Dr Alice Roberts: instead of using the word 'race' we should use the word 'population'

In the  Incredible Human Journey, a five-part story explaining how man originated in Africa around 195,000 years ago, and then gradually spread across the globe.

“It’s the big question: who are we, and where do we come from?” says Dr Roberts. “Science can really tackle that now.”

Some of the information in the series may sound more like educated guesswork than hard fact; from the discovery of a skull, say, or a tool, scientists appear able to construct remarkably detailed descriptions of what large numbers of human beings did, hundreds of millennia ago.

“‘Educated guesswork’ is what science is,” says Dr Roberts. “You form hypotheses, test them against the evidence, and if they fit the evidence, you can assume you’ve got close to the truth.” If that doesn’t make the hypotheses sound thumpingly reliable, viewers should be heartened by a demonstration in episode one of a reassuringly complex-looking DNA-based “family tree”, which shows how 21st-century Europeans, Australians and the rest can all be traced back to the same black African population.

‘Population”, by the way, is the word we should be using instead of “race”. “I wouldn’t use the word ‘race’,” she says. “Biologically, it doesn’t make sense. It’s a bizarre mismatch of concepts: culture, history… Genetically, a white Scandinavian and someone from sub-Saharan Africa are very similar. In fact, humans have less variation genetically than chimpanzees.

It makes you realise that all the historical attitudes towards different races are scientifically meaningless.”

What a brave and searingly intelligent woman she is.