A troublesome inheritance
by Nicholas Wade · first published 2014
7mentions
1recommended by
7HN commenters
2014–2024first – last mentioned
14% recommend57% neutral29% critical
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. Few ideas have been more harmful than one race or another being inherently superior to others. For this understandable reason, discussion of biological differences between races has been virtually banished from polite academic conversation. Human evolution, the consensus view insists, ended in prehistory. Inconveniently, this view cannot be right. Nicholas Wade, the esteemed science journalist who has long reported on new genetic advances for
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"A Troublesome Inheritance: Genes, Race and Human History" by Nicholas Wade. Controversial but fascinating.
on “Ask HN: What is HN reading?” ↗…cited in “The Bell Curve” as applies to Africans. The “Bell Curve” was a Storefront tract dressed in respectable clothing (sadly, every 20 years it has a successor, the most recent is Nicholas Wade’s “A troublesome Inheritance". The statistic in question was quoted as an average IQ of 75 for Black Africans. If you read the citations, it comes from a study quoted by Richard Lynn (infamous racist, google ‘Mankind Quaterly’).…
…Explosion: How Civilization Accelerated Human Evolution Paperback by Gregory Cochran and Henry Harpending. Nicholas Wade, a long time writer for the New York Times also made the same arguments in his book A Troublesome Inheritance: Genes, Race and Human History although I haven't read it.
Not rats but humans, very interesting : https://www.amazon.com/Troublesome-Inheritance-Genes-Human-H...
on “New York's Uptown Rats Are Genetically Distinct from Downtown Rats” ↗…the author of the article: > Nicholas Wade was science editor of the New York Times from 1990 to 1996 and is author of three books on recent human evolution: Before the Dawn, The Faith Instinct, and A Troublesome Inheritance.
on “New documents strengthen the lab leak hypothesis of Covid-19's origin” ↗Some popularisations: "A Troublesome Inheritance" https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00G3L7VFM/ref=kinw_myk_ro... "A Farewell to Alms" https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001EQ4OLA/ref=kinw_myk_ro... "Human Diversity" https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07Y8K5FX8/ref=kinw_myk_ro...…
on “you should probably have a kid” ↗…the CNRS and INRAE before retiring ~20 years ago, we had regular, very informative dinners for years), and while i cannot judge "A farewell to Alms (which seems great), i can tell you that we talked "A Troublesome Inheritance". It was not good. The context was about the lack of science popularization, and he took the example of this book and his author, which he copiously insulted, and said it was exactly the reason why scientists…
on “you should probably have a kid” ↗