and white ancestry.

12 Several tests were given at various ages, and small

differences were found in the I. Q. performance between these groups, but
these were not statistically significant. If nothing more was said about it,
most of the readers would assume that the small differences showed whites
were better than Blacks. But in fact the reverse was true. The differences
were not statistically significant, but where there were any differences, they
were in favor of Blacks. There is not an iota of evidence of any kind that the
differences in status, wealth, and power between races in North America
have anything to do with the genes, except, of course, for the socially
mediated effects of the genes for skin color. Indeed, there is in general a
great deal less difference genetically between races than one might suppose
from the superficial cues we all use in distinguishing races. Skin color, hair
form, and nose shape are certainly influenced by genes, but we do not know
how many such genes there are, or how they work. On the other hand, when
we look at genes we do know something about, genes that influence our
blood type, for example, or genes for the various enzyme molecules
essential to our physiology, we find that although there is a tremendous
amount of variation from individual to individual, there is remarkably little
variation on the average between major human groups. In fact, about 85
percent of all identified human genetic variation is between any two
individuals from the same ethnic group. Another 8 percent of all the
variation is between ethnic groups within a race-say, between Spaniards,
Irish, Italians, and Britons-and only 7 percent of all human genetic variation
lies on the average between major human races like those of Africa, Asia,
Europe, and Oceania.13
So we have no reason a priori to think that there would be any genetic
differentiation between racial groups in characteristics such as behavior,
temperament, and intelligence. Nor is there an iota of evidence that social
classes differ in any way in their genes except insofar as ethnic origin or
race may be used as a form of economic discrimination. The nonsense
propagated by ideologues of biological determinism that the lower classes
are biologically inferior to the upper classes, that all the good things in
European culture come from the Nordic groups, is precisely nonsense. It is
meant to legitimate the structures of inequality in our society by putting a
biological gloss on them and by propagating the continual confusion