Redefining Race by Eric Beckenhauer

In the wake of the recently completed and widely publicized Human Genome Diversity project (HGDP), the potential of genomics, while certainly enormous, has risen to near-mythic proportions. As modern genomic research becomes more commonplace, and as the promise of genetic therapy creeps toward reality, the public may become increasingly inclined to subscribe to a theory of genetic essentialism-basically, the notion that our genes determine who we are. As one group of scholars explains, "An unintended byproduct of the genomics revolution is a naïve, almost religious faith in the power of genetics. The gene has become a powerful cultural icon; genetic explanations have a pride of place in the popular imagination." In light of this increasingly common perception, it is interesting to consider one of the more surprising conclusions of the HGDP: Human Beings share more than 99.9% of their DNA. Indeed, there is more genetic variation within a single race than there is among different races. This revelation has had critical implications for the meaning of race, which is now largely considered a social construct, rather than a biological reality.
-Redefining Race: Can Genetic Testing Provide Biological Proof of Indian Ethnicity? by Eric Beckenhauer Stanford Law Review, Vol.56:161, October 2003