Race
The Reality of Human Differences
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- $87.99
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- $87.99
Publisher Description
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 research in medical genetics, forensics, and the human genome to demonstrate that racial differences are not trivial, but very real. They conclude with the paradox that, while, scientific honesty requires forthright recognition of racial differences, public policy should not recognize racial-group membership. The evidence and issues raised in this book will be of critical interest to students of race in behavioral and political science, medicine, and law.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Sarich, a Berkeley emeritus anthropologist, and Miele, an editor of Skeptic magazine, cannot resist calling the current view that "race does not exist" a "PC dogma." They make cogent, if not convincing, arguments of their case in three areas. Race as a concept, they argue, considerably antedates colonial Europe, presenting such examples as an "Egyptian tomb with four races" (as one caption calls a tomb painting) that may point up "awareness" of difference, but whether that awareness correlates to concepts of "race" as currently defined remains unproven. Several chapters are heavy going on DNA-based research into the origin and differentiation of Homo sapiens, here interpreted as branching off from the other hominids recently enough to make differences among people very minor but, in the authors' view, significant. They move from the Human Genome Project into their final section, in which differences in intelligence are said to correlate to a concept of race (but are not said to be a justification for discrimination). This last argument is predicated on what will seem to many readers an excessive faith in IQ tests. Nevertheless, the book lacks vitriol, other than that needed to fuel the skeptic's attempt to debunk.
