This book was my inauguration to the CBC Massey Lectures. Lewontin's assessment of correlation vs causation, biological vs social and religious determinism, and the impact that essentialism and reductionism have had on the state of biology and its reception by the public is incredibly insightful. This is one of the best CBC Massey Lectures I have read on the same level as Atwood's Payback and Wright's A Short History of Progress. Well worth reading despite some dated commentary on the Human Genome Project.

I like this rating system by ashleytylerjohn of LibraryThing (https://www.librarything.com/profile/ashleytylerjohn) that I have also adopted:
(Note: 5 stars = rare and amazing, 4 = quite good book, 3 = a decent read, 2 = disappointing, 1 = awful, just awful.) ( )

Important caveats of the social construction of knowledge and the socially constructed uses of (what passes as) knowledge. ( )

Professor Lewontin's book counters the deterministic arguments of some well-known geneticists who would have us believe that all differences between human beings, social as well as physical and mental, are due to variations in our DNA, maybe modified to an extent by different environments. He points out the circular nature of the arguments used to support some of their unprovable statements and the straightfowardly unscientific nature of others. In particular, he rejects the claim of sociobiology that it provides a scientific explanation of the current state of human society. This is not alwys an easy book to follow, but it is essential reading in particular for those who are dubious about the "scientific" nature of DNA analysis and what it can tell us about human beings, whether individually or in society.