"The construct of race was never more than a poor model. Now it’s become worse than useless. It’s divisive and destructive"

Dave Brody writes:
Lots of things that lots of people believed for a long time turn out to be completely off the mark: The Earth is the center of the universe. Heat and light are two different things. Tomatoes are vegetables. Humanity consists of five or six discrete groups classified by skin color.

That last one is still thrashing about, causing trouble. But now that a world-class leader has emerged in America who may genetically embody and politically embrace a greater range of the world’s people, it’s time for science to step up and put the nail in the coffin of racial taxonomy.

Science has simple mission statement: Ask The Next Question. It exists to re-invent itself in light of the last answer it got. When a classification scheme isn’t working, a responsible researcher will bite the bullet and scrap it. The construct of race was never more than a poor model. Now it’s become worse than useless. It’s divisive and destructive. That any of us may choose to see ourselves as a descendent of Africa or Oceania or America or Europe or Asia tells the rest of us nothing at all about how we will individually behave or what we’ll be good at or where we’ll fail physically, intellectually or emotionally. READ MORE