The Return of Race Science

Modern science is pivotal in our understanding of race – not because of the lines that thinkers through the centuries have chosen to trace around human groups, but because, once grouped, what they thought belonging to these groups signified.

Join award-winning science writer Angela Saini as she explores the concepts of race and human variation, both past and present. She dissects the political roots of race, why scientists can’t seem to look beyond it, and the dark and dangerous ways in which scientific racism persists to this day.

Dissecting the statements and work of contemporary scientists studying human biodiversity, most of whom claim to be just following the data, Angela shows us how, again and again, even mainstream scientists cling to the idea that race is biologically real. As our understanding of complex traits like intelligence, and the effects of environmental and cultural influences on human beings, from the molecular level on up, grows, the hope of finding simple genetic differences between “races”—to explain differing rates of disease, to explain poverty or test scores, or to justify cultural assumptions—stubbornly persists.

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Angela Saini is an award-winning science journalist and broadcaster. She regularly presents science programmes on the BBC, and her writing has appeared in New Scientist, the Guardian, The Sunday Times, and Wired.

Her latest book is Superior: the Return of Race Science is published by Beacon Press. Books will be on sale at this event and will be cash or card. Signing by the author after the main event.

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Doors 2.45pm. Start 3pm.

Entry £8, £4 concessions (free to Conway Hall Ethical Society members, who should book these tickets in advance via the Book Now button)

Event is subject to capacity, without exceptions. Space will be reserved for ticket holders.

This event is in the Brockway Room on the ground floor (Ground floor – accessible. Induction loop audio). For accessibility info: conwayhall.org.uk/about/visiting-us

It is part of Conway Hall Ethical Society’s charitable programme and is tax-exempt.