From a site called Orgtheory:

Ann Morning is an Associate Professor of Sociology at New York University. Her book, The Nature of Race: How Scientists Think and Teach about Human Difference , was published by the University of California Press.

Recently geneticist David Reich published an op-ed in the New York Times entitled “How Genetics Is Changing Our Understanding of ‘Race.’” In it he contends that “differences in genetic ancestry that happen to correlate to many of today’s racial constructs are real”—and what’s more, that “as a geneticist I also know that it is simply no longer possible to ignore average genetic differences among ‘races.’”

The invocation of his status as a natural scientist, the insistence on what is “real,” and the astonishing suggestion that race has been overlooked until now—I’ve seen it all before. Reich is using a rhetorical device that sociologist Reanne Frank has called the “forbidden knowledge” thesis, where academics who identify themselves with “science” (and are usually, though not always, male, white biological scientists) contend that anyone who questions the biological foundations of racial groupings is denying reality, or “sticking their heads in the sand” as Reich puts it. …

The problem in the geneticists’ arguments (science journalist Wade’s are of a whole other magnitude of weakness) is that basically they confuse “population” with “race.” They are absolutely correct when they talk about average differences between populations in terms of the frequency of particular genetic traits. They illustrate this with examples like the Andaman Islanders (in LeRoi 2005) or Northern Europeans or West Africans (in Reich 2018). The trouble is, none of these groups are considered “races” (or have been at least since the 1920’s). “Races” are huge groups spanning entire continents and thus remarkably varied ecological environments. “Races,” as described by Linnaeus in the 1700’s or on the U.S. census of 2010, group Koreans, Mongolians, Sri Lankans and Pakistanis together (as the “Asian” race); they group Moroccans, Norwegians, and Greeks together as another (the “white” race). Groupings like these, billions of people strong and traditionally inhabiting highly variable geographic terrains, just don’t demonstrate homogenous genetic characteristics that distinguish them, even if average differences can be calculated between them.