Re: NPR Genetics Guest Adam Rutherford: Galton a 'Genius', but 'Massive Racist.' How Could He Be Both? and Adam Rutherford: How to Fight Racism Using Science
From: Adam Rutherford [Email him]
My new book, How to Argue With a Racist, comes out next week. It's a manifesto of sorts, a pugnacious attempt to arm the reader against racism, both overt and casual. My weapons are bleeding edge science and history, which are deployed to debunk many racist tropes, in terms of skin colour, intelligence, sport and ancestry.
Racism is a prejudice that has a longstanding relationship with science. The invention of race occurred in the age of empires and plunder, when men of the Enlightenment classified the people of the world, mostly from their armchairs. But with beautiful irony, genetics is also the field that has demonstrated that race is not biologically valid, and science is no ally to racists.