Name: Your genes affect your education. Here’s why that’s controversial. | Kathryn Paige Harden
Uploaded: 2022-08-27T18:26:04.000Z
Duration: 6 min 13 s
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- Conceiving a child is like a giant Powerball.

there are 70 trillion possible genetic combinations

that any one of their children could inherit.

So siblings are really different from one another,

in their education, in their income, even lifespan.

For many people, the idea of genetic differences

But if we care about inequality that is tied

the kind of stroke of luck over which they have no control,

then we should care about genetic inequality,

And I recently wrote a book called "The Genetic Lottery:

I think what a lot of people don't realize

is that all humans are over 99% genetically the same,

Even those differences don't fall along racial lines.

because many of the psychological, behavioral,

How can we figure out which genetic variants

of the psychological differences that we care about?

I think a big part of the power of genetics

is as a tool to help us understand the environment.

What are the social environments, the school contexts,

the parenting environments that can turn on

So if I'm at genetic risk for doing poorly in school,

is there something about the school environment

such that I still go on to do well in my math class,

such that I still go on to do well in college?

the biological differences but also an understanding

of the environment to see how they combine

This work, connecting genetics to things like education,

And that's the idea that genetic differences underlie

and that genetic information should be used

to sort of slot people into their place or station in life.

But if scientists that have egalitarian values

then the only people who are consuming it and talking

about what it means are these ideological extremes.

The predominant response to the eugenic perspective

And that's really the idea that we should avoid talking

about biological or genetic differences between people.

it's natural and there's nothing we can do about it.

So let's not talk about genetics lest people give up

And that doesn't bear out under the science.

A great example is if you wear eyeglasses.

That's something that is genetically-caused,

but by giving you an environmental intervention

of anti-eugenic policy in the United States,

and that's the Americans with Disabilities Act.

If you go into an ADA compliant building,

so someone might still not be able to walk,

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Your genes affect your education. Here’s why that’s controversial. | Kathryn Paige Harden

perspective

controversial

psychological

intelligence