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Genes, People, and Languages

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Cavalli-Sforza's invaluable contribution to the understanding of why, before the more recent diasporas, we lived were we lived, spoke what we spoke and looked like what we looked like, was made concrete with the publication, in 1994, of the excellent "The History and Geography of Human Genes". Much less complete than this book were the more recent "The Great Human Diasporas" and Sforza's last book, "Genes, Peoples and Languages". These somewhat summarize what can be found in the pages of "The History and Geography of Human Genes", by the same author,with which they share several maps and tables.

Nevertheless, "Genes, Peoples and Languages" was worth reading, since it incorporates more recent genetic data and linguistic research, and this is what you are looking for if you want to keep up with the advances in this field. A more comprehensive explanation to statistical methods used to define genetic trees and to draw principal component maps, plus an interesting chapter on cultural transmission explaining how, in the microsphere, it helps to operate genetic and linguistic evolution, are novelties in this publication.

Putting aside race and its seemingly subjective definitions, racism and its definetely scientifically undermined fundaments, I would like to recommend this book to those who, like myself, are curious laymen fascinated by the matter of human biological and cultural origins. A more thorough approach to the subject(more maps, tables, trees, drawings and text)you'll find in "The History and Geography of Human Genes, though.

This is an excellent and easy to read book about the fascinating analysis of the heritage of mankind. The author has developed an extensive multidisciplinary approach that includes: a) archeology, b) history, c) genetics, d) linguistics, and e) mathematics.

Although the author never stresses mathematics as a key discipline to analyze mankind heritage, his work relied on Principal Component Analysis, Multidimensional Scaling, Cluster Analysis, Logistic Regression, and Hypothesis Testing. Thus, the readers familiar with these statistical methods will enjoy reading this book as a fascinating social science application of such methods.

You certainly don't have to be a mathematician or a scientist to enjoy this book. The author has clearly written it as an introduction to this field aimed at the layperson.

You will learn many fascinating concepts. One of those, is that the history of genes, cultures, and languages converge. In essence, they all influence each other back and forth. It is somehow hard to tell what is the main driver of overall changes in population. You run into many Nature or Nurture arguments. Continuing along the same line, he refers to other scientific works explaining the difference in IQ between individuals. Well, it is 1/3 due to heredity (nature); 1/3 due to cultural transmission (nurture); and 1/3 due to differences in personal experience (random). That is a pretty far cry from the 80% to 90% due to heredity that many people believe in. Also, natural evolution will or has already stopped according to the author. This is because medicine in industrialized societies has reduced the natural mortality rate down to almost zero among the pre-reproductive age set. In other words, medicine has eliminated the natural selection process as the survival rate mechanism of our specie. Some of us may have had concepts that humans eventually will evolve and look like aliens with extremely big heads (for superior intelligence and processing powers) and very skimpy bodies (since physical force is useless in an information age). Well, that's not going to happen.

Throughout the book there are many very interesting graphs and maps that beautifully illustrate and clarify the concepts he introduces. The migration map on page 94, clearly outlines all the major original migrations out of Africa starting 100,000 years ago. On page 71, a world map showing the actual genetic distance between locations is fascinating too. On page 164, you can observe the best diagram of the Indo-European languages you will ever see. English is a Germanic language, as we all know. However, English predates German by several centuries!

You can see how throughout his life, he must have been a fantastic university professor. About 6 months ago, I started reselling my books at Amazon Marketplace to cut my cost of reading. However, I am not reselling this one. I am keeping it as a reference. I anticipate there will be so many occasions when I will be glad I have kept it. The book has opened for me a new window of knowledge quest where so many of the social and quantitative sciences have converged into one to crack the mystery of the history of mankind. I hope this book will do for you, what it did for me.

In a book notable for its accessibility to non-specialists, Cavalli-Sforza presents a concise overview of the history of our species. He relies first and foremost on relationships among aboriginal populations that he has been instrumental in delineating through molecular analyses (e.g. use of blood groups and more recently other systems such as microsatellites). He also relies on archeological and linguistic evidence as independent lines of evidence. The attempt at synthesis of these varied lines of evidence is admirable. A few figures--one displaying early human migration and another geographical distributions of 17 linguistic families--show some of the key population movements described in the text. I wish there were more of these kinds of summary figures. The book succeeds in clearly explaining concepts such as genetic drift and the utility of different genetic systems for understanding human evolution (e.g.Y chromosome variations help us understand male histories and mitochondrial DNA female histories in particular). It also contains a chapter on language evolution that contrasts principles of linguistic evolution with genetic evolution, and a final chapter on cultural evolution. Overall, this book contains a good, concise, synthetic account of the history of modern humans, beginning with our origins in Africa 100,000-200,000 years ago, and migrating to different parts of the world since and at different times. Much of the work appears to build on a more technical 1994 work: History and Geography of Human Genes, perhaps a more suitable reference for those with more background on these topics. The book could have been improved with more graphical depictions of the population movements discussed, as well as by pictures of major and frequently mentioned aboriginal populations such as the Saami (or Lapplanders).

