THE GENETIC LOTTERY

Behavioral geneticist Harden considers the luck of the draw involved with DNA.

Harden, a professor of psychology at the University of Texas, treads a veritable minefield by venturing into a field whose discourse has been dominated by eugenics and White supremacists. Nature doles out genetic advantages, which can be measured by a weighted “polygenic” score. Those with higher scores usual experience better results in life: health, higher levels of satisfaction, and substantially higher lifetime earnings. “You didn’t get to pick your parents,” writes the author, “and that applies just as much to what they bequeathed you genetically as what they bequeathed you environmentally.” Having that polygenic array is akin to winning the lottery, just as having biological parents at home who read aloud and otherwise nurture curiosity and learning builds on that luck. Drawing on twin studies, Harden examines differences within families and within populations, skirting the unhappy reality that most genetics research, as she acknowledges, “does not just disproportionately study White people. It also is disproportionately conducted by White people.” In other words, we need broader data to disprove the notion that one race—a meaningless concept in biology—is superior to another. Working her way through some difficult science in a somewhat repetitive explication, Harden proposes that identifying the lottery winners is one thing. What remains is to put this body of scientific study to work to mitigate the less desirable effects of the social inequalities that result when one segment of the population has better access to wealth than others. As she notes, “the heritability of child cognitive ability is lowestfor children raised in poverty and highest for children from rich homes.” It’s a discussion fraught with political as much as scientific considerations, and Harden diligently fights a desperate battle to enlist science to serve progressive social reform.

A daring though sometimes tangled argument for using genetics to mend the consequences of inequality.