Want to create an interactive transcript for this episode?
Podcast: New Books in Politics and Polemics
Episode: Shoumita Dasgupta, "Where Biology Ends and Bias Begins: Lessons on Belonging from Our DNA" (U California Press, 2025)
Description: Dr. Dasgupta is a geneticist and internationally recognized anti-racism educator. In this book, she provides a powerful, science-based rebuttal to common fallacies about human difference.Well-meaning physicians, parents, and even scientists today often spread misinformation about what biology can and can’t tell us about our bodies, minds, and identities. In this accessible, myth-busting book, Dr. Dasgupta draws on the latest science to correct common misconceptions about how much of our social identities are actually based in genetics.Dasgupta weaves together history, current affairs, and cutting-edge science to break down how genetic concepts are misused an...