How (not) to approach controversial genetics research
The NIH and Nature Human Behavior are making a serious mistake
The journal Nature Human Behavior recently decided not to publish research that might violate human dignity, in an editorial widely criticized for its vague and broad guidelines and its openness to political abuse. Now, James Lee, the lead author of the “EA3” genome-wide association study on educational attainment, has an article in the City Journal on how the American National Institutes of Health (NIH) are banning researchers from using their genetic data. Stuart Ritchie, a UK geneticist, has reported how his own research was vetoed. I strongly agree with the basic sentiment of both articles. I just want to add a little of my perspective.
The DNA molecule has come to have a unique cultural importance. A person’s DNA somehow seems core to their very identity. We use it as a metaphor for what is central to an organization. You sometimes meet people who believe their “purpose in life” is to spread their DNA — a sad, silly, but revealing idea. Simultaneously, the thought that DNA, something a person is born with, can affect their behaviour or life outcomes, often evokes an allergic reaction, perhaps because it seems to limit human possibility.
So, geneticists do controversial research. It seems to hit people in their lizard brains, delighting or enraging them. When our natural selection paper got a write-up in the Daily Telegraph, the journalist warned me that the comments section would be “like a Hieronymous Bosch painting”. Can confirm. They ranged from the absolutely bonkers…
… to the frankly sinister:
My favourite comment came from the fount of informed scientific opinion that is West Ham Online:
So. Huge public interest. Very little public understanding. Intense public controversy. What to do?
Do not do this
The approach taken by the NIH, and by Nature Human Behaviour, is to crouch and hide, trying to delineate research that must not be done, banning researchers from doing it, cutting off their access to data, and preventing them from publishing. This is a terrible idea, for several reasons.
First, it is fundamentally antiscientific. No scientist’s first instinct with respect to any question should be “oh, let’s not find that out!”
There is research that ought not to be done — development of new biological weapons, say. Perhaps, risky gain of function research in microbiology. I can also conceive of genetic research being practically misused. What if we get very accurate polygenic scores for educational attainment, and policy-makers try to implement a Gattaca world where low-scoring children get preassigned to stupid school?
Well firstly, in the real world that would be very silly (education is no more than 50% heritable, so why not just evaluate children based on their actual talent?) Second, no such thing is actually happening. Private individuals are choosing embryos based on their polygenic scores, and that is a creepy and possibly terrible idea, but no government that I know of is planning to use polygenic scores in this way. Thirdly, even if they were, the solution would be to ban the research application, not the research! Genetics is not like biological weapons research whose only use is to create biological weapons. It is at worst like research into the atom, which can be used to build atom bombs, and also for many other purposes — including fundamental scientific progress.
Stigmatism
Most importantly, the stated reasons for preventing research are nothing to do with these practical dangers. Instead, they’re much woollier. They talk about the risk of “undermining dignity” of people or groups, or being perceived to do so; of “embodying singular, privileged perspectives” (what mean?); of “stigmatizing” people.
Stigma is a very broad concept. Who can say what stigmatizes someone? Surely only the people or groups in question. But now you are banning research that offends people; you have opened up the notorious “heckler’s veto”. There will be a natural temptation for those who speak for any given group — and it is never ordinary Joes who get to make these calls, but always their special representatives — to condemn any research that challenges their professional theory of how the world works. (Suppose these rules had been in place when Darwin published. Instead of debating Huxley, Bishop Wilberforce could have got the Origin of Species banned for stigmatizing the whole human race. You’re saying we’re descended from apes?)
That leads nicely to the second problem with research bans: they inevitably create a bureaucratic apparatus to do the banning. First there are research ethics, and then there are ethics committees. Now you have a committee to decide if research might stigmatize someone. But committees are famous for extending their remit. The Sacred Congregation of the Index starts with Copernicus, and carries on for three hundred years.
The third and related problem is that, as I’ve argued elsewhere, research does not come packaged in separate boxes. Topics blend into each other. Maybe you want to ban research on IQ differences. OK, what about research on Alzheimer’s susceptibility? Is that the same? It seems similar. And behold: Stuart Ritchie was prevented from using genetic statistics for research into the links between intelligence and Alzheimer’s. No kidding. If I go senile before a cure has been found, please thank the NIH for protecting me from stigma.
