Response to Marks' Review of Taboo

In his Human Biology review [72(6):1074-1078], Jon Marks contends that my book, Taboo: Why Black Athletes Dominate Sports and Why We're Afraid to Talk About It, does not approach "racial issues" "rigorously." Is his evaluation fair, grounded in testable science or political rhetoric? The evidence suggests that Marks consistently misrepresents Taboo.

The most important sections of the book address "why are we afraid to talk about" human biodiversity--the historical debate over race science, evolutionary theories, Darwin, social Darwinism, phrenology, eugenics in progressive and nihilistic forms, post-World War II anthropology, the modern synthesis, and modern genetics. Marks brands these sections "irrelevant" and ignores them.

He concocts his own thesis, alleging that Taboo is a polemic endorsing genetic determinism, claiming it sets an "evidentiary standard for the innateness of intellectual prowess," and invoking the classic slippery slope argument. The insinuations of racism are particularly appalling considering Taboo's extended attack on "extremist hereditarian theories of intelligence." I wrote that the "quest to understand intelligence has probably inspired more bad science than any other intellectual quest of modern times. It cannot be stated too strongly that the data that conclusively links our ancestry to athletic skills have little or anything to say about intelligence."

Taboo uses sports as an access point to examine the social and biogenetic theories of why ("fuzzy") population groups--athletes of West African ancestry in sprinting, Eurasian whites in strength events, East Africans in distance running--are so over-represented in these respective sports. Marks does not address, or even acknowledge, a driving theme: "Simply stated, the opposing and incompatible claims that black athletic success can be explained by environmentalism or evolution are equally simplistic. Sports success is a bio-social phenomenon." Such factors feed on themselves, creating cultural stereotypes that amplify small, but meaningful, differences in performance linked to heredity--a biosocial feedback loop. Taboo concludes, "Human biodiversity appears in a kaleidoscope of populations across a wide range of characteristics. . . . Race--marked by skin color, ethnicity, and geography--is a fuzzy concept . . . compounded by the reality that theories about race have been frequently superficial and almost always reflective of a social agenda."

However, as I wrote in Taboo, "Limiting the rhetorical use of folk categories such as race, an admirable goal, is not going to make the patterned biological variation on which they are based disappear." In footnoted research, I draw on genetic sources, such as Stanford University's Luca Cavalli-Sforza's The History and Geography of Human Genes. Taboo discusses Cavalli-Sforza's trait-based model of population clusters "comprised of a succession of waves or genetic overlays as smaller populations migrated and mated." This nuanced view in Taboo emphasizes that complex phenomena, such as intelligence, do not correspond to neat racial categories. In just one of many examples, conveniently ignored by Marks, Taboo cites the Lemba, an African tribe with genetics more closely resembling white Jews from the Middle East, who are categorized as "black."

According to Marks, there is no proof of biologically based commonalties or patterned biological differences that cut across cultures. Science suggests otherwise. Many characteristics, from facial features to physique to the susceptibility for certain diseases, show up more frequently in certain populations. Racial labels are occasionally helpful as when geneticists isolate shared genes that cause diseases. Tay-Sachs, which inordinately afflicts Ashkenazi Jews, can be linked to a specific gene in this historically insular population. Other phenotypes, such as the propensity to be born with five fingers or tightly curled hair, are grounded in the genotype though we haven't yet isolated the alleles.

Despite Marks' insinuations, highly heritable phenotypes such as musculature and muscle composition, lung capacity, skeletal structure, and metabolic efficiency are not evenly distributed across population groups. That's the science behind forensic medicine, among other things. For instance, populations with roots in equatorial Africa are more likely to have lower natural fat levels. That phenotype is unquestionably rooted in the genotype, although the specific proteins and...