Ooooh, no, Missus, can’t go around claiming genetic determinism! What happens to the Blank Slate Theory if we do that?
Like so many of us, I was dispirited to wake up a few weeks ago to learn that Donald Trump will be back in the White House. This time he was aided by the world’s richest man and professional spaceship-crasher, Elon Musk. Among the many charming aspects of their partnership is a fondness for some highly unsavoury views on genetics. Trump is an enthusiastic advocate of “racehorse theory”, which he shares with white supremacists; the belief that he is personally superior and that this is rooted in his “good genes”. It’s a vapid idea, but it directly informs his toxic views on immigration, where he argues the country needs to be shielded from the “bad genes” of outsiders.
Meanwhile, Musk has his own equally baffling take on genetics, infused with a characteristic messiah complex. Like some of his fellow tech moguls, he is determined to “save humanity” by producing as many offspring as possible, convinced that our future depends on it. This might all be laughable were it not for the fact that Trump and Musk now wield more power than they ever have before. The shared thread running through their rhetoric is genetic determinism: the idea that who you are, and what you can achieve, is all down to your DNA. Nothing else matters.
So, very naughty. Instead, we must accept that environment, culture, matters:
Because, if genes are everything, why bother with policies aimed at tackling inequality? Why waste time and resources addressing social problems when we’re all just products of our genetic code?
In debates surrounding genetics and social policy, it is easy for the language of genetic determinism to lure you into an ill-advised “nature v nurture” debate. You know this debate: maybe she’s born with it; maybe it’s the pervasive conditions of social inequality? But this debate misses the bigger picture entirely: it should not be seen as a binary choice. The truth is, humans are born with genes that require a good environment to thrive. It’s not either/or, but a complex interaction between the two that determines who someone becomes. We have a nature that requires nurture. Good science accounts for this complexity, rather than reducing it to a simplistic binary.
This is, of course, entirely true.
But as curerent research is showing, there are good cultures and bad cultures foir those genese to thrive in. And we do seem to be importing a lot of people from those bad cultures, they bringing those bad cultures with them.
Perhaps we should stop doing that?
The point about the Blank Slate being that sure culture matters. So why load up on bad cultures?
Progressives assume their ‘culture’ is indisputably the best of all. Why they would deliberately import people with cultures almost diametrically opposed to it is a mystery until one realises that they regard ‘traditional’ white British culture as being even worse.
It’s class war. Orwell was right.
The astonishing vanity is that it’s clear they assume the imports will eventually ‘educate’ themselves and become Progressive, just with non-pasty skin and exotic clothing. I winder why they think this might happen, when those traditional British whites didn’t, despite nearly a century of state
educationsocial engineering?Don’t these idiots realise that by importing a replacement population that THEY THEMSELVES will be replaced. Dr Who season 18: Full Circle.
As a liberal I have absolutely no objection to them suiciding themselves, but they have absolutely no right to take anybody with them.
I’m sure they don’t think of themselves as bad cultures. A billion Muslims must have something going for them.
he is determined to “save humanity” by producing as many offspring as possible
A great many professional sportsmen and entertainers appear equally determined although it is questionable whether they have saving humanity in mind. The recipients of their reproductive largesse benefit from alimony and support if they’re lucky or, if not, access to the full range of our generous if unsustainable state benefits.
Yet Trump and Musk are the problem.
…if genes are everything, why bother with policies aimed at tackling inequality?
But even if genes are just something and not everything, why bother pursuing equality at all? Equality of outcome can be achieved only if the blank slate theory is true (which it isn’t). The religion of equality chases a mirage.
“Trump is an enthusiastic advocate of “racehorse theory”, which he shares with white supremacists; the belief that he is personally superior and that this is rooted in his “good genes”. ”
Is this actually true or just yet another thing that they made up about him?
Logically if the Blank Slate theory is true, then the success or failure of various countries and regions around the world must be down entirely to the dominant cultures in those areas. Ergo there must be (as Kemi said recently) good cultures and bad ones. So probably not a good idea to import people from the bad ones.
I should have mentioned that a presumably genetic determination to produce as many offspring as possible has been manifest in the Kennedy family for several generations.
Again this has never been seen as a problem.
But I worry that in all the excitement, we can forget that DNA does not define us.
I don’t think anyone believes that it does define us completely but there is a debate to be had about the nature/ nurture mix.
Because, if genes are everything, why bother with policies aimed at tackling inequality? Why waste time and resources addressing social problems when we’re all just products of our genetic code?
Of course, Mr Roberts and the Guardian have zero problem blaming white people for the failure of black and brown people to thrive.
OT: Talking of class war I saw an item on the New Year Honours List. Some of that is definitely a big Fuck You from TTK to the populace. Knighthood for Khan the Destroyer and a damehood for Lady Nugee. I guess the latter is a consolation prize for not giving her a cabinet post. I had wondered why not at the time. Perhaps he thought her incompetent but looking at the bunch of dim bulbs he did pick, I now wonder if he thought her too bright and so ultimately a threat.
