Afternoon Must-Read: Jerry Coyne: Criticizing Nicholas Wade’s Book on Race

Jerry Coyne: Our letter to the New York Times criticizing Nicholas Wade’s book on race: “As scientists dedicated to studying genetic variation…

…we thank David Dobbs for his review of Nicholas Wade’s *A Troublesome Inheritance: Genes, Race, and Human History*, and for his description of Wade’s misappropriation of research from our field to support arguments about differences in human societies. As discussed by Dobbs and many others, Wade juxtaposes an incomplete and inaccurate account of our research on human genetic differences with speculation that recent natural selection has led to worldwide differences in I.Q. test results, political institutions, and economic development. We reject Wade’s implication that our findings substantiate his guesswork. They do not…