Oh, and bans also put a weapon into the hands of the scientific status quo. Relevantly, a dominant group of Alzheimer’s researchers — supporters of the so-called “amyloid hypothesis” — has been criticized for “systematically thwarting” ideas that didn’t fit their theory, leading progress towards a cure to stagnate for decades. Perhaps in an ideal world the great and good could be trusted never to misuse the power to condemn new research on nebulously-defined grounds having nothing to do with scientific validity. But it is 2022 and we are where we are.
The last problem with the ban-and-silence approach is that it simply fails on its own terms. The model the NIH seems to be working with is “we won’t allow research on X; research on X won’t be done; so now ordinary people will not think bad thoughts about X”. Reality is more like “you won’t allow research on X; research on X will be done, but not very well, and only by very radicalized people; they now own the field”. Or “research on X won’t be done; ordinary people will notice that topic X has been banned; they will assume the worst possible interpretation of why that is”.
I have personal experience of people, not cranks or extremists but ordinary uninformed people, whose view of genetic research on ethnic differences is — trigger warning — “yeah, group X are stupid, but they’re not telling us about it”.
I urge researchers in genetics to reread that paragraph, and to think very carefully about whether the field’s current approach to controversial research is working.
The way out is through the door
There is another approach. It is to lean in, treat the public as intelligent, and communicate complexity and nuance.
As a real-world example, my co-author worked on a famous paper on the genetics behind homosexual behaviour. Now, I am pretty sure most behaviour geneticists, or even people acquainted with the field, would agree to the following two statements:
Genetic variation very probably lies behind a non-trivial proportion of differences between people in sexual behaviour, including homosexual behaviour.
Despite this, there is no such thing as a “gay gene” or even a set of “gay genes”.
To a layperson this may seem paradoxical: come on, is being gay genetic or not? Experts will understand. Genes can predict individual differences, but they only influence behaviour through a complex set of environmental interactions; “gay”, “homosexual” and other descriptors of same-sex sexual behaviour (“invert”, or the splendidly 1890s-decadent “Uranian”) are historically constructed identities, not simply natural kinds; genes that make behaviour more likely in one social environment may be expressed very differently in other environments.
So, there was complexity. Results could be easily misunderstood. And of course, sexuality is central to people’s identity, and deeply sensitive. The authors responded. They created a website to explain their research. They organized workshops with the public and activists to explain their results. They talked to (clears throat) LBGTQIA+ groups. Their research still got criticized, but the debate was reasonable, and I don’t think there is a strong case that this research harmed anyone.
This kind of work does not need a huge infrastructure. In a small way, I try to do the same thing here on this newsletter. I explain my research as plainly as I can. I don’t shy away either from complexity or controversy. I try to step back and think about the big picture. Of course, this has risks. (A geneticist in a different field accused me on Twitter of being an eugenicist; I responded forcefully and he deleted the tweet.) In the long run, I am confident that our society — even West Ham supporters — will cope with whatever discoveries we make, and that we can help by communicating honestly and well.
A culture war which is good, and (perhaps) easy to win
Scientists should have an underlying optimism about knowledge. We should expect not only that expanding knowledge will make the world a better place, but also that the public is capable of handling knowledge, even when it is complex or difficult or unwelcome. We should understand that research can be misunderstood and misused, but we should not believe that our society depends on noble lies, or on “not frightening the horses”; or that committees of wise persons should be allowed in advance to dictate what can be found out. If you hold that view, you are working in the wrong profession.
As James Lee’s, Steven Pinker’s and Stuart Ritchie’s articles show, these attempts to censor science have now led to a backlash, not from extremists but from serious, respected scientists. I guess this means they have become another front in the culture war. So be it. A stand-up debate is much better than the censors winning by default. Researchers need to speak clearly against this wrong-headed, foolish and dangerous approach. A better way is available.
If you enjoyed this article, you might like my book Wyclif’s Dust: Western Cultures from the Printing Press to the Present — including a little bit about the genesis of science and the values that informed it then.
The book is available from Amazon as a paperback, hardback or ebook. You can read more about it here.
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For the statement “A person’s DNA somehow seems core to their very identity,“ see (and cite, of course) https://jme.bmj.com/content/48/5/317.
Great piece, David!