Everything you need to know about race (but were afraid to ask). MYTH: Early Europeans were white. REALITY: The first Europeans had dark skin, black, curly hair and blue eyes. MYTH: Between 50,000 and 70,000 years ago, a 'cognitive revolution' led to the birth of culture in Europe. REALITY: Modern intelligence evolved tens of thousands of years earlier, leading to the birth of culture in Africa. Does racism have a rational basis in science? In Skin Deep, Gavin Evans tackles head-on the debate that has been raging on internet message boards and in academic journals. No longer limited to the fringe, race-based studies of intelligence have been discussed by thinkers such as Sam Harris and Jordan Peterson. If these studies were true, they would provide an intellectual justification for inequality and discrimination. Examining the latest research on how intelligence develops and laying out new discoveries in genetics, palaeontology, archaeology and anthropology to unearth the truth about our shared past, Skin Deep demolishes the pernicious myth that our race is our destiny and instead reveals what really makes us who we are.