Reading New Thoughts: The Possible Death of Race (Verny, “The Embodied Mind”)

 Disclaimer:  I am now retired, and am therefore no longer an expert on anything.  This blog post presents only my opinions, and anything in it should not be relied on.

Thomas Verny’s “The Embodied Mind” would appear at first glance to have nothing to do with genetics or “race”/ethnicity.  It is, in fact, an interesting attempt to argue that memory, thought, and even consciousness takes place in other areas of the body besides the mind.  However, as part of its argument that memories can be passed from generation to generation, it takes a detailed look at recent research in epigenetics – including both animal experiments and human analyses.   And from this, I have concluded that it is reasonable to draw some brief initial conclusions about the role that epigenetics plays in differential inheritance of characteristics.

So let me lay out, first, the overall model of inherited or socially influenced differences that I see as underlying recent research, more or less, and then discuss how I see this research impacting our whole notion of race and ethnicity as factors in such areas as intelligence (however defined), success in life (however defined), and physical skills.

The Disruptive Effect of Epigenetics in Theory

Crudely speaking, I used to sense that the theory of evolution reduced causes for differences into two:  genes (which are inherited and are slow to change because they involve mutations that “crowd out” existing genetic structure because they are better fitted to a new physical environment) and society (behaviors and skills learned from others, typically relatives).  Thus, absent concrete knowledge of the genome, it was possible that all differences between groups could be explained by differences in genes, and it was possible that none of it could be explained by genes.

The first major disruption to the wealth of research trying to determine how much could be explained by genetics, I think, was the sequencing of the genome.  This and follow-on research establish that 99% of the human genome is identical, and that while physical appearance (e.g., eye, hair, and skin color) and a few diseases or disorders (e.g., sickle-cell anemia)  still seemed to be clearly genetically based, almost everything else could not be explained genetically by less than 10-20 “different” genes or even no matter how many “different” genes one tried to use as a combined explanation.  Moreover, when one tried to group by so-called “race” or ethnicity, then the research tended to show that the maximum difference in genes was between African and all other groupings, with steadily decreasing differences between Asian, European, American, and Polynesian groupings – clearly explained by the fact that Africans had remained in the same physical environment over the last 50,000 years, with relatively little cross-breeding, while the others had typically moved at least once to a different physical environment in the intervening 50,000 years.  So even where differences in genes might be held to explain performance or skills, for all but the crudest grouping the differences across groups were much less than the <1% maximum.

And then, along came epigenetics. 

What was different and puzzling about epigenetics can be encapsulated in one research result:  There are two groups of one species of fish in different areas of a coral reef with absolutely identical genes – but different physical characteristics (a skin tag in one group, no skin tag in the other). 

The explanation for this, it turns out, is that epigenetics acts like an on-off switch or cap-off/cap-on for a gene or genes.  Flip the cap off, and the gene “expresses” itself in physical characteristics in a new way; flip the cap back on, and the gene goes back to the old “expression”.  These “switches” reside in so-called “junk” DNA, in RNA, and in proteins associated with the workings of the genes.  And, as the research result cited above indicates, they are inheritable, down to (as far as studies have gone) the fourth generation.  What remains unclear is just how a switch that is turned on gets turned off again; it is still possible that it only does so via cross-breeding with those whose gene is not so expressed and/or “crowding out” the inheritors as a smaller and smaller part of the population. 

So epigenetics appears to disrupt “nature vs. nurture” discussions, I think, in two ways:

1.       It appears at first glance to indicate that, even if some difference in characteristics is not explainable by the action of genes, it could be explainable by inheritable epigenetic action on genes – “genes plus epigenetics equals destiny”

2.       Conversely, it suggests that things that have been ascribed to genes may be explained by epigenetics happening right now – a group’s intelligence may be improved or decreased right now by moving to a different physical environment, and that improvement or decrease is inherited (vaguely similar to an episode of the original Star Trek TV series where exposure to mine air lowered intelligence and increased aggression).

The Rich Get Richer, the Poor Get Poorer

However, when I look at the research findings up to now as presented in “The Embodied Mind”, it is apparent that the picture is much more one-sided than it first seems.

Specifically, every research finding cited is of an inherited epigenetic trait that is triggered, more or less, by the physical environment, and applies to all those who are affected by that physical environment state, no matter what their genetic differences are.  Let me restate that:  no matter what group (including male or female) I belong to, I am equally susceptible to proneness to obesity and related disorders if my mother or grandmother underwent prolonged starvation compared to anyone in any other group.  If my mother smoked or drank during pregnancy not only she but I will be at increased risk for cancers or alcoholism – because those gene expressions are epigenetically transmitted to the fetus.  Of course, in the last case one can argue that my “culture” made my mother more or less likely to smoke or drink; but (a) that’s something that can be mitigated by changing education and social encouragement, and (b) in most “races” or ethnicities this is not thought of as part of the core culture.  Anyway, these are just two examples:  in all other cases cited in “The Embodied Mind”, there is no inherited differentiation based on society at all, and therefore no role for race or ethnicity in causing differences.

I must point out that it makes sense that it be so.  It is logical that if 99% of our genes are identical, epigenetics should apply equally to genes that are otherwise the same and genes that are different across individuals and groups.  Therefore, when epigenetics is involved, it makes sense that 99% of the time, it is the physical environment within the last 1-3 generations that is my destiny, and that I can very possibly change that destiny by changing my physical environment, just as I can change things for the better if I change my individual behavior by changing my “culture” or social environment.  

