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Skin Deep: Dispelling the Science of Race
The dark heart of race science… and why it’s nonsense.
Racial differences are rooted in biological reality, right? That’s certainly what a small group of anthropologists, psychologists and pundits would have you believe. Portraying themselves as brave defenders of the inconvenient truth, this group took the revival of ‘race science’ from alt-right online message boards into mainstream academic journals. They seek to justify raging social inequalities from poverty to incarceration rates with a simple some people are just born to be poor. There’s just one problem… race science isn’t real.
The first Europeans had dark skin and black curly hair. Culture was born in Africa, not Western Europe. Gavin Evans examines the latest research on how intelligence develops and laying out new discoveries in genetics, palaeontology, archaeology and anthropology to unearth the truth about our shared past. Skin Deep stands up to the pseudo-science deployed to justify colonial rule, the apartheid regime and the vast inequalities that persist today. As race dominates the political agenda, it’s time to put the hateful myths about it to bed.
Racial differences are rooted in biological reality, right? That’s certainly what a small group of anthropologists, psychologists and pundits would have you believe. Portraying themselves as brave defenders of the inconvenient truth, this group took the revival of ‘race science’ from alt-right online message boards into mainstream academic journals. They seek to justify raging social inequalities from poverty to incarceration rates with a simple some people are just born to be poor. There’s just one problem… race science isn’t real.
The first Europeans had dark skin and black curly hair. Culture was born in Africa, not Western Europe. Gavin Evans examines the latest research on how intelligence develops and laying out new discoveries in genetics, palaeontology, archaeology and anthropology to unearth the truth about our shared past. Skin Deep stands up to the pseudo-science deployed to justify colonial rule, the apartheid regime and the vast inequalities that persist today. As race dominates the political agenda, it’s time to put the hateful myths about it to bed.
- GenresNonfictionScienceRace
384 pages, Paperback
Published October 13, 2020
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
July 8, 2020
A white male wrote this book. I like the fact that date, data, and every race was included. It's was a easy read.
August 14, 2019
Skin Deep: Journeys in the Divisive Science of Race from Gavin Evans is an overview of the science, and the pseudo-science, of race told in a much more conversational tone than many such books.
That conversational tone has both some advantages and some drawbacks. The positive is that it is quite readable even though he cites and discusses much of the science past and present. His summaries are accurate and most of his conclusions are also the conclusions the vast majority of scientists and researchers have come to. So while he states his opinion he also backs it up with the research and conclusions of experts, so this isn't someone just spewing his own ideas. the negative of the casual tone is that those who are invested in keeping the absurdity of racism alive and well will pretend Evans doesn't "do" science here and should be discounted. Sorry, but accurate summations of large bodies of research is still valid, even if one didn't do the research. What do you think science classes do? They sum up the previous research and present findings, not a lot of "doing" science in there, but valid nonetheless.
I also recently finished Angela Saini's book Superior, which is much more rigorous and, while Saini does personalize her approach to the topic she sticks much more to what the scientists and researchers say, which is, like here, that the big differences between population groups are not that big and that, when an attempt is made to overlay the social construct of race on the population groups in science there is simply no direct alignment. Race is not a real thing, it is a social construct that racists cling to to salve their insecurities.
I would recommend this book if you'd like to read about the research but also want to hear how to counter those who cling to outdated concepts. If you're more interested in a closer reading of both the history and the current research, I would suggest Saini's book. Ideally, I think both books work well together. Also, don't be fooled by the dog whistles you'll find soon in reviews of both books. They will cite and misrepresent actual studies and raise up questionable "experts" as ones that should be believed rather than the great majority of researchers. Just know that these people are insecure and need to falsely build up something that resembles self-esteem because they are so lacking in both intelligence and morals.
Reviewed from a copy made available through Goodreads First Reads.
That conversational tone has both some advantages and some drawbacks. The positive is that it is quite readable even though he cites and discusses much of the science past and present. His summaries are accurate and most of his conclusions are also the conclusions the vast majority of scientists and researchers have come to. So while he states his opinion he also backs it up with the research and conclusions of experts, so this isn't someone just spewing his own ideas. the negative of the casual tone is that those who are invested in keeping the absurdity of racism alive and well will pretend Evans doesn't "do" science here and should be discounted. Sorry, but accurate summations of large bodies of research is still valid, even if one didn't do the research. What do you think science classes do? They sum up the previous research and present findings, not a lot of "doing" science in there, but valid nonetheless.
I also recently finished Angela Saini's book Superior, which is much more rigorous and, while Saini does personalize her approach to the topic she sticks much more to what the scientists and researchers say, which is, like here, that the big differences between population groups are not that big and that, when an attempt is made to overlay the social construct of race on the population groups in science there is simply no direct alignment. Race is not a real thing, it is a social construct that racists cling to to salve their insecurities.
