What do you think?
Rate this book
Making Sense of Race
Race is our age's great taboo. Public intellectuals insist that it does not exist-that it's a "social construct" and biological differences between races are trivial or "skin deep." But as with taboos in other times, our attitude towards race seems delusional and schizophrenic. Racial differences in sports and culture are clear to everyone. Race is increasingly a factor in public health, especially in disease susceptibility and organ donation. And in a globalized world, ethnic nationalism-and ethnic conflict-are unavoidable political realities. Race is everywhere . . . and yet it's nowhere, since the topic has been deemed "out of bounds" for frank discussion. Cutting through the contradictions, euphemisms, and misconceptions, Edward Dutton carefully and systematically refutes the arguments against the concept of "race," demonstrating that it is as much a proper biological category as "species." Making Sense of Race takes us on a journey through the fascinating world of evolved physical and mental racial differences, presenting us with the most up-to-date discoveries on the consistent ways in which races differ in significant traits as a result of being adapted to different ecologies. Intelligence, personality, genius, religiousness, sex appeal, puberty, menopause, ethnocentrism, ear-wax, and even the nature of dreams . . . Making Sense of Race will tell you everything you ever wanted to know about race, but might have been afraid to ask. --- Edward Dutton is a prolific researcher and commentator, who has published widely in the field of evolutionary psychology. He is Editor at Washington Summit Publishers and Professor of Evolutionary Psychology at Asbiro University in Lódź, Poland. Dutton is the author of many books, including J. Philippe A Life History Perspective (2018), Race Differences in Ethnocentrism (2019), and An Evolutionary Perspective (2020). ---- Praise for Edward Dutton and Making Sense of Race "Edward Dutton's new book, Making Sense of Race , is a godsend at a time when the university curriculum effectively censors human nature from much of the humanities and social sciences. This information, which comes wrapped in prodigious layers of data, is presented in a highly accessible, often funny, style. It should be required reading for all students of anthropology, sociology, gender studies, and politics. Those thirsting for knowledge about race-an inescapable and ever more destabilizing feature of our globalizing world -should dip into this Jolly Heretic of a book. Whether laughing out loud or marveling at new facts about human biodiversity, Making Sense of Race is a riveting read." -Dr. Frank Salter Author of On Genetic Family, Ethnicity, and Humanity in an Age of Mass Migration
"Edward Dutton is one of the liveliest and most engaging of this new generation of academic dissidents. . . . [He is] what Bill Nye the Science Guy would be, if that gentleman dared to present the human sciences with uninhibited objectivity." -John Derbyshire
"Edward Dutton is one of the liveliest and most engaging of this new generation of academic dissidents. . . . [He is] what Bill Nye the Science Guy would be, if that gentleman dared to present the human sciences with uninhibited objectivity." -John Derbyshire
362 pages, Paperback
First published December 5, 2020
71 people are currently reading
449 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
January 27, 2022
9.75/10.
This work is the most definitive compendium on race I have read yet. Dutton compiles hundreds of peer-reviewed studies and memory-holed books to convince anyone except the most die-hard ideologue. The best part is that this book was published in late 2020, so it is up to date on all of the studies coming out. We can cross check phenotypes with allele frequencies, confirming the assertions of scientific martyrs who have been looking into this question for decades. There is so much information in this book that I could go over, but here are some of the highlights that I remember best:
Finnish people have the highest average IQs of all of Europe, scoring on average 103. This is perhaps due to them being the only European population with ~5-10% East Asian admixture.
The gradient of intelligence in Europe declines from North to South. This is due to the need to plan ahead due to cold winters and because of North African/Arab admixture in Southern Europeans.
The Arctic peoples (living in Siberia and northernmost America) have the largest brains of any population but have a 93 IQ. This is posited because the immensely cold winters selected for very high spatial intelligence, but not any other type (verbal/mathematical). Furthermore, they never were able to farm due to the arctic frigid cold, and farming increasingly selects for impulse control and for intelligence. This is because farming forces one to know the seasons, store food, tend animals properly, artificially select animals, and work for long hours, as opposed to the lesser requirements of hunting and gathering. Agriculture also increases the proximity of people, thereby selecting more for verbal intelligence and agreeableness (to get along with others). It further selects for mathematical intelligence because you need to know how to measure and count your crops, land, and animals.
Ashkenazi Jews are 40% European. According to Dutton (and I must check this), they have, on average, a 117 Verbal IQ and 112 Total IQ (meaning their Visio-Spatial IQ is 107). Babies of this population react with a much increased fear to strangers in comparison to European babies. Rabbis were encouraged by their community to have as many children as possible, which is the exact opposite of Christian monks and priests.
Populations which did not develop agriculture (Inuits, Native Americans, Aboriginal Australians) did not evolve alcohol tolerance. Without the historical exposure to fermented fruits and grains, their populations did not have the selection pressure which would give them restraint and/or tolerance to alcoholism when ingesting liquor. Because of this, we get a massive rate of alcoholism and anti-social personality disorder (due to alcohol) in these populations.
South Asians' taste buds register food less than other populations, which could be a possible explanation for the well known Indian propensity to like spicy food.
Rates of autism (controlled for IQ) correlate highly with rates of Nobel Prizes, whereas rates of schizophrenia (controlled for IQ) negatively correlate with rates of Nobel Prizes for countries. Why? High autism rates in a country mean that a country has, on average, less agreeable people who have high testosterone and systemizing ability (extreme maleness, you could say). On the other hand, high schizophrenia rates mean that a country has high empathy, agreeableness, and low testosterone (more feminine). The higher the rate of autism in a country, the more people will be systemizing and not care about what people think about them, which is a key trait of genius. Therefore, such countries will have many Nobel Prize winners. Because schizophrenia is essentially the personality reverse of autism, will we see lesser Nobel Prize winners in countries with high schizophrenia rates.
