Subtitle: Why DNA Matters for Social Equality
This is a very dense, detailed, well-documented treatise advocating for the analysis of DNA's impact on social and behavioral issues to improve social equality. I think I understand and grasp some of it but much was difficult to unpack without a background in scientific research. Her argument is that scientific evidence, namely polygenetic indexes and twin studies show that certain traits are inherited, such as education and income achievement, though they are both heavily influenced as well by environmental factors. Given this fact, she advocates for equalizing the disparities this causes by providing social programs that acknowledge the differences due to both genetic and environmental factors.
It's a touchy subject because it's been hijacked by eugenic proponents to claim nothing can be done about social inequity if it is affected by genetics. I was not convinced of her arguments.
Quotes and Notes:
Ploygenic indices are the human version of estimated breeding values in agriculture.
All of your genome, then, can be considered a form of luck in your life.
In 2013 journal Science published results....and found three genetic variants that were associated with educational attainment...rs9320913, rs11584700, rs4851266
...I have students practice talking about psychology studies using the following language: 'This study was about Construct X, as measured by Y.'.
..sometime between 500 and 200 BC, as the Sumerian were developing a written alphabet and Egypt's first dynasty was being established, you reach an even more remarkable point - everyone alive then, if they left any descendants at all, was a common ancestor of everyone alive now. If we trace our family trees back far enough, they all become one and the same.
There are on average, 33 of these recombinations events that occur every time a genome is transmitted to the next generation. So, the 22 chromosomes that you inherited [from your father]can be broken down into 22 + 33 = 55 different chunks, each of which can be traced back to on of your two paternal grandparents.
...the U.S. Census, which began in 1790, did not allow people to pick more than one race until 2000.
Why are inequalities that are related to your genes more acceptable than inequalities rooted in the social circumstances of your birth? After all, as I've argued...both are accidents of birth, forms of luck over which a person has no control.
[sign] Fair Isn't everybody getting the same thing, Fair is everybody getting what they need in order to be successful.
[picture] Equality (3 people standing next to fence on same height box but people are different heights and only those tall enough can see over fence) vs. Equity (same 3 people where shorter ones stand on boxes to be the same height as tallest an all can see over the fence).
...one lesson is that figuring out which specific environments make a difference, for whom, at what point in the life span, is a harder problem than it might appear at first, because most of those environments are braided together with genetic differences between people.
[Ben Domingue, social scientist] 'genetics are a useful mechanism for understanding why people from relatively similar backgrounds end up different...but genetics is a poor tool for understanding why people from manifestly different starting points don't end up the same.'
The biggest contribution of genetics...is a set of tools to do basic research by measuring and statistically controlling for a variable - DNA
inherently valuable vs socially valued - used in describing whether a gene is good or bad based on perspective
,,,use in military of people with ASDs (autism spectrum disorders) who have heightened attention to visual detail and pattern can be put to use scanning satellite images.
I hope to start the conversation about...anti-eugenicist. 5 principles: 1) stop wasting time, money, talent and tools that could be used to improve people's lives, 2) use genetic info to improve opportunity, not classify people 3) use genetic information for equity, not exclusion 4) don't mistake being lucky for being good and 5) consider what you would do if you didn't know who you would be.
Published: 2021 Read: December 2021 Genre: Sociology
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