Kathryn Paige Harden argues how far we go in formal education – and the huge knock-on effects that has on our income, employment and health – is in part down to our genes. Harden is a professor of psychology at the University of Texas at Austin.
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[Harden:] When asked to estimate how much genes influence intelligence, people’s answers are not zero. I’m trying to help them make sense of that information in a socially responsible way. If you care about social equality, what do you do with information about genetics?
[Harden:] Historically, genetics has been misused. But [eugenics] is literally the opposite of what I’m advocating. The core idea of eugenics is that there is a hierarchy of people who are inferior or superior that is rooted in biology and that inequalities are justified on that basis.
Mine is an anti-eugenics approach seeking to use our knowledge of genetic science to build policies and social interventions that create more social equality.
Sweeping genetic differences between people under the rug does not make the genome, as a systemic force causing inequality, go away. That genetic and environmental factors are braided together at every level is simply a description of reality.