hello and welcome to ways to change the
world I'm Krishnan guru-murthy and this
is the podcast in which we talk to
extraordinary people about the big ideas
in their lives and the events that have
helped shape them and my guest today is
dr. Adam Rutherford now you probably
know him best as that bloke on the radio
and he talks to us about science and
interviews other people about science
but he's also a serious academic at UCL
and he's written a book which doesn't
really sound like his area which is
genetics called how to argue with a
racist history science race in reality
it's a punchy title quite pugnacious yes
there's no point being subtle about
these things but we felt that it was an
attempt to equip people with the right
tools that they can have arguments about
race especially with people who don't
think that they're particularly racist
but actually are saying effectively
racist things a lot of people in the
run-up to it younger people particularly
say have said to me I wish I'd had this
book at Christmas or Thanksgiving and
take all the pseudoscience yeah when
people say sort of glib things about or
particularly at sport but music often
racial stereotypes often positive
attribute racism so saying you know
black men are better at sprinting East
Asians are better at maths Jews are more
intelligent those sorts of racial tropes
which are associated with well positive
characteristics who doesn't want to be
faster sporty or brighter but actually
they're both untrue scientifically and
also rehab the effect of reinforcing
some very ancient racial stereotypes
rape racialized tropes which originate
at the birth of scientific racism which
is only three four hundred years ago can
we go through some of the language first
then I mean first of all what is race do
you believe it exists is it just a
construct race definitely exists and
this is a really important thing to
state I state up front there was a
period when when I was writing it where
we were toying with a title as being
does race exist
race does exist and it exists as a
social construct not just because it's a
social construct social constructs are
makeup the vast majority of how humans
interact with each other money is a
social construct time is a social
construct you know you don't turn up
late to things and say I'm sorry I'm
late but time is just a social construct
social constructs are the most important
way that humans interact with each other
the reason we say it's a social
construct is that it used to be thought
of as a biological innate characteristic
that race as we colloquially define it
is embedded in our genes which modern
genetics has shown is is not correct
that the standard racial categorizations
that people use and incidentally that is
incredibly flexible it's been flexible
over history and it's flexible today but
they don't align perfectly with what we
know about human diversity genetic
diversity human evolution the movement
of people around the world in history
and today but some people will be
confused because laga hang on but it's
the genes surely that make me brown
skinned and use slightly light brown
skinned and other people think yeah
that's absolutely true so even a social
construct has a biological basis to it
but one aspect of understanding the
history of race is that pigmentation
only really becomes associated with the
way we talk about race in colloquial
terms really only during the Age of
Enlightenment there was a couple of
earlier references to it in terms of
character in relation to pigmentation
but in in ancient history loads of
references to pigmentation none
primarily associated with character
traits as we have them today so the idea
of race comes about because ancient
scientists started trying to classify
human beings yes exactly it ease it
emerges at the same time as the age of
expansion European expansion the age of
exploitation of plunder of empire and
what I argue in the book which is not my
argument this is a standard argument in
history is that the invention of race is
the co-opting the marshaling of
of pseudoscience we now know into a
political ideology so it is a bunch of
guys you know enlightenment think is
important in lifespan thinkers Kant
Voltaire Linnaeus blumen back a load of
others many of whom didn't travel so
many of them are not actually doing
scientific exploration most of them
didn't do any measurements themselves
but they are saying these are the people
that were meeting or as Europe expands
around the world and this is how we're
going to classify them it's not just
classification though it is hierarchical
classification and that's essential to
this all of these classifications are
they put white Europeans at the top
they're white supremacist in a literal
sense rather than the contemporary sense
all of the categorization say white
European people are top others are below
pretty much all of them have sub-saharan
Africans or Africans at the bottom of
that tier now in those descriptions what
we see are the roots of racial
stereotypes that people still have today
that black people are lazy but strong
that East Asians are greedy and haughty
those both of those examples are direct
quotes from
Linnaeus's first classification of of
humans in this hierarchy white Europeans
are graceful kind and gentle why have
you felt the need to bring this book out
now is it bluntly because racism is back
yes
bluntly yes I think we've seen a number