Pygmies are the same height as other humans until puberty, when they do not have a growth spurt. This means that their average adult height comes to be around 4 feet 7 inches. Because they are pre-literate, we can use people-drawing testing to measure their intellectual ability. Pygmies draw stick figures.
Hispanics are 60% European and 40% Native American on average, and the intellectual ability is in between those two peoples.
Poverty does not cause crime nor cause people to get stuck in a low social status, as evidenced by the rapid rise of destitute Jewish immigrants in the US in the early 20th century and by equally poor East Asian immigrants in the same time period (and ever since).
The rapid reaction times of East Asians leads to their success in sports requiring very fast reactions, such as table tennis.
The more north a population's evolutionary environment, the more endomorphic (i.e. bulky in the torso, but with short arms) it will be. East Asians are the more endomorphic, and East Africans the more ectomorphic (which is why Kenyans win long distance races).
P.S. The Know-Nothing below who rated this book one star has no idea that the geneticist David Reich found that Northern Europeans are descended 90% from Steppe invaders of ~3000 BC who came into Europe, i.e. people from the Caucuses. So, yes, Northern Europeans — and Dutton, who is English — are in fact Caucasians.
This work is the most definitive compendium on race I have read yet. Dutton compiles hundreds of peer-reviewed studies and memory-holed books to convince anyone except the most die-hard ideologue. The best part is that this book was published in late 2020, so it is up to date on all of the studies coming out. We can cross check phenotypes with allele frequencies, confirming the assertions of scientific martyrs who have been looking into this question for decades. There is so much information in this book that I could go over, but here are some of the highlights that I remember best:
Finnish people have the highest average IQs of all of Europe, scoring on average 103. This is perhaps due to them being the only European population with ~5-10% East Asian admixture.
The gradient of intelligence in Europe declines from North to South. This is due to the need to plan ahead due to cold winters and because of North African/Arab admixture in Southern Europeans.
The Arctic peoples (living in Siberia and northernmost America) have the largest brains of any population but have a 93 IQ. This is posited because the immensely cold winters selected for very high spatial intelligence, but not any other type (verbal/mathematical). Furthermore, they never were able to farm due to the arctic frigid cold, and farming increasingly selects for impulse control and for intelligence. This is because farming forces one to know the seasons, store food, tend animals properly, artificially select animals, and work for long hours, as opposed to the lesser requirements of hunting and gathering. Agriculture also increases the proximity of people, thereby selecting more for verbal intelligence and agreeableness (to get along with others). It further selects for mathematical intelligence because you need to know how to measure and count your crops, land, and animals.
Ashkenazi Jews are 40% European. According to Dutton (and I must check this), they have, on average, a 117 Verbal IQ and 112 Total IQ (meaning their Visio-Spatial IQ is 107). Babies of this population react with a much increased fear to strangers in comparison to European babies. Rabbis were encouraged by their community to have as many children as possible, which is the exact opposite of Christian monks and priests.
Populations which did not develop agriculture (Inuits, Native Americans, Aboriginal Australians) did not evolve alcohol tolerance. Without the historical exposure to fermented fruits and grains, their populations did not have the selection pressure which would give them restraint and/or tolerance to alcoholism when ingesting liquor. Because of this, we get a massive rate of alcoholism and anti-social personality disorder (due to alcohol) in these populations.
South Asians' taste buds register food less than other populations, which could be a possible explanation for the well known Indian propensity to like spicy food.
Rates of autism (controlled for IQ) correlate highly with rates of Nobel Prizes, whereas rates of schizophrenia (controlled for IQ) negatively correlate with rates of Nobel Prizes for countries. Why? High autism rates in a country mean that a country has, on average, less agreeable people who have high testosterone and systemizing ability (extreme maleness, you could say). On the other hand, high schizophrenia rates mean that a country has high empathy, agreeableness, and low testosterone (more feminine). The higher the rate of autism in a country, the more people will be systemizing and not care about what people think about them, which is a key trait of genius. Therefore, such countries will have many Nobel Prize winners. Because schizophrenia is essentially the personality reverse of autism, will we see lesser Nobel Prize winners in countries with high schizophrenia rates.
Pygmies are the same height as other humans until puberty, when they do not have a growth spurt. This means that their average adult height comes to be around 4 feet 7 inches. Because they are pre-literate, we can use people-drawing testing to measure their intellectual ability. Pygmies draw stick figures.
Hispanics are 60% European and 40% Native American on average, and the intellectual ability is in between those two peoples.
Poverty does not cause crime nor cause people to get stuck in a low social status, as evidenced by the rapid rise of destitute Jewish immigrants in the US in the early 20th century and by equally poor East Asian immigrants in the same time period (and ever since).
The rapid reaction times of East Asians leads to their success in sports requiring very fast reactions, such as table tennis.
The more north a population's evolutionary environment, the more endomorphic (i.e. bulky in the torso, but with short arms) it will be. East Asians are the more endomorphic, and East Africans the more ectomorphic (which is why Kenyans win long distance races).
P.S. The Know-Nothing below who rated this book one star has no idea that the geneticist David Reich found that Northern Europeans are descended 90% from Steppe invaders of ~3000 BC who came into Europe, i.e. people from the Caucuses. So, yes, Northern Europeans — and Dutton, who is English — are in fact Caucasians.
