WHO WE ARE AND HOW WE GOT HERE - DAVID REICH
This one got recommended to me by a buddy who’s deep into science books and science-writing. We often disagree on what’s good, he’s a Pinker-guy for example, but this time he came up with something quite good. This book is an overview of genetic research done in the last 20-30 years that seeks to fill in some of the gaps about how humans spread around the globe. There’s lots of stuff about how these techniques have evolved over time (ear bones apparently have the best chance of useable DNA w/r/t an acincet skeleton, for example), and how much fucking there was between early humans and Denisovians/Neanderthals (were they hotter than us?), but the thing about population movements was the most interesting to me. There’s interesting speculation about the journey some of our ancestors made out of Africa, including evidence that there must have been 3-4 different occurrences of groups making this trip as well as evidence of groups leaving Africa and then returning thousands of years later. There is very interesting evidence of things called star-clusters, where someone did so much fucking their DNA is visible thousands of years later. People probably know about the one suspected to be Ghengis Khan, though apparently 2-3 million currently living people, many with the last name O’Donnell, are believed to all be descended from someone who lived 1500 years ago. Reich does an okay job taking apart the difference between the idea of race an ancestory, and the ways in which genetic science has been missued by racists over time, including a part where he discusses the stupid work of Nicholas Wade who is quoted saying, “I’ve never seen anyone with a hobby in Africa,” which is an amazing statement. As far as critiques go, he comes off as naive about this technology’s potential for abuse. While I agree in theory (or in an ahistorical vacuum) with him that when discussing the problems with getting consent to study ancient remains in the Americas that, "the distrust that has emerged among some Native Americans might, on balance, be doing more harm that good" he comes off as outrageously naive when he doesn't see how this technology and research couldn't be used to harm. He actually writes, "I am not aware of any cases in which research in molecular biology, including genetics - a field that has arisen almost entirely since the end of WWII - has caused major harm to historically persecuted groups." which is a truly amazing statement. One could easily point to the very famous example of the small-pox blankets, which was based on then-current understandings of molecular biology, but I assume he'd dismiss that as "long in the past'' there's also Tuskegee, human radiation experiments, Medical experimentation at Indigenous Boarding schools in the US and Canada, the long history of involuntary sterilizations of Natives and others running into, at least, the 70's (and recent suggestions that ICE was doing this at the border), Homlesberg, Top Hat, etc. It's a really long list. I know, personally, from Native's I've spoken with at events in Seattle (I used to have to drive Native kids to events on reservations or at community spaces in the city) that there is both a general distrust of whatever "well-meaning" scientists are up to and a more specific fear that genetics tests will be used to prove that people "aren't really indians" and will thus be denied benefits/rights/land. You saw a version of this when Liz Warren was trying to prove she was part Native with a blood test. It was cool to see some support for Marija Gimbutas, who’s theory, I thought, were considered fringe, but he seems to back up and support. Overall, this book is sort of a preview, it offers some cool insights about who was where when and shows how there are basically no “pure” groups in the sense of unmixed populations stable in just one area, everyone was moving around and interbreeding since time in memoria, but it mostly promises huge new insights (he draws a comparison to the advent of radio carbon dating and the changes that tech brought to archaeology) in the next few years and decades as this group of techniques is more widely used. I hope he’s right. We’ll see. 46 ear bones from early man.