A new book argues for genetic superiority of some races

May 25, 2014 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

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It couldn’t come at a more appropriate time – on the 48th anniversary of Independence of Guyana. There is a new book that confronts a universal taboo that the entire world of seven billion people is scared to even whisper about much less discuss openly – some races will do better and have done better than others because of genetic differences.
Nicholas Wade argues in “A Troublesome Inheritance: Genes, Race and Human History,” that there are genetic determinants for why one race group is more successful in nation-building, modern in outlook, free-spirited, freedom-loving than other races.
This is a lovely debate to enter into at this particular time, almost fifty years of Independence in Guyana.
When you look at Guyana after nearly fifty years of Independence, the gross ignorance, the unspeakable backwardness, the total disrespect for modernity and modernness, the brutal contempt for nation-building, the disdain for the nationalist spirit, the miserable collapse of social institutions, the abysmal failure of social bonding (which late 20th century biologists love to use to prove that race has genetic foundations), it is almost impossible to ignore Wade. There is an uncanny feeling you get when as a Guyanese you read Wade.
It is as if Wade is writing about this land but does not want to mention Guyana by name. Here is an extract which makes you think that Wade had Guyana in mind when he did his research; ”Institutions are not just a set of arbitrary rules. Rather they grow out of instinctual social behaviours such as the propensity to trust others, to follow rules, and punish those who don’t, to engage in reciprocity and trade or to take up arms against neighbouring groups.
Because these behaviours vary slightly from one society to the next as the result of evolutionary pressures, so too may the institutions that depend on them. Evolutionary biology might have something to say about why some people live in modern states and others in tribal societies and why some nations are wealthy while others remain mired in poverty”.
The book is persuasive. For those who have their doubts about the connection between genes and race, Wade may persuade you. Wade simplifies for the lay reader complex arguments that the scientists who write about these things cannot do. There cannot be any discussion of the connection between genes and race without the mention of the man who popularized the debate, Harvard Professor, Edward Wilson
A newspaper column cannot do justice to Wilson’s concept of “sociobiology,” but briefly, he says that the very foundation of the thought processes of humans reside in our genetic make-up; humans did not evolve in a vacuum and then culture and society kicked in and made us who we are, whatever we are, our genes have played the pivotal role in shaping us; humans evolved with built-in behaviour fashioned by the genetic map.
Wilson was viciously attacked but he maintained that what scientists discover they must be brave to announce and not be cowered by those who are afraid of the social and political implications. Since Wilson, scientists live in mortal fear of writing about the intimacy in the relationship between genes and race. Wade’s book is bound to stoke the fire.
Of course the anti-colonial and anti-West minds are going to fire back at Wade. “Hey, you white man; you think you are better than us, and you write books to put us down and show the world that we are inferior to Europeans? You exploit us for centuries, steal our resources (and our women too), made us poor, and now you say our poverty is because our genes are inferior to yours?”
I can see Ravi Dev picking up the argument as he did by saying the West has been propagandizing for years against the Prime Minister-elect of India, Narendra Modi. The fact is that more than half of India finds Modi a dangerous man. Non-white races find an excuse for their failed civilizations by blaming the white man. And for the next million years they will continue to do so.
The white man has to be the culprit, because if you admit that the failure lies in yourself then you have to offer an explanation, and the analysis may lead you into what you fear the most – the facts of Nicholas Wade.
But let us say that Wade is wrong. How do you explain India, China, Africa, Guyana? Half of the population of India does not have indoor toilets and almost half the population engages in open defecation (source – BBC online article, March 14, 2012). Have Africa, the Arab people and Mexico proven Wade right? They come very, very close to so doing.

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