November 7, 2021
Another western pseudo scientist who pushes the the concept of race being anything but a sociological concept. It’s rich coming from a man who uses caucasian while neither being from the caucus or asian. People who actively seek this specific genre of hate disguised as science are pathetic but at least now you know there’s always bigger losers out there.
December 25, 2020
More Than Meets The Eye
Gave it the full five stars because the author deserves it for the sheer courage he shows in producing such excellent work that reveals the truth about race and ethnicity that most academics wouldn' t touch with a barge pole. There is little new here that readers of similar works will not be familiar with, but it is always refreshing to re-acquaint oneself with the reality of hard facts and not the wishful thinking of leftist academia.
Gave it the full five stars because the author deserves it for the sheer courage he shows in producing such excellent work that reveals the truth about race and ethnicity that most academics wouldn' t touch with a barge pole. There is little new here that readers of similar works will not be familiar with, but it is always refreshing to re-acquaint oneself with the reality of hard facts and not the wishful thinking of leftist academia.
November 19, 2022
Dutton is a dangerous lunatic with ZERO scientific qualifications. Dutton is also yet another of the near-infinite conga line of hypocritical skinheads who complain of “censorship” of their thoroughly debunked pseudoscientific dogmas whilst at the same time engaging in “proud boy” violence and homicide against any who argue against them.
Dutton attempts to have removed any hostile review on any forum including this one.
From the Rationalwiki article on Dutton.
“Edward Croft Dutton (1980–) is an alt-right eccentric English Youtuber, terrorist-sympathizer,[2] anti-feminist, race and intelligence pseudoscientist,[3] homophobe, Islamophobe, sexist, transphobe, anti-semite, anti-vegan, and white supremacist.[4][5] He is ex-editor-in-chief of the journal Mankind Quarterly and describes himself as the Jolly Heretic. Dutton has a degree in Theology from Durham University and a PhD in religious studies from the University of Aberdeen.[6] He is extremely pretentious and claims to be a professor despite the fact that this is questionable at best, and critics have described him as a fraud.[7]
Dutton claims to be a proponent of freedom of speech and thinks there should be no censorship in science, writing: "If someone forcefully insists that a certain area is out of bounds and you’re ‘immoral’ for even contemplating it, then that is where new discoveries are going to lie."[8] The problem is he's a huge hypocrite. For example, he deletes any comments left on his YouTube videos that merely criticise him or his colleague Michael A. Woodley.
Unlike his closet racist associates such as Michael Woodley, Emil Kirkegaard, Nathan Cofnas and Noah Carl,[9] Dutton is more open about his racist beliefs. He has regular friendly podcasts and public discussions with alt-right, neo-Nazi, and/or white supremacist outlets. In late 2020, he was the main guest of a podcast run by neo-nazi and white supremacist Richard Spencer on the topic "Making Sense of Race".[10]
Dutton promotes the pseudoscientific spiteful mutant hypothesis and a ridiculous fad diet known as the carnivore diet. He attacks liberals, vegetarians, vegans, homosexuals, transexuals, and people who dye their hair as "mentally ill" mutants. He is also a supporter of the white nationalist group Patriotic Alternative that promotes "White Lives Matter" banners around the UK.[11] In late 2021, Dutton attracted criticism for his defence of ephebophilia.[12] “
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Edward_...
Dutton attempts to have removed any hostile review on any forum including this one.
From the Rationalwiki article on Dutton.
“Edward Croft Dutton (1980–) is an alt-right eccentric English Youtuber, terrorist-sympathizer,[2] anti-feminist, race and intelligence pseudoscientist,[3] homophobe, Islamophobe, sexist, transphobe, anti-semite, anti-vegan, and white supremacist.[4][5] He is ex-editor-in-chief of the journal Mankind Quarterly and describes himself as the Jolly Heretic. Dutton has a degree in Theology from Durham University and a PhD in religious studies from the University of Aberdeen.[6] He is extremely pretentious and claims to be a professor despite the fact that this is questionable at best, and critics have described him as a fraud.[7]
Dutton claims to be a proponent of freedom of speech and thinks there should be no censorship in science, writing: "If someone forcefully insists that a certain area is out of bounds and you’re ‘immoral’ for even contemplating it, then that is where new discoveries are going to lie."[8] The problem is he's a huge hypocrite. For example, he deletes any comments left on his YouTube videos that merely criticise him or his colleague Michael A. Woodley.
Unlike his closet racist associates such as Michael Woodley, Emil Kirkegaard, Nathan Cofnas and Noah Carl,[9] Dutton is more open about his racist beliefs. He has regular friendly podcasts and public discussions with alt-right, neo-Nazi, and/or white supremacist outlets. In late 2020, he was the main guest of a podcast run by neo-nazi and white supremacist Richard Spencer on the topic "Making Sense of Race".[10]
Dutton promotes the pseudoscientific spiteful mutant hypothesis and a ridiculous fad diet known as the carnivore diet. He attacks liberals, vegetarians, vegans, homosexuals, transexuals, and people who dye their hair as "mentally ill" mutants. He is also a supporter of the white nationalist group Patriotic Alternative that promotes "White Lives Matter" banners around the UK.[11] In late 2021, Dutton attracted criticism for his defence of ephebophilia.[12] “
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Edward_...
September 16, 2021
A courageous book!
For those who have always suspected that there were racial differences among humans, this book has the courage to outline, explain and justify those differences dispassionately. When one accepts micro evolution as a fact, how then can one then deny racial differences amongst humans? The author in great detail outlines the various races/cultures and explains why they are so. We should open our minds to the science and not dismiss why we are who we are.
For those who have always suspected that there were racial differences among humans, this book has the courage to outline, explain and justify those differences dispassionately. When one accepts micro evolution as a fact, how then can one then deny racial differences amongst humans? The author in great detail outlines the various races/cultures and explains why they are so. We should open our minds to the science and not dismiss why we are who we are.
