Skin deep : journeys in the divisive science of race

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Title:

Skin deep : journeys in the divisive science of race

Author:

Evans, Gavin, 1960- author.

ISBN:

9781786076229

Physical Description:

xvi, 365 pages ; 24 cm

Contents:

Foreword - What is Scientific Racism? - Are we smarter than our ancestors? - Why did humans migrate? - is Africa really "backward"? - Where did "scientific" racism come from? - Are race groups real? - Can white men jump and black men swim? - Are there race-based intelligence genes? - What is IQ and is it hardwired? - What can twins tell us about nature and nurture? - Do rising IQs suggest genetic or environmental change? - The Bell Curve: what's it all about and why is it back? - Are Jews smarter than everyone else? - Do some populations have different brains from others? - Is race science making a comeback? - Race, genes and intelligence: where next?

Subject Term:

Race.

Racism.

Ethnicity.

Intellect -- Social aspects.

Summary:

Tackles head-on the debate that has been raging on internet message boards and in academic journals. No longer limited by the fringe, race-based studies of intelligence have been discussed by thinkers such as Sam Harris and Jordan Peterson. If these studies were true, they would provide an intellectual justification for inequality and discrimination. Examining the latest research on how intelligence develops and laying out new discoveries in genetics, paleontology, archaeology, and anthropology to unearth the truth about our shared past, Skip Deep demolishes the pernicious myth that our race is our destiny and instead reveals what really makes us who we are.

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Library	Call Number	Status
Searching... Bayport Public Library	305.8 EVA	Searching... Unknown

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Summary

Racial differences are rooted in biological reality, right? That's certainly what a small group of anthropologists, psychologists and pundits would have you believe. Portraying themselves as brave defenders of the inconvenient truth, this group took the revival of 'race science' from alt-right online message boards into mainstream academic journals. They seek to justify raging social inequalities from poverty to incarceration rates with a simple message: some people are just born to be poor. There's just one problem... race science isn't real.

The first Europeans had dark skin and black curly hair. Culture was born in Africa, not Western Europe. Gavin Evans examines the latest research on how intelligence develops and laying out new discoveries in genetics, palaeontology, archaeology and anthropology to unearth the truth about our shared past. Skin Deep stands up to the pseudo-science deployed to justify colonial rule, the apartheid regime and the vast inequalities that persist today. As race dominates the political agenda, it's time to put the hateful myths about it to bed.

Author Notes

Gavin Evans was born in London and grew up in Cape Town, where he became intensely involved in the anti-apartheid struggle. He studied economic history and law before completing a PhD in political studies, writing extensively on race and racism. He lectures in the Culture and Media department at Birkbeck College, London, and broadcasts regularly for the BBC World Service and is a keen marathon runner.

Reviews (2)

Publisher's Weekly Review

In this extensively researched and clearly articulated work of popular scholarship, journalist Evans (Mapreaders and Multitaskers: Men, Women, Nature, Nurture) provides antiracists with responses to outdated, disproven, but nevertheless still-often-aired racist ideas. Evans dismantles a wide variety of claims, including that adapting to cold climates made Europeans more advanced than their African relatives, that Ashkenazi Jews are smarter than other races, and even that white men can't jump. The main focus of the book is on various weak claims about race and intelligence: Evans ably demonstrates that the research meant to support race-based claims often confuses correlation with causation and ignores that more genetic difference exists within a given race than between members of different races. He spends a full chapter recounting the history of and rebutting the arguments of Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray's 1994 book The Bell Curve and pushes back on other popular thinkers who endorse the studies he rejects, including Sam Harris, Andrew Sullivan, and Steven Pinker. This isn't a page-turner, and it requires the airing of offensive theories in order to contradict them, but, for readers "who instinctively reject racism but who have not known how to fight back when confronted with its claims to scientific authority," this is an extremely useful resource. (Aug.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Choice Review

Journalist Gavin Evans provides a thorough overview and detailed critique of contemporary "race science," and a poignant description and assessment of scientific racism in the context of the election of Donald Trump, Brexit, and the global swing to the Right. He demonstrates how the alt-right has recycled debunked race science and mixed it with new forms disseminated to global audiences on YouTube, Reddit, 4chan, and other social media platforms. Evans reveals "how the ideas of race science blend with more traditional and visceral forms of racism to produce a truly dangerous brew." More than cultural critique, he provides an easy-to-read overview of the latest academic research in genetics, evolutionary anthropology, archaeology, and paleontology that explains disparities in human intelligence in terms of health and nutrition, in utero experience, wealth or poverty, early exposure to abstract logic, and even genes inherited from one's parents--but not in terms of the construct "race." As a seasoned science journalist, Evans explains complex concepts and theories with clarity and precision, and he brings moments of levity to this challenging subject matter. As he notes, "Homo habilis and Homo gautengensis ... evolved 2.5 million years ago, after which several sub-species popped up in Africa." Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates. General readers. --Lee D Baker, Duke University

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Publisher's Weekly Review

Choice Review

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