Ewan Birney

Director of EMBL-EBI with an insatiable love of biology; small research group on genomics research. I also work with ONT, Dovetail, GSK + Genomics England co.

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Book Recommendations:

EB

Recommended by Ewan Birney

The #HowToArgueWithARacist book from @AdamRutherford is ... great. Adam is honest to the ultimately messy and messed up world around race and genetics; uncompromising about the birth of many racist ideas and stereotypes in the nascent science of genetics of the 19th +early 20th c (from X)

Race is not a biological reality. Racism thrives on our not knowing this. Racist pseudoscience has become so commonplace that it can be hard to spot. But its toxic effects on society are plain to see―feeding nationalism, fueling hatred, endangering lives, and corroding our discourse on everything from sports to intelligence. Even well-intentioned people repeat stereotypes based on “science,” because cutting-edge genetics are hard to grasp―and all too easy to distort. Paradoxically, these misconceptions are multiplying even as scientists make unprecedented discoveries in human genetics―findings that, when accurately understood, are powerful evidence against racism. We’ve never had clearer answers about who we are and where we come from, but this knowledge is sorely needed in our casual conversations about race. How to Argue With a Racist emphatically dismantles outdated notions of race by illuminating what modern genetics actually can and can’t tell us about human difference. We now know that the racial categories still dividing us do not align with observable genetic differences. In fact, our differences are so minute that, most of all, they serve as evidence of our shared humanity.