How Troubling Is Our Inheritance? A Review of Genetics and Race in the Social Sciences

Abstract

This article addresses the argument that there is variation between races in the biological basis for social behavior. The article uses Nicholas Wade’s popular book, A Troublesome Inheritance, as the point of departure for a discussion of attendant issues, including the extent to which human races can be definitively demarcated biologically, the extent to which genetics is related to contemporary definitions of race, and the role of natural selection as a possible mechanism for change in modern societies. My critical review of the theory and evidence for an evolutionary view of racial determinism finds that genetics does not explain the relative status and well-being of today’s racially identified groups or their broader societies.