Superior

Superior Plot Summary

Introduction

The concept of race has been one of the most persistent and damaging ideas in human history. Despite lacking scientific validity, racial categories continue to shape our societies, policies, and even scientific research. This fundamental contradiction—between what science actually tells us about human variation and how racial concepts are deployed in the world—forms the central tension explored through rigorous analysis of historical and contemporary evidence. Scientific racism has evolved rather than disappeared. From colonial anthropology to modern genetics, those seeking to establish biological foundations for racial hierarchies have simply updated their methods while maintaining the same flawed premises. By examining how scientific tools and discoveries have been misused to support racial ideologies, we gain crucial insight into why these ideas persist despite overwhelming evidence against them. The careful deconstruction of these pseudoscientific claims reveals not just their technical failings, but also the social and political contexts that give them continued life in our supposedly post-racial era.

Chapter 1: The Historical Construction of Race as a Scientific Concept

Race, as we understand it today, is a relatively recent invention. Before the 18th century, human differences were seen as permeable and shifting qualities. The notion that race represents fixed, immutable characteristics passed down through generations emerged gradually during the Enlightenment period, when European scientists began systematically categorizing the natural world. Carl Linnaeus, the Swedish botanist famous for classifying nature, turned his taxonomic eye toward humans in 1758. In his tenth edition of Systema Naturae, he outlined four main categories of humans corresponding to the Americas, Europe, Asia, and Africa, distinguished primarily by color: red, white, yellow, and black. This classification system quickly became a foundation for racial thinking, though Linnaeus himself included fantastical subcategories like "monstrous humans" and "feral humans." Once these categories were established, they were rapidly slotted into hierarchies that reflected the politics and power structures of the time. The development of racial categories coincided with European colonialism and the transatlantic slave trade, creating a convenient justification for exploitation. By classifying certain groups as inherently inferior, colonizers could frame their actions as benevolent or necessary. This wasn't merely coincidental - racial categorization served economic and political purposes. When scientists like Johann Friedrich Blumenbach described five human "varieties" in 1795, including the "Caucasian" category (encompassing Europeans, North Africans, and Indians), they were establishing frameworks that would have lasting consequences for how we perceive human difference. The scientific establishment of race had real-world implications. In the United States, physicians like Samuel Cartwright developed theories about supposed racial differences to justify slavery, even inventing conditions like "drapetomania" - a "disease" causing enslaved people to run away. These pseudo-scientific ideas weren't fringe beliefs but mainstream medical theories. Cartwright methodically described supposed physical differences between Black and white bodies, claiming differences in bones, nerves, and flesh - observations that became questions for future scientific exploration. By the 19th century, race had become the lens through which human difference was understood. Physical appearance became a marker of permanent difference, and perceived cultural shortcomings were conflated with how people looked. This allowed Europeans to lump together diverse populations across continents based solely on superficial traits like skin color. Whiteness became the visible measure of human modernity, a concept that would be enshrined in discriminatory laws across colonial territories.

Chapter 2: Genetic Evidence Against Biological Race Categories

Human genetic variation does not support the concept of biological races. When scientists completed the Human Genome Project in 2003, they confirmed what many population geneticists had long argued: humans are remarkably similar at the genetic level, with greater variation within traditionally defined racial groups than between them. Approximately 85-95% of all human genetic variation occurs within populations, while only 5-15% occurs between them. This pattern fundamentally contradicts the notion of discrete, biologically meaningful racial categories. The distribution of human genetic variation follows gradual geographic patterns rather than sharp racial boundaries. As humans migrated out of Africa and populated the globe, they carried subsets of genetic diversity with them, creating what scientists call "clines" or gradients of variation. Visible traits like skin color, which have been central to racial classification systems, represent adaptations to different environments and involve only a tiny fraction of our total genetic makeup. These superficial differences have been mistakenly interpreted as indicators of more profound biological distinctions. The concept of "race" fails as a biological category because human populations have never been isolated enough to develop into separate subspecies. Throughout human history, populations have mixed and migrated, ensuring continuous gene flow. Even during periods of relative geographic isolation, the timespan has been too short in evolutionary terms to create significant genetic divergence. Modern humans have existed for roughly 300,000 years—insufficient time for subspeciation given our mobility and interbreeding patterns. Recent advances in ancient DNA research have further undermined racial concepts by revealing surprising patterns of population movement and mixture. For example, studies of ancient European genomes show that today's Europeans derive ancestry from at least three distinct populations that migrated into Europe at different times. Similar complexity exists in every region of the world. This evidence contradicts simplistic narratives about racial purity or ancient racial homelands, showing instead that human populations have always been dynamic and mixed. The genetic evidence also reveals that our ancestral connections expand exponentially as we look further back in time. Five generations ago, you would have as many as 32 possible ancestors contributing to your genetic makeup. Nine generations back, you could have 512, many of whom may have contributed next to nothing to your DNA. The further back we go, the more our ancestral histories overlap with everyone else on the planet. According to geneticist Mark Thomas, we only have to go back a few thousand years before we reach somebody who is the ancestor of everybody alive today.

