A VOICE IN THE WILDERNESS

An evolutionary biologist mixes his life story with an attack on bigotry.

Graves, professor of biological sciences and the first African American to receive a doctorate in evolutionary biology, is candid about the racism he has experienced during his life. Born in Plainfield, New Jersey, in 1955, he attended integrated schools in which “it seemed that all the children of African descent were assigned to the slow group.” The author praises a few teachers but is unafraid to call out those who ignored or denigrated him. Graves received a scholarship to Oberlin, but he performed poorly until his final years, when he became fascinated by evolutionary biology and buckled down. Entering an overwhelmingly White scientific discipline, he regularly heard that he had been forced on the department to meet affirmative action quotas, accusations that continued even when test scores placed him near the top. Now a leading figure in his field, Graves continues to devote much energy to encouraging Black students’ interest in science and to opposing pseudoscience, including eugenics and similar movements. “Racializing a genetic predisposition for intelligence,” he writes, “creates in persons of Eurasian descent a pride in their genetic heritage.” Such scientific racism thrived in the 19th century, but the evidence proved so spurious that it disappeared from the mainstream by the middle of the 1900s. Still, the recent rightward swing in politics in recent decades has energized these ideas; in 1994, the publication of The Bell Curve proved to be “a powerful tool buttressing anti–affirmative action arguments.” Along with other scientists and educators, Graves works hard to disprove these harmful—and scientifically unsound—concepts, but they refuse to go away completely. The author is inspiring in his arguments for human equality, but readers with no background in genetics and population studies may find some chapters difficult to navigate.

Convincing arguments against scientific racism from an acclaimed researcher and scholar.