Punchy and perceptive, Evans' passionate and wide-ranging debunking of hereditarian views of race in areas ranging from archaeology to IQ and sport deserves a wide readership.'
Professor Saul Dubow, University of London
'Smart, accessible and stimulating, Black Brain White Brain is by far the most important book yet written to systematically debunk society's lingering attachments to race science and its pet topics of intelligence, genetics and civilization. Black Brain White Brain should be required reading in every undergraduate university course, in every high school and in every home.'
Professor Jonathan Jansen, University of the Free State
Over the last decade the media have given new life to an old idea - one at least as old as colonialism and slavery: that intelligence is defined by race and, more specifically, that white and Asian people are innately smarter than black people.
The prime sources for these successive waves of publicity are psychologists but a handful or renegade scientists, pop science writers and journalists have joined the throng.
Gavin Evans demonstrates why they are wrong - that their ideas are based on an out-of-date understanding of genetics, on a profound ignorance of the African anthropological record and a misplaced faith in the idea that IQ tests measure hardwired general intelligence, and that average IQ scores of different populations can be fruitfully compared.
Black Brain, White Brain shows that there are no hardwired differences in intelligence or character between the races, and that human brainpower has probably not evolved for 100,000 years.
'Gavin Evans studied economic history and law, has a PhD in politics and has worked as a journalist for 25 years. He has read widely on evolutionary biology, palaeontology, biological anthropology, archaeology, neuroscience and evolutionary psychology. He needed all this for his latest book, Black Brain, White Brain. It plunges deep into the world of racist science and demolishes its myths quickly and smartly.'
Rehana Rossouw, Business Day
'The title of Gavin Evans' new work, Black Brain, White Brain: Is intelligence skin deep? is seemingly problematic. Surely we know the answer to that question? Evidently not. Spend a few moments with this valuable and indeed welcome work and it becomes quite clear there are a lot of supposedly learned folk out there who, frankly, should know better.'
Andrew Donaldson, The Times
'Gavin Evans, journalist and author of Black Brain, White Brain: Is intelligence skin deep? is more au fait with scientific racism, having grown up and worked in apartheid South Africa where "science" was used to justify white superiority. ... Evans lays out the reason he believes science does not support the idea that intelligence is determined by race, with an impressive list of scientific references and interviews to back up his rationale.'
Sarah Wild, Mail & Guardian.
'A new book by Hornsey author, journalist and Birkbeck media studies lecturer Gavin Evans is aiming to debunk the idea that white and Asian people are innately smarter than black people. Black Brain, White Brain: Is intelligence skin deep? took two years to write and is partly inspired by his experiences of growing up in South Africa where he fought against apartheid.'
Laura Enfield, This is Local London
'Over the course of 300 well-written and accessible pages this book] answers its own subtitle in the negative. Intelligence is definitely not a matter of skin tone, hair texture or any of the other phenotypical features used to classify human beings into race groups.'
T O Molefe, http: //africasacountry.com