This is the question that Dr. Charmaine Royal, Associate Professor in the Department of African & African American Studies, challenged us with during our final seminar of the Huang summer.

Initially, the question didn’t strike me as a biological question. To my ears, the implication it carried harkened social justice initiatives and catchy mantras like “I don’t see race”, not the pursuit of scientific knowledge. I had always considered myself a biologist, seeing no higher power than that which is written in our genetic code. A bit callously, I thought my unshakable faith in biology would allow me to see things in a different, perhaps more truthful, if less comfortable, light than most.

And so, I thought about Dr. Royal’s question biologically. My everyday observations had always told me that people look different and have different features; the basic tenets of Biology had always confirmed and explained my observations, telling me that observable variances are caused by very real, genetic differences. Based on this logical sequence of thought, my conclusion—that yes, race does indeed exist—seemed self-evident. But why, then, would Dr. Royal be asking me this question?

Because I was wrong. In a landmark paper based on the Human Genome Project, scientists showed that there are no “races” but a single human race—not in sociological terms, but according to biology.

The project found that there is more genetic variation within a single population subgroup than between two different population subgroups. For example, there may be more genetic diversity within a population in Asia than between that same population and a different population in Europe.

Another way of saying this is that, while certain populations tend to cluster around certain regions of the world, the variation that exists between them is continuous, not discrete—that is to say, different populations (e.g., Asians and Caucasians) are not “grouped” into discrete genetic races; rather, genetic variation between individuals varies according to a sliding scale, with people who are closer together geographically sharing greater genetic similarity and those further apart sharing less.

If I’m being honest, I’m not even entirely sure that I completely understood the research Dr. Royal discussed, or the mathematics that proved it to be true (very complex stuff). But the implications were clear; this research blurred the lines between different “races”. It proved that the traditional idea of there being several discrete races populating the earth is simply false; we are all members of the human race, and different individuals exhibit different features on a sliding scale of variation based on their geographic location.

While I was thrilled to learn something new from a world-renowned professor, I was a little disconcerted with myself. I recall one of my initial thoughts in response to Dr. Royal’s question being “of course race exits. How would it make sense biologically if it didn’t?” In hindsight, that thought was the epitome of hubris. Interestingly, the premise of genetic variation causing observable differences still holds true; but the interpretation (my interpretation) of that fact—that therefore, humans are grouped into races—is completely false. Even though I had an understanding of the science and had full faith in the science, I was wrong. Biologically speaking, race does not exist. And this bears serious implications for other definitions of race.

For example, societally speaking, the idea of race certainly does exist. In America, people of color are made aware of their “race” all too often. The legacy of slavery and Jim Crow manifests itself in the racially-charged inequalities of our criminal justice system, our political system, and our society as a whole. Fear of black and brown people has been re-popularized; mass-killing in the name of “racial pride” is more common than it should be.

Unfortunately, all of this points to the existence of a very real, very tangible idea of “race” that still permeates through the core of society. Before Dr. Royal’s talk, I never considered how my beliefs and understandings of science could affect the way people are treated in society. But perhaps holding onto old-world beliefs of biological race is implicitly supporting the ideas that make possible the manifestations of “societal race” I described above. For example, implicit assumptions about race can contribute to misdiagnoses at hospitals, or over/under-prescription at pharmacies.

As humans, we have few tools more powerful than the scientific method, and if we misinterpret the scientific method, we are at risk of abusing our most powerful tool at the expense of our fellow human beings. When we have the right information, we change our behavior in ways that we don’t even realize; when it comes to race, I do believe that public understanding of science may be the way to restructuring society.