After joking about interviewing dogs for the new book, Nye begins a dissection of the purebreed myth:
"We obsess about whether our dog is a pug-Jack Russell terrier mix with corgi overtones and an oaky finish. 'An approachable little dog,' whatever. They’re all dogs, okay? And so the idea of a purebred is just a human construct. There’s no such thing – in a sense there’s no such thing as a purebred dog."
This is one of the main lessons Nye hopes readers and viewers take away from his analysis of dogs and evolution. No matter what kinds of dog mate -- pug with a chihuahua, Great Dane with a dachshund, whatever -- the result is still a dog. There is no variance in species. Years of breeding and evolution have resulted in a broad spectrum of dogs that look different from their proto-dog ancestors and certainly different from each other. But underneath it all they're still just dogs.
The same can be said for humans. Race, just like breed, is a human construct:
"If a Papua New Guinean hooks up with a Swedish person all you get is a human. There’s no new thing you’re going to get. You just get a human. Japanese woman jumping the African guy, all you get is a human. They’re all humans. So this is a lesson to be learned. There really is, for humankind there’s really no such thing as race. There’s different tribes but not different races. We’re all one species."