THE GUARDIAN: 'Race science’ depends on dubious genetics

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Gavin Evans’s criticisms of attempts to demonstrate a robust association between surrogate measures of ill-defined concepts (“race” and “intelligence”) are to the point (The unwelcome return of ‘race science’, The long read, 2 March). However, the dogma underpinning these attempts – genetic determinism – is left unchallenged. This determinism asserts that sequences of nucleotides comprising our chromosomes specify the characteristics – in their entirety – of the individual. It is a sad fact that the confusing phrase the “selfish gene” originated from a former professor for public understanding of science at the University of Oxford.