I would recommend this book if you'd like to read about the research but also want to hear how to counter those who cling to outdated concepts. If you're more interested in a closer reading of both the history and the current research, I would suggest Saini's book. Ideally, I think both books work well together. Also, don't be fooled by the dog whistles you'll find soon in reviews of both books. They will cite and misrepresent actual studies and raise up questionable "experts" as ones that should be believed rather than the great majority of researchers. Just know that these people are insecure and need to falsely build up something that resembles self-esteem because they are so lacking in both intelligence and morals.
Reviewed from a copy made available through Goodreads First Reads.
October 8, 2021
Skin Deep is one of those books that you pick up thinking, "Gosh, this is surely unnecessary. Everyone knows that race is a construct and that there's more diversity within population groups than between them... surely, everyone knows..." And by the time you put it down you're heartbreakingly aware of how truly necessary a book like this is and feel a bit of panic that it isn't required reading for every high school student in the world.
The research and integrity of Evans' writing is impeccable. He has deconstructed every claim made by race "scientists" and distilled the best arguments against racism and race science into passionate, powerful and evidence based rebuttals that even dummies like me can recall when I need to. The focus on the who's who of race science is a helpful and incriminating black book of toxic mischief and deception that should put any scientific minded person on their guard around their works. This book has shone a light on a deeply shameful and relentless tradition of racism (and sexism) masquerading as science that I didn't even know I needed.
Please read this book. Please share this book.
The research and integrity of Evans' writing is impeccable. He has deconstructed every claim made by race "scientists" and distilled the best arguments against racism and race science into passionate, powerful and evidence based rebuttals that even dummies like me can recall when I need to. The focus on the who's who of race science is a helpful and incriminating black book of toxic mischief and deception that should put any scientific minded person on their guard around their works. This book has shone a light on a deeply shameful and relentless tradition of racism (and sexism) masquerading as science that I didn't even know I needed.
Please read this book. Please share this book.
July 12, 2020
Evans who grew up in Cape Town, South Africa was well aware of apartheid struggle; later moved to London and studied on this topic, particularly race and intelligence. He has proved the wrongness of the offensive theory of white race’s superiority over black. Historical falsification and scientific distortion are often motivated by political agenda and climate. He debunks many studies supporting the racial difference in physical and intelligent capabilities. Often, they provided weak statistical correlations and distorted them with predetermined conclusions. Modern humans (homo sapiens) have a great uniformity (99.9%), making only minimal genetic contributions, which concludes that we humans are more alike than different! After all, really there is only one race existing …. that is a human race!
December 9, 2020
4.5 really awesome book but as all books about race, you can tell before being told that the author is in fact white, no matter what there always seems to be a divide of understanding and personal experience they are unable to cross that inevitably means something will be said that just kinda feels wrong, happened a few times to me in this book but this is still a great book, interesting read
April 19, 2021
Good, but at times repetitive. I found the second half of the book, which largely focuses on intelligence, is where Evans gets dwells too long. The book could have told the same message with losing around a 100 pages if he didn't debunk the same authors over and over again throughout the book.
October 21, 2019
Evans grew up in apartheid South Africa and saw close-up how ‘race science’ is used to promote racism. Basically the assumption that certain races are stupid so they deserve to be poor. He especially attacked the infamous book The Bell Curve’, which reported IQ scores were highest in Jews, then Chinese, then Caucasian and then Africans. Furthermore, that book further proposed that the difference is all due to genes!
1. All humans share 99.9% or so of our genes.
2. Europeans used to have dark hair, dark skin and blue eyes. The blond hair and fair skin was brought Steppes people from central Asia.
3. IQ scores have been getting higher (Flint effect), can improve with better nutrition and reduced by lack of education, smoking and alcohol consumption of the mother. IQ scores can be improved with practice, and adoption of poor children by middle class parents increase their IQ by 18 points. The twin studies were selected because the twins were similar, and adopted all by middle class parents who are sometimes relatives themselves. All these suggest that genes do not contribute much to IQ.
4. IQ tests only test one kind of intelligence, the kind that let people do abstract logic well.
5. No genes of IQ has ever been found.
6. The Bell Curve suffered from serious methodology problems. It was noted that when some children do not speak English and do not understand the American way of life, their IQ score can be mistaken to be very low indeed.
7. The high IQ scores of Jews and Chinese are more likely due to the cultural emphasis on learning and studying.
8. In the UK, Asian children score higher for their GCSE exam, whereas Whites and Blacks score similarly. This is not mentioned by ‘race science’ proponents.