of things in the last few years which
are you know you're a news guy the
changing political climates the rise of
nationalism I think a normalization of
racism and discussions about race in in
public has occurred which is sort of
concurrent with rises in nationalism you
got another couple of things which are
more on the science end of spectrum
which of course is my area which is that
what we're much better understanding
genomes and DNA and genetics now than at
any other time there has been a
unpredicted rise from nowhere in
commercial genetic
sestri testing kits so those companies
where you spit in a tube you send it off
and they give you a map of where your
ancestors from that's not possible what
they're telling you is where people on
earth are today that have similar DNA to
you and we infer ancestry from that and
at a trivial end of the spectrum I think
this is reinforced a notion of
biological essentialism that in that we
don't think is right in within genetics
within anthropology and those Sciences
but just the notion that well my
ancestors are from here and that has
some bearing on my behavior my identity
the relationship between genetics and
identity I think is very weak but I
think a lot of people feel it very
strongly and I think these types of kits
have reinforced that and is back very
straightforwardly and accept ibly it
seems in political discourse like the
idea that Britain for example has a
national culture that is something to be
preserved that is essentially white
right so yeah I mean there's a lot to
unpick in that and I don't I in terms of
like national identities I think people
I think countries do have national
identities I think they're much fuzzier
than this sort of the stereotype one of
Britain being purely whites I think that
is a close to racist trope or at least
it's a it's a traditional view of
Britain which I don't think is I think
is a historical basically because well
you know what does it mean to be British
are you British yes am i British yes
where where are you born in Britain
right so that that legally and actually
makes us British but you're Indian just
of Indian descent I'm of half Guyanese
Indian descent an interesting thing
happened recently which was that since I
started writing about race and genetics
I noticed that my Wikipedia page entry
had been changed immediately after I
wrote an article about about this and it
had been changed too he says something
like Adam Rutherford is a British
indo-guyanese geneticist and I looked at
that and thought well
that's odd because that is technically
correct but I've never been to Guyana
I've only ever been to India on holiday
my parents split up when I was very
little I was raised by my stepmom who's
from Essex I look like this
I'm from Ipswich I indo-guyanese has no
bearing on my identity whatsoever and
yet that is what someone else has chosen
is my identity and genetically that is
accurate but what does that mean about
do I not get to decide what my identity
is because mate I'm from Suffolk so that
relationship between genetics and
identity that can be imposed upon you
and what you choose I think is you know
this is part of the sort of territory
you trying to explore yeah so what is
the importance of skin colour in your
identity my personal identity because
our identity is sort of emitted the way
we describe our identities as you just
said is is it's often geographical yeah
rather than descriptive yeah and as you
say you know you're sort of I'm a
British Indian even though India doesn't
particularly have a you know a huge
bearing on my mindset or how I feel or
where my identity is or yeah we just
because we don't really have a better
way of describing me yeah you know we
talk about Asians we talk about black
white and Asian people well black and
white colors and Asia is a place so how
is that race you know yeah well yes
you're absolutely right obviously and it
is a sort of tacit agreement that you
roughly know what people are talking
about when we colloquially talk about
race we say black people meaning someone
probably of on average darker skin than
Europeans who has recent African descent
meaning within the last four five
hundred years maybe from a continent
which consists of what 54 countries and
1.3 billion people so from a scientific
point of view that's just a non-starter
it's meaningless it's meaningless for
another specific scientific reason or
two reasons
the first is that we know and have known
for years that there is more genetic
diversity and more variation in genes
within Africa than in the rest of the
world put together and this is a
reflection of the fact that Homo sapiens
is an African species and most of our
evolution happened within Africa in the
last half a million years only a small
proportion maybe as few as 10,000 people
migrated Out of Africa within the last
hundred thousand years or so from which
the rest of the world's population was
was due so is this sort of I mean if I
would put that more rudely perhaps I
mean are we saying that the rest of the
world is just more inbred yes that's not
really so there's no yes to people from
if you took two random people from I
don't know Rwanda and South Africa they
are they will be more different to each
other
genetically than either one of those
people is to anyone else outside of
Africa including an Aboriginal
Australian a Chinese guy you know
whatever the pigmentation thing which is
where you ask me is also the same there
