As a biologist, I’ve learned that there are two related issues that are taboo for academics to discuss openly. The first is the issue of “races”—or genetic differences between human populations. Cultural anthropologists tell us that races are “social constructs.” Well, there’s a bit of truth in that, insofar as there is no finite number of races that can be unambiguously demarcated from each other. But there are genetic differences between groups, and clustering algorithms can divide populations into five or six fairly distinguishable groups corresponding to their geographic localities. Those differences in marker genes undoubtedly evolved via either genetic drift or natural selection in early human populations that were geographically isolated.
But the issue of whether there are genetically-based differences in behavior, physiology, mentation, and other non-physical attributes of populations is simply off the table. It’s not just that we shouldn’t investigate them (for one can make a case that such research…
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