Showing results by author "Joseph L. Graves Jr." in All Categories

There is a persistent gap in life expectancy between Black people and their white counterparts in the United States. It is a direct result of structural racism within American society and has nothing to do with genetic differences. In past eras, scientific racism sought to shift the blame to the supposed physical inferiority of people of African descent. Even today, medicine labors under false beliefs derived from nineteenth-century racial thinking, harming patients who are not of European descent.

In this book, two distinguished scientists tackle common misconceptions about race, human biology, and racism. Using an accessible question-and-answer format, Joseph L. Graves Jr. and Alan H. Goodman explain the differences between social and biological notions of race. Although there are many meaningful human genetic variations, they do not map onto socially constructed racial categories. Drawing on evidence from both natural and social science, Graves and Goodman dismantle the malignant myth of gene-based racial difference.

Why understanding evolution—the most reviled branch of science—can help us all, from fighting pandemics to undoing racism Evolutionary science has long been regarded as conservative, a tool for enforcing regressive ideas, particularly about race and gender. But in A Voice in the Wilderness...