Matthieu Authier writes:
I just read Genetic essentialism is in our genes. Here are a few papers from Kenneth Weiss about this missing heritability problem and genetic essentialism:
Evol.Ant.2011 – Weiss – Seeing the forest through the gene-trees
More on essentialism
What is the name for the cognitive error that proving something is heritable (in the English dictionary sense: a combination of genetic, epigenetic, by social effects) is taken to be a demonstration that it is thus impervious to reasonable social intervention or that present-day moral responsibility for historical injustice are thus irrelevant? Most of the energy behind demonstrating pathetically slight heritability is in service of this fallacy.
Demonstrated by a fascination with statistical minutia with zero interest in identifying the causal mechanisms behind – IQ is a great example. Functional MRI shows the correlation of measures of discrete brain structures between identical twins and fraternal twins (fraternal twins correlate not so much more than chance), but the IQ crowd could not be more disinterested. The more mystery, the better to serve the fallacy.
A racial group is merely an extended family that is partly inbred. Thought of this way, it demystifies the subject of race: we all have a lot of experience with extended families and understand the inherent fuzziness and paradoxes inherent in them.
I work in animal genetics since 1997. Indeed, the term ‘Genetics’ is much abused, and we don’t see the genetic code of an individual as a terrible fate. Genes interact among themselves and with the environment (including other people and other people genes), all the time. Things are very fuzzy. The own meaning of heritability, which has a precise definition, is rarely correctly understood.
I prefer to see genes as a box full of tools “just in case” than a doom from your great-grandfather.
These controversies are very, very old and I don’t think we’ll be able to get rid of them.