Could genetic castes form in America?

Everyone’s talking about a new paper that analyzes data about assortative mating — the tendency of people to marry others like themselves — in the U.S.

I’m proud to announce that we’re two steps ahead of the game here at RealClearPolicy. Last month, in our White Papers & Research section, we linked to this draft of a paper from Henry Harpending and Gregory Cochran. The paper asks: When there’s assortative mating for a given trait, and that trait is at least partly genetic, what happens in future generations?

The answer: It depends on exactly how strong the mating pattern is and how genetic the trait is, but at least in theory these mating tendencies can harden into genetic castes quite quickly.

Read the full, original story: Assortative Mating: The Next Generation

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