‘Race science’ depends on dubious genetics | Letters
Gavin Evans's criticisms of attempts to demonstrate a robust association between surrogate measures of ill-defined concepts ("race" and "intelligence") are to the point (The unwelcome return of 'race science', The long read, 2 March). However, the dogma underpinning these attempts - genetic determinism - is left unchallenged. This determinism asserts that sequences of nucleotides comprising our chromosomes specify the characteristics - in their entirety - of the individual. It is a sad fact that the confusing phrase the "selfish gene" originated from a former professor for public understanding of science at the University of Oxford.
Today, this reductionist approach to biology - and therefore to human biology - has been displaced by a more profound interpretation of the facts. "Systems biology" (see Denis Noble's proposals on "biological relativity" in his new book Dance to the Tune of Life) sees an organism as comprising levels of relatively autonomous organisation each interacting with their total environment. Critical features of each of these levels cannot be predicted from the sequences of nucleotides. Genetic determinism is just plain wrong.
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