Kathryn Paige Harden

The New Yorker has published a glowing profile of Kathryn Paige Harden, a geneticist attempting to convince "progressives" that "educational attainment" is genetically determined (https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/09/13/can-progressives-be-convinced-that-genetics-matters). The progressive movement is and always has been extremely pro-eugenics, so I'm skeptical that this is as much of an unpopular opinion as this highly favorable article spins it as, but no matter. Anyway, since this is probably going to boost the popularity of this opinion, it's a good time to point out that genetic makeup does not, and absolutely cannot, affect educational attainment. The very concept is nonsensical.

 

Know why?

 

Because...

 

Humans. Create. Schools.

 

Humans decide how schools operate, what abilities and skills are rewarded in them. Humans decide what constitutes "education."

 

Harden is quoted as writing "But these [genetic] differences loom large when trying to understand why, for example, one child has autism and another doesn’t; why one is deaf and another hearing; and—as I will describe in this book—why one child will struggle with school and another will not." This is a disingenuous leap. Genetic differences may explain why one child is autistic and another is allistic, or one child is Deaf and another is hearing, but nothing intrinsic to autism, Deafness, or any other genetic condition intrinsically causes autistic or Deaf people to struggle in school. The ableist way schools are structured privileges hearing, allistic students over Deaf and autistic students. It would be entirely possible for the teachers, administrators, and larger society to structure schools differently, in ways that did not disadvantage Deaf, autistic, or otherwise disabled students. This is, in fact, the very basis of the social model of disability.

 

Unfortunately, most abled people are not familiar with the social model of disability, and therefore accept this fallacy of equating human genetic variation with the social inequalities imposed on these variations. If certain genetic tendencies correlate with struggling in school, the obvious solution is to change the way schools are run to become more inclusive of divergent learners. If certain genetic tendencies correlate with poverty, criminalization, or other forms of social marginalization, the obvious solution is to change our economic, legal, and social systems to stop discriminating against genetic minorities.

 

Genes don't cause social inequality. Human choices do.