Apportionment of racial diversity: A review

It has become increasingly popular to theorize and assert significant genetic differences between arbitrary regional, ethnic, and racial groupings of humans. Beginning with Livingstone, Brace, and Newman is the early 1960s, biological anthropologists have shown that variation in human traits is non-concordant along racial lines, as they are products of overlapping, dynamic selective pressures. In 1972, Lewontin analyzed blood groups, serum protein, and red blood cell enzyme variants and found that only about 6% of total genetic variance was accounted for by race, while the majority of variance is accounted for by differences between individuals. Using similar assays, Latter obtained similar results in 1980. In 1982, Nei and Roychoudhury analyzed 62 protein variants and 23 blood groups, finding that roughly 10% of genetic variance was accounted for by race. Analyzing protein, blood group, and HLA variants, Ryman and coworkers obtained similar figures in 1983. More recently, Dean and coworkers (1994) and Barbujani and coworkers (1997) have used PCR techniques to analyze RFLP and microsattelite loci, again yielding estimates of around 10% for the amount of genetic variance accounted for by race. Furthermore, recent research on regional and racial variance in mtDNA (Excoffier and coworkers, 1992), a traditional marker for human racial groupings, shows a higher proportion of variance within than across racial categories. These studies used a variety of assays and analytical techniques, some of which are designed to maximize the amount of variance accounted for by race. In light of this, the low proportion of genetic variance across racial groupings strongly suggests a re-examination of the race concept. It no longer makes sense to adhere to arbitrary racial categories, or to expect that the next genetic study will provide the key to racial classification. Evol. Anthropol. 10:34–40, 2001.