Imagine a Planet of
the Apes on which a single specie, over seven million years, evolves
into three related but distinct species: Homo, Pan (chimpanzee and
bonobo), and Gorilla. Unique among them are human beings who ask
"What does it mean to be 98% chimpanzee?" The answer is
found in Jonathan Marks's witty, insightful and critical essay.
In this book Marks accomplishes
two important tasks. First, he convincingly argues that the reduction
of important things in life to genetics is a recent cultural, non-scientific,
phenomenon that calls for serious critical analysis. In a stance
that some may find polemical he states unambiguously that "technical
sophistication and intellectual naïveté have been the
twin hallmarks of human genetics since its origins as a science
in the early part of the twentieth century" (p. 2). Second,
he challenges a wide range of taken-for granted views on race, inequality,
sexual orientation, funding for research projects, and many other
salient topics of public interest. In the process Marks offers refreshing
insights into the fallacy of arguments put forward by authors, some
of them scientists, who inappropriately use science to promote their
social agenda.
While reading this book one comes to appreciate the kinds of questions
and statements Marks come up with to get the reader to think. Consider
the following: "When a human skull encases 1400 cubic centimetres
of brain, a chimp is luck to have a third of that. Is that 67% different?"
(p. 23); "If we are similar but distinguishable from a gorilla
ecologically, demographically, anatomically, mentally indeed every
way except genetically does it follow that all the other standards
of comparison are irrelevant, and the genetic comparison is transcendent?"
(p. 43); "We are apes, but only in precisely the same way we
are fish" (p. 45); "The overwhelming bulk of detectable
genetic variation in the human species is between individuals in
the same population. About 85% of it, in fact" (p. 82); "Irish
Catholics and Irish Protestants are indistinguishable genetically,
but they know who they are and who they are not, by virtue of their
cultural difference" (p. 87).
Observations such as these cut to the heart of the matter. In the
same vein Marks reminds his readers that "Races aren't there
as natural facts, they are there as cultural facts, which overwhelm
and redefine the relatively minor biological component they have"
(p. 136). He writes: "I'm always astonished to find it asserted
in the sociobiological literature that humans have a deep hereditary
propensity for 'xenophobia,' fear or hatred of others, or more grandiosely,
a genetic basis for genocide" (p. 141). Marks, who notes that
the simplest answer to such assertions is to point out that genocide
policies are carried out between people biologically very similar
but culturally very different, such as the "Hutu and Tutsi,
Bosnians and Serbs, Israelis and Palestinians, Huron and Iroquois,
Germans and Jews, English and Irish" (p. 142). It is cultural
values and social agendas that shape human lives as historically
situated humans strive to promote this or that social and political
agendas to create a world more to their liking.
Of the twelve chapters
in the book, four are based on previously published papers and three,
chapters 6, 7 and 8, are based on published reviews of books. These
are: Taboo: Why Black Athletes Dominate Sports and Why We Are
Afraid to Talk About It by J. Entine (2000); Demonic Males:
Apes and the Origins of Human Violence by R. Wrangham and D.
Peterson (1996); and, The Great Ape Project: Equality Beyond
Humanity by P. Cavalieri and P. Singer (1993).
From one chapter to
the next, Marks continuously keeps his sight on the ambiguous relationship
between science and society. To illuminate the pitfalls of the uncritical
and unwarranted misuse of poorly understood scientific knowledge
he engages in lively discussions of the sociobiological view of
males as naturally inclined to violence (chapter 7), of the Great
Ape Project which promotes extending human rights to the great apes
(chapter 8), of the Human Genome Project (chapter 8) and the Human
Genome Diversity Project (chapter 9), of the controversy around
the cloning of human beings (chapter 10), of the Creationist agenda
(chapter 11), or of the eugenic movement (chapter 12).
In brief, this is a
great book for all interested in contemporary debates in which claims
are made about the social and cultural significance of genetic markers
in humans and non-humans. The range of topics covered is wide. The
writing is lively and thought provoking. The quest for sorting out
science from pseudo science is relentless. In this way Marks accomplishes
his purpose which is to challenge not science but "scientism,
an uncritical faith in science and scientists" (p. 279).