The refutation of scientific racism depended upon a group of scientists interpreting biological knowledge in an anti-racist manner. Science could lend itself as easily to either a racist or an anti-racist interpretation, whether by biologists or social scientists. If popular opinion holds that science has its own determinism and that it is applied in a coherent manner as a result of its substance and objectivity, historical records suggest otherwise. Conventional perceptions of the impartiality of science encourage an assumption that the growth of population genetics inherently lend support to a non-racist interpretation. Yet, as the analysis above of Ronald Fisher's work showed, the evolution of anti–racism in science was not inevitable.

Other geneticists, however, did criticize racist theories from a scientific perspective, and studied environmental influences on various organisms in order to minimize the space assigned by default to nature as compared with nurture. They opposed racism on ethical grounds, and – perhaps most important – disseminated the new scientific understanding to the public. In other words, these scientists used their scientific credentials to serve as intellectuals in the wider cultural debate over race. The scientific expertise on both sides of the debate was comparable, if not identical, and biology ceased to present a unified view of the nature of race. The public was exposed to the debate among the experts, and thus political space was created for competition among intellectual interest groups for the public mind.