Genetics Without Genes: How Rightwing Racists are Abusing Science

Racism in American still survives among the left and the right, and especially at the extreme fringes of both. This article debunks the junk science of right-wing racists who want to believe that some races are genetically smarter than others. For an example of right-wing racists obsessed with such junk science, see this Emil Kirkegaard Substack article, which has fans among other Substack authors such as the anonymous individual writing under the pen name John Carter. Ultimately, these more recent efforts derive from the original obfuscator of junk racist statistics: Charles Murray in his infamous 1994 Bell Curve book.

Race is 100% a Social Construct, Not Scientific

While there are many problems with the junk science that these authors are obsessed with, their fundamental problem is the near-universal scientific consensus that “race” is 100% a social construct without a basis in biology or any other science. (Shiao et al. 2012. The Shiao et al. article actually argues against this scientific consensus, but in the decade since its release, it has apparently had no influence on the fields of genetics or sociology.)

To actually be scientific and try to overlap with an attempt to make the category of “race” scientific, a study would need to draw data from three categories: (1) skin color genes, (2) genes that have a high correlation with intelligence, and (3) intelligence test results. The Emil Kirkegaard paper does not deal with genes for intelligence…