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"Edugenics" Unexplored Risk in the Application of Behavioural Genetics to Human Learning and Embryo Selection

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University of Bath DOCTOR OF EDUCATION (EDD) "Edugenics" Unexplored risk in the application of behavioural genetics to human learning and embryo selection Joyce, Eric Award date: 2021 Awarding institution: University of Bath Link to publication Alternative formats If you require this document in an alternative format, please contact: [email protected] General rights Copyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the public portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. • Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the public portal for the purpose of private study or research. • You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain • You may freely distribute the URL identifying the publication in the public portal ? Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Download date: 30. Sep. 2021 “Edugenics”: Unexplored risk in the application of behavioural genetics to human learning and embryo selection Eric Joyce A thesis submitted for the degree of DOCTOR OF EDUCATION University of Bath Department of Education 2020 Copyright Attention is drawn to the fact that copyright of this thesis rests with its author. A copy of this thesis has been supplied on condition that anyone who consults it is understood to recognise that its copyright rests with its author and they must not copy it or use material from it except as permitted by law or with the consent of the author. This Thesis may be made available for consultation within the University Library and may be photocopied or lent to other libraries for the purposes of consultation. 1 Declaration of authenticity for doctoral theses I hereby declare that this thesis, submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Education, contains no material previously published or written in any medium by another person, except where appropriate reference has been made. 2 Acknowledgements My great thanks are due to my supervisor, Professor Hugh Lauder, who tolerated my idiosyncratic process with grace while making the whole thing possible through his sage and essential advice. Also to Professor Bill Scott, who once upon a time suggested I do this programme. And to Professor Mary Hayden, and those staff who facilitated my programme, like Ginny Cordiero and Elizabeth Day. At home, my profound thanks to India; my partner, not the country (although the latter is also very nice). With everything else going on, she supported me to the hilt. This is a debt unrepayable, of course. I will do my best, though. And to my not-so-wee twinnies Megan and Angharad, who just laugh when I insist to them that regression towards the mean (Galton, F; see References) suggests they’re probably marginally less clever than me and their Mum. I think there might be some ridicule in there, to be honest. But still, I’ll take their lovely laughter along with their thoughts anytime and I embrace the notion that each generation is better than the one before. Apart from the Nazis. Obviously. Finally, my thanks to external scholars of all, often diametrically opposing, stripes who took the time to freely and generously offer thoughts about a gripping yet contentious area of study. There is fear and anguish abroad at present, and a lot of scholars prefer to keep their own counsel. Plenty don’t, though. Amongst many others, Professor David Gillborn (Birmingham, UK), whom I kept talking in his study about Critical Race Theory until long after dark. Professor Robert Weinberg (MIT) and Professor Sir Michael Berry (Bristol), who both generously sent me invaluable explanatory notes. Dr Daphne Martschenko (Stanford), whose note flagged to me a new perspective at a really useful moment. Professor Richard Lynn, co-author of The FLynn Effect, energetic after 70 years in academia and entirely open with me about his ideas. His work, because of rather than in spite of its contentiousness today, is the stuff of history. The privilege of scholarship is the honest search for a little bit more of the truth and the better. If there are scary or even terrible things on that journey, working out what they might teach us makes the whole thing worthwhile. So thanks, Bath. 3 Abstract Some leading behavioural geneticists propose the design of education around universal DNA testing. Their research and advocacy, referred to here as edugenics, revolves around the study of human genetic material in order to predict individual learning predispositions. This has attracted high-level UK government interest. The historical lineage of such scholarship runs from the