Bi-Weekly Discussion - The Politics of Hereditarianism

About this event

This is going to be an online meetup using Zoom. If you've never used Zoom before, don't worry — it's easy to use and free to join. Click on the link above at the scheduled date/time to log in... \*\*\* *** WHAT ARE THE POLITICAL IMPLICATIONS OF ADVANCES IN HUMAN GENETICS THAT REINFORCE (OR CHALLENGE) HEREDITARIANISM? INTRODUCTION: This meetup will discuss the political implications of "hereditarianism" - i.e. a school of thought in the social sciences asserting that genetics and heredity play a primary role in determining human behavior and explaining differences. It's often contrasted with "environmentalism" - i.e. a school of thought in the social sciences that asserts that social, cultural, economic, and physical surroundings play the dominant role in determining human behavior and explaining differences. We'll assess the extent to which hereditarian arguments have been reinforced or challenged by recent advances in human genetics, such as "Genome-Wide Association Studies" (GWAS) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genome-wide_association_study) and the resulting "polygenic risk scores" (PRS) that estimate a person's inherited genetic liability to a specific trait by combining the cumulative, small effects of hundreds to millions of genetic variants. Initially, an individual's PRS was mostly used to estimate risks of developing a hereditary disease, but advances in the field of "behavioral genetics" have begun to identify complexes of genes that influence intelligence, personality traits, sexual orientation, mental health, and antisocial behavior. With the demise of the American eugenics movement after the revelations of Nazi atrocities in WW2, conservatives and progressives have mostly debated social issues based on different assumptions about the effects of our environment, i.e. parental upbringing, educational methods, peer influences, media effects, economic incentives, the legal system, etc. However, the return of hereditarianism thanks to twin studies, adoption studies, psychometrics and behavioral genetics presents problems for both sides by challenging the extent to which their proposed social interventions can influence traits or behaviors that are highly influenced by our genes. For example, conservatives may be forced to accept that some people are naturally inclined to be same-sex attracted or gender non-conforming, that strict parenting & religious education don't provide many of their proposed benefits, and a lot of people who sink into poverty & crime are not just freely choosing to be lazy or violent. Conversely, progressives may be forced to accept that some people are naturally less intelligent or more inclined to violence, that gentle parenting & DEI trainings don't provide many of their proposed benefits, and that poverty & crime are not just the negative effects of discrimination and underfunded social programs. In general, it appears that once the more extreme forms of material privation & social exclusion are removed, that most social interventions begin to run into diminishing returns and some can even produce unintended consequences or a backlash effect. Of course, as we'll see, complex social phenomena are hardly every the product of 100% nature or 100% nurture - rather, many cognitive & behavioral traits appear to be somewhere between 30% and 70% genetic. Culturally-specific aspects of a person's identity like a person's native language, religious denomination, or political affiliation are 100% environmental, although they are all affected by a person's verbal fluency, religiosity, and inclination to altruism which do show a genetic influence. Behavioral genetics still finds that many environmental factors play a role in how a person's innate tendencies manifest, for good or ill. Research also shows that it's often difficult to disentangle genetic & environmental factors, such as "epigenetics" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epigenetics) and "gene–environment correlation" (https://en.wikipedia