July 21, 2021
It is one thing to argue that we should not discriminate against people on account of their race. It is an entirely different thing to argue that race either does not exist or is merely a social construct. While I disagree with the author's evolutionary outlook, the empirical evidence does seem to support his thesis that race is a biological fact.
April 12, 2022
Social Darwinism-Modern Edition
This is social Darwinism modern edition. Author starts with science but then uses statistics without considering thousands of factors and then uses biased logic of their own opinion.
If you have been fooled by this then you are the idiot he hoped would led but this shit to validate you.
No degree because apparently idiots have degrees now…as long as you have money you can say anything. This is some tragic Dunning Kruger thinking.
What other scientists even rated this? Lol.
This is social Darwinism modern edition. Author starts with science but then uses statistics without considering thousands of factors and then uses biased logic of their own opinion.
If you have been fooled by this then you are the idiot he hoped would led but this shit to validate you.
No degree because apparently idiots have degrees now…as long as you have money you can say anything. This is some tragic Dunning Kruger thinking.
What other scientists even rated this? Lol.
October 11, 2024
Highly accessible intro to race and the history of its education in America.
November 27, 2022
Book Review: Making Sense of Race (Edward Dutton)
5/5 stars
"Who knew that Ashkenazim are actually a cline?"
*******
(This review is deliberately truncated for purposes of readability.)
Let me be clear that I am a race realist and have no problem with acknowledging that:
1. Behavior has a biological substrate;
2.Different populations of humans can differ substantially.
This book needed to be written, because public policy in the entirety of the Western world is predicated on the assumption that every human population is exactly equal and any deviations from perfect equality must be "racism." (Garbage in assumptions, garbage out public policy.)
*******
Of the book itself:
12 chapters, 336 pages of prose. (Average: 28pps/chapter).
732 citations (61/chapter; 2.2/page)
This book is good, but somewhat uneven.
In the Introduction (and throughout), Dutton makes a lot of good philosophical observations, such as that:
1. People have created a secular religion out of racial equality. (And we all know that religions are interchangeable.)
2. Everybody insists on the polite fiction that race is a social construct with no independent existence, but somehow diversity officers at universities are able to know it well enough when they see it in their efforts to "expand diversity." (p.33)
The abundant sourcing is done as footnotes so that the discerning reader doesn't have to keep flipping back and forth.
Dutton does cite himself several times, but there are still many other primary sources.
I have been reading about race differences in IQ for quite some time, and much of that information felt like recapitulation.
Some topics were new for me:
°°Human populations as "subspecies";
°°Racial hybrids as "clines." (Black Americans, South African Coloreds, Ethiopians, Ashkenazi Jews and Hispanics are all such.)
°°Ashkenazi Jews are a cline, but Sephardic Jews are not. (Falashim are not Jews for genetic purposes.)
On the other hand, Dutton's use of Evolutionary Psychology weakens the book, for the following reasons:
1. Evolutionary Biology and Psychology are two fields that have taken a very long time to reach anything like maturity because of certain difficulties with their empirical components. (Distant evolution only happened once, and speculation about WHAT/HOW /WHY is just that. Speculation. Psychology can't take advantage of structure-function relationships in the brain because so few of them are known/observable in real time.)
2. Predictions are not data and computer models are not evidence (p.30, etc). And so yes: it does give a veneer of fancy mathematical modeling but it is STILL speculation.
I don't have such a problem with his heavy use of correlation coefficients, because these phenomenon are so huge that nobody could expect anything like a linear/deterministic relationship-- and correlation coefficients might be As Good As It Gets.
But, when you put together an interdisciplinary academic field involving both Evolutionary Biology and Psychology... the result is something akin to reading Nostradamus relexified with technical vocabulary.
For example:
--"Inbreeding vigor"(p.299, Jewish case) exists at one moment but "inbreeding depression" exists at another (p. 178, Arab case.) Then, there is a such thing as "outbreeding depression." (p.22). "Hybrid vigor"/"outbreeding vigor" (p.237).
--(p.259). Religious people are more physically attractive? Or atheism is associated with "certain examples of deviant sexuality?"
***
The author also quotes (exhaustively) a lot of people who have not such great reputations
JP Rushton ("Race, Evolution and Behavior") seemed to have this idea that there was a direct evolutionary trade-off between penis length and IQ. And that the average black man was 8"/20cm--an assertion which was repeated (p.107) in this book. (As a black man: I'm really not sure how to feel about myself after learning this. )
Rushton also talked a fair bit in that book about r-K selection, and Dutton expands it in its current incarnation. (Life History Theory.)
Kevin MacDonald was interviewed in Jon Entine's "Abraham's Children" where he exposited his (heavily criticized) notion of Group Survival Strategy-- as particularly applied to Ashkenazi Jews.
*******
There are a number of other books that have slightly different intellectual scaffolding to support similar observations.
"The 10,000 Year Explosion" by Cochran and Harpending is published on a much more reputable label (Basic Books)--and they quickly point out that there are profound temperament/physical differences between different breeds of dog, that've all been created over the last couple of hundred years.
And so the obvious corollary is that it could be the same with humans-- who have had much more evolutionary time.
"Facing Reality" was just recently put out by Charles Murray and he restricts his analysis to four different populations and explains that the conventional explanation of said differences (structural/institutional/you-name-it-racism) does not hold water.
"Who We Are and How We Got Here" (by David Reich) is referenced in this book, and it is a book that is worth reading in its entirety if for no other reason than to know that there is an explanation as to why humans are what they are.
