Books like The 10,000 Year Explosion: How Civilization Accelerated Human Evolution

I was seriously underwhelmed by this work. At a high level, I think it's great that there's a new publication that presents a case for the biological and genetic drivers of human evolution even during the recent historic period. I certainly agree with this perspective, and it adds a nice layer of evidence to other recent popular works dealing with human history in the Holocene. The devil is in the details, however, and this is where the book comes up short.I was very frustrated by this book's orientation very firmly in the "popular science" genre rather than being more scientifically rigorous. There were far fewer citations than appropriate, and many claims were presented as fact without a shred of supporting evidence. Far too often, the authors (Cochran and Harpending) resorted to descriptions like "completely obvious" or "undoubtedly" to refer to their own arguments and "simply incorrect", etc. to diminish opposing viewpoints without actually exploring WHY their own ideas were correct and opposing ideas might not be accurate. The authors sometimes acknowledge contradictory arguments or evidence but never explore them in anything but the most cursory fashion.One of my biggest problems is that most of this book presents one big straw man argument. The authors repeatedly assert that conventional wisdom stipulates that no evolution has occurred in recent human history, and that current anthropological thought indicates that all patterns and changes in the last 10,000 years may be ascribed to cultural or environmental forces rather than biological ones. I suspect they are primarily aiming their sights at Jared Diamond's "Guns, Germs, & Steel" as well as selected works of Stephen Jay Gould. But really, this is not at all conventional wisdom in the scientific community, and there are plenty of books, papers, and people who will argue that a combination of cultural, environmental, and yes, biological and genetic factors have been important shapers of recent human destiny.I'm not going to get up on my soapbox and impress myself with my own intelligence by detailing a catalogue of complaints about the specific arguments in this work, or expounding upon what I believe to be more compelling arguments. Suffice to say that I have advanced degrees in related areas and worked as a professional anthropologist/archaeologist for years, so I consider my perspective to be an informed one. Here are two examples that I would consider to be representative of the flawed logic, methods, and philosophy of the entire work:Chapter two presents their conclusion that Homo sapiens must have exchanged genes with Homo neanderthalensis. Based on what new evidence that now proves this old idea, you might ask? NONE! It's a compelling theory, but as of yet there is no conclusive support. Among their claims? "We can only say that humans are known to have had sexual congress with [all sorts of things:]...any port in a storm", as well as "a gene that plays a role in speech was replaced by a new variant some 42,000 years ago...it is likely that the migrating humans picked it up from Neanderthals, since that's about the time they encountered them in their expansion out of Africa". These kind of unsupported and ridiculous leaps of faith do not have a logical link to Cochran and Harpending's ultimate conclusions, and it is irresponsible to reach such a firm and adamant conclusion when supported by such a weak foundation of evidence. Don't get me wrong, I agree that genetic admixture between these groups was possible (perhaps even likely). Just don't insult my intelligence by building such a poor case with such strong and decisive language.The final chapter discusses the reasons why Ashkenazi Jews are more intelligent than everyone else. The whole idea of measuring intelligence is subject to a variety of biases and problems. Rather than building a case that the pattern they describe is indeed real and valid - by first systematically reviewing objections to the concept of IQ measurement - they breeze through these objections in a single paragraph. That is intellectually dishonest - let's see some systematic scientific arguments rather than ad hoc rationalization, please. Not to mention that they ignore the social implications of their perspective - namely, that this type of thinking can be used to support racism in all its pernicious guises. If some groups are smarter than others, it follows that other groups would be dumber than average, and it is a slippery slope from this kind of thinking to arguing for institutionalized discrimination, eugenics, etc.In short, this work leaves much to be desired. The style is unscientific and many of the conclusions are non sequiturs based on weak presentation of evidence and avoidance of opposing views. I would suggest skipping this one for something less partisan and more soundly scientific.