The book, however, is much more than an argument against the latest racially biasedtheory.
The prime mover behind the project, Luca Cavalli-Sforza, a Stanford professor, labored with his colleagues for years to create nothing less than the first genetic map of the world.
The book features more than maps that show areas of genetic similarity—much as places of equal altitude are shown by the same color on other maps.
By measuring how closely current populations are related, the writers trace the routes by which early humans migrated around the earth. Result: the closest thing we have to a global family tree.
The information needed to draw that tree is found in human blood: various proteins that serve as markers to reveal a person's genetic makeup.
Using data collected by scientists over decades, the writers assembled profiles of hundreds of thousands of individuals from almost , groups.
And to ensure the populations were \present locations as of , before the first major movements from Europe began—in effect, a genetic photo of the world when Columbus sailed for America.
Collecting blood, particularly from ancient populations in remote areas, was not always easy. Potential donors were often afraid to cooperate, or had religious concerns.
On one occasion, when Cavalli-Sforza was taking blood samples from children in a rural region of Africa, he was confronted by an angry farmer waving an axe.
Recalls the scientist: \remember him saying,‘If you take the blood of the children, I'll take yours.' He was worried that we might want to do some magic with the blood.\
Despite the difficulties, the scientists made some remarkable discoveries.
One of them jumps right off the book's cover: A color map of the world's genetic variation has Africa at one end of the range and Australia at the other.
Because Australia's native people and black Africans share such superficial characteristics as skin color and body shape, they were widely assumed to be closely related. But their genes tell a different story.
Of all humans, Australians are most distant from the Africans and most closely resemble their neighbors, the southeast Asians.
What the eye sees as racial differences—between Europeans and Africans, for example—are mainly a way to adapt to climate as humans move from one continent to another.
The same map, in combination with ancient human bones, confirms that Africa was the birthplace of humanity and thus the starting point of the original human movements.
Those findings, plus the great genetic distance between present-day Africans and non-Africans, indicate that the split from the African branch is the oldest on the human family tree.
The genetic maps also shed new light on the origins of populations that have long puzzled scientists.
Example: the Khoisan people of southern Africa.
Many scientists consider the Khoisan a distinct race of very ancient origin.
The unique character of the clicking sounds in their language has persuaded some researchers that the Khoisan people are directly descended from the most primitive human ancestors. But their genes beg to differ.
They show that the Khoisan may be a very ancient mix of west Asians and black Africans.
A genetic trail visible on the maps shows that the breeding ground for this mixed population probably lies in Ethiopia or the Middle East.
The most distinctive members of the European branch of the human tree are the Basques of France and Spain.
They show unusual patterns for several genes, including the highest rate of a rare blood type. Their language is of unknown origin and cannot be placed within any standard classification. And the fact that they live in a region next to famous caves which contain vivid paintings from Europe's early humans, leads Cavalli-Sforza to the following conclusion: \Basques are extremely likely to be the most direct relatives of the Cro-Magnon people, among the first modern humans in Europe.\
All Europeans are thought to be a mixed population, with % Asian and % African genes.
In addition to telling us about our origins, genetic information is also the latest raw material of the medical industry, which hopes to use human DNA to build specialized proteins that may have some value as disease-fighting drugs.
Activists for native populations fear that the scientists could exploit these peoples: Genetic material taken from blood samples could be used for commercial purposes without adequate payment made to the groups that provide the DNA.
Cavalli-Sforza stresses that his mission is not just scientific but social as well.
The study's ultimate aim, he says, is to \prejudice.
It is a goal that he hopes will be welcomed among native peoples who have long struggled for the same end.
Unit_passage_english_b
It is a popular myth that great geniuses—the Einsteins, Picassos and Mozarts of this world—spring up out of nowhere as if touched by the finger of God.
The model is Karl Friedrich Gauss, supposedly born into a family of manual workers, who grew up to become the father of modern mathematics.
A professor who studies early learning has attacked this myth, saying that when he looked into Gauss' childhood, he found that Gauss' mother had been teaching him numbers at the age of two. His father had supervised manual workers, not been one, and played calculation games with him. Furthermore, Gauss had an educated uncle who taught him sophisticated math at an early age.
It is the same story with other geniuses.
Einstein's father was an electrical engineer who fascinated his son with practical displays of physics.
Picasso's father was an art teacher who had young Pablo painting bowls of fruit at the age of eight.
Mozart's father was a musician employed at a noble's court who was teaching his son to sing and play almost before he could walk.
\early stimulation by a parent or teacher figure,\
But what sort of parental stimulation should it be?
There is plenty of evidence that, too often, pressure from parents results in children suffering fatigue rather than becoming geniuses.
One study has identified two kinds of parenting styles—the supportive and the stimulating.
Supportive parents were those who would go out of their way to help their children follow their favorite interests and praised whatever level of achievement resulted. Generally, such parents created a pleasant home governed by clear rules.
Stimulating parents were more actively involved in what their children did, steering them toward certain fields and pushing them to work hard, often acting as a tutor.
The study followed four groups of children: one with supportive parents, one with stimulating parents, one whose parents combined both qualities and a final group whose parents offered neither.
