Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Editors, authors and reviewers will hopefully find the guidance helpful when considering and discussing potential benefits and harms arising from manuscripts dealing with human population groups categorized on the basis of socially constructed or socially relevant characteristics, such as race, ethnicity, national or social origin, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, political or other beliefs, age,…
> How do you effectively discuss, and communicate, that for example sickle cell anaemia or lactose intolerance affects people of African descent, or skin cancer is prevalent in people of European ancestry? And that poor and badly educated people are susceptible to bad diets, lifestyles and medical issues that are a consequence of that? Don't worry, it says in the guidelines that race and ethnicity aren't real: > Race…
Personally I find this criticism incredibly disingenuous. It sets up a strawman and doesn't even bother to consider the author's reasoning.
To be clear, I don't really mind whether "race" is a suitable word to descibe ethnic groups, heritage or whatever, nor do I know much about genetics.
No one would deny that the examples you mention aren't real. I'm not making an argument either way, but if someone were, it's easy to think of potential starting points. Such as, Historical reasons based on connections to racisms or eugenics. Maybe even biological/genetics reasons, like being based too much off of external characteristics leading to incorrect assumptions about heritage. Perhaps these terms over simply something with too many contributing factors to be useful without misinterpretation.
Wikipedia's descriptions of both suggest that the author's description is, at the very least, not uncommon.