Ultimately, it’s almost impossible to disentangle systemic environmental effects from this sort of dataset.

That is to say, centuries of systemic oppression and suppression, in addition to things like redlining and ensuring that waste dumps &c. are closest to minority communities tends to result in environmental effects being confused with genetic effects.

Will growing up near a supermax site with less money because the industries have moved away reduce one’s chances for improvement and one’s measurable IQ? Yup. Do people of color live close to such sites at much greater rates than whites? Yup.

Actually, studying the genetic aspect will reduce this bias, as research should find the same porportion of genes involved in intelligence (or some equivilant) in both groups.

The double helix was found in 1953. Modern genetics is very new. You can't compare it to "science" done 200 years ago. Also eugenics is not 200 years old (not that you explicitly said otherwise). Studying genetics directly solves the nature vs nurture debate: not immediately but over time as more and more of the brain will be solved, until you can get tested for your inherent ability with high accuracy.

Genomic studies are very new, yes. Modern understanding of genetics is around 184 years old (Mendel's enumeration), but trait inheritance has been understood non-scientifically by farmers for as long as livestock. However, scientific and pseudo-scientific approaches to "race" and "race mixing" has been around in the Americas since the 1600s (the first "miscegenation" laws).

I will also state outright that genomic studies will not solve the nature vs nurture debate, because of epigenetic factors (itself a newer concept). Children whose mothers are stressed in the first two years of their life get different genetic expressions during maturation because of the exposure to more stress hormones than others. Children who do not receive a "normal" amount of attention do not themselves learn to pay attention to others as much. (This last is a fairly plausible hypothesis for the development of ADHD proffered by Gabor Maté.)

>Modern understanding of genetics is around 184 years old (Mendel's enumeration)

I would say observation rather than understanding. In my opionion if you can't say what genes are then you can't say you understand it. That's a very recent development.

>genomic studies will not solve the nature vs nurture debate, because of epigenetic factors

That needs to be studied too. But much "epigenetic" factors still require understanding the genome anyway, such as non coding RNA and histone modification. The first case is just a different use of DNA (ei. not for creating protiens) and the second is itself defined by protiens indirectly. The only exception I know is DNA methylation which is "truly" epigenetic in that it is not (or is only weakly) directed by the genome. (There can be more such genome-independant factors, I'm not sure.) So yes, understanding the genome does (mostly) settle the nature vs nurture debate.

>Children whose mothers are stressed in the first two years of their life get different genetic expressions during maturation because of the exposure to more stress hormones than others. Children who do not receive a "normal" amount of attention do not themselves learn to pay attention to others as much. (This last is a fairly plausible hypothesis for the development of ADHD proffered by Gabor Maté.)

These are examples of nurture. I'm not really sure what point you are making here. Gene expression is dependant on enviromental factors? That's been known for a while. Seems irrelivant to the discussion. With regard to my "inherent ability" comment, that (obviously) doesn't take the enviroment into account. For a simple example, if one's inherent ability for strength building is high, but he becomes paralyzed, he will not do well in sports.

(epigenetic factors are by definition heritable, in case that's what you meant?)

That's true if scientists are all good actors. But unfortunately, some scientists are bad actors.

Right, but it's better to be able to point to the data set and explain why its entanglements with wealth, geography, culture, etc. Fundamentally, hiding data doesn't just hinder people trying to use it to make racist claims. It's also depriving people of the ability to disprove those claims by pointing out how interconnected that data is with other factors. And so in the end, it ends up making it easier for the racist claims to go unrefuted.

What you say above is only true of racial differences, which are honestly less interesting than the differences between families and regions. And we may be able to untangle things there...