Risch is absolutely correct. There is exceptionally good scientific evidence that ethnic groups differ significantly in the genetic diseases to which they are subject, how they react to medication, etc.
In fact, tailoring medications to individuals based on their genetics is probably the next big thing in medicine. Presently medications are used based on how “average” people react. Which in the US means people of European descent.
That said, “race” does not mean ethnic groups, which everybody recognizes. The idea of “race” is that there are huge conglomerations of ethnic groups that are inherently significant. IOW, it’s a taxonomic question, how we as humans decide to categorize things. It’s part of the map we build in our minds to explain the world, but not necessarily of the territory that is that world.
It’s interesting that the notion of “race” is a very recent idea. Only a few hundred years old.
Historically, groups like the Romans and Chinese were as supremacist as can be imagined. But the Romans didn’t think of themselves and the Gauls and Germans as forming a “race.” And the Chinese didn’t lump themselves in with the Japanese and Koreans versus the odd-looking Southern Barbarians who smelled so funny.
In both the Roman and Chinese cases, there were Romans or Chinese, and then there were a bunch of barbarians with not a lot to choose between them other than the extent to which they acknowledged the superiority of Roman or Chinese civilization.
“But the Romans didn’t think of themselves and the Gauls and Germans as forming a “race.”
How could they? They were 6-12 inches shorter than the average Germanic tribesmen. They knew they couldn’t beat them (that Rome wasn’t “supreme”), and spent their waning years trying to buy them off until the whole thing collapsed. BTW, this explains why we speak English today (from Saxony) rather than a Romance language.