is more pigmentation variation within
Africa
than there is in the rest of the world
put together how to explain that well
its 1.3 billion people and the genes
that encode pigmentation are more varied
within Africa than the rest of them so
genetically rather than the color no the
color is not the colour as well yeah so
explain this whole argument around all
Europeans come from Africa they've got
black jeans well I don't think it's
right to say they got black jeans
because I don't want black jeans ah well
that we all have pigmentation genes we
all have roughly the same pigmentation
genes but they vary in many ways as I
said with in Africa they vary much more
than outside of Africa one of the things
that we get confused about in biology in
genetics and evolution is trying to work
out what of our characteristics that are
genetically encoded have been selected
via natural selection so they're
adaptations
and what are just stuff that happened
all right drift is what we call it and a
few years ago the picture was a bit
clearer than it is today as we continue
to do research so we do think that pale
skin is an adaptation to moving away
from the equator into less sunny
climates and that's to do with basic
biology to do with folate metabolism we
can identify regions of the genome which
say this has been selected right this is
definitely an adaptation so paler skin
is an adaptation to the move away from
Africa to a certain degree the variation
we see in pigmentation though doesn't
isn't accounted for by that one fact and
and you know this should be obviously
true because people at the same latitude
don't have the same skin color it's not
as simple as the further away from the
equator art you are the further you will
be on a color chart so the racist says
so white people have evolved in a way
that black people haven't well in a
sense it's actually the other way around
the fact that there's more genetic
diversity within Africa shows that
there's been much more evolution within
Africa than the other direction it's
just that we're very visual we're a
visual species and evolution has
deceived our eyes by saying the first
thing you see in someone is well whether
they're male or female primarily and the
second thing is a skin color but skin
color is an absolutely terrible proxy
for underlying variation between people
so the idea of white and brown people
being fundamentally different is a
fundamental error even though they seem
visually so different yes that's right
that's right and so pigmentation is a
good example of how deceptive this idea
is African Americans of which there are
something like 42 million that currently
almost all of whom are descended from
the enslaved from five or six countries
on the west coast of Africa within the
last four four four hundred years they
we group them and sale they
self-identify as African Americans but
the genetics that underlies that
african-american status is hugely varies
hugely variable the it is a combination
of the fact that they were taken from
different countries and mixed without
any sense of ancestry of specific
regional ancestry it is hugely
confounded by the levels of breeding
within those populations which is
standard over that period of time and in
fact up to what we estimate is their up
to up to 20 percent on average of the
african-american genome is European
right because of the often enforced rape
of slaves of the enslaved people during
those that era and yet we just go well
they're black people right they're black
people in the same way that Africans are
bad people then they're not I mean they
did they're genetically distinct it's
really important I stress you know
they're having a cultural identity of
being African American is you know a
really important part of of of that
lived experience but genetically it is
it is nonsensical I'm trying to
decoupled genetic identity from social
identity okay and so it's so equally I
mean if you go back far enough will
every white person find that their
relatives are black yes unequivocally
yes we're in African species but that
seventy thousand years ago the ice
appoint for the world the global ice
appoint is the 14th century BC which is
not very far away at three and a half
thousand years ago this is the reign of
ramasees the second is its ancient
history but it's its history it's not
prehistory everyone on earth at that
time is the ancestor of everyone alive
today and I know I said this a thousand
times in lectures and people hear that
and they go that can't be right
it and I can take you through the maths
if you want it's in the book it's pretty
complicated but it is correct and we
know it genetically as well so
again it makes an absolute mockery of
the idea of racial purity of clear
bloodlines I get a lot of correspondence
from from people who've taken ancestry
tests or are interested in genetic
genealogy and they say they sometimes
say things like well we've done my
family tree and I can trace my ancestry
back to the 13th century in Ireland all
right they all come from Galway or
something something similar which may be
correct and you know what happened with
that Ant & Dec it yes it is genealogy
program wasn't that's exactly right and
it it wasn't I did was a fun program
because out and deca fun the science
behind it was pretty pony that you can't
have just think about the numbers two
parents four grandparents a grant
great-grandparents that's how many
