A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived: The Human Story Retold Through Our Genes

by Adam Rutherford

This is a seam that will run throughout this book, confronting and dispelling the culturally ubiquitous idea that genes are fate, and a certain type of any one gene will determine exactly what an individual is like. That this is a fallacy is universally

known among geneticists, yet it is still an idea that carries a lot of cultural significance, fueled frequently by the media and an ultra-simplistic understanding of the absurd complexities of human biology.

Forer effect is a psychological phenomenon where people conclude that broadly true statements are accurate for themselves personally, when they are in fact generically true for many people.

There are no essential genetic elements for any particular group of people who might be identified as a “race.” As far as genetics is concerned, race does not exist.

The unglamorous truth is that there are but a handful of uniquely human traits that we have clearly demonstrated are adaptations evolved to thrive in specific geographical regions.

But science is the opposite of common sense. It’s a set of methodological tools that attempt to extract objective reality from how we perceive it. Science sets aside the bias that we lug around, and separates what feels right from what is.

Genetics has shown that the conflict is with people, and not embedded in biology.

Genetics has shown that people are different, and these differences cluster according to geography and culture, but never in a way that aligns with the traditional concepts of human races.

“For every complicated problem there is a solution that is simple, direct, understandable, and wrong.” H. L. Mencken

Nature via nurture is a much better way of phrasing it.†

When it comes to humans, the simple, direct, understandable answers are likely to be wrong.

gene that has a measurable association with violence if the bearer was beaten as a child is not irrelevant. But perhaps exoneration via the complex and poorly understood root of genetics is missing the broader point that maybe we shouldn’t abuse children.

No one will ever find a gene for “evil,” or for beauty, or for musical genius, or for scientific genius, because they don’t exist. DNA is not destiny.