Jonathan Leaf

Revolutions in science happen like Mike’s bankruptcy in Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises: slowly, then suddenly. For the past two decades, neuroscientists have been interested in the ways that the human brain differs from those of other primates. The prevailing assertion among primatologists was that our genome is only 1 to 2 percent distinct from chimps’. Then in April, a team of more than a hundred of the world’s top geneticists published an article in Nature revealing that it’s actually ten times as different. This has enormous implications. After all, if humans aren’t just souped-up chimps – as primatologists have often suggested – then many widely accepted ideas about our nature must be reconsidered.

What do Stokely Carmichael, Harry Belafonte, Colin Powell, Sidney Poitier and Busta Rhymes have in common? And how are Beyoncé, Ava DuVernay, Barack Obama and Kamala Harris alike? None of the first set is descended from American slaves. All of the second are descended from slave-owners. Much of the media and the political establishment is pushing the idea of reparations for black Americans. But, as these lists show, it isn’t obvious who should get paid and who should pay. Consider the case of Kamala Harris. Should her Indian mother pay reparations to her Jamaican father for his partial ancestry from slaves? Should she foot half the bill?