What you are describing is the problem of generalization. Admittedly, If you extrapolate evidence from a small (statistical) population to make conclusions about the total population we increase our chances of being right. This works very well in cases where it is acceptable to be correct most of the time, as in making investments. I notice that Saletan was careful to use the term "these nonresponsive patients" rather than these black patients. Think of the tragedy of allowing the 2% of whites who have the genetic difference to die, simply because they didn't fit the statistical profile!

In other words, this information is valuable for informing our precautions, not our conclusions. When you are dealing with people however, or with critical problems such as: "Is this live wire carrying 1000 volts or not?" you can't depend on generalizations, yet prejudiced people do it all the time. Indeed this is the very etymology of the term prejudice, (from: pre ... before, latin judicare ...to judge).

Even the most expert of polygraph testers claim no more than 93% accuracy for their method of testing, for example. Yet I watched as Dr Phil publicly castigated and condemned a man who had failed a polygraph test after being accused of molesting a child. He showed not the slightest concern for the horror that person would be undergoing if he was in fact one of the 7% who overreact physiologically to the threat implicit in being questioned rather than to feelings of guilt and innocence.

The documented hundreds of cases where the jury system has wrongly convicted innocent people, must be troubling to us all, even though we have no better system. This is why the integrity of the prosecution is of such vital importance to the justice system.

The most ridiculous thing about the use of genetics to make judgements, even medical judgements, about people is illustrated by the candidate Obama himself. Many American blacks have even more white blood in them (crude term) than black. Many, like Maria Carey, have an even higher percentage of white blood than Obama himself. Nevertheless they are caught in the cross-fire of inter-ethnic contention. I have seen on-going examples ot the anomie (feeling of being disconnected from reality) that this causes to people who don't look quite black to blacks, and not white at all to whites.

So the Obama campaign is only the best example so far of the unfairness of racial tagging. The defeat of former congressman Harold Ford in the last election may be another example. But here is Obama born of a white mother, raised in a white neighborhood by white grand-parents, with no real memories of his black father, yet his biggest detractors are the people with whom he has the closest familial bonds .... white middle-class America.

Some rise above it, like Obama, some descend into bitterness, like Wright, some suffer deep psychological scars like some of my school-friends and even family. The young, thank God, seem to be less and less affected, as the polls (and the internet) seem to show.