{"id":3427,"date":"2009-11-26T05:48:31","date_gmt":"2009-11-26T13:48:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/secularright.org\/wordpress\/?p=3427"},"modified":"2009-11-26T05:48:31","modified_gmt":"2009-11-26T13:48:31","slug":"politics-and-science","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/politics-and-science\/","title":{"rendered":"Politics and Science"},"content":{"rendered":"

Barely was the ink dry (pixels glowing, whatever) on \u00a0my having posted this to National Review Online<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Politics\u00a0\u2026 corrupts the\u00a0human sciences, suppressing research in areas where it’s feared results will crash up against what Bill Buckley called “the prevailing structure\u00a0of taboos”:\u00a0 widespread entrenched beliefs and emotions\u00a0\u2014\u00a0in psychometry<\/a>,\u00a0for example, or\u00a0population\u00a0genetics<\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u2026\u00a0than my special issue of The Economist<\/em> arrived, a survey of “the world in 2010.” The science section of the\u00a0issue includes a piece by Geoffrey Miller, an evolutionary psychologist at the University of New Mexico, title: “The Looming Crisis in Human\u00a0Genetics.” After discussing the meager results from genome-wide association studies<\/a>, Miller turns\u00a0to the just-over-the-horizon promise of full genome sequencing. (The big comparative sequencing studies to date have dealt with samples typically\u00a0only 0.03 percent of the genome in size.). Miller:<\/p>\n

When sequencing costs drop within a few years below $1,500 per genome, researchers in Europe, China and India will start huge projects\u00a0with vast sample sizes, sophisticated bioinformatics, diverse trait measures and detailed family structures.\u00a0(American bioscience will prove too politically squeamish to fund such studies.<\/strong>)\u00a0\u2026<\/p>\n

The trouble is, the resequencing data will reveal much more about human evolutionary history and ethnic differences than they will about disease\u00a0genes. Once enough DNA is analysed around the world, science will have a panoramic view of human genetic variation across races, ethnicities, and\u00a0regions. We will start reconstructing a detailed family tree that links all living humans\u00a0\u2026<\/p>\n

We will also identify the many genes that create physical and mental differences across populations, and we will be able to estimate when those genes\u00a0arose\u00a0\u2026<\/p>\n

If the shift from GWAS to sequencing studies finds evidence of such politically awkward and morally perplexing facts, we can expect the usual range of\u00a0ideological reactions, including nationalistic retro-racism from conservatives and outraged denial from blank-slate liberals. The few who really\u00a0understand the genetics will gain a more enlightened, live-and-let-live recognition of the biodiversity within our extraordinary species\u00a0\u2014\u00a0including a clearer view of likely comparative advantages between the world’s different economies.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The boldface there is mine. The “we” in subsequent sentences should actually be “they” since, Miller predicts (correctly, I\u00a0think) that American scientists will be too “politically squeamish” to join in this tremendous exploration.<\/p>\n

Perhaps we should just stop doing science altogether; or at least, hand over our bioscience labs to\u00a0the Discovery Institute<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Barely was the ink dry (pixels glowing, whatever) on \u00a0my having posted this to National Review Online: Politics\u00a0\u2026 corrupts the\u00a0human sciences, suppressing research in areas where it’s feared results will crash up against what Bill Buckley called “the prevailing structure\u00a0of … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[15,21],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3427"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3427"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3427\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3428,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3427\/revisions\/3428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}