It's difficult to review a book by Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza, not because he's obtuse and overly technical - in fact his writing is very readable by non biologists - but because of the fact that this pioneer in population genetics has so much to say about so many fields in modern science drawing from a lifetime of experiences in the field. This is particularly true of GENES, PEOPLES, AND LANGUAGES which is based on lectures that summarize his lifework and theories. The man delves into biology, anthropology, lingustics, statistics, serology, evolution, and of course, genetics. He touches on culture, race, religion, and language; he has theories about human origins, migrations, adaptations, and the switch from hunter gatherers to agriculture. In short in the field of science, when Cavalli-Sforza writes or speaks, people tend to listen and read. We don't necessarily always agree with him, but we'll get to that in a minute.

From the early 1950's Cavalli-Sforza says he wondered "whether it was possible to reconstruct the history of human evolution using genetic data from living populations." This epiphany is significant for two reasons. Firstly that he followed up on it and obtained sufficient blood samples and has compiled a massive data base of human genetic data, is incredible in its own right. Secondly it is such a paradigm shift in the way science has studied human evolution and history. No longer were researchers restricted to the slim pickings from archaelogy, anthropology and history, namely: relics, human bones, and ancient documents. Cavalli-Sforza has made three major contributions to science using his genetic data on human migrations: (1) he was one of the first scientists to develop an "evolutionary tree" of human origins (2) he susequently mapped our migrations and (3) he showed that agriculture was transmitted around the world, not by transfer of cultural traits, but by movement of actual people.

More than half (4 out of 6 chapters) of GENES, PEOPLES AND LANGUAGES is devoted to looking at human population genetics. There are two other chapters; one each on the relationship between genes and language and the influence of genetics on cultural evolution. These last two chapters although interesting in their own right don't flow with the rest of the book, nor are they as well written; they could definitely have done with more editing.

Back to the first 4 chapters and my earlier point that some people disagree with Cavalli-Sforza's opinions. He is a major proponent of the view that there is no biological basis for human races. He would definitely be one who would quote the oft heard refrain that "race is only skin deep", and he provides a wealth of genetic data to prove this point. Race however is a lot deeper than skin, it is in the bones. Ask most anthropologists who deal with the human skeleton, or a forensic expert, and they will probably agree that they can differentiate between races. But wait, ask any biologist who looks at humans through a microscope and studies blood, and they will admit they have no idea what race they're looking at. This difficulty in arriving at a definitive statement on the reality of races is just one of the many debates in science. Cavalli-Sforza's opinion is just that - his view. The same is true for his support for the linear descent of human evolution, or the "African Eve" theory, which argues that we can all supposedly trace our beginnings to a single female hominid. The differences between anthroplogists known as "splitters" and "lumpers" is what you'll have to refer to in order to sort out that debate. Also what about Cavalli-Sforza's view that only cultural evolution is now taking place in mankind; contrast this with those who say human evolution is in fact speeding up.

All of this is housekeeping among biologists. Non biologists (myself included) need only be aware of these differences of opinion. This book is not argumentative, so it's not a polemic about race, culture, or politics. As a well written general introduction to some of the more interesting topics in human genetics, by someone universally recognized as a true pioneer in the field, this is a good place to start.

From the perspective of a microbiologist, this work was light on methods & materials and figures and heavy on semantics. As a hobbyist of the great human diaspora, I thought it was a wonderful amalgamation of several disciplines. The spirit is certainly science as it should be - using every tool available to reach an inclusive conclusion. It missed a five star rating from me simply because I felt he could have gone into more depth in almost every chapter.

Cavlli-Sforza presents a history of the human race looking at how humanity spread out of Africa and has changed and evolved. He looks at things such as blood types and proteins explaining why differences might arise between different groups of people. He looks at different of primates such as neanderthals showing how modern man arose. He also gives reasons for genetic variation such as drift and chance. He also looks at groups such as the Basque and Lapps in Europe who have unique genetic makeups and languages that seperate themselves from other Europeans. One impressive thing that is dealt with in the book was the link between language and evolution. He shows how groupings of languages can show how humans spread through time.

Professor Cavalli-Sforza'a book "Genes, Peoples, and Languages" is a fascinating history of humankind based on genetics, archeology, and linguistics. It addresses topics, which are of interest to many people who are starting to look into their genealogy in more global aspects. Dr. Cavalli-Sforza is a Professor Emeritus of Genetics at Stanford University. Together with Peter Underhill and Peter Oefner they have published extensively on detecting DNA variation in the Y chromosome and developing markers to study the evolution of modern humans.

The book delves into genetics and linguistics issues, which are explained well despite the multidisciplinary approach. A must read for students in genetics, history, linguistiscs, and even genetic counseling.

For readers who would like to utilize the knowledge of genetics in studying their distant family relationships as a supplement to this work, I would refer them to the "Ancestry DNA Toolbox" or the book "How to DNA test our family relationships?" available from amazon.com.

