A consensus consequently developed among anthropologists and geneticists that race as the previous generation had known it — as largely discrete, geographically distinct, gene pools — did not exist."
But that's what race IS, genetically speaking. You don't get particular characteristics without the specific genetic combinations that produce them, and where people have become geographically isolated in their migrations and spend generations inbreeding among themselves you're going to get exactly those "largely discrete, geographically distinct, gene pools" that underlie the identifiable traits of each isolated group.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.