generations three right so that takes us
back to maybe the beginning of the
nineteenth century they all had two
parents and so on
so by the time you get to the middle of
the 19th century you've got 256
ancestors they can't have come from the
same place if they all came from the
same place you'd be devastatingly inbred
in a way which would be lethal it may be
that a significant proportion of your
ancestors came from one region but
humans are good at two things moving and
sex right that's what we've done for the
last hundred thousand years or so we
move a lot and we have sex as often as
we can okay so let's go through some of
the you know the tropes Thea the
arguments that are often posed so black
people greater sprinting not so good at
long-distance running because of the
muscle fibers they're they're different
we're told I was taught that at school
when was the last time a white man 100
meters sprint in the Olympics 1980 it
was Allen wells all right okay that was
the year that it was Moscow Americans
had boycotted so there weren't black
American runners there weren't black
Americans there so it's quite possible
that of the five white men in that race
none of them would have been present
it was the
last time that the winning time was
above ten seconds okay now I love my
sport I love athletics particularly if
that is your data set it one
interpretation of it is that that's
pretty compelling right every single
race instead of 1984 has only had
African Americans or afro-caribbeans or
a couple of Canadians in fact there are
Phut there have been five race races
with Africans most of them Frankie
Frederick's from Namibia so you think
well that's compelling data isn't it
right isn't it well from the first thing
to say is that's 58 men right and in
science n equals 58 is not a great
starting point the second thing to say
is these people are genetic outliers
already right there
in I mean this with joy in my heart
they're freaks they can do stuff that we
can't do so they're possibly not
representative of the communities of the
populations from which they come so
that's two things I think I think it
becomes sort of non-scientific with a
more compelling argument when you think
about the distribution of populations
that do different sports and are
successful in those sports so for
example the muscle thing that you
mentioned to be a sprinter you do need
more fast twitch muscles cells right
they're much better at processing oxygen
quickly so you get good explosive energy
and that is a biologically encoded thing
we don't quite understand the genetics
that underlies it but we know some of
the genes that definitely are involved
in that process and at the other end of
spectrum you've got endurance runners
who have very low fast twitch low levels
of fast twitch cells and high levels of
slow twitch cells opposite effect there
is a dichotomy there all sprinters all
people get explosive energy sports have
higher fast twitch cells and it's
genetically encoded so then you go well
does that genetic encoding does that
correlate does that overlap with the
racial categories that we're talking
about and that's where the answer become
no she's not swords like people now the
same well no I mean like like we talked
about 42 million african-americans with
more genetic diversity than European
Americans a hundred sorry 1.3 billion
Africans with more genetic diversity
than everyone else on earth you do see
some correlations but they're not
exclusive to those populations they're
not exclusive to geographical groupings
although they might be probabilistically
increased but you see the same genotype
so sorry the same versions of those
genes in different populations all over
the world some of whom are no good at
sprinting when you compare sports that
also require athletic explosive energy
athleticism and you see zero
representation from African Americans or
swim sprinting short distance swimming
how many how many black swimmers have
there been in the history of the
Olympics
I can't League of any okay to now maybe
there are there are biological bases to
being good at sports to being talented
at specific sports and there are you
know nudge incremental advantages when
we're talking about top-level sports
because you're talking about the
difference between you know nine point
nine three and nine point nine two in to
get the gold but they do not account for
the fact in any way that only African
Americans and don't descended from the
enslaved have competed in the under
meters isn't it a well-known fact that
black people have got heavy burns yes I
think it's an absolute beauty s one and
what's most troubling about it is that
many black people think this now again
there's some science that is correct
sort of correct in that statement there
is some evidence mostly from actuary
data to do with osteoporosis that
indicates that on average African
Americans have higher density bones than
European Americans and then then the
racist rope kicks in or the myth kicks
in which is that means that they you
sink have lower buoyancy levels and
therefore that accounts for the ABS
the absence or effective absence of
african-americans in in swimming right
to unpick that first of all the bone
density thing is true ish kind it's true
right there's lots of complexities
within that but let's say it's true
does it affect buoyancy no what is the
strongest corrala correlate between the
fact that around about two-thirds 64 to