Cavalli-Sforza & The Reality of Race by Steve Sailer (www.iSteve.com)

The New York Times has hailed "Genes, Peoples, and Languages", the new book by Professor Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza, the dean of population geneticists, for "dismantling the idea of race." In the New York Review of Books, Jared Diamond salutes Cavalli-Sforza for "demolishing scientists' attempts to classify human populations into races in the same way that they classify birds and other species into races".

Cavalli-Sforza himself has written, "The classification into races has proved to be a futile exercise"; and that "The idea of race in the human species serves no purpose."

Don't believe any of this. This is merely a politically correct smoke screen that Cavalli-Sforza regularly pumps out that keeps his life's work -- identifying the myriad races of mankind and compiling their genealogies -- from being defunded by the commissars of acceptable thinking at Stanford.

What's striking is how the press falls for his squid ink, even though Cavalli-Sforza can't resist proudly putting his genetic map showing the main races of mankind right on the cover of his 1994 magnum opus, "The History and Geography of Human Genes."

(Here's also a link to Cavalli-Sforza's map on the website of molecular anthropologist Jonathan Marks, author of "Human Biodiversity," one of the few leftists acute enough to notice the spectacular contradiction between Cavalli-Sforza's boilerplate about the meaninglessness of race and the cover of his most important book:........)

This is Cavalli-Sforza's own description of this map that is the capstone of his half century of labor in human genetics: "The color map of the world shows very distinctly the differences that we know exist among the continents: Africans (yellow), Caucasoids (green), Mongoloids ... (purple), and Australian Aborigines (red). The map does not show well the strong Caucasoid component in northern Africa, but it does show the unity of the other Caucasoids from Europe, and in West, South, and much of Central Asia."

Basically, all his number-crunching has produced a map that looks about like what you'd get if you gave Jesse Helms a paper napkin and a box of crayons and had him draw a racial map of the world. In fact, at the global level, Cavalli-Sforza has largely confirmed the prejudices of the more worldly 19th Century imperialists. Rudyard Kipling and Cecil Rhodes could have hunkered down together and whipped up something rather like this map in honor of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee.

Cavalli-Sforza's new book, "Genes, Peoples, and Languages," is a surprisingly readable updating of a series of lectures on his work that he's been giving for years. It's not at all a bad introduction to this hugely productive scientist. But to find out just how politically unpopular Cavalli-Sforza's findings really are, you need to crack open his tecnically intimidating but endlessly fascinating landmark, "The History and Geography of Human Genes." (The reaonably priced abridged version is all that you'd ever need; the $195 unabridged volume is for libraries only.) It remains the best summary of how the early humans of Africa split apart into the countless racial groups we see today.

Cavalli-Sforza's team compiled extraordinary tables depicting the "genetic distances" separating 2,000 different racial groups from each other. For example, assume the genetic distance between the English and the Danes is equal to 1.0. Then, Cavalli-Sforza has found, the separation between the English and the Italians would be about 2.5 times as large as the English-Danish difference. On this scale, the Iranians would be 9 times more distant genetically from the English than the Danish, and the Japanese 59 times greater. Finally, the gap between the English and the Bantus (the main group of sub-Saharan blacks) is 109 times as large as the distance between the English and the Danish. (The genetic distance between Japanese and Bantus is even greater.)

From these kind of tables, Cavalli-Sforza reached this general conclusion: "The most important difference in the human gene pool is clearly that between Africans and non-Africans ..." As you can imagine, this finding could get him in a bit of hot water if the campus thought police ever found out about it. So, we should certainly forgive the charade he keeps up to fool the New York Times. But, we definitely don't have to believe it.

Ultimately, what is a "race"? It is essentially a lineage, a family tree. A racial group is merely an extremely extended family that inbreeds to some extent. Thus, race is a fundamental aspect of the human condition because we are all born into families. Burying our heads in the sand and refusing to think clearly about this bedrock fact of life only makes the inevitable problems caused by race harder to overcome.

Five stars is a minimum.I enjoyed every word in this book. No wonder that it is already out of print.I expect a new edition soon.May I ask Professor Cavalli-Sforza to correct the first sentence in page 68. The sentence should read "The only possible pairs are AT,GC,CG or TA....:in front of A in one helix,there can be only T in the other..." Again in page 195 I found " But all {eight} possible word orders exist", I think it is {six}.

I bought this book following a very interesting review in the NY Review of Books, but I found it something of a disappointment. It seems to me heavy on genes, and somewhat lighter on people and language, so I would not recommend it unless one is interested in the science involved. I also found a persistent mismatch in the amount of explanation given. Some concepts are explained redundantly throughout the book, but other explanations are, in my view, too brief or unclear. I also didn't care for the chatty digressions in some spots, like the introduction to the Chapter 5. The story this author has to tell is a fascinating one, but he hasn't written a very readable book, at least for the layman.