Review: How to Argue with a Racist

/ Eric Primm
Jonathan Swift once wrote, “Reasoning will never make a Man correct an ill Opinion, which by Reasoning he never acquired.” I believe this to be true, which makes How to Argue with a Racist by Adam Rutherford a difficult book to review. To be clear, this is an excellent book. But how does one argue with a person who believes melanin content in the skin denotes superiority or inferiority? Even though white supremacists might read and reference scientific literature regarding race, they rarely understand it or use the conclusions correctly. Take for instance the fact that a number of white supremacists believe that dairy tolerance is proof of genetic superiority. However, dairy tolerance correlates not to skin color but cultures that raised cattle, as Dr. Rutherford notes in his book. (The gene mutations that allow processing of lactose also exist in Kazakhs, Tutsi, Ethiopians, Khoisan, etc.) If white supremacists read genetic research papers with a preconceived notion of the results, is correcting them using other topics of genetics possible? I don’t know, but I highly doubt it. Does that mean How to Argue with a Racist isn’t worth the effort? To me, reading this rewards us with new tools to educate. Dr. Rutherford wrote a complex, nuanced book that presents an honest view of genetics. How to Argue with a Racist debunks some of the easier and more prominent fallacies about genetics and race. It is a defense against poor arguments made by bigots.

TL;DR

How to Argue with a Racist by Adam Rutherford debunks common errors associated with genetics and race. This book is a welcome addition to my own anti-racism toolbox. Highly Recommended.

Review: How to Argue with a Racist by Adam Rutherford
Click the image to learn more at Left Bank Books in St. Louis, MO

From the Publisher

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.

Review: How to Argue with a Racist

Adam Rutherford, a Ph.D. working in the field of genetics, wrote a book dedicated to debunking the myths that genetics suggest racial superiority. He tackles weighty subjects like race as an indicator of athletic performance or race and intelligence. Though I’d heard many of these arguments and counter-arguments, Dr. Rutherford either finds a new way to debunk or expands the debunking into areas I knew nothing about. For example, Africans dominate long distance running events right now. The racist argument is that their genetics make them better runners, and that these athletes run everywhere, such as running to school every day. Dr. Rutherford shows that it’s the culture that they grow up in that contributes to success more than genetics. These countries’ athletic heroes are runners, and don’t children grow up emulating their heroes? In addition, looking at the genetics of peak performance athletes might skew the data. Because regardless of skin color, athletes at the pinnacle of their sport have good genetics to perform the task that the sport requires. This small sample says nothing about the population in general.

Dr. Rutherford’s animosity towards genealogy websites that claim to tell us our heritage based on a cheek swab or spit sample never failed to amuse me. No matter how many times it’s said, people always mistake correlation for causation. While the genealogy websites don’t tell us much about our ancestors, Dr. Rutherford gives an interesting discussion that I’m still having trouble wrapping my head around. He claims that the tree symbolism is flawed. Trees by necessity branch, but mapping our genetic lineage would show that some branches loop around. Then he moved on to the genetic isopoint, which I don’t understand. The genetic isopoint “is the most recent point in a given population’s past where each individual then alive turned out to either be the ancestor of every individual alive now or has no currently living descendant.” (Thanks, Wikipedia.) If I understand correctly, tracing our family tree back far enough will lead to one ancestor common to everyone alive today. I’m probably not correct, but this is how I think about it after reading How to Argue with a Racist.

One of the ways this book helped me was to show how a lot of racist arguments make the cherry picked fallacy. Much like using peak athletes to show genetic differences in athleticism, a lot of racist arguments involve careful selection of ‘data’ or ‘thought experiments’ that exclude – purposely or not – examples that disprove the arguments. Going forward, I’ll pay attention to that in all conversations. I’m grateful to Dr. Rutherford for pointing this out.

How Science-y is this Science Book?

Despite my science background, biology isn’t a strength nor a subject I’m particularly interested in. How to Argue with a Racist is a science read, but it isn’t filled with jargon. Dr. Rutherford wrote it for people like me for whom biology, in general, and genetics, specifically, are unknowns. The science is sound, and the writing is clear. Dr. Rutherford knows his audience here isn’t academics or doctors; it’s the rest of us. He writes so that even I can understand him, and that makes “How to Argue with a Racist” an addition to my own anti-racism toolbox.

Much of the science of this book shares a lot with bleeding edge physics in that every answer is just a doorway to new questions. Dr. Rutherford does a wonderful job here distinguishing between what we can know about genetics and what we don’t. For example, geneticists might know which gene is associated with a particular trait, but they likely don’t know how it causes that trait. As knowledge expands, geneticists are also finding that there may not be just one gene associated with a trait. Multiple genes may be associated with a trait, and in a few years, that number may grow as scientists learn more.

The genetic isopoint discussion is done in layman terms, but I struggle with it. I need a more in-depth discussion to understand it. Dr. Rutherford does his best, but this section is a little under explained for me.

Defense Against Racist Arguments

The biggest disappointment of the book for me is the title. While Dr. Rutherford debunks racist arguments, I was expecting more strategies for my debating toolbox. Instead, the book just debunks racism in the arena of genetics. But we – and by we I mean white people – are learning that racism isn’t limited to arguments about genetics. If that were the case, then science would be the answer. Likely, my expectations were unfair, but with a title like How to Argue with a Racist the author sets themselves up for a large task.

Conclusion

Adam Rutherford’s How to Argue with a Racist debunks common myths racists use to argue for racial superiority. In addition, he shows us how connected we all are, and yet he does this without reducing our humanity.

8 out of 10!