70 percent of African Americans can't
swim
when swim America identified the leading
causes of why African Americans can't
swim they were in reverse order
socio-economic swim classes are
extracurricular no role models just
talked about that
even after segregation and 64 most
swimming pools were built in white areas
or richer areas that's 3 not having
parents that swim but the biggest one
the most significant correlate between
not being able to swim is not being
taught how to swim this is this is
systemic structural racism which is
literally lethal because we know that
kids in African American kids between
the ages of 5 and 15 drown at three
times the rate of European American kids
about rhythm white people can't dance
all that well that's definitely true
music is another that's a very
interesting one as well because you look
at the numbers and they're stark so we
look at classical music historically
there have been no significant classical
music musicians
classical composers who are African or
African American that is a white
European domain and yet black people
have dominated in jazz and one of my
favorite lines that I wrote in that book
was all of the best rappers are black
although Eminem is quite good and we're
talking like two days after Dave did
that that's quite astonishing
performance at the Brits
so you only say well what does that mean
our musical styles so fundamentally
different that they can be accounted for
by biological differences between people
is rap and jazz such a different form of
music that it associates with having
dark pigmented skin and roots in Africa
compared to classical music well you
know obviously the answer to that is is
no it cannot be the case we could show
genetically that there is a very strong
correlation between dark pigmented skin
and being good at rap that would be an
easy experiment to show does it mean
that those two things are causative or
the the pigmentation is causative of
that well of course not of course it
doesn't it just says that the history of
these cultural things these cultural
artifacts it is divided by
stratification invented by Europeans
that's just sort of slightly changed
course for a moment cuz you mentioned
Dave at the Brits and I thought you
tweeted in support of his statement that
Boris Johnson is a real racist how come
yeah I dunno that's obviously part of
sort of why you've written this book and
what your what's kind of drug there's an
inner anger around all of this clearly
do you think well it's not very
interesting is it there are certain
things which made me angry about these
these debates I mean the swimming thing
is is one because it's literally lethal
I'm quite pugnacious about certain
things I mean yeah it's a scrappy book
did you suffer racism as a kid not much
a bit enough that's it makes one think
hard about these things you know I mean
look at me I'm pale skinned I was raised
in a white family my family is is white
so you didn't see your your Guyanese
Indian mother suffering racism I didn't
raise you well we that my parents split
up when I was about seven and I'm sure
she did suffer racial abuse me and my
sister my so I've got I'm one of five my
elder sister is same as me and then I've
got two stepbrothers and
half brother so we look very different
from each other but Mike the
pigmentation is the same as my my older
sister my first memory of enduring
racial abuse was in like that we think
we've dated it to 1980 or maybe 81 and
it was that my dad had taken us to the
co-op in Cape Orson marry a village
outside lips which where we grew up
until about that age and some kids
referred to me and my sister as Koko and
Leroy now what does that mean what's
that a reference to I did some fame oh
gosh yeah now so this is my mean pot I
don't think my narrative is particularly
interesting for the overall arching
overarching story but we thought that
was really cool because co-current Leroy
were yeah awesome I mean the fact that
they're african-american was not
relevant to either the racists or - yeah
a six-year-old and this hasn't been
driven by some terrible childhood
experience of racism no I don't I don't
not fundamentally my dad was best
friends with a guy called Brer peach who
many people know of he was murdered by a
policeman in riots and subtle and right
about that same same time so that's I
don't know it's part of my genesis so do
you do you think this is what's
happening at the moment you know that's
there is any sort of sense of no history
repeating itself but there are leaders
using science eugenics or pseudoscience
to justify policies that are essentially
racist I think we might be I think we're
seeing a recapitulation of some of those
earlier ideas from the 17th and 18th
century of a pseudoscience being
co-opted into an a pre-existing or
ideology rather than what it should be
which is science generates data and then
it it's released into the world and
people can make policy which makes you
say that is it Dominic Cummings
advertising for weirdos and misfits I
think it I think it's so we just gone
through this young man and Russa Biscay
who was employed and then and then and
sacked as an adviser to Dominic Cummings
I think there's a very interesting
characteristic shared by both Cummings
and and sobieski they're based on the
limited that the amount of information
that they've put out into the world I
don't know either of them but it appears
that the Cummings is very enamored with
