A Troublesome Inheritance: Genes, Race, and Human History
Written by Nicholas Wade
Narrated by Alan Sklar
3.5/5
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About this audiobook
Drawing on startling new evidence from the mapping of the genome, an explosive new account of the genetic basis of race and its role in the human story
Fewer ideas have been more toxic or harmful than the idea of the biological reality of race, and with it the idea that humans of different races are biologically different from one another. For this understandable reason, the idea has been banished from polite academic conversation. Arguing that race is more than just a social construct can get a scholar run out of town, or at least off campus, on a rail. Human evolution, the consensus view insists, ended in prehistory.
Inconveniently, as Nicholas Wade argues in A Troublesome Inheritance, the consensus view cannot be right. And in fact, we know that populations have changed in the past few thousand years-to be lactose tolerant, for example, and to survive at high altitudes. Race is not a bright-line distinction; by definition it means that the more human populations are kept apart, the more they evolve their own distinct traits under the selective pressure known as Darwinian evolution. For many thousands of years, most human populations stayed where they were and grew distinct, not just in outward appearance but in deeper senses as well.
Wade, the longtime journalist covering genetic advances for The New York Times, draws widely on the work of scientists who have made crucial breakthroughs in establishing the reality of recent human evolution. The most provocative claims in this book involve the genetic basis of human social habits. What we might call middle-class social traits - thrift, docility, nonviolence-have been slowly but surely inculcated genetically within agrarian societies, Wade argues. These "values" obviously had a strong cultural component, but Wade points to evidence that agrarian societies evolved away from hunter-gatherer societies in some crucial respects. Also controversial are his findings regarding the genetic basis of traits we associate with intelligence, such as literacy and numeracy, in certain ethnic populations, including the Chinese and Ashkenazi Jews.
Wade believes deeply in the fundamental equality of all human peoples. He also believes that science is best served by pursuing the truth without fear, and if his mission to arrive at a coherent summa of what the new genetic science does and does not tell us about race and human history leads straight into a minefield, then so be it. This will not be the last word on the subject, but it will begin a powerful and overdue conversation.
Nicholas Wade
Born in Aylesbury, England, Nicholas Wade studied at Eton College and King's College, Cambridge. He has worked at Nature and Science and is currently a science reporter for The New York Times. The author of four previous books, he lives in Montclair, New Jersey.
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Reviews for A Troublesome Inheritance
50 ratings6 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5An interesting book. Wade argues that genetic factors are seriously undervalued and indeed repressed as an explanation for human societal diversity. He claims that different social tendencies at the race level have evolved fairly recently and explain much of today's economic world. His view is a subtle one, these tendencies are not god-given, but have evolved in response different societies' needs (-"human evolution has been recent, copious and regional").
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Wade presents many lines of evidence for his hypothesis that human evolution has continued in the past 10,000 years, resulting in genetic changes that can detect racial and geographical groupings reliably. He thinks this information is not well known because of a "politically correct" bias in academia that regards race as a social construct. There are studies of individual genes known to promote aggression, genes that lead to the thicker hair in Asian people, and to lactose tolerance in Northern Europeans. In most studies it appears that populations do not move far from their homes, and it is possible with comprehensive genome screens to distinguish Italians from English. Not entirely convincing, I have seen contradictory reviews about this contemporary book.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5This book explicitly raises a question that most social scientists have avoided for a long time: do genetic differences explain an important part of the political and economic differences between various groups of people, various races in Wade's terminology? This is indeed a troubling question. The last time racial differences were treated as a serious study, in the late 19th and early 20th century, the results of the "study" made key contributions to the ideology of Nazism. And Wade is unquestionably right in arguing two points -- that the subject has been deliberately avoided for the past half-century, and that recent advances in genetics do show some differences in genetic endowment between population groups. But having opened Pandora's box, Wade doesn't take much out of it except a series of hypotheticals, unsupported by actual genetic evidence, that leads him to conclude that much of the political/economic difference between population groups does reflect genetics. This is a very long step indeed, into dangerous territory, given the human habit of jumping on any possible justification for assuming that "my" group is better than "yours". Before assuming that cultural differences reflect different genetic endowments, it would be wise to wait until there is a shred of actual evidence that this is so.Wade starts with the assumption that human evolution has been "recent, copious, and regional". In some respects, this is unquestionably so, though "copious" seems to me less certain than the other two. We do know, however, that within the last 50,000 years differences have appeared, mostly in what seem to be responses to environmental differences -- lighter skin among Europeans and Asians, lactose tolerance in dairying areas, sickle cell anaemia in malaria-ridden parts of Africa. But most of these long predate the emergence of known cultural differences; one batch of hunter gatherers probable has a similar culture to another. As Wade himself says "the signals of evolution within the past few hundred or thousand years are harder to pick up unless the force of selection has been extremely strong". In any event, he argues that since genetic change has continued since the departure from Africa of the ancestors of today's Europeans and Asians (and Australian aborigines and native Americans), genetic change has increased differences between these groups. That seems unquestionable, and is already a subject of substantial research interest, particularly in medicine.But extending the existence of genetically-based medical differences between population groups to the existence of genetically-based cultural differences is a very long one, and Wade does not base it on any evidence. Rather, he argues that "all types of human society, from the hunter-gatherer band to the modern nation, are rooted in a suite of social behaviors. These behaviors, WHICH MOST PROBABLY HAVE A GENETIC BASIS, interact with culture to produce the insitutions that are characteristic of each society" (Caps are the reviewers) He proceeds with a long chain of "reasonable to assume", "may provide", "probably present", etc. etc. etc and eventually ends up with a penultimate chapter entitled "The Rise of the West". This is an interesting book, which challanges accepted ideas, and is probably worth reading on that basis alone. But its conclusions rest on hypothesis, not evidence.
