A response Here is a letter I wrote that's a continuation of the exchange on Jewish Nobel Prize winners that I linked to a few days ago. The main proponent of the neo-Lysenkoist position emailed me to say that I misinterpreted him when I said that he was interested in what was good, while I was interested in what is true. Readers can judge for themselves whether such an interpretation was invalid by inspecting the following comment:

And another thing. There is a powerful moral argument for erring on the side of nurture rather than nature. If we bring up our kids as if their future depended entirely on how well we treat them, at worst we will have wasted some amount of love and human kindness. If we bring them up assuming that their character and aptitudes are written in their genes, we may be robbing them of their life potential.

Many will recognize that this phenomenon is very common among those who call for "socially responsible" science. There is a very strong analogy to the persecution of Galileo by the Catholic Church, even down to modern analogs of the epicycle proponents. I figured that readers might be interested in the correspondence, so I've posted it here. My Letter I do not think much will be gained from this exchange, but I will continue it up to one reply. Concerning your statement about how it is "morally prudent to err on the side of the nurture hypothesis" - I do not back away from my statement that you are more interested in morality than truth, as I think this Freudian slip on your part is the crux of the matter. To paraphrase, you believe that the "world would be a better place" if post-natal care was the *only* reason for the differences between human beings. This sort of neo-Lysenkoism is what causes you to set unattainable standards for the hypothesis that genetic factors influence the outcome of a human life. Let me reiterate: my position is that genetic factors make a nontrivial and nonzero contribution to human outcomes. So do non-genetic environmental factors. Neither is the be-all and end-all of the story. I do not consider this position "genetic determinism". Note that I make a distinction between the component of the environment caused by genetic proclivity and the component due to a non-genetic environment, as is standard practice in evolutionary psychology.

>If *you* are right about the role that genetics play in human affairs then >the moral consequences of my acting on the opposite assumption are >relatively benign. If *I* am right about the role that experience plays in >human affairs then the moral consequences of your acting on the opposite >assumption are dire.

