John Horgan reports at the Scientific American website,
Yes, the inevitable has happened. Just before Election Day—surely not a coincidence—scientists report an association between liberal political views and DRD4, a gene that produces a receptor for the neurotransmitter dopamine.
He reports, and then critiques. Single genes associated with single characteristics have rarely if ever held up to further investigation. Science journalism often needs reality checks like this. Give Horgan high credit for that.
Here’s what really interested me, though. It’s spoken tongue-in-cheek, so I don’t know quite how much to make of it.
I hope the liberal-gene finding—unlike all previous gene-whiz claims—holds up, because then we can create a utopia by genetically engineering liberal designer babies. We could even pay for it with Obama’s health care plan! But alas, this vision—like the liberal gene itself—is just a fantasy.
Translated that means: eugenics = utopia. Implied: Engineering an entire way of thinking out of the next generation = utopia. Making sure half or more of the population doesn’t reproduce after their own kind = utopia.
Worldview/attitude genocide = utopia.
“Alas,” says Horgan, “this vision… is just a fantasy.”
The charitable view, which I’m willing to grant, is that Horgan didn’t intend us to take this too seriously. But really, how often do we joke that way about genocide? How often do editors let jokes like this pass? What makes it okay this time?
Just wondering.
Also posted at First Things: Evangel
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Because it’s in the spirit of another joke from the movie Ghostbusters when Dr. Venkman asserts condescendingly “Back off, man! I’m a scientist…”
(Yes, I’m being sarcastic.)
In the subjectivist view, a genocide is one man’s statistic but another man’s horror. Who’s to say, right? Is-to-ought presupposed when convenient, but never spoken about: out of sight, out of mind… quite literally “out of mind”: insane.
Granted, but usually even among subjectivists, genocide is beyond the pale. Usually even joking about it is beyond the pale.
So, when you read Jonathon Swift’s A Modest Proposal, do you assume Mr. Swift really enjoyed the taste of Irish babies?
Why beyond the pale? Because evolutionary “survival of the species” says so? Really?
Personal Failure:
No. Why do you ask? Do you see a substantive parallel here?
More from the clergy at SciAm.
I couldn’t decide whether to post the link here because of the association with SciAm , or in the thread with DL’s nonsensical ideas about morality because of the association with nonsensical ideas about morality. I realize that you can’t read the entire article without subscription, but the heading is enough to give me pause.
I am astonished by your post. Of course Horgan meant this as a joke. Of course he did not intend it to be taken seriously.
But, in any case, what would make this genocide? Non-liberals are not a race, not a people. Horgan does not suggest, even as a joke, killing people. He does not suggest, even as a joke, any form of compulsion.
The joke is that with some form of genetic engineering it would be possible to increase the number of liberals in society and that doing so would improve society.
Are you really shocked by this, when it is meant as a joke?
kbrowne:
I noticed, as you did, that it was tongue-in-cheek, and I dealt with it as if it were his intent to be joking about it. (The rest of the post was quite serious, which is why the parallel to Swift, suggested above, doesn’t succeed. Satire doesn’t work that way.) Then I pointed out that we don’t commonly joke about genocide, and I wondered what made it okay in this case. That was the question I asked readers to respond to.
I noticed also that the genocide this would produce was not with respect to a race or a people, but a worldview or attitude, as you’ll see upon re-reading the post. Wiping out half a population on the basis of their genetic composition (DRD4) is quite arguably genocide. It would be a new manifestation of genocide, to be sure, but then, not until recently did we have this kind of genetic information available as a basis for genocide.
The insinuation, from the article, is that a liberal mindset or worldview, is a better adaptation– gives us a more progressive or accurate understanding of the world than the older more traditional mindsets.
But does it follow that if some belief or mindset is something that is the result of an evolutionary adaptation that it is necessarily better or gives us a more accurate picture of our world? According to Darwin not all our beliefs do. For example, Darwin recognized that the belief in immortality was virtually universal among human beings; yet, is our belief about immortality an accurate belief about reality? Darwin didn’t believe so. Neither do most modern evolutionists. So, even if there is a gene responsible for a liberal mindset, how do we know that it is not just another example of some genetic Tom foolery?