Further to “So racism is the new cool?”, anthropologist Jonathan Marks, author of What does it mean to be 98% chimpanzee?, on Nicholas Wade’s A Troublesome Inheritance:
When Wade speculates about human prehistory, he becomes entangled in contradictory fictions. He writes of the Paleolithic age:
People as they spread out across the globe at the same time fragmented into small tribal groups. The mixing of genes between these little populations was probably very limited. Even if geography had not been a formidable barrier, the hunter-gatherer groups were territorial and mostly hostile to strangers. Travel was perilous. Warfare was probably incessant, to judge by the behavior of modern hunter-gatherers.
Where to begin with such a hodge-podge of pseudo-prehistory? If we know hunter-gatherer groups are very mobile, and they were busily spreading, then on what basis do we suppose there was such limited mixing of genes? They certainly overcame the hostility, peril and warfare readily enough to do all that spreading, and a lot of trading as well. Trade was a critical and ubiquitous feature of early human ways of life. All over the world, archaeologists have discovered shells, feathers and raw materials from far away; and where goods flow, so do genes. More.
Everyone speculates about human prehistory; that’s why it is called prehistory.
From what we know, religion was the main civilizing force, actually, not warfare or agriculture.
By the way, hilariously under the circumstances, Marks ends his piece with:
This book is as crassly anti-science as any work of climate-change denial or creationism. And like those odd birds, Wade adopts a radical relativism of expertise. Sure, all the relevant experts say one thing, but he’s going to tell you the truth.
So now Wade is the just like the hated creationists—right along with everybody who disagrees with him.
Hey, we toldjah! We are all creationists now. Pass the hot sauce.
Also:
Early human religion: A 747 built in the basement with an X-Acto knife
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