You are quite mistaken. The consequences of ignoring genetic differences are NOT benign. This is because resources are scarce . Let me provide just a few examples in which the denial of genetic differences costs dollars or lives: Crime: The fact is that blacks commit far more violent crimes per capita than non-Hispanic whites, who in turn commit more violent crimes per capita than Asians. See the FBI Uniform crime reports. This data cannot be attributed to a large scale "framing" of criminals, because the profiles reported by victims in the NCVS (National Criminal Victimisation Survey) match those of the offender population as reported by the FBI UCR. In other words, for this match between the NCVS and FBI UCR data to be fraudulent, those claiming to be victimised by blacks would actually have to be victims of whites. Needless to say, victims interested in justice or retribution would have little incentive for such misrepresentation. Therefore blacks are actually committing violent crimes at much higher rates than whites. Moreover, this pattern holds internationally in every country for which Interpol compiles crime statistics. This suggests factors more persistent than non-genetic environment. Suppose then that there is a genetic factor that predisposes blacks to violence. How then is it "relatively benign" to focus scarce police resources on Asian grandmothers in addition to young black males if one's goal is the reduction of crime? A simple Bayesian analysis will tell you that the optimal strategy is to focus scarce resources on the crime prone segments of society. Note that the same analysis holds for males and females, as only a "gender-theorist" would assert that males and females are equally likely to commit violent crimes. Even if you don't accept that the proclivity is innate, police are currently prohibited from even using the genetic markers that predict violence on the grounds that racial profiling is unacceptable. I believe, however, that the haplotype map in conjunction with studies like the one on the MAO promoter will soon make it impossible to contend that a subset of the genes associated with racial classifications are merely markers rather than causes. To reiterate: if one's goal is to minimize the probability of crime, then the rational solution is to focus scarce resources on the most likely offenders. Refusing to do this leads to a demonstrably suboptimal solution, whose real world costs include muggings, rapes, and murders. Education: Again, the same analysis that held for crime holds here. Suppose that society's goal is to allocate scarce resources to those most likely to benefit from education. Suppose also that differences in intelligence exist among the potential students. Ceterus paribus , the more intelligent will exhibit faster gains than the less intelligent for a fixed educational investment. Furthermore, the less intelligent will reach a point of diminishing returns faster than the more intelligent. Finally - at the upper ends - the most intelligent will contribute to the preservation of society by designing the machines on which a modern society depends. If our goal is to maximize the average educational level, or to maximize the benefit to society from education, it is clear that we should proceed with a program of differential allocation of educational resources. Note that it is perfectly feasible to incorporate a "floor" into our considerations, e.g. a minimal level of understanding required of all citizens. What are the consequences of ignoring differences and allocating resources as if all were equal? We do not do this yet, as we still have grades, "tracking" in high school, standardized tests, and prestigious universities to perform at least some filtering. But the prevailing trend among groups like Fairtest is to eliminate these assessors of merit on the grounds that they perpetuate inequality. I submit that if there is inherent inequality (e.g. in the math abilities of Asians and whites), then eliminating grades and tests is merely killing the messenger. If we do kill the messenger, we will allow the less intelligent to do jobs that require high intelligence (as was done during the Chinese Cultural Revolution). If this happens on a large scale under the aegis of diversity, we will allow those innocent of mathematics to acquire engineering degrees. As this process proceeds, we will observe a steadily increasing count of crashed planes, nonfunctional automobiles, and hospital casualties. On a less dramatic note, we can also count on dramatically reduced economic efficiency. Nature is the ultimate arbiter of merit, and a lack of mathematical ability will make itself known in the quality of the final product. La Griffe Du Lion has further analysis of the consequences of an unequal distribution of intelligence - I suggest you visit his site. Health Policy: I suggest you read the articles by Sally Satel in the New York Times Magazine and on her website, and Neil Risch's recent paper in Genome Biology. These references show how the willful ignorance of genetic differences in medical practice imposes costs in human lives. Corporate Policy: The policy of affirmative action as promulgated by the EEOC is based upon the assumption that all groups have equal distributions of abilities, interests, etc. The EEOC's mission is to bring lawsuits against any company that does not meet their de facto quotas, thereby forcing companies to appoint employees of a particular race or gender simply to stave off a time consuming and expensive lawsuit. To quote :

The Plan focuses on key program elements: proactive prevention, proficient resolution, strategic enforcement and litigation, enhanced mediation and Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR), and EEOC as a model workplace. ... STRATEGIC OBJECTIVE 1.1. Improve the effectiveness of the private sector enforcement program, including the use of charge prioritization, mediation, and litigation. The Commission's private sector enforcement program is vital to the statutes we enforce. Individuals file charges alleging employment discrimination. We assist them in the charge filing process, review and investigate their charges, offer mediation to both charging parties and respondents charged, and conduct other settlement efforts throughout the charge process. Finally, in appropriate cases, we file litigation based on the merits of a case, the legal precedents involved, and the effective, strategic use of the agency's resources.

