Geneticist explains how changing the language on race could help

British geneticist Adam Rutherford explained in The New Scientistthat in his field the language they're using goes from "scientifically confused or ambiguous, to being rooted in a racist history that echoes in our present."

He explained that every field has its own jargon and that genetics is no different. But their terms deal with ancestry, evolution disease and behavior.

"Genetics is also a field with a pernicious history," Rutherford explained. "Its origins are inextricably entwined with the 18th-century invention of race, then using pigmentation and skull measurements to hierarchically taxonomize people. With that came scientific racism marshaled into the justification of slavery and subjugation, and the eugenics projects of the early 20th century followed not far behind."

In the new era of genetics, he said the attempt to use ancestry, anatomy and genetics to identify a biological reason for race has been destroyed. He explained that the genetics that outline our differences don't actually correlate to racial terms that the world use today. Like the word "Black" usually means people who have recent African descent, but the genetic reality is that the term covers billions of people whose genetics are far more diverse. But the term is still used, and that's why people explain that race is nothing more than a "social construct."

"Race exists because we perceive it, but has no meaningful biological basis," he said. "Nevertheless, the scientific language of the past resounds today. That is why I and colleagues in various fields of genetics are calling for a change in these language conventions, which, we argue, don't serve scientific insight and shackle us to the prejudices of history."

Examples like "Caucasian" are still used in academic papers but it's unclear whether that means European or south Asian or North African.

"Humans are all of one species, but people from around the world are different, and genetics reflects those regional adaptations and different evolutionary journeys. Grouping people is a necessary part of understanding similarities and differences in our DNA," he closed. Rutherford said he doesn't want to be some kind of language cop but that the outdated terms should evolve and modernize to a more accurate lexicon.

Read the full report here.