- C1039169-4D05-47D1-81BB-B715B68238CA.jpeg (267.24 KiB) Viewed 615 times
The title of the book is a little misleading. In all the years I’ve locked horns with racist colleagues I don’t think there’s much in the book which would have helped. The fact we are all ex- Africa and are quite recent cousins (I was surprised how recent) wouldn’t have fazed them at all. There’s a lot crammed into this little book: I never realised that genetics was so complicated. Adam pours scorn on the media ‘the gene for X has been discovered’:It hasn’t. X is governed by lots of genes, often with multiple uses acting in often sophisticated ways with other genes.
He’s cynical about all the companies offering to do a genetic profile and tell you where your ancestors come from even to the extent that African Americans can learn where in Africa they originate. They can’t, the mix of African genes makes it impossible. These companies rely mostly on their own databases ie. their other customers. It’s a great way to waste $99. He’s looked at far right websites like Stormfront and finds obsession with these companies. ‘I’m 100% white, I’m 99.99% white, I’ve got no Ashkenazim Jewish blood’. One guy even complained that he was only 61% white and a reply came that a drink was prepared that was 61% water and the rest potassium cyanide. ‘ drink it all up YOU ARE NOT WHITE’. There’s some real cesspits out there. I particularly liked Adams line, ‘Every Nazi has Jewish blood’.
He goes on to deal with pigmentation, IQ, sport, and modern subtle racism.
In the study of genetics an assumption of 25 to 30 years per generation is made so over a 500 year period we have 1,048,576 ancestors. By a thousand years we have 1,099,511,627,776 that is over a trillion and about 10 times more people than has ever existed. The paradox is revealed.
There’s a wealth of information in this book and I had no idea how to even start reviewing it so I waited a few days to see which bits stuck in my mind most and this is the result. I’ve also just been on Amazon and there’s some great reviews of this book which I’d recommend.
The slap in the face that is offered by anti-rationalist, pseudo-scientists and anti-intellectuals that infest much of public discourse is a sad coda to what has been achieved these centuries past by the scientific method - don’t get me started