Even though findings from genetics and other sciences unequivocally refute biological conceptions of race, this erroneous viewpoint remains widespread among the general public. Why can’t scientists convince people that race isn’t biological?

Since the 1950s, scholars at universities have been spreading the message that race is a social construct – a way of categorizing people that society has devised – in this instance, based on the arbitrary criterion of skin colour. Genetic data clearly show that races are not separate genetic lineages, and that differences in skin colour are not indicative of underlying genetic divisions. Throughout history, humans have constantly interbred, mixing up our genes such that meaningful differences never arose.

In fact, from a genetic perspective, using skin colour to categorize people is as random as the fabled warring residents of Gulliver’s Travels’ neighbouring islands of Lilliput and the Blefuscu, differentiated by whether they cracked open eggs at the smaller or larger end. Jonathan Swift, satirises how, in the real world, trivial differences can be blown out of proportion and escalate into conflicts.

Despite the concerted effort of academics to teach students that race is not biological, in wider society this lesson remains stubbornly unlearned. Something appears to be blocking communication.

In an article of ours newly published in Evolutionary Human Sciences, we identify five impediments to the effective countering of racist pseudoscience. Each of these hindering elements either counters, undermines or blocks the effective communication of accurate science related to ‘race’, thereby promoting racism.

The first such barrier is belief in genetic determinism. Attributing group differences to genes provides a simple, easy-to-understand explanation that sounds credible to a general public regularly fed a diet of ‘gene-for-X’ explanations in the media. Genetic studies are often presented as ‘breakthroughs’ that will lead to a new cure or treatment, while genes are rarely described as just one of many causal factors involved, and little prominence is given to the small amount of trait variance explained by DNA. Belief in genetic determinism is widespread and a genuine societal problem because it can foster both intolerant attitudes and acceptance, and even support, of inequality.

It is disturbing that a basic education in genetics may not help. The simple cases commonly used to introduce students to Mendelian genetics – ‘blue’ versus ‘brown’ eyes, for instance – are often characterized as direct genotype-to-phenotype mappings, and hence can actually encourage genetic determinism. Fortunately, innovative approaches to genetics education are being developed in which genes are no longer presented as the whole story. Studies show that when students are taught that traits typically have multiple causes and are sensitive to the environment, this broader genetics education can ‘inoculate’ them against genetic determinism.

A related concern is an overly simplistic conception of heredity that attributes the inheritance of traits, and of their differences, to genes and genetic variation. Recent years have witnessed an explosion of scientific interest in non-genetic inheritance. Many resources are now known to be passed across the generations, including molecular attachments to DNA (epigenetic inheritance), hormones, nutrients, antibodies, symbionts such as bacteria, cultural knowledge, including in other animals, and diverse ecological legacies. The significance of this non-genetic inheritance for understanding racial differences is only now coming to prominence. For illustration, persistent differences in the average levels of scholastic achievement between races is not explained by genetic transmission, but rather through the legacies of inherited wealth, inherited environments that vary in their amenities, opportunities and resources (e.g., toxins such as lead, nongenetic disease), and other inherited factors through which the experiences of parents (e.g., trauma, famine, racism) affect the physiology of offspring. People need to be introduced to the complexities of inheritance so that they don’t always assume racial differences are genetic.

A third impediment is belief in the naturalistic fallacy, the false belief that traits that evolved are desirable or inevitable. For instance, the growth of Western nations as industrialised global powers has been misattributed to the intrinsic merits of these nations, rather than to colonialism, while differences between African and European Americans are misattributed to ‘shortcomings’ of the former, rather than to the legacies of slavery, segregation, and discrimination.

A fourth barrier is the failure of relevant scientific disciplines to take responsibility for teaching the science of ‘race’ and racism. While ‘race’ and racism are taught by anthropologists, psychologists and social scientists, biologists have largely ignored this topic. As a consequence, biology classes do not adequately equip students to understand the complexities of human biology, and textbooks rarely challenge stereotypical racial beliefs. Relevant scientific knowledge that exposes racist claims as false needs to be incorporated into the curricula, and interdisciplinary approaches to teaching the topic encouraged. Indeed, biologists have a particular responsibility in teaching the science of race and racism, as, historically, they played a key role in reifying the idea of ‘race’ and are now uniquely equipped to rectify past mistakes.

A final concern is the self-promotion of academic fields. The histories of many disciplines, including biology, anthropology and psychology, are tarnished with racism and eugenics, and reticence to teach science that exposes biological ‘race’ as a myth may result from embarrassment about these histories, for fear of putting students off. This concern is not entirely ill-founded, but a greater danger is that failure to acknowledge past transgressions may alienate minoritized students. Acknowledging that racism is a deep structural problem is a key recommendation of experts. Yet academics sometimes respond defensively to the accusation that their field’s leaders were racist. Both Ronald Fisher and Charles Darwin have recently been subject to this apologism. Open appraisal of such behaviour, while giving voice to alternative perspectives, including the marginalised, are central pillars of anti-racism, inclusive teaching, and curriculum decolonization.

Figure 1: Approaches to countering racist pseudoscience

We suggest ‘solutions’ for each of these impediments (Figure 1), but meaningful progress will require their incorporation into curricula for relevant (particularly, biology) high school and undergraduate classes. We urge those responsible for school, college, and university curricula to support the implementation of these recommendations and help prevent the spread of racist misinformation.

For more information, read the full article, Impediments to countering racist pseudoscience, in Evolutionary Human Sciences.