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Feb 07, 2018krsbozo rated this title 5 out of 5 stars
I really liked this book, because it taught me some surprising and amazing things that we've learned via genomics about our human history. A few tidbits: * Those of us of European descent are all related to the small percentage of human sapiens that left Africa. * Those of us of European descent can chart a path back to an ancestor who was living in Europe around 900 AD. Four out of five people alive then gave birth, and those are the stock which has given rise to all of us of European descent. (At least, that's how I understood this point.) * There was a lot of breeding across the branches of our family "tree," and so the tree is more of a map. As a consequence, we carry a lot of Neanderthal DNA in our genome. * There are no true genetic markers for race. Because of our ancestry, for example, people who are descended from those who left Africa are more similar genetically than those who stayed. This means that a white and black person descended from those who left Africa early are likely more genetically similar to two African's from different parts of Africa. Anyway, I'm sure I mangled some of those ideas, but I had several "oh man, that's an incredible idea!" kind of moments. The author's language is also striking. He conveys his love of science with a poetic bent, but also describes the difficulties inherent in the scientific process to alleviate junk science and its misuse.