April 6, 2001

Biologist Says Medical Professionals Draw Spurious Connections Between Race and Disease

By LILA GUTERMAN

Scientifically, there's no such thing as race. That statement is not controversial among most biologists and anthropologists, according to Joseph L. Graves Jr., a professor of evolutionary biology at Arizona State University West, in Phoenix. But in The Emperor's New Clothes: Biological Theories of Race at the Millennium (Rutgers University Press), he argues that medical professionals don't understand that, and continue to draw faulty, prejudicial connections between race and