Never mind that there are vanishingly small numbers of (say) black female solid state physicists - the EEOC expects everyone to play a game of musical chairs, grabbing the few tokens that are available. When the music stops, the lawsuits and protests start. I have observed exactly the same phenomenon in faculty searches. The costs of this practice are astronomical, but the only estimate to date of the monetary price of affirmative action was in a 1991 report in Forbes, which pegged the price at a whopping $225 billion. Since then it has become verboten to question affirmaive action openly - we must only "mend it, not end it". The topic, like many others, has become too sensitive to be the subject of dispassionate analysis. See adversity.net for a regularly updated accounting of the costs of affirmative action. Foreign Policy: As just one example, it's clear that if genetic differences exist, they should influence our policy vis a vis Asian countries vs. sub-Saharan African countries. The former are capable of development (as in Singapore, South Korea, Japan, China, India), while the latter seem incapable of it. One can argue whether the deprivation of sub-Saharan African nations is due solely to colonialism, but I think that the performance of other post-colonial nations (e.g. Korea, China, India, etc.) indicates that colonialism is not the only factor. Even one technologically modern black nation would provide evidence that genetic factors are not partially responsible, but there is no such entity. Furthermore, expatriate blacks are essentially nonexistent in the mathematical sciences. This pattern holds internationally for every country in which statistics have been compiled. Note that South Africa does not count as a modern black nation, as its technology was developed by the (now fleeing) white community. I do not endorse apartheid, and want to make clear that I support the right of native South Africans to self rule. Nevertheless, it seems likely that South Africa will descend into anarchy within 10 years time as the people responsible for building the infrastructure abandon the country. Note also that I don't think genetic factors are always and everywhere responsible for the situation of nations. Iran is a case in point. The performance of Iranian expats in technical fields suggests that there is enough intellectual capital for a modern state to take hold. In this case the cultural factor of Islam would need to be displaced for a first world state to flourish. The difference between Iran and sub-Saharan Africa is that in the absence of the repressive Iranian culture, Iranians have flourished in the West. The same cannot be said for sub-Saharan Africans. I will cede that such observations are suggestive and not conclusive. They provide useful rules of thumb, but do not explain things at the level of molecular genetics. In order to move these observations from speculation to science, we will want a principled method to determine whether a country's development or lack thereof is primarily due to the genetic or cultural characteristics of the inhabitants. Such a method will involve surveys of haplotype diversity, correlations of genotype to phenotype (e.g. IQ), large scale verifications of gene function in animal models, and plenty of basic molecular biology. With such data, one could (for example) predict whether a "Marshall Plan" in a Middle East country had a chance of success. For more on this, see the large scale surveys of national IQ and the strong correlation to GDP presented on La Griffe Du Lion's website. I submit that such an approach will become more and more feasible as the costs of genome sequencing come down (e.g. via nanopore sequencing), as high throughput methods for functional genomics are developed (e.g. Harvard's Flex Repository), and as microfluidic methods revolutionize benchtop molecular biology. In other words, as the automation of biology proceeds apace, the sort of experiments I'm describing above will be commonplace. Conclusion: Let me make very clear that I do not revel in any of these facts. I think it unfortunate that there are people who are deprived of a chance from the get go due to particularly unfavorable genotypes. It is for this reason that I've devoted my career to enabling human genetic engineering, to provide people with a choice. For the record, I am not in favor of coercion, as I favor a (regulated) free market approach to designer babies. I believe that when possible, one should judge individuals on their own merit. When this proves impossible or impractical, one needs to resort to statistical arguments to determine optimal policy.

>BTW, if ever you come across a predictive study that explicitly correlates >genes and psychological traits, in which all the quantities to be measured, >and the measurement protocols, were completely defined *before a random >sample population was selected*, I would very much appreciate hearing about >it.

The monoamine oxidase promoter study I referenced in the LGF post was just such a study. To recap: -The MAO promoter functional polymorphism has long been regarded as a possible contributor to aggression and extraversion, with evidence from diverse sources including statistical trials, tests on mammalian animal models, and basic neuroscience. Check PubMed for the string "monoamine oxidase promoter". -The hypothesis that the MAO polymorphism was a predictor of violent behavior was broached in the grant application for the workers who wrote the paper in the August issue of Science. Therefore the hypothesis was extant before the population was selected. -The sample population was randomly selected, genotyped, and followed for several years. It was found that the population of abused children with less active MAO promoters was significantly more violent than abused children with more active MAO promoters. This seems to meet every one of your requirements. I will not be surprised, however, if you pronounce it flawed. Perhaps you will claim that the trial is invalid because the scientists began the trial with "preconceived" notions about the MAO promoter's function. (Never mind that such "preconceptions" are the foundation of hypothesis-based research.) The fact of the matter is that people like you will never be convinced of the importance of genes by anything short of human genetic engineering. So be it. Right now, several research groups are extending the recent results on genetic manipulation of mouse intelligence to humans. The proteins involved have close homologues in humans, and it is only a matter of time before genetic manipulations increase human intelligence. What will you do when your sacred cow is publicly slaughtered?