Often when I see people insist that there are measurable genetic causes of behavior, they jump very quickly to using their ideas to justify aspects of society and inequality. The results are too...
Often when I see people insist that there are measurable genetic causes of behavior, they jump very quickly to using their ideas to justify aspects of society and inequality. The results are too quickly believed to be correct of confounding factors and believed to be describing immutable qualities that can't be purposefully adjusted by the environment. The idea that we should halt a moment and have a conversation about what any important genetic differences if they exist should even mean for society is treated as if it's only a distraction by science-denialists to get in the way of supposedly objective and correct science and a supposedly objective set of political prescriptions resulting from it. I'm pretty happy that this article actually focuses on this idea, which seems rare.
I was very happy about the author's approach and curious if she had written more on this, so I looked up more about her and thankfully it seems to reveal a consistent pushback from her against offenders in the field. There's this recent article about her with a very similar message to the OP article, and there's stuff by her (1, 2) pushing back on the junk science and disguised politics by Charles Murray. I've liked each of these articles and posts from her.
I find myself very skeptical of the idea that seems suggested by her at times that politics would benefit from any specific policies inspired by genetics, but I think she's right that in certain political circles, there's a little too much pushback against genetic sciences to the point that it distorts the field and pushes people into the field unnecessarily to the right, but also at the same time there's a ton of scientifically-incorrect junk within the field that's propped up to push right-wing politics. Many people see one of these two problems and over-correct to the other side because it's the only option they see. What's really needed is a role model between these two options, and I'm happy that she seems to recognize this.
It’s harder to imagine what structures should be, if we deny ourselves tools for seeing what they are right now. Yet this is exactly what much psychological and sociological research does. Too many of my colleagues pay lip service to a “biopsychosocial” model of human development, while in actuality failing to pay attention to any genetic differences between people in their research designs. I understand why that is: They’ve been convinced that the existence of genetic influences on human differences would “naturalize” inequalities between people, and they fear giving any rhetorical ammunition to people opposed to social change. However, ignoring genetics in social science research in order to preserve the possibility of social change is a fundamentally counterproductive strategy. If we actually want to change social structures to be more equal, more inclusive, more accommodating of human differences, we can’t blind ourselves to a major source of those differences. We need to be able to see.
Often when I see people insist that there are measurable genetic causes of behavior, they jump very quickly to using their ideas to justify aspects of society and inequality. The results are too quickly believed to be correct of confounding factors and believed to be describing immutable qualities that can't be purposefully adjusted by the environment. The idea that we should halt a moment and have a conversation about what any important genetic differences if they exist should even mean for society is treated as if it's only a distraction by science-denialists to get in the way of supposedly objective and correct science and a supposedly objective set of political prescriptions resulting from it. I'm pretty happy that this article actually focuses on this idea, which seems rare.
I was very happy about the author's approach and curious if she had written more on this, so I looked up more about her and thankfully it seems to reveal a consistent pushback from her against offenders in the field. There's this recent article about her with a very similar message to the OP article, and there's stuff by her (1, 2) pushing back on the junk science and disguised politics by Charles Murray. I've liked each of these articles and posts from her.
I find myself very skeptical of the idea that seems suggested by her at times that politics would benefit from any specific policies inspired by genetics, but I think she's right that in certain political circles, there's a little too much pushback against genetic sciences to the point that it distorts the field and pushes people into the field unnecessarily to the right, but also at the same time there's a ton of scientifically-incorrect junk within the field that's propped up to push right-wing politics. Many people see one of these two problems and over-correct to the other side because it's the only option they see. What's really needed is a role model between these two options, and I'm happy that she seems to recognize this.
From the end of the article: