You can either use the present to explain the past. Or you can use the past to explain the present,â John Shea tells me. âBut you canât do both.â To make sense of the past â and of ourselves â is not a simple job of gathering scientific data until we have the truth. It isnât just about how many fossils we have or how much genetic evidence. Itâs also about squaring the stories we have about who we are with the information we are given. Sometimes this information becomes slotted into the old stories, reinforcing them and giving them strength, even if it needs to be forced like a round peg into a square hole. Other times we have to face the uncomfortable realization that a story must be ditched and rewritten because however hard we try it no longer makes sense.
Angela Saini, Superior: The Return of Race Science
