What It Means to be 98 Percent Chimpanzee: Apes, People, and Their Genes (review)

Here's the short answer: not much, necessarily, and certainly not what many others have tried to make of it. Moreover, estimating the genetic similarity of two species is not as straightforward or precise as is often presented. But this issue is a relatively small part of Marks's book, which is instead a remarkably wide-ranging consideration of claims about human genetics and their proper interpretation. Connecting the various discussions are his contentions that "technical sophistication and intellectual naïveté have been the twin hallmarks of human genetics since its origins" and that the naïveté is not abating just because research technologies are advancing. Marks provides a strong indictment of human geneticists' expositions of their own work and the implications drawn by others. Surrounding discussions of human genetics, he sees the cognitive authority of science regularly appropriated for claims that it does not — and often cannot possibly — substantiate, and these claims often happen to coincide with convenient ends. Additionally, Marks believes that the study of human genetics has suffered greatly from a persistent failure by many practitioners to appreciate insights available from plain old anthropology.

Marks writes with a buoyant passion that keeps the reader's attention as he extensively criticizes the "ignorance and arrogance . . . of students of molecular evolution." In pursuing his quarry of undeserved hubris, Marks takes the reader on a fast-paced journey through the genetic discourse surrounding apes, racial categorization, cognitive ability, cloning, eugenics movements, and an array of other topics. Marks also moves swiftly between discussions of historical episodes and contemporary debates, often to warn the reader that we should not be so sure that today's science is different and not repeating the mistakes that equally confident scientists have made in the past. In arguing strongly for these views, Marks provides a refreshing counterweight to the numerous genes-trump-all books that have amassed on trade book shelves over the past decade.

Marks presents his vision of molecular anthropology as "the fusion of humanistic values of scientific technologies." These humanistic values are most prominently evinced in various discussions of the social responsibility of scientists and the role of science in society. He is unsparing of those who conduct research with glaring political implications and then argue when criticized that they are only doing science and it is just these meddling critics who are trying to politicize their work. Marks also argues, without challenging its empirical correctness, that the typical presentation of science represents "the rawest form of ethnocentrism" and has only itself to blame for the resistance it often receives. His solution is an anthropological portrayal of science that emphasizes its answers "as conducted within a particular cultural framework" that happens to satisfy "certain criteria well (notably empirical validity), but other meaningful criteria poorly." Here, while I find merit in Marks's position, I think he overdoes his downplaying of just how powerfully meaningful empirical validity is.

A more general sense that Marks is often overdoing it tempers my general enthusiasm for the book. When social scientists pick up a book well outside their normal disciplinary expertise, they are being asked to trust that the author is fairly characterizing the positions of those being criticized. Such trust can be compromised — and the rhetorical force of the book greatly attenuated —from just a few missteps in the areas the reader does happen to know. In this case, I found myself wincing at Marks's overly simple dismissal of twin and adoption studies as a guide to the heritability of traits; at a peculiar teleological argument about the functions of human cultural diversity; and at an odd historical assertion that left-handedness provides the origin of the view that "the left is politically unstable." When every passage is written with a uniform confidence, I find it only takes a few winces for me — perhaps...