Chapter 3: How Ancestry Testing Reinforces Racial Thinking

The booming consumer genetics industry has transformed how people conceptualize their origins, often reinforcing rather than dismantling racial thinking. Companies like 23andMe, AncestryDNA, and others have sold millions of testing kits, promising to reveal customers' "true" ancestral makeup. These tests typically provide percentage breakdowns of geographic ancestry, presented with scientific authority that masks their significant limitations and interpretive flexibility. These ancestry tests work by comparing segments of a customer's DNA to reference populations—contemporary groups chosen to represent ancestral populations. However, these reference populations are modern proxies, not perfect representatives of historical groups. The geographic categories used (like "European," "West African," or "East Asian") align suspiciously well with traditional racial categories, creating the impression that these social constructs have genetic reality. The percentages reported suggest a precision that far exceeds the actual certainty of these estimates. The methodology behind these tests involves statistical probabilities rather than definitive determinations. When a company reports that someone has "16% Native American ancestry," this means their genetic markers show statistical similarities to the company's reference samples from indigenous populations of the Americas. Different companies often provide different results for the same individual because they use different reference populations and analytical algorithms. This inconsistency reveals the constructed nature of these categories. Ancestry testing has particular significance for groups whose historical connections were violently disrupted. For African Americans whose ancestral ties were severed by slavery, or indigenous people separated from their communities through colonial policies, genetic testing can seem to offer reconnection to lost heritage. However, these tests can create new forms of essentialism, reducing complex cultural identities to genetic percentages and potentially undermining traditional ways of defining belonging that aren't based on biology. The commercial framing of ancestry testing often promotes a recreational approach to identity that trivializes the historical and ongoing impacts of racism. Marketing materials feature diverse customers delightedly discovering "surprising" ancestry, suggesting that genetic mixture disproves racism. This narrative ignores how racial categories function socially and politically, regardless of genetic reality. Someone who discovers "unexpected" ancestry doesn't experience a change in how society racializes them based on appearance and social position.

Chapter 4: The Misuse of Statistics in Race and Intelligence Research

Intelligence research has been particularly susceptible to racial interpretations due to persistent statistical gaps in IQ test scores between different populations. Since the early 20th century, researchers have documented average differences in test performance between racial groups, most notably the approximately 15-point gap between Black and white Americans. These findings have fueled claims that such differences reflect innate, genetically determined cognitive capacities rather than environmental influences or test biases. The methodological problems with racialized intelligence research are numerous and significant. IQ tests measure developed abilities, not innate potential, yet results are often interpreted as revealing fixed biological capacities. Statistical adjustments for socioeconomic status typically capture only crude measures like income or education level, failing to account for the qualitative differences in lived experience shaped by racial discrimination. Even the concept of "g" or general intelligence—the statistical construct underlying IQ—represents a particular way of conceptualizing cognitive ability that may not be culturally universal. The Flynn Effect—the documented rise in IQ scores across populations over time—provides compelling evidence against genetic determinism in intelligence. Average IQ scores increased by approximately 3 points per decade throughout the 20th century in many countries, far too rapidly to be explained by genetic changes. This demonstrates that IQ is highly responsive to environmental improvements like better nutrition, education, and cognitive stimulation. Notably, the Black-white IQ gap in the United States has narrowed substantially during periods of social progress, further suggesting environmental rather than genetic causes. Twin and adoption studies, often cited to support claims about the heritability of intelligence, are frequently misinterpreted. While these studies indicate that genetic factors influence individual differences in cognitive ability within populations, they cannot determine whether average differences between populations have genetic causes. Heritability estimates are specific to particular environments; in impoverished conditions, environmental factors dominate, while genetic influences become more apparent when environments are enriched and relatively equal. Statistical analyses of racial differences in intelligence often employ circular reasoning. Researchers begin with socially constructed racial categories, observe differences in test performance between these groups, and then conclude that these differences must have genetic causes—effectively assuming what they claim to prove. This approach ignores the fundamental problem that race is not a coherent biological category but a social classification system with different meanings across time and place.

