“By this metric, how different are people and gibbons? People and possums? People and mushrooms?”

First of all, the genetic gap between a Human and a gibbon is literally 1,000 X greater than that between Humans of European and African ancestries. You know, degrees do matter. But that is not even the point. The point is that your argument for “race” being real revolves around arbitrarily choosing some traits that Africans statistically differ from Europeans, like the speed at running the 100-meter dash, as evidence for proof. I can use your same metric and argue that “white” Swedes and “black” Bantus belong to the same “race” because they can both digest lactose, while “white” Sicilians belong to a different “race” because they cannot. Why does any of these random traits matter more than any others? What is the *relevance* of this? Your criteria are completely arbitrary. See how stupid your argument for race being real is?

Also, you missed by bigger argument, that all these traits that Europeans and Africans differ on statistically are expressed much more strongly at the individual level. For instance, while the 100-meter dash is dominated by West Africans, there is a “white” Frenchman that can run faster than 99.9999% of all West Africans. Why insist so strongly on “race” something that has never brought anything good, when you can judge people individually for those same traits?

“Who your relatives are tends to be pretty relative.”

All life on Earth is related to each other and is descended from a common ancestor, probably some autotrophic anaerobic bacteria living in some undersea hydrothermal vent some 3.7 billion years ago, that generated energy utilizing the Wood–Ljungdahl pathway via acetic acid. So, let me flip the argument on you and ask you where you draw the line? You acknowledge that ancestry exists in tiers of degrees. So why do you choose arbitrarily to draw the line at continental ancestry? Why stop there? Why not draw it at the national level, or municipal level? Most people don’t recognize even 3rd degree relatives, so who cares that a “white” person is more related to another “white” person than to a “black” person, and that a European Human is more related to an African Human than to a dog? Where do you even draw the line and why is ancestry even relevant? It’s certainly not to most people outside their close nuclear family or 3nd degree of relatedness at best

Steve Sailer:

“But, instead we know the answer: Race Does Not Exist Genetically.”

But race *REALLY* does not exist genetically. How many times must this be explained to you, you stubborn Right-wing ideologue? The fact that you write with this snarky tone as if it were a “fact”: that race is real genetically and that stating otherwise is just Leftist nonsese makes it even more irritating.

What exists genetically is ancstry, which is determined by *A TINY NUMBER OF NUCLEOTIDE VARiATIONS LOCATED MOSTLY IN NON-ESSENTIAL GENES.*

Listen to me, Steve Sailer. Do you think that DNA sequencing companies do full genome sequences when they test people to see whether they are of European or African ancestry? No:

*THEY SEQUENCE A TINY, TINY PART OF THE GENOME, LOCATED MOSTLY IN NON-ESSENTIAL GENES IN THE MT CHROMOSOME AND Y CHROMOSOME(IN THE CASE OF MALES). *

Do you think they geneticists look at all the 20,000 genes in your genome to tell you what your ancestry is? No, they look at less than 10 genes, and a few thousand nucleotides(out of billions!)

Do you have any idea how much a full genome sequence costs? I know, because I am one of the few people on the planet that has all my genome seqquenced. A low-quality(polymerase chain reaction) sequence will cost you about $5,000. If it is gold-standard quality,(terminal restriction fragment), it will cost you over $100 K. That is down from the $1 billion that it cost 20 years ago.

But full genome sequencing is way, way , way above the budget of the vast majority of people that have theire DNA analysed by 23andme and Ancestry-com.

And yet, the geneticists can easily tell their “race” with an exam that costs only $100! You know why? Because they can tell you if you are of European, Asian or African ancestry by looking at a tiny,TINY part of your DNA. It’s not like the genetic differences between Europeand and Africans are so profound that you need to check thousands of genes and billions of nucleotide bases to determine ancestry(“race”)!

But hey, if you want to equate ancestry, determined by 0.002% variation in non-essential genes, with “race”, then I guess “race” is real genetically. Is this relevant? No.

You want *facts*? Here is the *fact*: “white” people and “black” people are genetically 99.998% *identical* . The 0.002% od difference is located mostly in genes that code for adaptations to Africa’s hot weather and high burden of infections. Those are FACTS.

You claim that you don’t have ideology, and that you believe that Nature and nurture are both important. Hogwash. The *first* think that you do when you look at a newstory is to tell the “race” of a person. If someone committs a crime, the first thing you want to know is the “race”. It’s not like you ask first if he was abused as a child, or has mental problems or some other “nurture” aspect of it.

No, you franctily Google the guy to see if he’s black. That’s where your mindset is. They say:

“To a man with a hammer, every problem is a nail.”

To a racist, everything is about “race”. You *clearly* have a Right-wing ideological agenda. Stop pretending that you are this dettached “scientist” that has no ulterior motivation, because you clearly do. Your disingenuousness is insufferable.

But let’s assume that I am wrong. Let’s assume that race is real. So what? You can still judge people as individuals, and all the traits that are supposedly ascribed to “race” are expressed most strongly at the individual level – like intelligence. Even your social darwinist buddy, Charles Murray, thinks so.

So why even bring up “race” all the time, in literally 90% of your articles when it is not even necessary, and only creates hatred? What is your motivation here? If character and intelligence are best judged individually, why even bring “race” up when it creates so much hatred and heartache?