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101 " the European story is one in which the movement of people is inherent. Even though we have national identities, and pride and traditions that come with that sense of belonging, European culture is imbued with migration. For Native Americans, this is not their culture. Not all believe they have always been in their lands, nor that they are a static people. But for the most part, the narrative of migration does not threaten European identity in the same way that it might for the people we called the Indians. The scientifically valid notion of the migration of people from Asia into the Americas may challenge Native creation stories. "
― Adam Rutherford , A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived: The Stories in Our Genes
102 " I will show you that despite what you might have read, genetics won’t tell you how smart your kids will be, or what sports they should play, or what gender person they might fancy, or how they will die, or why some people commit acts of heinous violence and murder. Just as important as what genetics can tell us is what it can’t. "
103 " Something on the order of 107 billion modern humans have existed, though this number depends on when exactly you start counting. "
104 " Pedigree is a word derived from the middle French phrase pied de grue—the crane’s foot—as the digits and hallux spread from a single joint at the bottom of the tibia, roughly equivalent to our ankle. This branching describes one or a few generations of a family tree, "
105 " Genes never work in isolation, and almost never have just one role. "
106 " One fifth of people alive a millennium ago in Europe are the ancestors of no one alive today. Their lines of descent petered out at some point, when they or one of their progeny did not leave any of their own. "
107 " conurbation "
108 " The key finding was that the sequences of DNA generated implied that the human that led to us diverged from those who led to the Neanderthals around 500,000 years ago. "
109 " Iceland straddles a rip in the earth’s mantle, and the two plates riven through the land are slowly pulling it apart, at the speed of fingernail growth. There "
110 " We are all Rumsfeldian, if we are doing science right. "
111 " Racism is hateful bullying, and a means of reinforcing self-identity at the expense of others: "
112 " Doubt is the cornerstone of science. It gives you a sure footing from which to build an argument based on data. "
113 " The Arab,” for comparison, he concludes, “is little more than an eater up of other men’s produce; he is a destroyer rather than a creator, and he is unprolific”). Though wince-inducing now, these sorts of views were not necessarily normal and not necessarily uncontroversial then, and we shouldn’t assume that these were universal British Victorian values. "
114 " The greatest achievement of the Human Genome Project was working out exactly how little we knew— known unknowns. Once you know what you need to know, the future is laid out in front of you. And so, the map was sketched, and the landscape was set out— where to explore, and what we might be hunting for. "
115 " And yes, genetics appears to play a role in about half the total risk for being alcohol addicted. But there’s no evidence that Native Americans have any versions of genes that metabolize alcohol any differently from white people in America, nor is there a simple single genetic factor that might render someone an alcoholic. There is plenty of evidence for brutal social and cultural experiences for many Native Americans, and generations of oppression, resulting in underemployment, poverty, and low socioeconomic status, all of which are risk factors for alcoholism. Yet, the notion that the high rates of alcoholism in Native Americans—almost twice as high as in white European immigrant Americans—are somehow genetic remains an oft-repeated idea. "
116 " according to the genetics, there wasn’t a point where a group of genetically similar people spread into the extremities of the British Isles and settled into a culture that we now call Celtic. That word is a modern invention of a presumed people that isn’t reflected in Britain’s DNA. "
117 " There are no essential genetic elements for any particular group of people who might be identified as a “race.” As far as genetics is concerned, race does not exist. "
118 " That a Namibian and a Nigerian have more similar skin color than either do to a Swede masks the fact that the majority of their genes are more dissimilar to each other than they are to that same Swede. "
119 " any action predicated solely on DNA sequence seems to me to be a high-risk endeavor, prone to specious failure. "
120 " 100 percent of mass shootings have been enabled by access to guns. "