The Leaky Genetic Pipeline

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i think that's kind of a kind of a fass either or. This is not the most important layer of information about someone, but it's an additional layer of information that's telling us something that would be otherwise hard to qualify and see. And we see that non redundancy even if we're looking at other levels of analysis. So for instance, you know, what do i know about you if i know your apologetic score above yoursocieconomic status, m but i can also say, the average s in thi school. What's the concentration of affluent or poor children in this high school? What's the average poleginic schore in this school?

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.

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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.

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