Firing up the nature/nurture controversy: bioethics and genetic determinism

Abstract

It is argued here that bioethicists might inadvertently be promoting genetic determinism: the idea that genes alone determine human traits and behaviours. Discussions about genetic testing are used to exemplify how they might be doing so. Quite often bioethicists use clinical cases to support particular moral obligations or rights as if these cases were representative of the kind of information we can acquire about human diseases through genetic testing, when they are not. On other occasions, the clinical cases are presented in simplistic ways that portray genetic testing as yielding information more accurate than it actually is. It is concluded that, because of the problematic implications that the ideology of genetic determinism might have for individuals’ wellbeing and for our public policies, bioethicists should be careful to present these issues in ways that do not promote questionable ideas about the causal role of genes in human diseases and behaviours.

Decisions for the fate of frozen embryos: Fresh insights into patients' thinking and their rationales for donating or discarding embryos

“…These findings suggest that the beliefs of participants reflect wider community differences -observable in what is now called the nature/nurture controversy (de Melo-Martin, 2005). …”

Measuring Belief in Genetic Determinism: A Psychometric Evaluation of the PUGGS Instrument

“…In public health, deterministic beliefs impact perceptions of disease risk and inclination to engage in medical evaluations, preventive behaviors, and treatments. For example, the perception of a condition as genetic has been associated with exaggerated expectations about the power of genetic testing and related technologies (de Melo-Martín 2005), exaggerated perception of disease intensity, reduced optimism for treatment, increased tendency to seek more medically intensive treatments (Bennett et al 2008;Phelan et al 2006), and decreased efforts to manage diseases such as diabetes with lifestyle changes (Horwitz 2005). In the absence of other straightforward explanatory factors, the role of genetics in explaining patterns is cognitively prioritized, presumably because it is a contributing variable that can appear to serve as a concrete catch-all that neatly describes the cause of phenotypic differences (Dar-Nimrod and Heine 2011).…”

Genetic essentialism: On the deceptive determinism of DNA.

“…This article explores how people make sense of and respond to the discourse regarding the roles of genes in human nature and experience. While extensive legal, philosophical, and sociological research has been directed towards the study of the individual and social implications of hereditary research (e.g., Conrad, 1997; de Melo-Martin, 2005; Morse, 1998; Nelkin & Lindee, 1995), our purpose of this article is to assess the psychological effects of considering a genetic foundation of human nature. We propose that people's understanding of genetics with relation to life outcomes is shaped by their psychological essentialist biases—a process termed genetic essentialism —and this leads to particular consequences when people consider the relations between genes and human outcomes.…”