The other “theme” of recent epigenetic research is that in many cases, it involves epigenetic switch-flipping in response to an unusually stressful environment.  Thus, starvation during or near pregnancy is typically happening in response to lack of food affecting not only oneself but one’s relatives or group.  And that, in turn, often tends to line up neatly with whether the group is rich/powerful or poor/powerless.  We might expect therefore that an increasing number of the poor of any race or ethnicity who is subjected to this kind of shock will be at increased risk of diseases and disorders that affect average intelligence as measured by standardized tests, to be less likely to have the education that a rich person does, and to be less effective at jobs, all else being equal.  Likewise, the animal trained to solve certain puzzles may transmit the memory of solving these puzzles epigenetically, and therefore looks like a genetically superior animal in terms of intelligence, and yet, give those same tests to the “poor” animal and his or her descendants will become equally intelligent.

I summarize these two trends in epigenetic research as:  The rich get richer, and the poor get poorer.  Given an initial epigenetic boost, the descendants of the rich and powerful are increasingly more likely to keep getting richer, as epigenetic inheritance combines with the social-environment and educational effects of being around other well-off people, while the poor’s descendants may very well become poorer, as inherited epigenetics leads to less ability to take advantage of education, while the social environment dominated by the powerful rich reduces both access to education and job opportunities.  And yet, epigenetic research also suggests that these trends are reversible, to the point of epigenetic equality between rich and poor.

Interestingly, epigenetics calls into question the seemingly strongest research studies indicating a role of genetics in things like intelligence and job success. Take, for example, the study that found that twins in which one of the two was placed with a different family to grow up in tended to reflect their birth parents’ rather than their childhood parents’ testing success.  It seemed like an obvious case of genetic differentiation causing this result (if we assume that the placements were not causing a child of a rich/educated or poor parent to move to a physical/social environment in which the child was given different treatment because of its background).  However, epigenetics suggests that it is far more likely the difference was because of inherited epigenetic differentiation which could be reversed either by changing the physical/social environment for this generation or by “breeding the differentiation out”.

Getting Back to That Possible Death of Race …

So to explain why I think the research trend is to undercut the view of individual differences being due to group differences by race or even by ethnicity, I want to start with what the model of “evolution” of differences seems to be turning into.

As I see it, adding epigenetics to the picture leads to a model something like this:  the five causative factors of these differences seem to be genes (inherited), epigenetics (inherited), the physical environment, the social environment (culture, society, typically corresponding to ethnic or cultural differences), and individual variation not caused by any other factor.  The physical environment may also cause genetic and epigenetic inherited differences, in the case of genetics over thousands of years of time, in the case of epigenetics immediately.

The key question then becomes, how much of these inherited differences can be explained by genetic differences correlated with physical appearance or such genetically inherited traits as lactose tolerance, and how much by epigenetics?  The most likely answer, it appears, is 90-99.5% explained by epigenetics, because if we assume 50% of those times when we thought genes were to blame it was really epigenetics, then for the other 99% of the genes the differences are definitely due to epigenetics and hence if any gene is equally likely to be affected by epigenetics you get 99% x 1 + 1% x 0.5 = 99.5% of the effects of inherited differences explained by epigenetics.

But race and notions of other group-inherited “permanent” characteristics are inherently dependent on genetic evolution for their validity.  If inherited differences are based on the physical environment 1-3 generations back and are easily reversible by a different physical environment or cross-breeding, then very little of “racial” or even “ethnic” differences is explainable by genetic or even epigenetic “destiny”.  It’s easy visually to class people by physical characteristics; but it now appears that inherited groupings that do anything more than that – possibly even in the area of physical skills – will be wrong, at least 9 times out of 10.

What does that leave us with, as a guide to action?  In broad strokes, the levers available to pull to make things better have to do increasingly with the physical environment – different exposures to disease, pollution, starvation from poverty, for example.  If we take the notion of the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer from epigenetics or the physical and social environment seriously, we should primarily favor policies that narrow the gap between rich and poor, because other research suggests that that type of move toward “equality” will lead to a better economy and greater innovation that drives life improvements of the future.  So the levers that involve making the physical environment more “equal” in specific ways sound like one place to start. 

I would also note that tackling group social inequities seems to me to be a slightly better bet to pursue than before epigenetics arrived on the scene.  Whatever the apparent split between nature and nurture before epigenetics arrived, it seems clear that social inequities affect some differentiation between groups, and more so now that those inequities can travel down to future generations via both society and epigenetic inheritance – and that such epigenetics-exacerbated social inequities can be reversed both societally and epigenetically.

I’ll add one final thought.  I haven’t touched on the whole notion of individual differentiation across groups, inherited or not.  I really don’t think there’s enough research in the area.  Still, I’ve seen enough anecdotal evidence to form the following generalization:

Groups are more similar than you think; individuals within groups are more different than you think.

That is, there are more men who wouldn’t mind donning a tutu and doing classical ballet than you think; there are more women who wouldn’t mind being bricklayers than you think; there are more white folks who like Afro-pop than you think; there are more African-Americans who like classical music than you think; on and on.

As I say, there is little research supporting this.  Still, I think it’s a useful thing to remind oneself of, whatever the passionate issue to which it applies.