On this episode of “You’re Wrong,” a production of “The Federalist Radio Hour,” Federalist Editor-in-Chief Mollie Hemingway and Senior Editor David Harsanyi discuss President Joe Biden's ongoing document scandal, examine the relationship between parenting and success, contemplate the propaganda press's affinity for conspiracy theories like those promoted by Hamilton 68, and weigh their feelings about "The Last Of Us."
In this Social Science Bites podcast, interviewer David Edmonds asks psychologist Kathryn Paige Harden what she could divine about his educational achievements if all she knew about him was his complete genome. “Based just on your genetic information,” she starts, “I would be able to guess about as well as I would be able to guess if I knew how much money your parents had made per year when you were growing up.”
Based on current knowledge drawn from recent samples in the United States, Harden estimates an “educational attainment polygenetic score” accounts for 15 to 17 percent of the variance in educational attainment, which is defined by years of formal education. The strength of the relationship is similar to environmental factors such as that for family wealth and educational attainment, or between educational attainment and wages.
One thing she stresses is that genetic influence on human behavior is not the single-factor ideal youngsters learn about in their first brush with Gregor Mendel and his pea plants.
“Almost nothing we study as psychologists is monogenetic, influenced by one gene. It’s all polygenetic, meaning that there are thousands of genetic variants, each of which has a tiny probabilistic effect. If you add up all of that information, all of that genetic difference, it ends up making a difference for people’s likelihood of developing schizophrenia or doing better on intelligence test scores or having an autism spectrum disorder – but none of these things are influenced by just one gene.”
Plus, that “polygenetic score” varies based on environmental factors, such as whether you were raised in an authoritarian state. “If I had my exact DNA that I have now,” she details, “but I was raised in 1850s France compared to 1980s America, my educational output would be different, obviously, because my gender would have been interacting with those opportunity structures in a different way.”
As those structures evolve into ladders instead of roadblocks, the more utility we can derive from knowing the role of genetics.
“The more we ‘level the playing field,’ the more that people have environments that are rich and conducive to their individual flourishing, the more we should expect to see, and the more in empirical practice we do see, the role of genetic differences in people.”
In the shadow of eugenics and other genetics-based pseudo-sciences legacy, is harnessing that genetic influence for policy use good or bad? As Harden has experienced since her book published, “you can’t really talk about genes and education without fairly quickly running into some contested issues about fairness and equality.”
In fact, she argues that much of her on heritability doesn’t so much answer social science questions as much as it “poses a problem for the social sciences.”
In the podcast Harden discusses the Genome-wide Association Study, which she describes with a laugh as “a giant fishing expedition” in which researchers measure the DNA – genotype – from thousands or even millions of individuals and then measure that across the genome, for what comes down to “ a giant correlational exercise. Which genes are more common in people who are high on a trait versus low on a trait, or who have a disease versus don’t have a disease?”
Harden also addresses the reasons she studies identical twins in her research, the cooption of genetic tropes to advance toxic worldviews, and how race – which she rejects as a proxy for genetic differences — plays out in the real world as opposed to the lab.
It's hard to square rhetoric surrounding high-earners who attempt to avoid taxes with a now-suspended plan to snoop on small financial transactions. Nick Anthony and Scott Lincicome comment.
We've all been there - you're at a gathering of friends or family, when someone starts to go off the rails, expounding a strange series of unfounded conspiracies (or worse). How do you connect with this person, and help guide them away from the cognitive brink toward the world of critical thought? In the second part of this two-series, the guys explore the tricky process of navigating Conspiracy Realism without judgement or condescension.
Tevi Troy joins the podcast today to talk about his article in COMMENTARY, “Ed Koch, Ten Years Gone.” And Tevi puts on his health-care hat as a former high-ranking official at the Department of Health and Human Services to help us understand the baffling Biden White House announcement that the COVID emergency will be over…in three months. Give a listen. Source
The Defenestration of Prague sets the stage for protestant confrontation of the Habsburgs, but what prince would be foolhardy enough to take their crown?
Subscribe today for the full episode and the rest of the series at patreon.com/chapotraphouse
Black people have been part of the American West for centuries. But mainstream cowboy culture long downplayed their contributions, even as they exist in the present day.
A final farewell to Tyre Nichols in Memphis. Southern winter wallop. Oregon manhunt ends with suspect's death. CBS News Correspondent Steve Kathan has today's World News Roundup.
The Adani Group, one of India’s biggest conglomerates, has come under fire from a tiny American research firm. A successful secondary share sale amid a rout in the markets leaves many questions—and proves revealing about India Inc. Our correspondent explains why Mexico is so well-placed to navigate the electric-vehicle transition. And the unlikely rise of MAGA rap artists.
