I'm Glad That You Paused There.

2min Snip

00:00

Play full episode

Summary

Transcript

Episode notes

Csis: It's wild to me how much gonetic information we can get so cheaply and so easily now, comparae to what what it used to be. We janotype participants in our lab, and it costs us about 55 dollars a person em. Even at this advanced level where doing something of ya, more coarse grained than the gass,. There are studies that are moving towards a whole genom sequencing, which is a more fine grain read of the entire tier genome.

It's pretty clear that our genes affect, though they don't completely determine, who we grow up to be; children’s physical and mental characteristics are not completely unrelated to those of their parents. But this relationship has been widely abused throughout history to underwrite racist and sexist ideas. So there has been a counter-reaction in the direction of removing any consideration of genetic heritage from how we understand people. Kathryn Paige Harden argues in favor of a more nuanced view: DNA does matter, we can clearly measure some of its effects, and understanding those effects is a crucial tool in fighting discrimination and making the world a more equitable place.

Support Mindscape on Patreon.

Kathryn Paige Harden received her Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Virginia. She is currently a professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Texas at Austin. She is the leader of the Developmental Behavior Genetics Lab and co-director of the Texas Twin Project. She was the recipient of the Award for Distinguished Scientific Early Career Contributions to Psychology from the American Psychological Association. Her new book is The Genetic Lottery: Why DNA Matters for Social Equality.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.