If you have access to the WSJ.com (subscription req’d or you may review if you Follow the site’s Twitter feed, this book review in and of itself is fascinating reading. There are now numerous gene and ancestry testing methods available and many people are using them seeking to better understand their origins.

“What “Brief History” is about is challenging popular ideas about the import of genetics, especially the genetics of race. One beginning is the fact—first shown mathematically in 2003 by a Yale statistician, then demonstrated in the laboratory in 2013 by two California researchers—that everyone on Earth, no matter where they live, what languages they speak, or what skin color they have, is related by descent from a small pool of ancestors just a few thousand years ago.”

The importance of this research cannot be minimized. We live in increasing divisive times, and the use of untrue hallmarks, rhetoric, laws and codes of conduct by groups, communities, countries and regions poses a severe threat to our ability to survival on this planet. Teaching, learning and living together as human beings with a shared understanding of our deeply intertwined ancestry should be embraced as a moral imperative. Stepping off tiny soap box now.