science he seems to think that there is
a going to be a technological scientific
solution a rational approach to solving
a lot of the issues that we have as a
society now based on what I've read
about what he what I've read of his
discussions of these types of issues
some of which are a few years old some
of which what one specific example is a
blog he wrote after a conference he went
to held at Google which I used to help
organize no not that year called Sai foo
and if there's a long blog you wrote
about it in which he describes some of
the astonishing science that goes on
that was discussed at this meeting and
it the whole thing about this meeting is
this is this is bleeding edge stuff he's
the you know top most interesting
thinkers this is where we're going with
that his write-up is interesting it's
interesting because he's clearly
enamored with this stuff but clearly
doesn't understand a lot of it so he
talks about things like you know in the
antis all cloning I think it's one or
bring about woolly mammoth he talks
about CRISPR editing for genetic
engineering or potentially for babies so
design a design of babies as a as a
concept and that relates to eugenics and
that's part of the whole sort of
contemporary ideas about what we can do
with eugenics and and so on you know
whatever else is in the blog when you go
through and when you're looking at who
he's talking to a scientist well I look
at it and go yeah you've got you know
this is fanboying without doing the
legwork now I read some of the stuff
that Angie sobieski wrote including on
that same blog and it's the same right
so it says things like so Biscay said at
one point that some African Americans
I'm paraphrasing because I don't have
their quotes in front of me so give me
give me a wide berth on this African
Americans or African people do less well
in IQ tests that is correct there's a
lot of historical context there there is
a lot to unpick in the
data the best data that we have says
African countries on average do less
well than European countries he then
goes on to say I think that the cause of
this is genetic and then goes on to say
a bunch of other stuff some of which is
odious some of which is sort of just
uninteresting now that to me says you've
you've taken a data point like Cummings
has and you haven't done the work to
understand the context of that to
understand what that actually means it's
a bit like the hundred meters yeah every
winner since 1984 has been descended
from the enslaved that's the end of end
of it so what's the counter-argument
well it's not what we were being
repeated all over the yeah country I'm
sure you know it well it's true that IQ
shows that black people aren't as
intelligence as white well yeah that's
what he said and that's what what you've
just done there is complaint two
different things
IQ ISM is a measure of cognitive
abilities intelligences is related very
closely to it but it's not the same
thing and I think its input the language
we started talking about language the
language is important here and
separating these ideas if necessary but
more important than that is the question
of why that is the case if we accept
that that data is true and I think even
though this is both hard to say and if
you are it must must be appalling to
hear this said as well that's on average
African countries do less well and
European countries on IQ tests if we
accept that's true and I think that it
is trying to understand why that is the
case I think is really really important
I don't think there is any good evidence
which suggests that that difference is
genetically encoded which is exactly
what sobieski says it is much better
explained and I go into great depth
about this in the book is much better
explained by social and cultural
phenomena communication education area
being a key part of it but also so
there's this there's a phenomenon called
the Flynn effect and the Flynn effect is
that since we've been measuring IQs in
since what the early 20th century
James Colinas a political scientists
from his now New Zealand noticed that
country's IQs went up by three points
every decade right on average and so
that can't be a genetic phenomenon
because it's happening over a period of
a decade so it must be a social it must
be a cultural affect and what we see is
that as countries increase their
socioeconomic status wealth education
health medicine all of those things
correlates very closely with the Flynn
effect taking place rising IQs another
another factor is that IQ test reward
abstract thinking and as education gets
more sophisticated in in as countries
continue to develop education becomes
more focused on abstract thinking as
well so what I think is a much better
explanation for this attainment gap is
that the Flynn effect hasn't taken place
or has taken place or much lower level
in countries that do significantly worse
due to socio-economic reasons if you
take a country if you take Holland let's
pretend that Holland hasn't had social
development since the 1950s say it's
exactly the same as it was in the 1950s
and the Flynn effect hasn't taken place
in Holland for the last 50 years
compared to Germany Liechtenstein UK
whatever then the national IQ in Holland
would currently be about 85 now again
that's not enough generational time for
that to be accounted for and yet it's it
it almost perfectly fits the data that
we have for Africa so what why then did
