GENETICS AND RACE 461 



A definite pronouncement by geneticists in favour of one or the other of 

 these views would not resolve all the difficulties faced by anthropologists 

 in their attempts to define the concept of race, but it would go far towards 

 clearing up the present chaotic position. It appears that the two cannot 

 be reconciled and that for practical purposes one or the other must be chosen. 

 It has been claimed that the second, or segregation, view, as it may be called, 

 alone accords with genetical theory. Is this correct ? and, if so, will geneti- 

 cists explain the mechanism which favours the persistent appearance of the 

 ancestral ' types ' of the anthropologist after more or less random crossing 

 has taken place for fifty generations, say ? Answers to these questions will 

 depend on the nature of the characters which are used to distinguish the 

 ' types,' because these characters have been observed to make the clearest 

 distinctions between the different varieties of man. Most of them are 

 dimensions or proportions of parts of the skeleton, and no others can well 

 be used in dealing with extinct populations. All the characters of this kind 

 show continuous variation, and it seems to be probable that each is deter- 

 mined by a large number of genes, as has been demonstrated in the case of 

 stature. Variation in these measurements may not be of any functional 

 significance or selective value. Such characters are of far less general 

 biological interest than some others, but their use is fully justified if they 

 can be used effectively to trace human descent. 



It may be noted that the statistical study of the measurements which have 

 been used with greatest profit by the anthropologist does not encourage the 

 hope that the ' segregation ' view of race can be reconciled with the facts. 

 If it were correct it would be anticipated that for particular modern popu- 

 lations of the kind considered bi-modal or multi-modal distributions would 

 occasionally be found, though apparently they never are. Also, on the 

 hypothesis discussed, intra-group correlations would be expected between 

 certain characters, and these are not found. The largest samples available 

 for European populations show an almost complete absence of intra-group 

 correlation between hair colour and cephalic index, say, or between eye 

 colour and stature. Some expressions of the segregation view of race pre- 

 suppose that the modern populations of Europe have resulted from the 

 intermixture in comparatively recent, and even historical, times of popula- 

 tions which were far more homogeneous than any which can be found in 

 Europe to-day. But the metrical characters show quite conclusively that 

 there has been a remarkably small change in the variabilities of established 

 populations from early predynastic times in Egypt to the present, and also 

 that there is no marked difference between the variabilities of so-called 

 ' primitive ' and ' advanced ' modern populations in any part of the world. 

 The statistical evidence suggests forcibly that the other — i.e. the group- 

 conception of race is the one which can still be used most profitably, in spite 

 of its present ill-repute, and if this is correct the process of classifying and 

 tracing the descent of ' races ' must depend on the small differences observed 

 between the averages for different populations, while the individual is prac- 

 tically ignored. It is often assumed that this older view of race, which has 

 few followers now except among those who have found that it accords with 

 and even appears to be necessitated by the statistical evidence, has been 

 invalidated by modern genetical science. I should like to appeal to geneti- 

 cists for consideration of this point, and, if the verdict is unfavourable, for 

 a clearer explanation of the objections to the view in question than any which 

 appear to have been given yet. 



Suppose that geneticists allow that the problems of human descent can 

 only be solved by treating groups. The next question is : In what ways 

 can groups be compared in order to reveal group relationships ? The view 