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- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I obtained this book through a book-signing in Manhattan. The book reads better than the author's presentation, as he had to step ginerly on an uncomfortable topic, that is the place of race in human diversity and evolution. He is attempting to show that many of the differences between groups of people cannot be ascribed entirely to cultural differences, but that there is a biological basis for much this, if only partial. When he looks around the world and sees so much inequality, there are no clear cut answers, and so genes must have a place, we just don't know which ones they are in a broad sense. Like the similar, "10,000 Year Explosion: How Civilization Acclerated Human Evolution" by Gregoryy Cochran and Henry Harepending" there is a chapter about the success of 'Jewish Adaptation" in Western Europe, resulting in considerable intellectual achievement. A good book to read on a subject that is still in process.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I almost gave it a 4 because specially towards the end (chapter 9 onwards), there were a few gems, much to my delight... but finally settled for a 3 because of the slow. paced. narrator. that almost. put. me. to. sleep. After getting used to him, and enduring the seemingly endless and reiterarive paragraphs of preemptive defence from racist accusations that the author felt the need to include, I nonetheless enjoyed the later part of the book and was glad I picked it up.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I'd give this 4 stars for discussing a topic that is almost completely taboo in polite company, and for understandable reasons. I've giving 3 because of some obvious issues I found (toward bottom of this.)
Basically, there is one core argument, in two parts:
Part 1.) Genes are always under selective pressure --> genes built our bodies (well... oh, right, no caveatting) --> our brains are part of our bodies --> your brain was built by genes --> your brain has been under selective pressure, continuously.
Or, simply, 'your' brain (your ancestors' brains) were under non-stop selective pressure, the same as their immune systems, bone structures, metabolisms, skin color, and so forth.
Part 2.) Since we've been under *continuous* selective pressure, and, broadly speaking, African, East Asians, and Caucasians were separate populations for several 10's of thousands of years, each major 'continental' race has had time to diverge a tiny bit. Witness skin color, facial structure, eye and ear differences, and so on. Clearly, the genetics for our brains could -in fact, given what we know of genetics and evolution, almost assuredly must have- had small changes selected for in that same time.
(And here is where people start to really freak out.)
The author does a good job of:
a.) Making the case that this general thesis is not only possible, but highly probable
b.) Pointing out some possible examples; highlighting supporting evidence
c.) Making the case that our *values* regarding possible differences are what matter,
d.) and making the case that a race simply having e.g. an average IQ a few points higher doesn't necessary determine/conclude/etc. anything in the 'real world' either (as opposed to the world of values). Think of, though not referenced in this book, semi-recent findings that 'stick-to-it-iveness' is actually a far better predictor of financial success and even happiness than IQ.
d.) Pointing out, again and again, that *individual* persons from any race or ethnic group will succeed and fail, be violent or not, etc.
There are some definite cons with this book.
1.) It gives perhaps too short shrift to cultural influences; there are too many instances of "culture can easily be copied, so the fact that people have not means that culture must have some tie to genetically determined propensities."
Well, may, maybe not. People cling e.g. to their particular religion, sometimes for thousands and thousands of years. Now, culture is not religion (or vice versa), but it seems to me that beliefs alone can survive intact despite tremendous pressures.
2.) At times the author shifts between the 3 major continental races, the 5 continental races (including Australian aborigines and N/S American aborigines --aka, 'American Indians'), and individual, example/discussion specific ethnic groups. This is problematic: is he arguing for ethnic level differences, down to sub-sub-populations, racial differences, differences within some large subset of a race, etc.? And how to 'apply up' a finding from an ethnic group to a race?
That's the end of my review, per se. However, some additional thoughts on who this book might be for, after reading some comments on this book:
If you are someone who is unable to stomach the idea that mental traits are, at least in part, genetically determined, this will be an exceedingly tough read (and I have met some people like this, at least one of who is a somewhat close friend).
If you are someone who cringes at the very though of linking race, genes, and brains, this will be a tough read.
If you're racist, you're probably also going to find this a tough read, as you're not going to get your delusions confirmed for you.
If you think of yourself as open minded, have even considered to yourself previously that if e.g. genes can make skin or hair or metabolisms different, then the brain could have been tweaked too... well, you'll probably still find this a hard read.
Which is somewhat odd. There isn't a whiff of e.g. 'racial superiority' in here -other than one or two mentions to discredit the idea, but I mean on the authors part. There's no bigotry. (There is a statement here or there I found, well, hamfisted.) It's just subject matter that is really, really uncomfortable. We can talk about e.g. lactose tolerance, racial differences in reactions to certain medicines, disease resistances, cancer/Rickets/folate protection (e.g. skin color). No one really has a problem talking about those. But we do draw a line around the brain.
Clearly this is because of (particular, here in the US) a history -and a present- of racism. But that is not a reason to run away from this kind of stuff, nor, despite some comments here, is “that's racist” an argument or disproof.