Race: The Reality of Human Differences

by Vincent Sarich and Frank Miele

Book Overview

The conventional wisdom in contemporary social science claims that human races are not biologically valid categories. Many argue the very words 'race' and 'racial differences' should be abolished because they support racism. In Race, Vincent Sarich and Frank Miele challenge both these tenets. First, they cite the historical record, the art and literature of other civilizations and cultures, morphological studies, cognitive psychology, and the latest...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0813343224
• ISBN13: 9780813343228
• Release Date: July 2005
• Publisher: Routledge
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 1.01 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.4" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

good introductory book to race and evolution using modern DNA science

This is the first serious book i have read about race and I learnt alot about the early evolution of ape and man and how the development of DNA testing proceeded to reach its current accurate stage of been able to differentiate not only individuals but races. This book covers 3 basic topics in order- 1) a historical account of how ancient civilizations like Aztecs, Egytians and Romans etc recognised and treated the racial groups in their empires. 2)Early anthropolgy and its disputes between its famous scientists, leading to DNA methods that prove the birthdates of man-ape and modern man. 3)Showing how real race differences exist today, in sport, medicine and measured IQ. Also examples of how race can be integrated into modern societies by either Meritocracy, Affirmative Action or EthnoStates. The author Sarich? is occasionally a bit glib in some of his remarks but there is nothing controversial or heretical in this book. Both authors do get a bit personal with their ideological opponents but anyone with any interest in DNA/race is aware of the ideologies that some vehemently proscribe to in the name of denying race. I really enjoyed this book and although i would have liked it to contain more data on the modern race groupings it really brought my understanding of race and evolution into the new millennium.

Long overdue

I agree with Dr. Ralph L. Holloway, Professor of Anthropology, at Columbia University. He states that "Miele is exactly that antidote to the pernicious loss of respect for our own evolutionarily-derived biological diversity, and it will hopefully reach all who are ready and willing to think more clearly and empirically about our diversity and celebrate it. This reader has been very favorably struck by the careful and non-sarcastic exposure of some of our most common chestnuts regarding racial diversity, and in particular some of the sillier pronouncements regarding within- and between-group differences in genetic frequencies that have abounded in all of the media, academic and non.As more genetic research, particularly at the molecular level comes to our attention, it seems clear to this writer that this book will represent an important milestone in reducing the millstone of the myths that have accumulated denigrating and/or ignoring our genetic diversity. This book will certainly be a must for my students, and it is surely long overdue!"

Honesty about race

After years of non-stop media and academia misrepresentations, suppressions, and outright lies about race, it is wonderful to have another famous scientist break free of Politically Correct (PC) conformity and tell the public the truth. This book was written to refute the highly PC Public Broadcast System (PBS) television program, "Race: The Power of an Illusion." That program laid out 10 points about race, of which the authors say 8 are "facts" that they refute and the remaining two they reject "for economic and ethical reasons." The book carefully and convincingly shows that evolution requires variation and that variation carries across racial groups, even, or especially, in the highly-charged area of IQ. There is even a frank discussion of the most politically incorrect fact anywhere - that the average IQ of sub-Saharan Africans is only 70.I have only two quibbles about this excellent book. First, they make this fascinating statement, "As we have shown, the morphological differences between human races can exceed those found between subspecies [i.e., races] or even species of our nearest relatives, the chimps and gorillas, and other nondomesticated animals." In particular, the racial distance between the common chimpanzee and the bonobo chimpanzee is 14.6%, which exceeds the racial distance between some human races. An explanation of why the two chimpanzees groups are different species but the human groups are only different races seems to be needed here, but is not supplied.My second quibble is that the authors accept the Out-of-Africa theory of human origins based on DNA, mtDNA, and Y chromosome data. While they do show how that data supports Out-of-Africa, I don't think the debate is quite over yet. As an example of another view see: www.rafonda.com.

Solid science and common sense

Most people who consider themselves intellectuals pride themselves on how far removed their theorizing is from contact with mundane reality. After all, if daily life could provide answers to lofty questions, we might not need so many professional intellectuals. And that subversive thought must be suppressed at all costs!Consider the topic of race. The trendiest idea among intellectuals is that Race Does Not Exist. Last year, a three-night PBS documentary summed up the new orthodoxy: Race: The Power of an Illusion. That this strikes the vast majority of Americans as a self-evidently stupid notion only heightens its appeal to those who view themselves as superior because of their ability to mentally juggle esoterica.Geneticist Vincent Sarich, Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at Berkeley, and journalist Frank Miele, senior editor of Skeptic magazine, have stepped in to this debate with a new book Race: The Reality of Human Differences. It documents overwhelmingly that the weight of scientific knowledge is on the side of the man-in-the-street's commonsense view of race. Sarich and Miele demonstrate that all ten of the PBS documentary's summary statements on the nonexistence of race are wrong. Indeed, they bring so much firepower to bear against the series' assertions that it's a little like breaking a butterfly on a wheel. (Or, considering the mendacity of the PBS offering, a more accurate phrase might be "like crushing a cockroach with a cannonball.")Rejecting the straw man argument that the existence of race would require a race for everyone and everyone in his race, Sarich and Miele call races "fuzzy sets." They write, "Human races are not, and never were, distinct, mutually exclusive, Platonic entities into which every living person, unearthed skull, or set of bones could be pigeonholed."Miele is perhaps the best interviewer of scientists in the business. He's also a dog enthusiast, and his deep knowledge of breeds (which are artificially selected races) adds perspective to "Race."Sarich won't make himself popular with the politically correct at Berkeley, but he is a hard man to intimidate. A hawk nose and piercing eyes make him look like the world's tallest ayatollah. Approaching 70, he still has the dimensions of an NBA quick forward at 6'6" and a muscular 215 pounds. (In fact, he holds the world record for his age group in the small sport of indoor rowing.) Being the rare scientist who is also an enthusiastic fan of spectator sports makes Sarich far more aware of racial differences than his colleagues, who tend to only pay attention to unthreatening subjects for which they can win grants from the government or big foundations. In a 1989 book review in the New York Times, Richard Dawkins, author of The Selfish Gene, praised "the enormously important work of the American biochemist Vincent Sarich." As Sarich recounts in an autobiographical section of Race, as a graduate student back in 1967, he famously teamed with Allan C. Wilson to launch th