Can race be erased?

https://barryhisblog.blogspot.com/p/can-race-be-erased.html

There is an old paper that has not received the attention it deserves, from some of the leading figures in evolutionary psychology, Robert Kurzban, John Tooby, and Leda Cosmides. 

The paper is available here @ https://www.pnas.org/content/98/26/15387.full

The abstract is fairly comprehensive, but my notes here are to briefly summarise the research and the background, the implications of the research, and explain why I regard evolution-denial as a menace.

Evolutionary psychology has always been controversial, even among many who quite happily accept the fact that we developed by a process of evolution. I cannot really understand people who think that evolution only acts on our species from the neck down. The brain, and the emergent property we call the mind, must be a product of evolution, if we accept that the rest of our bodies are also products of evolution.

See https://www.amazon.com/Adapted-Mind-Evolutionary-Psychology-Generation/dp/0195101073/ and https://www.amazon.com/Blank-Slate-Modern-Penguin-Science/dp/B00NBDU026/

A prediction of evolutionary psychology is that racism is not an innate, instinctive aspect of our natures. As the abstract says, throughout the history of our species, at least up until recent times, we never encountered anyone of a different "race". (I put the word in scare-quotes because it is biologically insignificant - not to say incoherent.) Thus, over evolutionary time, we could not have evolved mental mechanisms that classify people by "race". But we could evolve mechanisms that classify people by whether they belong to our coalition or not. "Race" markers are merely coincidental to our propensity to classify individuals as being examples of "us" and "them". Classification is intersectional and fluid, and can include, depending on context, nationality, gender, politics, accent, fashion, cuisine, sports allegiance and a whole host of other markers. 

So what is the cause of racism? The fact that historically, it has been a marker for whether someone belongs to your coalitional alliance or not. In this research, artificial markers were created that placed individuals in different groups without any correlation with "race". They demonstrated that "race" could easily become insignificant in the interactions among the subjects involved.

So what are we to make of this? Firstly, that racism is not an inevitable, fixed aspect of our natures. And secondly, we can do things to reduce or even eliminate it, particularly by encouraging systems that provide mutual benefits. 

To the evolution-deniers, those of you who complain that evolutionary science justifies and encourages racism, you are tilting at windmills. Discrimination and racism long predate Darwin, and your attempts to discredit evolution by pinning a racist label on it are misguided and misplaced, and they divert and detract from the science that could actually help end racism. 

See also, https://barryhisblog.blogspot.com/p/why-evolutionary-science-is-vitally.html, on why I am so passionate about promoting and defending science, and https://barryhisblog.blogspot.com/p/darwins-sacred-cause.html