In December 2024, it was announced that Prime Minister Keir Starmer had nominated (Sue) Gray for a life peerage in the House of Lords, where she will sit as a member of the Labour Party
I assume this rather vomit-inducing example of cronyism went ahead?
I think appointments to the Lords are not necessarily part of the NYHL. She’ll turn up there all right.
Indeed, political honours list is different from NY list.
It’s vaguely possible that someone on the second has done something worthwhile, the first ……
“Jonathan Roberts is a genetic counsellor and academic who researches health inequalities and the accessibility of genetic testing”
I am at a loss what a “genetic cousellor” is supposed to be, but…
Someone so obviously dependent on his grants for the concept that “Genetics determine Stuff” screams in the Guardian that “Genetics Do Not Matter!!”
Doubly ironic since, as an Academic, his research, as stated, focuses on the “Inequalities” said variance in genetic makeup causes.
Once again proving that being published in the Guardian requires being firmly able to believe you can have your cake and eat it.
Thrice ironic, because the Answer the whole nature/nurture/environment question has already been known to actual scientists for decades.
It is: “All of the Above, depending on local circumstances.”
There’s actually proper math for it.
Not that the average Guardianista would understand it, but exist it does.
Pretty accurate as well, given that you’re working in the realm of Biology.
10,000 years of farming, selective breeding, for docility & yield, was all a waste of time, because genetic inheritance doesn’t exist.
Says a Grauniad journaloid.
Steve: have you been breeding those lions for hunger and sharp-clawness? I think they are needed.
Ditto to Stonyground, is there anything President Trump said that supports this? Even vaguely?
Ditto Elon – I do know he has said he likes kids.
And re: male celebs, in a lot of cases after getting divorced they marry a young, hot babe who wants her own kids, so they get 2 kids every 5-8 years whether they really wanted to do so or not.
“But this debate misses the bigger picture entirely: it should not be seen as a binary choice. The truth is, humans are born with genes that require a good environment to thrive. It’s not either/or, but a complex interaction between the two that determines who someone becomes. We have a nature that requires nurture. Good science accounts for this complexity, rather than reducing it to a simplistic binary.”
But here’s the question: does that “good environment” mean the state?
The evidence from history and this still happens in the arts and in tech is that talented kids get help. There are all sorts of companies, records and films that exist because successful talented people have a desire to nurture talent. It’s been true since forever that if you’re good enough to get into Harvard or the Royal Ballet School, you go to Harvard or the Royal Ballet School. The rich kids pay fees, the poor kids don’t.
There are now 3-4 generations of benefit farmers in places like Barnsley. You could argue the first and second generations after the pits closed was down to culture (lack of work) but I think it’s now clear that genetics (laziness) is the deterministic characteristic.
I first met the nature/nurture debate in the sixties. I was fascinated to find that those who took the “nature” point of view believed that both nature and nurture mattered; those who took the “nurture” side believed that only nurture mattered.
My first instinct, before I even read up on twin studies, adoption studies and so on, was that the nurturists had clearly never kept pets, had children, or studied farming. Alternatively they were liars. Take yer pick.
Every time the other side says this or that ethnicity requires special consideration in order to succeed, they are preaching white supremacy.
There are some things entirely unrelated to genes. Plane crashes, for example.
There are some things almost entirely related to genes. Life expectancy, for example.
There are other things entirely related to the environment. Choice of gender studies as a degree, for example.
And then there is the majority of things where both nature and nurture are involved, and where it is difficult (and probably unrewarding) to determine the balance.
I ain’t paying for any of Musks many children. He can afford them by the hundred.
Maybe it should be a personal objective of his to have more actual children than he is paying for through the taxation / welfare system?
A million mini Musks?
Indeed Rhoda. The White Man’s Burden. “I say bearer, get me another whisky & splash, there’s a good chap. You’re right George. They may not be very bright but they make good servants. As long as you beat them, once in a while.”
There are reasons why the term ‘punkah wallah’ exists, reasons that may be uncomfortable for a ‘genetic advisor’ virtue-signalling (and doing a bit of profile-raising) in the Graun.
Soyence!
TtC – Steve: have you been breeding those lions for hunger and sharp-clawness? I think they are needed.
“Excuse me, Simba, but don’t you know Science™ means you should vote Labour and support trannies and hyena migration into your kingdom?”
“RAAARAGH”
When composer Franz Liszt was a boy his piano teacher reputedly said:
“I didn’t really have to teach him, I would just put impossibly difficult pieces in front of him and watch him in silent amazement.”
For some strange reason my piano teacher never said this about me. I must possess a special mediocre pianist gene.
Why would anyone be surprised that a rent-seeking guardianista (I ignore his qualifications as he obviously places no store in them himself) comes up with a half-assed clone of Lysenkoism.
