The Trickle down of GWAS to Race Science

I like to point out that many of the genetic studies related to "IQ," "g" and "Educational Attainment," whether or not their intentions were good, tend to attract racists of varying degree, from the smooth-talking race scientists down to white nationalists and overt racists trying read the study as a whites are smarter than blacks because of their genes misinterpretation (leaving aside the fact that most of the studies are unreplicatable). This study which examines which people tend to pick up particular studies on social media sites like Twitter quantifies this and notes:

Our study provides conclusive quantitative evidence that white nationalists and adjacent communities are engaging with the scientific literature on Twitter. Not only are these communities a ubiquitous presence in the social media audience for certain research topics, but they can dominate the discourse around a particular preprint and inflate altmetric indicators.

Often, once this process begins, the scientists involved in the study and other experts in the field attempt to debunk this misappropriation of the science. Unfortunately, this does little more, in my view, than amplify the debate in a "both sides" dichotomy, effectively giving credence, or at least attention, to the racist views. While scientists will try to defend or find a use for such studies to justify their existence, these are often a reach and fall flat, leaving one to ask what purpose they serve other than to energize racists?