you tweet that Boris Johnson is erased I
think it is an interesting philosophical
question that underlies this which is if
you say racist things factually racist
things if you categorize people as being
well what did he say watermelon smiles
and pickaninnies was the one example
that we're talking about here I I know
there was context to that article but
that is a racist thing to say I don't
feel like I'm being you know woke or
snowflake saying that I think that's a
racist thing to say
if you say racist things does that make
you a racist my sense is it does we can
never know the intentions of someone's
hearts I know I realize it's a serious
allegation to say someone is a racist
which he or she denies and people around
him denies you sure but I mean what do
we have to spend time explaining to to
people what race racism is probably it
feels like a waste of time there's that
famous was it Maya Angelou who said this
no it wasn't it was Toni Morrison who
said that you know all of this is a
distraction from getting from us doing
things we have to explain why we're here
we have to justify our our presence we
have to spend time saying yes what you
said was racist and this is why it's
offensive and this is why you should
probably shouldn't say it from both a
political ight sense but also a
scientifically inaccurate sense we
shouldn't have to do that I was slightly
disappointed massively disappointed by
everyone turning up and saying after
Dave's that performance saying Boris
Johnson is not a racist I mean that this
is a huge distraction from from what we
know from just just just going on with
stuff we you know trying to make trying
to make progress
this feels backwards this feels like
well this has happened since the book
has been published it was only a couple
of weeks ago this feels like god of you
know I hate a cultural seem that is that
is something worth mining so what do you
see as the fundamental difference then
between those people who were arguing
over whether Boris Johnson is racist and
you putting your arguments here about
science in the book well that expression
of vocal racism by our politicians by
our leaders by you know Trump I the the
fact that the Jewish Chronicle had a
picture of Jeremy Corbyn saying racist
and anti-semitic in the run-up to the
election regardless of whether you think
that is true or not the fact that the
Jewish Chronicle did that indicates that
there is a normalization
of accusations and discussions of of
racing in public life racism is not
founded on rational principles but is
historically and in today and today II
people revert to using science to prop
up those opinions and that's what the
book is for is to say you well you know
if you if you're a racist you're asking
for a fight and the differences between
me and you is that you can't have my
tools you can't use science to defend
your position because race is not
supported by what we understand about
evolution about genetics about the way
we've migrated around the world about
genealogy ancestry all of those things
those are tools in my tool kit and
they're better than yours so you know be
a racist fill your boots you're asking
for conflicts but my weapons are more
powerful than yours so this is
scientific activism some degree isn't if
you could just change the world how
would you change it can I can I include
a time machine and that sure I would
have done something impossible which is
that we would have discovered genetics
before we discovered anthropology
because the whole trajectory and
historians and anthropologists are gonna
lose their their stuff when they when
they hear you say this but if we
discovered molecular genetics in the
16th century and the variation of people
as encoded in our genes rather than what
happened which is that men or
pseudoscience categorize people while as
mostly by a single visual obvious trait
which is pigmentation and anthropology
emerges from that very closely bound to
Empire to colonialization to subjugation
of people and so on if I would I'd like
to see a version of history where
genetics was discovered first
in that hypothetical reality it would be
much harder to categorize people in such
crude and clumsy and non scientific
terms as we did in the 17th century and
that we continue to do today based on
those inventions of race in the 17th
century and they'd have had to have much
better or more honest excuses for
exploiting other people who are just
like them
well it's the same argument just talking
about you can't have science to justify
this because the science doesn't
supports those those those myths those
stereotypes those race those those
justifications for subjugation I'm not
saying that with you know I'm not gonna
fix racism with this book obviously
bigotry shifts according to social and
cultural mores anyway what I'm saying is
you can't have science I wonder I'd love
to know what world would be in now if
we'd known what we know now about
genetics at the birth of scientific
racism
I don't know thank you very much indeed
for sharing your ways to change the
world I hope you enjoyed that lots more
we could talk about but we've got to
draw it to an end at some point in time
for now maybe we'll have you back for
the next one I hope you enjoyed that if
you did then please do give us a racing
and a review all of these interviews uh
viewable on the Channel 4 News YouTube
channel our producer is rachel evans
until next time bye bye