Joe Smith,
“There are now 3-4 generations of benefit farmers in places like Barnsley. You could argue the first and second generations after the pits closed was down to culture (lack of work) but I think it’s now clear that genetics (laziness) is the deterministic characteristic.”
There’s an untold story in the miner’s strike, because TV people don’t know it or want to hear it, which is of all the smart people who kept working, or gave up on the strike early, filled their boots got a fat redundancy cheque and left Barnsley, Merthyr etc.
Like, it’s not nice having your neighbours and colleagues hating you, but you’ve got to put yourself and your family first, not people you work with who are on autopilot to oblivion.
I must possess a special mediocre pianist gene.
I’ve never had any complaints.
Joe, WB: The sad thing is a lot of those guys thought Arthur Scargill was really on their side, whereas his actual game was to use the miners to bring down Maggie and usher in a glorious Marxist revolution. The Nottinghamshire lot saw through him eventually.
” foir those genes”
I don’t know if it’s nature or nurture Tim but you appear to have lost it.
the smart people who kept working, or gave up on the strike early, filled their boots got a fat redundancy cheque and left Barnsley, Merthyr etc.
Yes, I once met a miner who had bought a grocery store in a North Yorkshire village and was a happy man. But it’s not just those with fat redundancy cheques that move. Anyone with any get-up-and-go gets up and goes from the likes of Barnsley. Those who remain tend to be losers, elderly, sick and/or thick. And the losers and thick then breed, and the genetic stock declines and the social capital rapidly depletes…
I am disappointed that several commenters have reacted to a (for the Guardian, relative sensible) part of the article recognising that both heredity and environment matter as if it was hard-line nurturist. The writer only goes into full-on Guardianista Trumpophobe outside the two paragraphs relating to “genetics or environment”.
IMHO it is ludicrous to claim that intelligence cannot be inherited while accepting that eye colour, facial shape, Huntingdon’s disease … are (not just can be) inherited characteristics; it is equally foolish to deny that environment has an effect on whether, and to what extent, different people are able/allowed to use their abilities (would Joe Root be the world’s best batsman if he had been born and lived in Kazakhstan instead of Yorkshire?). The crucial point that the Guardian and its allies try to conceal is that environment, no matter how favourable, cannot create something missing in the genetic makeup – no-one my size is going to beatTyson Fury or Oleksander Usyk – so all the egalitarians can do is level people down.
dearieme puts it very well; I first encountered the anti-genetic claims as a pre-teen and calculated that the likelihood of the crudely-guesstimated IQs of my class at school being due to random chance was less than 1 in three billion so unlikely to occur anywhere in the world, so I decided not to believe them.
@ philip
Life expectancy is only partly due to genes: it is also partly due to the environment and lifestyle which is why Life Assurance Companies ask one about one’s drinking, smoking, adventurous sports and hobbies as well as one’s medical history and whether any close relatives have died of heart disease. This is one of those things where it is difficult but (for the company) highly rewarding to determine the balance.
A culture that calls private health problems ‘public health’, expects politicians to do and not undo things, and inverts plastic or non-biodegradable corn starch bags and picks up dog poo is not going to survive the centuries. One that laughs at these people might.
We do need to import a new culture, we really do, just not the main ones offered to us. Hong Kong, Taiwan, USA even – yes.
A billion Muslims must have something going for them.
A remarkable lack of understanding of the theory and practise of contraception, mayhap?
I’m slightly surprised nobody’s invoked Thomas Sowell:
” If you cannot achieve equality of performance among people born to the same parents and raised under the same roof, how realistic is it to expect to achieve it across broader and deeper social divisions?”
John
Should have said life expectancy at birth.
smoking alcohol bungee jumping etc comes under the nurture rubric.
Agree about close relatives, which reinforces my point, not yours.
Elon Musk has a long way to go to catch up with Aston “Family Man” Barret but for some odd reason I’ve never seen anyone on the left criticize the latter’s impressive score.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aston_%22Family_Man%22_Barrett
@philip – “There are some things …”
Except it’s a bit more than that. For example, if everyone in a population smokes, then getting lung cancer is seen as genetic, but if there are many smokers and non-smokers, it’s seen as environmental.
And what about an environmental factor that causes something, but a genetic factor which attracts you to that environment? Is the result truly caused by the environment?
Overall, a good rule of thumb is that what happens to you is about 30% caused by your genetics, 30% by your environment and the remaining causes are unknown, possibly being pure luck.
@ philip
I was stating facts, so I naturally included that one which shows that genetics is part of the cause of life expectancy. But if you want to discuss life expectancy at birth you have to recognise that includes expectancy of the impact of the environment on sickness and other causes of mortality: e.g. life expectancy at birth of yeomen, who were liable to military service, during the 100 years war was lower than during long intervals of peace, children of minority ethnic groups in Myanmar have a lower life expectancy at birth than their cousins born in Thailand, children of factory workers in pre-Bazalgette Victorian London had a lower life expectancy than their cousins in the countryside.