidemiology and more especially genetics. In his close examination of IQ, for
example, he adds his voice to the growing chorus against claims of ethnically
based genetic differences. His constant refrain is that genetic variation across
the human species is remarkably limited鈥攍ess than within a single tribe of
east African chimpanzees. The variation within particular human subpopulations
is very large indeed compared with that across the species.
The solution to the endemic problem of racism and all its evil consequences
is therefore for biologists to proclaim to anyone who will listen the simple
fact that if a biological definition of race is accepted then the mainstream
Christian view of the unity of humanity is remarkably accurate鈥攂ut not the
fundamentalist, Creationist view.
But I began to feel uneasy at the way Graves hammers home his view that there
is no biological basis for racism. What if biologists had found some
characteristics that showed racial differences? Would that justify racism? He
seems to be offering a new 鈥済eneticism鈥� to replace the old racism. This is a
dangerous slide. Already insurance companies are seeing how they can weight
their policies against those genetically predisposed to illness. Various
supremacist organisations will doubtless wish to follow where the insurers
lead.
And human beings assign everything to categories for a whole variety of
reasons. They spend a lot of their time assigning each other to categories,
often arranged around notions of friend and foe, good and evil, powerful and
weak. People harness any evidence they can to support their views. Science plays
only a small part in reducing bigotry. If we understand these processes and act
on that understanding, then we may reduce the occurrence of tragedies like
Columbine and Granada Hills. It is the process that leads States to deny
evolution that we need to examine.