Nicholas Wade

New York Times science reporter Nicholas Wade discusses how the mapping of the genome is shaping new ideas about race and its role in the human story.

A story published this week reports that Chinese archaeologists have found nearly-intact mummies of people who lived in a desolate desert in Northwestern China nearly 4,000 years ago. But they were not Chinese. DNA evidence from these long dead people shows that they were in fact of European descent. Also this week, geneticists announced that man's best friend split from the wolves about 15,000 years ago in the Middle East.

Nicholas Wade, New York Times Science reporter and the author of The Faith Instinct: How Religion Evolved and Why It Endures, writes that humans are genetically impelled to religious faith.