I think the thread is interesting and I think this subject can, and should be discussed, without all the notion of the superiority of one group over the other in terms of human dignity. Now that is my Catholic Conscience in terms of how I view humanity starting from the first line in the Nicene Creed, I believe in God... Creator of all things seen and unseen. Nevertheless, that does not mean there are not genetic differences among and between population groups (i.e. racial/ethnic groups). The evidence suggest there is and more and more ancient DNA is showing that.
With respect to the NYTimes writer who wrote the piece you are referring to, in my view, it is secular liberal journalist in this country (wokesters, neo-marxist, whatever you want to call them) who are part of the problem in the USA in that they want to stifle any and all discussions on genetic variation across various populations but at the same time in a geo political sense, certain groups are identified by "race and/or ethnicity" for political pandering and political power (i.e votes).
In the USA, much of the criticism of studying DNA, ancient DNA, etc to help modern Science to understand how modern populations were formed, with the genetic variation found among them, is from very left wing outlets in the Corporate Legacy Media (Journalist) and from the soft social sciences across the American Academia (Education Depts, Poly Science Departments, Sociology Depts, etc.). Yes there are extreme Racialist Nationalist groups in the USA, i.e Nordicism groups on one hand and Afro-centrist on the other hand that use genetic research (pseudo science in my view) to push political agendas as well but I ignore those groups just as much as the radical woke liberals.
Jovialis noted the attacks on the late Professor Wilson by such leftist academics in the USA going back to the 1970's related to the famous book (Sociobiology 1975) He published. I think Charles Murray and even Prof James Watson faced similar criticism for saying things that the leftwing in the USA did not like. Both Murray and Watson got into how certain groups do better on aptitude test, and neither stated that group were American WASP btw, than other groups and suggested genetic variation may explain part of those differences. My view is if you disagree with what they say, debate them on their merits of what they wrote and how they interpreted the data, etc.
Even Prof. Reich, who I think is politically left, but he is still a legitimate Scientists who reports what he finds, got attacked by these same types when he published an op-ed in the NY Times on 30 March 2018 where he stated something to the effect that much of the criticism coming from the media, and the social-science academicians regarding research on and genetic variation across population groups (i.e. racial/ethnic groups) will not stand the onslaught of science. While that might not be an exact quote, it is in substance I think accurate to what he stated, but I don't have access to the article. I did get an idea about it when a journalist from the Atlantic wrote editorial article on Reich's original NYTimes Op-ed
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/04/reich-genetics-racism/558818/
So I think this is an interesting thread, one of the few times I post outside my lane so to speak (I tend to say in threads related to Italian, Greek, and ancient DNA studies) most people have been very respectful with their post.
