Volume V (2022)
grasp of the relevant science is crucial. For example, many race scholars consider Richard
Lewontin’s 1972 paper “The Apportionment of Human Diversity” to be a watershed event in race
scholarship insofar as it debunks the once widely held belief that there’s more genetic diversity
among “conventional” races than within them. But good luck understanding what Lewontin is
saying in that paper without having a basic understanding of the Shannon information measure!
MJ: How important is statistical analysis in your work, particularly regarding mapping and genetic clustering?
QS : Statistical analysis is absolutely crucial for doing the kind of philosophy of race that I do. This
is for two reasons. First, I read and engage with a lot of literature from population genetics,
molecular genetics, phylogenetics, and demography in my work, and all of this literature is very
statistical. So, it’s helpful to double check various claims being made or tease out useful
implications from the work through my own statistical analyses. Sometimes I do this by hand, but
often I use statistics software like Excel or R. Second, I find statistical analysis to be helpful in my
own original research, since I sometimes use statistical evidence to support premises in my
arguments, or to reply to objections. For example, with the aid of an undergraduate research
assistant, I spent the summer of 2022 investigating the robustness of the statistical mode at each
level of human genetic clustering. This has never been done before, and the information I’ve
collected will be very useful in research projects I’m working on.
MJ: What prompted the change for you to pursue a PhD in philosophy, especially given your undergraduate and MS background in the sciences?
QS : This is a great question, but I should clarify that I pursued my MS in biology and my PhD in
philosophy simultaneously. Stanford was generous enough to fully pay for my MS as a fringe
benefit of being a doctoral candidate at the university. I changed my career aspirations in
undergrad. I came to college with a plan to pursue an MD and a PhD in biochemistry after
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