Review: Superior: The Return of Race Science

Superior: The Return of Race Science by Angela Saini
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I found Angela Saini's earlier book, Inferior>, about scientists' attempts to prove that women are less capable than men, very interesting. So when I heard her mention this book on the podcast Our Opinions Are Correct, I picked it up, and I'm glad I did.

If anything, it's better than Inferior (well, it would be, wouldn't it?). It has a clearer throughline, and more tightly weaves together science as it is practiced with the social and political uses and implications of that science.

The conclusion, from the latest genetic evidence, is that apart from minor and mostly superficial adaptations to local climatic and food-supply conditions, genetic differences between populations are smaller and have less impact than genetic differences between individuals in those populations. Not that populations (sometimes referred to as "races") are discrete entities in any case; everything blends at the edges, and the more we discover about prehistory, the clearer it becomes that there has always been mixing and migration. The world as it is is not the end point of this process, nor is it witnessing this process for the first time as it mingles formerly "pure" races who have always lived where they currently live. And, while there's little evidence that genetics has much to do with intelligence or population health in any simple, straightforward way, there's plenty of evidence that living in poverty, and being under the psychological stress of discrimination, does affect both displayed (not inherent) intelligence and health status.

And yet, as the author shows us, there's a persistent thread of "science" going through great contortions in order to claim the opposite - forced to the fringes after World War II, but now making something of a comeback in the current political climate.

I found this a challenging book, that made me think hard about a lot of assumptions that our culture instills in us. Since that's clearly the author's intent, I judge it a success.

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