A lot of questions that I have that still have not been satisfactorily answered. (An Evolutionary Psychology notion to explain something cannot leave out huge parts of reality.)
1. At what point does high IQ-stupid mentality override low native intelligence? (Some types of stupidity cannot be accomplished by genetic accident, and need years of education to be effectuated.)
a. Does it really make sense for the European Union to import millions of Muslims that have been bent on their destruction for centuries? Are IQ arguments even relevant in this case? (On a reading of the evidence, the Europeans have a much higher average IQ than the fecund populations that they are importing to destroy them.)
b. Does it really make sense that the (White) Western world finances universities that are the instrument of their own destruction? If you are a working White man in some Midwestern town and you don't want your kids to come home telling you about their latest class in CRT or that there are 37 different genders, there's at least a 99% chance that the teacher who taught them that was White and educated at universities by White people.( Low IQ Africans / high IQ Asians might as well be on another planet.)
2. What is the statistical likelihood that the situation the situation of Haredi Jews could exist such as it does? (They have pure Jewish blood /IQ in abundance, but levels of work aversion that far exceed even the most work-averse population of ANY blacks imaginable.)
3. I just don't know how well the
"group selection" hypothesis (à la Kevin Macdonald) holds water: birth rates just within the Orthodox sector have been very high for a long time, and they have not even managed to take over all of Judaism-- let alone their host populations-- over thousands of years. Meanwhile, Han Chinese are the world's most successful tribe-- and have had greater than 90% illiteracy for 98% of their 2,300 year history. (But somehow they never colonized Africa.)
4. Have we already settled into a modus vivendi here in the United States? (It's a very common thing that white ladies of a given tier to choose black guys that are one or two tiers up. Isn't that what you would expect? Doesn't it work out best for everybody?)
5. Does intelligence really have any survival value?
-Cockroaches are doing just fine. Australian Aborigines, Pygmies, Bantu and Khoisan have managed to hang on to this very day.
-39% of US Hispanics have below basic literacy levels, but everything is in Spanish and English. (At the insistence of a mostly White, English-speaking government.)
-Afghanistan has a literacy rate of about 38%, but they still managed to patiently wait out the much larger/wealthier / more literate United states.
And so on and so forth.
*******
In conclusion: This is a good (but basic) book to become acquainted with a lot of the more uncomfortable research that has been done about variation between human subspecies/populations.
And while it is food for thought, other books have fleshed out certain of these topics with actual molecular genetic data and at greater length.
Verdict: Recommended at about the price of $10.
5/5 stars
"Who knew that Ashkenazim are actually a cline?"
*******
(This review is deliberately truncated for purposes of readability.)
Let me be clear that I am a race realist and have no problem with acknowledging that:
1. Behavior has a biological substrate;
2.Different populations of humans can differ substantially.
This book needed to be written, because public policy in the entirety of the Western world is predicated on the assumption that every human population is exactly equal and any deviations from perfect equality must be "racism." (Garbage in assumptions, garbage out public policy.)
*******
Of the book itself:
12 chapters, 336 pages of prose. (Average: 28pps/chapter).
732 citations (61/chapter; 2.2/page)
This book is good, but somewhat uneven.
In the Introduction (and throughout), Dutton makes a lot of good philosophical observations, such as that:
1. People have created a secular religion out of racial equality. (And we all know that religions are interchangeable.)
2. Everybody insists on the polite fiction that race is a social construct with no independent existence, but somehow diversity officers at universities are able to know it well enough when they see it in their efforts to "expand diversity." (p.33)
The abundant sourcing is done as footnotes so that the discerning reader doesn't have to keep flipping back and forth.
Dutton does cite himself several times, but there are still many other primary sources.
I have been reading about race differences in IQ for quite some time, and much of that information felt like recapitulation.
Some topics were new for me:
°°Human populations as "subspecies";
°°Racial hybrids as "clines." (Black Americans, South African Coloreds, Ethiopians, Ashkenazi Jews and Hispanics are all such.)
°°Ashkenazi Jews are a cline, but Sephardic Jews are not. (Falashim are not Jews for genetic purposes.)
On the other hand, Dutton's use of Evolutionary Psychology weakens the book, for the following reasons:
1. Evolutionary Biology and Psychology are two fields that have taken a very long time to reach anything like maturity because of certain difficulties with their empirical components. (Distant evolution only happened once, and speculation about WHAT/HOW /WHY is just that. Speculation. Psychology can't take advantage of structure-function relationships in the brain because so few of them are known/observable in real time.)
2. Predictions are not data and computer models are not evidence (p.30, etc). And so yes: it does give a veneer of fancy mathematical modeling but it is STILL speculation.
I don't have such a problem with his heavy use of correlation coefficients, because these phenomenon are so huge that nobody could expect anything like a linear/deterministic relationship-- and correlation coefficients might be As Good As It Gets.
But, when you put together an interdisciplinary academic field involving both Evolutionary Biology and Psychology... the result is something akin to reading Nostradamus relexified with technical vocabulary.
For example:
--"Inbreeding vigor"(p.299, Jewish case) exists at one moment but "inbreeding depression" exists at another (p. 178, Arab case.) Then, there is a such thing as "outbreeding depression." (p.22). "Hybrid vigor"/"outbreeding vigor" (p.237).
--(p.259). Religious people are more physically attractive? Or atheism is associated with "certain examples of deviant sexuality?"
