A Troublesome Inheritance, Nicholas Wade
A Troublesome Inheritance, Nicholas Wade
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A Troublesome Inheritance
Genes, Race, and Human History

Author: Nicholas Wade

Narrator: Alan Sklar

Unabridged: 10 hr 48 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Penguin Audio

Published: 05/06/2014


Synopsis

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.

About The Author

Nicholas Wade received a BA in natural sciences from King’s College, Cambridge. He was the deputy editor of Nature magazine in London and then became that journal’s Washington correspondent. He joined Science magazine in Washington as a reporter and later moved to The New York Times, where he has been an editorial writer, concentrating on issues of defense, space, science, medicine, technology, genetics, molecular biology, the environment, and public policy, a science reporter, and a science editor.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Fletcher on May 04, 2014

It will be very interesting to see how the mainstream media reacts to this work: furious denunciation (possible), studied non-attention (possible), or thoughtful analysis (unlikely, but possible). Virtually the entire edifice of social-policy conventional wisdom depends on holding fast to the orthodo......more

Goodreads review by Deborah on September 02, 2014

A Troublesome Inheritance is a troublesome book. It is troublesome not because it presents a theory that different races, ethnicities, and human populations exhibit different social behaviors due to genetic inheritance, and that evolution of differing genes govern social behavior, but because it bas......more

Goodreads review by Gwern on November 11, 2020

Moved to gwern.net.......more

Goodreads review by Tim on July 27, 2014

Four stars, not because the author never ventures onto "shaky ground" but because he does so and does it skillfully. Actually, his arguments are brilliant and I can't wait for academia to attempt to disprove some of his more speculative arguments. He asserts in the opening of the book that speculati......more

Goodreads review by John-Paul on December 30, 2016

While I read this book--especially the first half--I found much of it to be interesting, almost revelatory. But the second half is so utterly awful that it made me doubt everything else, rendering the book almost entirely worthless. Here's how this works: the first half surveys the scientific evidenc......more


Quotes

The Wall Street Journal:
“It is hard to convey how rich this book is….The book is a delight to read—conversational and lucid. And it will trigger an intellectual explosion the likes of which we haven't seen for a few decades….At the heart of the book, stated quietly but with command of the technical literature, is a bombshell….So one way or another, A Troublesome Inheritance will be historic. Its proper reception would mean enduring fame.”

Ashutosh Jogalekar, Scientific American:
"Extremely well-researched, thoughtfully written and objectively argued…. The real lesson of the book should not be lost on us: A scientific topic cannot be declared off limits or whitewashed because its findings can be socially or politically incendiary….Ultimately Wade’s argument is about the transparency of knowledge."

Publishers Weekly:“Wade ventures into territory eschewed by most writers: the evolutionary basis for racial differences across human populations. He argues persuasively that such differences exist… His conclusion is both straightforward and provocative…He makes the case that human evolution is ongoing and that genes can influence, but do not fully control, a variety of behaviors that underpin differing forms of social institutions. Wade’s work is certain to generate a great deal of attention.”

Edward O. Wilson, University Research Professor Emeritus, Harvard University:
“Nicholas Wade combines the virtues of truth without fear and the celebration of genetic diversity as a strength of humanity, thereby creating a forum appropriate to the twenty-first century.”