Chapter 5: Migration Patterns and the Myth of Racial Purity

The study of ancient DNA has revolutionized our understanding of human history, challenging long-held beliefs about racial and national origins. In 2018, scientists at London's Natural History Museum revealed that "Cheddar Man," a 10,000-year-old skeleton discovered in Somerset, England, likely had dark skin - so dark that by today's standards he would be considered Black. This finding, which made front-page news across Britain, shocked many who had assumed that Britons had always been white. For geneticists, however, this discovery was unsurprising. They had already known from analyzing other hunter-gatherer remains in western Europe that dark skin pigmentation was common thousands of years ago. Light skin was likely an evolutionary adaptation that helped people in northern climates absorb more vitamin D from limited sunlight. The first human pioneers in Europe probably didn't arrive with white skin because they had migrated from Africa, where darker pigmentation was advantageous. What ancient DNA research has consistently shown is that people all over the world didn't look anything like modern populations until relatively recently. According to geneticist Mark Thomas, "Differentiation between groups in different parts of the world would have been greater" thousands of years ago. As small migrant populations spread and adapted to local environments, they began to look different from relatives they left behind. However, as groups grew larger and intermixed over time, populations across the world have become more homogenized. The British population itself has been completely transformed multiple times by migration. Around 4,000-5,000 years ago, people associated with the Beaker culture, who had traveled through Europe from the steppe region between the Black and Caspian Seas, arrived in Britain and replaced almost the entire existing population. According to research by Harvard geneticist David Reich, this Beaker invasion replaced around 90 percent of Britain's gene pool in just a few centuries. These migrants brought with them lighter skin, meaning that "there's been a continuous process of skin lightening, with big jumps that occurred at these migrations." This pattern of population replacement and mixing isn't unique to Britain. Throughout human history, migration has constantly changed direction, with people branching out and then remixing repeatedly. The idea that certain populations have remained pure or unchanged for millennia has been thoroughly disproven. As Reich explains, "I think this idea of indigeneity, and you being from a population that has been here for ages - I mean there may be populations that have better claims to that than others - but at some deep level the great majority of people in the world, if not everyone, is not derived directly from people who lived in the same place deep in the past."

Chapter 6: Scientific Racism's Persistence Despite Contradictory Evidence

The question of whether different racial groups might have different intellectual capacities has been a persistent theme in race science, despite decades of evidence undermining such claims. In 2007, James Watson, co-discoverer of DNA's double-helix structure, told the Sunday Times he was "inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa" because "all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours—whereas all the testing says not really." Watson's comments revealed how even renowned scientists can maintain racist views despite their scientific knowledge. In 2010, David Reich witnessed Watson's racism firsthand when Watson asked him, "When are you Jews going to figure out why are you guys are so smart?" Watson compared Jewish people to Brahmins, suggesting that racial purity combined with selection for scholarliness explained both groups' academic success. If understanding scientific facts makes racism impossible, as some claim, how does Watson manage it? The persistence of scientific racism is partly explained by networks that have maintained these ideas since World War II. In 1960, a group of researchers including former Nazi scientist Otmar von Verschuer established the Mankind Quarterly, a journal dedicated to race research. Funded by the Pioneer Fund, a private foundation established by wealthy segregationist Wickliffe Draper, the journal provided a platform for researchers who couldn't find backing elsewhere. These networks have gained new life through the internet and social media. The phrase "human biodiversity" has become a mantra among self-styled "race realists" who claim scientific backing for their views. White supremacist Jared Taylor, founder of American Renaissance magazine, uses concepts borrowed from population genetics to defend racial segregation. His conferences have featured contributors to the Mankind Quarterly, creating an intellectual veneer for white nationalism. The rhetoric of these groups often centers on claiming unique access to scientific truth. They position themselves as challenging political correctness and defending academic freedom, while portraying mainstream scientists as ideologically driven. As anthropologist Jonathan Marks warns, "Whenever anybody tells you 'I am objective, I am apolitical,' that is the time to watch your wallet, because you're about to have your pocket picked."