***
The author also quotes (exhaustively) a lot of people who have not such great reputations
JP Rushton ("Race, Evolution and Behavior") seemed to have this idea that there was a direct evolutionary trade-off between penis length and IQ. And that the average black man was 8"/20cm--an assertion which was repeated (p.107) in this book. (As a black man: I'm really not sure how to feel about myself after learning this. )
Rushton also talked a fair bit in that book about r-K selection, and Dutton expands it in its current incarnation. (Life History Theory.)
Kevin MacDonald was interviewed in Jon Entine's "Abraham's Children" where he exposited his (heavily criticized) notion of Group Survival Strategy-- as particularly applied to Ashkenazi Jews.
*******
There are a number of other books that have slightly different intellectual scaffolding to support similar observations.
"The 10,000 Year Explosion" by Cochran and Harpending is published on a much more reputable label (Basic Books)--and they quickly point out that there are profound temperament/physical differences between different breeds of dog, that've all been created over the last couple of hundred years.
And so the obvious corollary is that it could be the same with humans-- who have had much more evolutionary time.
"Facing Reality" was just recently put out by Charles Murray and he restricts his analysis to four different populations and explains that the conventional explanation of said differences (structural/institutional/you-name-it-racism) does not hold water.
"Who We Are and How We Got Here" (by David Reich) is referenced in this book, and it is a book that is worth reading in its entirety if for no other reason than to know that there is an explanation as to why humans are what they are.
A lot of questions that I have that still have not been satisfactorily answered. (An Evolutionary Psychology notion to explain something cannot leave out huge parts of reality.)
1. At what point does high IQ-stupid mentality override low native intelligence? (Some types of stupidity cannot be accomplished by genetic accident, and need years of education to be effectuated.)
a. Does it really make sense for the European Union to import millions of Muslims that have been bent on their destruction for centuries? Are IQ arguments even relevant in this case? (On a reading of the evidence, the Europeans have a much higher average IQ than the fecund populations that they are importing to destroy them.)
b. Does it really make sense that the (White) Western world finances universities that are the instrument of their own destruction? If you are a working White man in some Midwestern town and you don't want your kids to come home telling you about their latest class in CRT or that there are 37 different genders, there's at least a 99% chance that the teacher who taught them that was White and educated at universities by White people.( Low IQ Africans / high IQ Asians might as well be on another planet.)
2. What is the statistical likelihood that the situation the situation of Haredi Jews could exist such as it does? (They have pure Jewish blood /IQ in abundance, but levels of work aversion that far exceed even the most work-averse population of ANY blacks imaginable.)
3. I just don't know how well the
"group selection" hypothesis (à la Kevin Macdonald) holds water: birth rates just within the Orthodox sector have been very high for a long time, and they have not even managed to take over all of Judaism-- let alone their host populations-- over thousands of years. Meanwhile, Han Chinese are the world's most successful tribe-- and have had greater than 90% illiteracy for 98% of their 2,300 year history. (But somehow they never colonized Africa.)
4. Have we already settled into a modus vivendi here in the United States? (It's a very common thing that white ladies of a given tier to choose black guys that are one or two tiers up. Isn't that what you would expect? Doesn't it work out best for everybody?)
5. Does intelligence really have any survival value?
-Cockroaches are doing just fine. Australian Aborigines, Pygmies, Bantu and Khoisan have managed to hang on to this very day.
-39% of US Hispanics have below basic literacy levels, but everything is in Spanish and English. (At the insistence of a mostly White, English-speaking government.)
-Afghanistan has a literacy rate of about 38%, but they still managed to patiently wait out the much larger/wealthier / more literate United states.
And so on and so forth.
*******
In conclusion: This is a good (but basic) book to become acquainted with a lot of the more uncomfortable research that has been done about variation between human subspecies/populations.
And while it is food for thought, other books have fleshed out certain of these topics with actual molecular genetic data and at greater length.
Verdict: Recommended at about the price of $10.
June 9, 2023
"An excellent overview on race"
This is an evolutionary psychologist's perspective on the thorny issue of race - what it is and why it matters - done in a way that makes for an excellent primer on the subject. Highly recommended - educational and stimulating (for the open minded).
This is an evolutionary psychologist's perspective on the thorny issue of race - what it is and why it matters - done in a way that makes for an excellent primer on the subject. Highly recommended - educational and stimulating (for the open minded).
October 19, 2025
Quite how it is, I do not know, but since a worryingly recent when, we have run away from applying objective standards (are there truly any other standards?), both to man and nature, to embrace the new and highly fashionable absurdity of picking and choosing at whim, what parts of nature, man, a being within nature, partakes of. Any who choose to take but ten seconds of their time to pencil an Euler diagram will see the absurdity of this trend; but, alas for truth, it seems this strange and decadent hypocrisy has been fated to enjoy popularity in our timeless time.
The hypocrites maintain that man is animal, that evolution is true, but at the same time, that man is an unmarked slate, exempt totally from the forces of speciation which they hold to affect all other animals. Unfortunately for the logical, the loud are victorious, and at least for the time being, we must seem to kowtow to their freshly-cast idol of "social constructivism."
Perhaps Orwell gave us a better name for this philosophy, for "doublethink" is necessary if we are to accept it as true:
We must say: 'Man is an animal, man is not an animal.'
We must say: 'Evolution applies to all animals except to the animal man.'
We must say: 'Darwin was right on all general points of his theory, with the important doubly-underlined *exception* that the *universal* laws of speciation apply also to the animal, homo sapiens.
Of course, none of these statements is true, but these and greater absurdities are necessary to confront if we wish to hold popular tenets of faith such as: "Man is a blank slate," "All men are, without qualification equal in all respects," "Race is skin deep," "X is a social construct."
The latter is very intriguing indeed, for it prompts the question "what, if X be a social construct, is the origin of society?"