An excellent book deserving 5 stars!
1. All humans share 99.9% or so of our genes.
2. Europeans used to have dark hair, dark skin and blue eyes. The blond hair and fair skin was brought Steppes people from central Asia.
3. IQ scores have been getting higher (Flint effect), can improve with better nutrition and reduced by lack of education, smoking and alcohol consumption of the mother. IQ scores can be improved with practice, and adoption of poor children by middle class parents increase their IQ by 18 points. The twin studies were selected because the twins were similar, and adopted all by middle class parents who are sometimes relatives themselves. All these suggest that genes do not contribute much to IQ.
4. IQ tests only test one kind of intelligence, the kind that let people do abstract logic well.
5. No genes of IQ has ever been found.
6. The Bell Curve suffered from serious methodology problems. It was noted that when some children do not speak English and do not understand the American way of life, their IQ score can be mistaken to be very low indeed.
7. The high IQ scores of Jews and Chinese are more likely due to the cultural emphasis on learning and studying.
8. In the UK, Asian children score higher for their GCSE exam, whereas Whites and Blacks score similarly. This is not mentioned by ‘race science’ proponents.
An excellent book deserving 5 stars!
August 29, 2019
"Is Intelligence Skin Deep?". Well, clearly not, but astoundingly that isn't obvious to everyone. This book is Gavin Evans' attempt to debunk some of the many myths regarding race and intelligence.
The believers in race science are wedded to the idea that IQ measures intelligence, that it can be used to compare and contrast the intelligence of different races and that therefore it must be genetic. Evans clearly demonstrates that this is not the case. For starters, IQ only measures one particular type of abstract reasoning making it an extremely narrow definition of intelligence. In fact, intelligence is a complex, multi-layered concept that cannot easily be defined, let alone reduced to a single number. It isn't comparable to something like eye colour that can be mapped to one or two genes - it's affected by multiple genes. But more than that, a person's IQ is hugely influenced by environmental factors such as poverty and illness, not to mention exposure to abstract reasoning at a young age. Only when these are removed does the small genetic factor have any bearing.
Skin Deep brings together research from many different fields such as archaeology, biology and neuroscience to prove the point. It's a fascinating read, with some jaw-dropping moments when you discover some of the ludicrous things people believed (and still believe). It is a little dry in places and took me a while to get through, but it's a very worthwhile read - especially in the current climate.
The believers in race science are wedded to the idea that IQ measures intelligence, that it can be used to compare and contrast the intelligence of different races and that therefore it must be genetic. Evans clearly demonstrates that this is not the case. For starters, IQ only measures one particular type of abstract reasoning making it an extremely narrow definition of intelligence. In fact, intelligence is a complex, multi-layered concept that cannot easily be defined, let alone reduced to a single number. It isn't comparable to something like eye colour that can be mapped to one or two genes - it's affected by multiple genes. But more than that, a person's IQ is hugely influenced by environmental factors such as poverty and illness, not to mention exposure to abstract reasoning at a young age. Only when these are removed does the small genetic factor have any bearing.
Skin Deep brings together research from many different fields such as archaeology, biology and neuroscience to prove the point. It's a fascinating read, with some jaw-dropping moments when you discover some of the ludicrous things people believed (and still believe). It is a little dry in places and took me a while to get through, but it's a very worthwhile read - especially in the current climate.
December 17, 2019
An informative read. Explored and debunked some of the common beliefs about differences between racial groups, using info from all the way from the time of hominins hundreds of thousands of years ago, to bringing up more modern rhetoric of public figures like Jordan Peterson, Charles Murray, Nicholas Wade, and Stephen Jay Gould. I would've appreciated having a book like this that points out how people may be drawing wrong or too hasty conclusions from the role of environment vs. genetics in studies of twins, and which brings a more critical perspective to the idea of intelligence (including the concept of "g", general intelligence, as well as IQ testing) when I studied psychology in school.
January 13, 2025
Oh wow, this book was incredible. Each chapter got better and better and I think especially now it is so important to examine that race science is false and to continue to publicly debunk it. We see remnants of it everywhere and thanks to this book I've been able to share anecdotes, statistics, and information with people around me who genuinely do not realize they have been taught incorrectly. It is interesting, comprehensive, and well-executed.
October 5, 2019
I felt like this book is mostly about scientific frauds to support someone's ideology. It is hard to say which 'science' is really true, but anyway at least any race difference is not different enough to distinguish their well-believed traits. It was good to listen this book and I agree with the author - we need to say aloud that fact over and over again.
October 24, 2019
A very good synopsis of the arguments around race-based IQ testing and race science.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews