The genome of history

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[/audioplayer]Ever since Darwin published his uncomforting theory, people have been trying to exempt themselves from one or another of its unwelcome consequences. Today’s equivalents of the 19th century’s outraged clerics include the many social scientists, economists and historians who insist that evolution is of no relevance to their disciplines.

In the United States the leading social science organisations proclaim that race is a social, not a biological construct. They reject the obvious notion that races differ because the populations on each continent have been evolving independently of one another for the last 50,000 years. Economists treat people as interchangeable entities of little or no intrinsic interest. Could the nature of the humble human units that produce and consume all of an economy’s goods and services have any bearing on a society’s productivity? Heavens, no! That wouldn’t compute at all.