The children were given electronic devices; when these made a sound, they had to make a note of what they were doing and assess how happy and alert they felt.
The not too surprising result was that the children whose parents were simply supportive were happier than average but were not particularly intense in their concentration when studying or working on something.
The children who fared best were those whose parents were both supportive and stimulating. These children showed a reasonable level of happiness and were very alert during periods of study.
Children whose parents were stimulating without being supportive were candidates for fatigue. These children did work long hours, but their alertness and happiness during study time was far below that of children in more balanced family environments.
Another crucial factor is the need for parents to have proper conversations with their children. Through having the chance to talk with adults, children pick up not only language skills but also adult habits and styles of thought.
One reason why prodigiessuch as Picasso and Einstein had a head start in life was that they had parents who demonstrated how to think about subjects like art or physics at a very early age.
A survey in Holland showed that a typical father spent just seconds a day in conversation with his children.
A more recent study in America produced a somewhat better result, but the fathers in question were still talking to their children for less than a minute a day.
It is not just the time spent that counts, but also the way in which a parent talks.
A parent who only gives a brief reply to a child's questions or gives dull answers will be passing on a negative, narrow-mindedstyle of thinking.
On the other hand, parents happy to take a child step by step through an argument, encouraging him or her to explore ideas, will cultivate an open and creative thinking style.
One researcher is attempting to show this experimentally with a study in which groups of parents are taught how to have beneficial conversations with their small children. He says these children have an advantage over their peer group in language ability, intellectual ability, and even social leadership skills.
While the study is not yet complete, the children appear to have been given a long-termadvantage.
So what is the outlook for parents who do everything right, those who manage to be both supportive and stimulating, who are good at demonstrating thinking skills to their children and successful at cultivating a self-motivatedapproach to learning? Would such parents be guaranteed to have a genius as their child?
There is general agreement that genuine biological differences exist between individuals; geniuses need to be lucky in both their genes and their parents.
The most significant implication would seem to be that while most people are in a good position to fulfill their biological potential—barring serious illnesses or a poor diet during childhood—it is far from certain that they will grow up in an environment where that capacity will be developed.
So although knowing more about the biology of genius is all very interesting, it is research into better parenting and educational techniques that will have lasting significance. Unit_passage_english_a
I remember the very day that I became black.
Up to my thirteenth year I lived in the little Negro town of Eatonville, Florida. It is exclusively a black town.
The only white people I knew passed through the town going to or coming from Orlando, Florida. The native whites rode dusty horses, and the northern tourists traveled down the sandy village road in automobiles.
The town knew the Southerners and never stopped chewing sugar cane when they passed. But the Northerners were something else again.
They were peered at cautiously from behind curtains by the timid.
The bold would come outside to watch them go past and got just as much pleasure out of the tourists as the tourists got out of the village.
The front deck might seem a frightening place for the rest of the town, but it was a front row seat for me.
My favorite place was on top of the gatepost.
Not only did I enjoy the show, but I didn't mind the actors knowing that I liked it. I usually spoke to them in passing.
I'd wave at them and when they returned my wave, I would say a few words of greeting.
Usually the automobile or the horse paused at this, and after a strange exchange of greetings, I would probably \down the road a bit.
If one of my family happened to come to the front of the house in time to see me, of course the conversation would be rudely broken off.
During this period, white people differed from black to me only in that they rode through town and never lived there.
They liked to hear me \pieces\and sing and wanted to see me dance, and gave me generously of their small silver for doing these things, which seemed strange to me, for I wanted to do them so much that I needed bribing to stop. Only they didn't know it.
The colored people gave no coins.
They disapproved of any joyful tendencies in me, but I was their Zora nevertheless. I belonged to them, to the nearby hotels, to the country—everybody's Zora.
But changes came to the family when I was thirteen, and I was sent to school in Jacksonville. I left Eatonville as Zora.
When I got off the riverboatat Jacksonville, she was no more. It seemed that I had suffered a huge change.
I was not Zora of Eatonville anymore; I was now a little black girl. I found it out in certain ways.
In my heart as well as in the mirror, I became a permanent brown—like the best shoe polish, guaranteed not to rub nor run.
Someone is always at my elbow reminding me that I am the granddaughter of slaves. It fails to register depression with me.
Slavery is something sixty years in the past.
The operation was successful and the patient is doing well, thank you.
The terrible war that made me an American instead of a slave said \
The period following the Civil War said \ Like a foot race, I am off to a flying start and I must not halt in the middle to look behind and weep.
Slavery is the price I paid for civilization, and the choice was not with me.
No one on earth ever had a greater chance for glory—the world to be won and nothing to be lost. It is thrilling to think, to know, that for any act of mine, I shall get twice as much praise or twice as much blame.
It is quite exciting to hold the center of the national stage, with the audience not knowing whether to laugh or to weep.
I do not always feel colored.
Even now I often achieve the unconscious Zora of that small village, Eatonville. For instance, I can sit in a restaurant with a white person.
We enter chatting about any little things that we have in common and the white man would sit