first half of the 20th century when intelligence theory, genetics and eugenics were closely linked; through an apparent epistemological division between scientists and non-scientists; to later 20th century and early 21st century scientific ambiguity around issues such as race. This thesis takes a long historical view. Its perspective is liberal but it employs both critical theory and critical race theory to help expose assumptions about race veiled in the edugenics literature. It explores themes of scientism, authorial gamesmanship and media amplification. Two devices employed by some geneticists to evade the charge of scientific racism are explored. It is suggested that the primary intended application of edugenics may be as a technology of embryo selection, where related products appear close to market. These devices, it is argued, do not of themselves invalidate edugenics research, but they do present unexposed risk to policymakers. 4 Contents Chapter One: Introduction, methodology, terminology p.6 1.1 Introduction p.6 1.2 Methodology: selection and limitations p.14 1.3 Gulf Conflict: scientific and non-scientific scholarship p.16 1.4 Terminology: edugenics, edugenomics, edugenetics p.24 Chapter Two: The historical arc of edugenic literature p.25 2.1 Genetics, eugenics, edugenics p.25 2.2 Edugenics scholarship p.28 2.3 The lineage of edugenics p.32 2.3.1 Galton to The Holocaust p.32 2.3.2 After the Holocaust p.36 2.3.3 Jensenism, The Bell Curve, The MSI statement p.39 2.3.4 Hereditarian vs anti-hereditarian discourse p.43 2.4 Edugenics over-reach p.44 2.5 Discussion p.48 Chapter Three: Critical Theory and Critical Race Theory p.57 3.1 Critical Theory (CT) p.57 3.2 Critical Race Theory (CRT) p.66 3.3 Discussion p.70 Chapter Four: Colourblindness and Scientific Racism p.75 4.1 Colourblindness p.75 4.2 Edugenics colourblindness p.79 4.3 Scientific Racism p.84 4.4 Scientific Racism 2.0 (SR2.0) p.88 4.5 Discussion p.97 Chapter Five: Drawing together, Conclusion and Recommendations p.101 5.1 History Lessons p.102 5.2 The Plomin Dilemma p.106 5.3 Scientific Racism 2.0 p.109 5.3.1 Social and popular media amplification p.110 5.3.2 Purpose of SR2.0 p.113 5.3.3 Anti-hereditarianism and hereditarianism meet p.118 5.4 Genetic Determinism p.123 5.5 Ethics p.124 5.6 Politics p.127 5.7 Conclusion p.131 Reflections p.135 5 Chapter One: Introduction, methodology, terminology 1.1 Introduction The term “edugenics”, which I use in the title of this thesis and throughout the text, has been coined by me for the purpose of this thesis; it has no literary precedent as far as I know. My purpose is not to create a substantive new scholarly prism of some sort, but to provide a tacit label for coalescing and possibly transitory trends within behavioural genetics, education and embryo selection scholarship. As I describe in more detail below, my intention is to invoke caution in approaching the research I describe by linking it to the eugenics which I believe serves as one of its intellectual and scientific antecedents. I argue in the thesis that some scholars use terms for the area of study in question, including educational genomics and educational genetics, which at first rush appear specific and unloaded but on closer inspection appear to me to be devices at least in part designed to avoid some of the difficult ethical questions raised by their research. This trend is related, I argue below, to a tendency amongst some scientific bodies and authors to employ a particular idea of eugenics as a means of separating genetics into ‘old’ and ‘new’, and thereby reducing the ethical risk implicit within the field of genetics research today. My view, which I explore only at the margins of this thesis, is there is more utility in recognising the broadly eugenic nature of proposals made by some geneticists today in order to appraise them fairly, rather than evading key questions through re-definition. In this way, my call for caution by recognising the eugenic implications of some behavioural genetics research is not of itself a criticism of those scholars or fields; nor is it intended to suggest that a proposal may not be of worth because it may have eugenic implications. The intention is to make discourse around the subject more transparent by exposing the underlying imperatives involved in the nomenclature. I chose the subject of this thesis having read into the work of Professor Robert Plomin, a leading behavioural geneticist of Kings College, London. Plomin is routinely listed as one of the world’s most eminent psychologists of both this century and last. He is the world’s best-known advocate for the use of personal genetic information in the delivery of 6 education.
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