The answer, unsurprisingly, has been known for thousands of years — the curious will find it outlined in Aristotle's Politics (book I sections 2 and 3), and also in Hesiod's Works and Days — doubtless, there are more examples, for even language implies it. The gist of what Aristotle says is this: "A state (by which he means a nation, or ethnostate) originates in the institute of the family, which extends over time to compass all the members of a village (extended family/ethnic group); monarchy is the primitive form of government derived from the appointment of a paternal elder, as occurs in human family groups." Essentially, nature, a non human, impersonal set of causes precedes culture, society and the state, which men make, because "man is by his *nature* a politcal (city-building and socialising) animal (πολιτικὸν ζῷον)."
Put in more darwinian language this would be: man is genetically determined to be a social animal, and thus his society owes its existence, and a large part of its character to his ever-changing nature.
The modern social constructivist view when compared to this, may be seen in its naked circularity: "Man is socialy determined to be a social animal."
Could there be a more absurd departure from logical priority?
It is understandable why social constructivism is popular, for most intellectuals these days cleave to bastardised forms of communism; for a communist, any idea of immutable nature is anathema, since it puts a big question mark over the his dreams of social engineering and naïve transhumanism. Perhaps, runs the logic, human beings are, by the invisible hand of nature, fated to make unequal societies, since the material of those societies is made unequal by nature. Perhaps hierarchy is an expression of immutable, and utterly impersonal natural difference, rather than the culturally constructed machinations of "the powerful" (why are they powerful?). Perhaps then it is *impossible* for inequality to be fixed, unless the population were replaced by clones.
For it runs that the rich man is rich, because he is better at surviving in a capitalist society, and the party man is responsible for mass death, because he is particularly good at surviving in a communist one. Change the system in whatever way, and an oligarchy of well adapted men will always arise. (Do we not see this in all societies?)
The main focus of this book however is the objective differences between races, not just in their appearance, which differs to suit the environments in which they evolved, but in their psychologies. This latter aspect is very important to grasp, as it has an important bearing on modern politics, especially now that all Western societies are "multicultural."
For instance, the fad of deploring "institutional racism" is cleared up when one understands that different races score wildly different averages on psychological tests of personality and intelligence. That different races have different tendencies towards different mental illnesses reflecting these real differences. And that, if one society is made over thousands of years by a race to suit its own average temprement, it follows that a different race will find that society difficult to live in. It will do poorly, and will end up full of resentment and envy. Of course, the institutions play a role, but at the root of it is a real difference between the average temprement of the individuals within the system.
The hypocrites maintain that man is animal, that evolution is true, but at the same time, that man is an unmarked slate, exempt totally from the forces of speciation which they hold to affect all other animals. Unfortunately for the logical, the loud are victorious, and at least for the time being, we must seem to kowtow to their freshly-cast idol of "social constructivism."
Perhaps Orwell gave us a better name for this philosophy, for "doublethink" is necessary if we are to accept it as true:
We must say: 'Man is an animal, man is not an animal.'
We must say: 'Evolution applies to all animals except to the animal man.'
We must say: 'Darwin was right on all general points of his theory, with the important doubly-underlined *exception* that the *universal* laws of speciation apply also to the animal, homo sapiens.
Of course, none of these statements is true, but these and greater absurdities are necessary to confront if we wish to hold popular tenets of faith such as: "Man is a blank slate," "All men are, without qualification equal in all respects," "Race is skin deep," "X is a social construct."
The latter is very intriguing indeed, for it prompts the question "what, if X be a social construct, is the origin of society?"
The answer, unsurprisingly, has been known for thousands of years — the curious will find it outlined in Aristotle's Politics (book I sections 2 and 3), and also in Hesiod's Works and Days — doubtless, there are more examples, for even language implies it. The gist of what Aristotle says is this: "A state (by which he means a nation, or ethnostate) originates in the institute of the family, which extends over time to compass all the members of a village (extended family/ethnic group); monarchy is the primitive form of government derived from the appointment of a paternal elder, as occurs in human family groups." Essentially, nature, a non human, impersonal set of causes precedes culture, society and the state, which men make, because "man is by his *nature* a politcal (city-building and socialising) animal (πολιτικὸν ζῷον)."
Put in more darwinian language this would be: man is genetically determined to be a social animal, and thus his society owes its existence, and a large part of its character to his ever-changing nature.
The modern social constructivist view when compared to this, may be seen in its naked circularity: "Man is socialy determined to be a social animal."
Could there be a more absurd departure from logical priority?
It is understandable why social constructivism is popular, for most intellectuals these days cleave to bastardised forms of communism; for a communist, any idea of immutable nature is anathema, since it puts a big question mark over the his dreams of social engineering and naïve transhumanism. Perhaps, runs the logic, human beings are, by the invisible hand of nature, fated to make unequal societies, since the material of those societies is made unequal by nature. Perhaps hierarchy is an expression of immutable, and utterly impersonal natural difference, rather than the culturally constructed machinations of "the powerful" (why are they powerful?). Perhaps then it is *impossible* for inequality to be fixed, unless the population were replaced by clones.
For it runs that the rich man is rich, because he is better at surviving in a capitalist society, and the party man is responsible for mass death, because he is particularly good at surviving in a communist one. Change the system in whatever way, and an oligarchy of well adapted men will always arise. (Do we not see this in all societies?)
The main focus of this book however is the objective differences between races, not just in their appearance, which differs to suit the environments in which they evolved, but in their psychologies. This latter aspect is very important to grasp, as it has an important bearing on modern politics, especially now that all Western societies are "multicultural."