Chapter 7: Beyond Biology: Race as a Social and Political Construct

Human differences emerge through complex interactions between genes, environment, and culture that cannot be reduced to simplistic biological determinism. The development of any trait—physical, cognitive, or behavioral—involves dynamic processes that unfold throughout life. Even highly heritable characteristics like height show tremendous plasticity in response to environmental conditions, as evidenced by the dramatic increase in average height in many populations following improvements in nutrition and public health. Cultural transmission represents a uniquely human form of inheritance that operates alongside genetic mechanisms. Humans acquire knowledge, skills, values, and behaviors through social learning, creating accumulated cultural adaptations that far outpace biological evolution. This cultural inheritance system allows rapid adaptation to new environments without genetic change. The extraordinary diversity of human societies reflects this cultural flexibility rather than underlying genetic differences between populations. The concept of gene-environment interaction challenges simplistic nature-versus-nurture debates. Genes do not determine outcomes directly but rather influence how individuals respond to environmental conditions. The same genetic variant may have different effects depending on context. For example, genes associated with aggression may only increase violent behavior in environments characterized by abuse or deprivation. This means that genetic influences cannot be meaningfully discussed without considering the environments in which they operate. In India, the caste system offers a unique window into how social hierarchies can become perceived as biological realities. For thousands of years, marriage within tight-knit communities and a rigid social structure have maintained separation between population groups. Even today, many Indians prefer to marry within their own religion, color, caste, and community, despite intercaste marriage being legal since 1954. This systematic discrimination has created what geneticist L.D. Sanghvi described in the 1950s as "almost an experimental environment... broken up into a large number of mutually exclusive groups, whose members are forbidden, by an inexorable social law, to marry outside their own group." The political weaponization of genetics extends beyond explicit racial arguments to subtler forms of biological determinism. Claims about genetic influences on crime, poverty, or educational achievement often implicitly invoke racial narratives without directly mentioning race. These arguments typically minimize structural factors and historical injustices in favor of explanations that naturalize inequality. The appeal of genetic explanations lies partly in their ability to absolve society of responsibility for addressing systemic problems by framing them as inevitable consequences of biology.

Summary

The fundamental insight that emerges from examining the science of human variation is that biological determinism fails both scientifically and ethically as an explanation for human differences. Race is not written in our genes but constructed through social and historical processes that have misappropriated biological concepts to justify inequality. The evidence from population genetics, evolutionary biology, neuroscience, and anthropology converges on a clear conclusion: human populations share a recent common ancestry, exhibit continuous rather than categorical variation, and display remarkable biological similarity despite superficial differences. The persistence of racial thinking despite overwhelming scientific evidence against it reveals that race is primarily a political rather than scientific concept. Its continued power stems not from biological reality but from its utility in organizing societies and justifying unequal treatment. Moving beyond biological determinism requires not just better science communication but deeper engagement with the historical and political dimensions of race. Only by understanding how racial categories function socially can we develop more accurate scientific approaches to human variation and more just social policies that recognize our shared humanity while addressing the very real consequences of racialization.

About Author

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Angela Saini

Angela Saini is an award-winning author and journalist, and she teaches science writing at MIT. She has presented science programmes on BBC radio and television, and her writing has appeared in National Geographic, Wired, and Foreign Policy. She is the author of four books, including Superior: The Return of Race Science, which was a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize and Inferior: How Science Got Women Wrong, which has been translated into fourteen languages. Her latest, The Patriarchs, was a finalist for the Orwell Prize. Angela has a Masters in Engineering from the University of Oxford. She was made an honorary fellow of Keble College, Oxford in 2023.

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