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Summary: Very informative, easy reading
Comment: Mapping Human History by Steve Olson is very informative, written very well, Easy to absorbe his
information. He uses a lot of references which enables further study.

Customer Rating:

Summary: science versus political correctness
Comment: On the science front, this book is very superficial. There are many other ones that are much better
and more detailed. About 80% of the book is a political correctness diatribe. If this book
represents what passes for scholarship in today's academic environment, our society is in deep
trouble.

Customer Rating:

Summary: very good
Comment: Some critics below carp about political correctness, but the author makes as good a case as any
layman's book I've read. He is merely pointing out that human populations converge before they can
evolve any important divergent phenotypes, and that all the phenotypes that separate people, which
are commonly defined as "race", are pretty much insignificant. He also describes well how the
biology works behind the differences in physiognomy that we perceive between the "races".
/>Human population on this planet is soaring, and we all have to live together more harmoniously,
because there's no room left for malcontents to go off and start their own societies anymore. Just
like in the remote past, when glaciers and desertification pushed different populations together and
compelled their interaction by necessity, all the nations and ethnicities of the world are again
bumping up against each other. The realization that we have a common genetic past, and future, is
the first step to achieving more international harmony.

Customer Rating:

Summary: Where did we come from
Comment: Mapping Human History discusses how the use of mitochondrial DNA and Y chromosomal DNA can be used
to trace the common origins of humans. Steve builds a case for how humans appeared as a distinct
group about 150,000 to 200,000 years ago based on genetic variation we see in people today. By using
genetics and the study of haplotypes and haplogroups, it believed that one can trace our ancestry
back to a common "Mitochondrial Eve" or an "Adam" neither of which may have lived at the same time.
He covers the encounters with other species such as Neanterthal, emergence of agriculture and the
development of ethnicity.

Steve covers most of the globe in this quest for common
origins: Africa, Middle East, Asia, Australia, and Europe and finally the Americas. The evidence
tends to support an African origin. I found the discussion of the settlement of the Americas
interesting. The ultimate conclusion of all of this is the commonality of the human species. A case
is made for the irrelevance of race; this seems to be a prominent theme throughout the book. />
One thing that I found interesting was the fact that written language goes back only to
about 3400 BCE. This tends to support the Bible chronology of humans being created only about 6000
years ago (you can't have written history that predates humans), but then this would be in conflict
with the genetic findings.

I also read the book The Journey of Man by Spencer Wells
which also discusses the genetic history of man. Neither book really discussed, to my satisfaction,
exactly how one gets from the genetic variations to the time periods for the existence of humans
being promulgated. It would be of value to have more input in this regard.

Customer Rating:

Summary: Too politically correct to be correct
Comment: Some evidences, but rarely relevant; many deductions, yet mostly illogical; big conclusions,
consequently, you know what they can be. This is what Olson's book showed me on and between the
lines.

Olson obviously tried to give a final verdict on this otherwise interesting
topic `No more arguments and that is it!' I am surprised to realize that this is what he really
tried to do. This book has nothing to do with science, because it shows no respect to science and no
spirit of science.

Here we see political purposes overrule science and political
correctness suffocates science. I will tackle 2 of Olson's main claims.

1) `No
significant difference was found in genes belong to different races, thus races do not exist.'
Actually the studies on human genes has just started and in its very beginning period. There are too
many unknowns to conclude. Let us see a big mistake in our history. When Copernicus and Galileo
suggested the Earth be moving around the Sun rather than the other way around, one of their
criticisms was that if that was true then we should be able to see the difference on view angles
when we observe stars in different seasons. Since no such difference was found, Copernicus and
Galileo must be wrong. The argument was as strong and logical as Olson's, but it was completely
wrong. No difference on view angles was only because the stars were too far from us and the
precision of the observation was too low then. 2 hundred years later, the differences were indeed
found and Copernicus and Galileo were proven right. Roman Catholic Inquisition Court used the
seemingly credible criticism to incriminate the Copernicus theory supporters; the court even burned
Bruno, a fearless supporter of the Copernicus theory, to death in Roman Flower square. 500 hundred
years later, not long ago, Roman Catholic apologized for what they did then. Do we need to repeat
such mistake today? That no significant difference was found does not mean no significant difference
exist. According to the recent study, the difference between human and ape is only 3%. If 3% can
make such big difference, what some `insignificant difference' can do?

2) `All the
people in the world are descendents of one woman.' This claim is less absurd than the logic from
which Olson deducted to his claim. This can only be true if all human were all related. This is the
conclusion that Olson tried to prove, but he used it as condition from which he `proved' it as
conclusion. Let us see an example. We sometimes see a spam e-mail that asks, with seduction or
threaten, you to send, say, 5 people whom you know. Which such original e-mail reached every one on
the Earth? If isolation and independency cannot be ruled out, such claim cannot stand. Only from
limited results of the gene researches cannot reach such claim. This is why Olson needed to use the
conclusion as condition to `prove' the conclusion. According to Olson, the evolution in Africa
suddenly popped out one common mother and another common father, thus formed a race, human, then
such evolution suddenly stopped.

The hasty with which Olson jumped to his verdict is
strikingly obvious. Only with other motivation other than science could explain the behavior. No
truth can be revealed if political purposes over rule science conscience. Jumping to the conclusion
from such little evidences with such hasty is the recipe to mistake.

Olson also made
many contradicting arguments. While he claims no difference between races, he enthusiastically wrote
new races were formed from different environment for lions and other animals. I often scratch my
head to try to understand where his logic was. He seemed to write with the Bible stories in mind,
but in a much faster and in greater scale. When there was a pass of Red Sea, Olson made human pass
Red Sea and Berlin Straight. In a very short time, 20,000 years (that is 7,200,000 days), certain
human beings out from Africa changed their physique and look. But Olson made sure, even with such a
great speed, no more new races formed.

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