For instance, the fad of deploring "institutional racism" is cleared up when one understands that different races score wildly different averages on psychological tests of personality and intelligence. That different races have different tendencies towards different mental illnesses reflecting these real differences. And that, if one society is made over thousands of years by a race to suit its own average temprement, it follows that a different race will find that society difficult to live in. It will do poorly, and will end up full of resentment and envy. Of course, the institutions play a role, but at the root of it is a real difference between the average temprement of the individuals within the system.
February 8, 2023
Edward Dutton is an eccentric fellow, as anyone who has seen one of his Youtube videos under the name 'The Jolly Heretic' undoubtedly knows. He's also, true to his Youtube handle, very much a heretic, as is shown by this book. 'Making Sense of Race' is essentially an introduction to the science of race. It covers physical anthropology, psychology, evolutionary biology and genetics. The book is peppered with interesting facts and insights into this topic which is considered absolutely verboten in our modern, Woke society. As an introduction to the science of race, the book is a success. However, it is not without its problems. There were a few claims in the book where a source was needed yet not provided. But the main problem with the book is that, while I found Dutton's analysis to be refreshingly unbiased at points, unlike virtually all modern writings on the topic of race, there were other points where he was biased. For example, Dutton cites a 1985 survey of American anthropologists where 59% of them said that human races exist. He cites this survey, along with a 2001 survey of Polish anthropologists where 71% said the same thing, to argue that disbelief in the existence of human races is not as common among anthropologists as is commonly claimed. However, Dutton fails to mention that there have been several surveys of American anthropologists since which found that much lower than 59% of them believed in the existence of human races. This information is readily available via a quick google search, and indeed it would have been nearly impossible for Dutton to find the study he cites without also stumbling across those which he did not. It seems likely to me, therefore, that Dutton deliberately chose not to cite those studies because they go against his argument that the disbelief in human races among anthropologists is not as common as often claimed (a point which, by the way, is essentially correct). All that is to say that there is some bias and cherry-picking of data going on in this book, so make sure to think critically about what you read. That said, the book was nevertheless a good introduction to the science of race, and I would recommend it to anyone interested in the topic.
June 14, 2025
This book is a good effort at what it is setting out to achieve. The fundamental ideas are wrong, but there is still a lot to learn from the book.
The writer explains all racial inequalities as necessary outcomes of evolutionary environmental adaptation, centred on the factor “k”. He admits that the theory doesn’t explain everything but doesn’t even explore any other possible option. He also provides no evidence that this theory is better than any others, he just assumes that everyone thinks evolution is true and therefore race differences have to be because of evolution.
With all this being said, he still has a very good understanding of the arguments of why race is important and should be understood, he details them quite well in the opening chapters. He has a sound philosophical understanding of truth and the ridiculousness of liberalism and multiculturalism and egalitarianism. The writer has a fairly goos understanding of Christianity aswell but seems to think that the smarter a person is the more of an atheist he will be.
I would recommend reading the first few chapters fully and then just skimming through the book to read anything in particular which interests you.
The writer explains all racial inequalities as necessary outcomes of evolutionary environmental adaptation, centred on the factor “k”. He admits that the theory doesn’t explain everything but doesn’t even explore any other possible option. He also provides no evidence that this theory is better than any others, he just assumes that everyone thinks evolution is true and therefore race differences have to be because of evolution.
With all this being said, he still has a very good understanding of the arguments of why race is important and should be understood, he details them quite well in the opening chapters. He has a sound philosophical understanding of truth and the ridiculousness of liberalism and multiculturalism and egalitarianism. The writer has a fairly goos understanding of Christianity aswell but seems to think that the smarter a person is the more of an atheist he will be.
I would recommend reading the first few chapters fully and then just skimming through the book to read anything in particular which interests you.
September 10, 2021
When I was born, it was immediately obvious that I would never play in the NBA. While my father had been very athletic, neither of my parents were tall. Therefore, I wasn't tall and therefore, no career in professional basketball. It just wasn't in my genes to be as tall as the average NBA player, many of whom are also African-American. Most readers would not mind this being called a racial difference. Author Dutton asserts that there are differences by race in many other ways, and provides a significant amount of references that confirm his assertion. Many readers would mind some of what Dutton says, but this should not prevent anyone from gaining the knowledge this book contains.
December 5, 2021
Excellent - facts are required to make our Democracy work
This is a hard read, Lots of data. Dense footnotes. It will be tough for those who believe in DEI at all cost. We need this data to design fair social and governmental policies base on reality. This well written book crushes popular wishful thinking. Recommended for “open minded” readers
This is a hard read, Lots of data. Dense footnotes. It will be tough for those who believe in DEI at all cost. We need this data to design fair social and governmental policies base on reality. This well written book crushes popular wishful thinking. Recommended for “open minded” readers
February 22, 2025
The most view-changing literature I have read on race ever. I highly recommend it for everyone to read.
March 26, 2025
Thoroughly enjoyed this book.
As a novice to the field I found this book to be very well written for even the most inexperienced of us.
Thank you Professor Dutton.
As a novice to the field I found this book to be very well written for even the most inexperienced of us.
Thank you Professor Dutton.
August 2, 2021
Overall I thought this book was interesting and enlightening. However, there were some arguments that felt more cherry-picked than scientifically cautions. Sections that I felt were underdeveloped were crime of minorities and the intelligence of women. This book omitted the fact that racism is involved with minority crime in that accusations may be racially motivated, which is an important bias in any data (BLM). With women's intelligence, women's education has been actively repressed and still is in many countries. Not to mention, women being delegated to "middle management, and hospitality careers" (not a direct quote) is certainly influenced by the fact that they have the majority of responsibilities of childcare and their education has not been accessible.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews