Cousins Under the Skin

Dr Steve Jones, Reader in Genetics at University College, London delivers his penultimate Reith lecture, in a series about the new biological insight into humanity.

In this lecture, Steve Jones examines how science has been used to discriminate, arguing that the history of race illustrates more than anything else the way science can be used to support prejudice.

He examines the limitations of biology in understanding human affairs and by using the example of the genetic differences between snails in two valleys in the Pyrenees, which he argues, are greater than between Australian aborigines and ourselves, he explains that there are far greater genetic differences between individuals than between countries or races. Humans, he says, are in fact a tediously uniform species.