Value

There's an article in the New York Times about recent discoveries in DNA research and how those might be applied and misapplied:

Scientists, for instance, have recently identified small changes in DNA that account for the pale skin of Europeans, the tendency of Asians to sweat less and West Africans’ resistance to certain diseases.

At the same time, genetic information is slipping out of the laboratory and into everyday life, carrying with it the inescapable message that people of different races have different DNA. Ancestry tests tell customers what percentage of their genes are from Asia, Europe, Africa and the Americas. The heart-disease drug BiDil is marketed exclusively to African-Americans, who seem genetically predisposed to respond to it. Jews are offered prenatal tests for genetic disorders rarely found in other ethnic groups.

DNA markers and racial difference came up a few weeks ago when James Watson, co-Nobel laureate for the identification of the structure of DNA, was interviewed by the UK's Sunday Times:

[Watson] says that he is "inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa" because "all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours-–whereas all the testing says not really," and I know that this "hot potato" is going to be difficult to address. His hope is that everyone is equal, but he counters that "people who have to deal with black employees find this not true." He says that you should not discriminate on the basis of colour, because "there are many people of colour who are very talented, but don't promote them when they haven't succeeded at the lower level." He writes that "there is no firm reason to anticipate that the intellectual capacities of peoples geographically separated in their evolution should prove to have evolved identically. Our wanting to reserve equal powers of reason as some universal heritage of humanity will not be enough to make it so."

Watson's conclusions about intelligence were soundly debunked by researchers in the field of intelligence (nice summary with links here), who point out that, unlike pale skin or the presence of specific diseases, native intelligence is difficult to measure, and most of our attempts are hindered by socioeconomic and environmental factors; when these are controlled for, racial differences dissipate. Shortly after these remarks, Watson retired from his post at the Cold Spring Harbor Lab on Long Island. Watson's remarks were a (characteristically, for him--more below) extreme response, but the New York Times article goes on to suggest that there is still reason for concern:

Such developments are providing some of the first tangible benefits of the genetic revolution. Yet some social critics fear they may also be giving long-discredited racial prejudices a new potency. The notion that race is more than skin deep, they fear, could undermine principles of equal treatment and opportunity that have relied on the presumption that we are all fundamentally equal.

But it's a not question of racial difference (or ethnic, or whatever), but of our fundamental values as a people. We may want, as Watson says, to value everyone equally in our society--and why shouldn't we? The fact of genetic and biological difference, if it exists (and it does--men and women are biologically distinct, and no one would argue otherwise, but the fact that certain of my genes and working parts differ from a man's has little to do with my test scores or aspirations or how good I am at my job), doesn't matter unless we decide it does.

Come on, we all know stupid people. And some of them are people we value and love. Does lack of academic ability or of the facility to quickly reason and resolve a complex problem (the kind of things we tend to think of when we use the nebulous term "intelligence") make a person inherently worthless? Of course not. Someone who can't get a decent score on a standardized test may be a hard worker or a compassionate person, may have many other skills and talents, and can contribute to the society and the community just as much as the "smart" people. If we drew an IQ line--even if that measure as it exists today weren't so fatally flawed--what would we as a society lose by excluding those below it? A great deal. That's why we don't do it. We have acknowledged that the constellation of valuable things in a person is varied, complex, and possible infinite, and the way to recognize that is to value all persons.

Those who point at the possibility of racial differences in the measure of intelligence are just looking for support for a prejudice they already harbor, an easy excuse to exclude by race; if they weren't, they'd be lobbying instead to exclude all people below a certain IQ line, regardless of race. (As an aside, Watson in earlier comments also suggested breeding out stupidity. To my mind, it's pretty stupid to cull people based on a single measure, as though no other thing had value. He also suggested genetic selection to make all women beautiful--I guess he gets to decide what constitutes beauty, and bad news for you if you're not his type--and giving mothers the option of aborting fetuses that carried a hypothetical genetic marker for homosexuality. Because apparently being pretty and straight and doing well on IQ tests is what you really need to get every job done.) The debate would be about where exactly that dividing line should rest, not the color of the people on one side or the other.

Here's a measure that is not genetic but is clearly and unequivocally linked with better health and survival, higher standardized test scores, greater access to education and other resources, and a more prominent and influential role in the society: money. Many societies through history have recognized this marker, and explicitly valued those born into better economic circumstances above those born into poverty: for example, societies in which a vote or other political influence is tied to ownership of property.

But we as Americans have chosen to value individuals in our political system without regard to the economic circumstances of their birth: everyone gets the same vote. We believe in access to education for all, and that the opportunity to gain money shouldn't be restricted by how much you're born with--you should have the chance to rise from poverty, you should have the chance even to become rich. But why? After all, it's proven that people born into a higher socioeconomic class are likely to do better overall . . .

It's a matter of what we choose to value, how we have chosen to define justice.

We've made the choice to value more than one thing in a person, in fact to value many things, by attempting to treat everyone equally. (In practice, this needs some work. But that's several other conversations.) In that scenario, what DNA research may show about racial difference in any particular respect is immaterial.

And that is something I value very highly.