All the President’s Genes?
Posted by Pete Shanks November 5, 2008
Biopolitical Times
The election of the 44th President of the United States is clearly an important moment in the evolution of the nation's attitude to skin color. However, just as we begin to discount the importance of certain superficial aspects of phenotype in the selection of candidates, some are proposing that we begin to judge them by genotype – even though we are a long way from being able to interpret "the possibilities revealed in their genes" with any confidence at all.
The Wall Street Journal recently examined the prospect of using personal genomics to evaluate the potential abilities of politicians. The Personal Genome Project’s George Church - who believes that in the age of genomic sequencing, the notion of privacy is something we should leave behind - claims: "It is not like we are collecting horoscope data or tea-leaf data. These are real facts, just as real as bank accounts and the influence of political action committees or family members."
But the interpretation of facts is far more critical than the facts themselves. Heck, even the arrangement of tea leaves is not exactly factual! What any particular collection of alleles mean is a very difficult question – so difficult that the Departments of Health in California and New York have complained about direct-to-consumer genetic tests precisely because consumers do not have the expertise needed to evaluate the data.
So how would we ever interpret a candidate’s gene scan? More than that, how would we make political judgments even if the genomic facts were more or less clear? President Lincoln may have had "the genetic condition Marfan Syndrome," which could perhaps have been predicted from a genome scan. Would we have been better off disqualifying him? Would the nation even exist if we had?
Certain medical conditions are important for the public to know – but even then, the case of FDR muddies the matter, does it not? Balancing the possibilities revealed by genomics – and statistical possibilities are all we are apt to find – is unlikely to be the best way to select a President. What is the gene for temperament? What is the gene for intelligence? There isn't such a “fact,” we all know that.
And sometimes what the genomic data suggest is just flat wrong. The same Wall Street Journal article cites an anemic woman who was surprised to discover that "she carried a gene for hemochromatosis, in which abnormally high levels of iron build up in the blood." Who you going to believe - the DNA print-out or your lying blood?
Too bad the newly minted Genetic Non-Discrimination Act doesn’t apply to voting.
The Wall Street Journal recently examined the prospect of using personal genomics to evaluate the potential abilities of politicians. The Personal Genome Project’s George Church - who believes that in the age of genomic sequencing, the notion of privacy is something we should leave behind - claims: "It is not like we are collecting horoscope data or tea-leaf data. These are real facts, just as real as bank accounts and the influence of political action committees or family members."
But the interpretation of facts is far more critical than the facts themselves. Heck, even the arrangement of tea leaves is not exactly factual! What any particular collection of alleles mean is a very difficult question – so difficult that the Departments of Health in California and New York have complained about direct-to-consumer genetic tests precisely because consumers do not have the expertise needed to evaluate the data.
So how would we ever interpret a candidate’s gene scan? More than that, how would we make political judgments even if the genomic facts were more or less clear? President Lincoln may have had "the genetic condition Marfan Syndrome," which could perhaps have been predicted from a genome scan. Would we have been better off disqualifying him? Would the nation even exist if we had?
Certain medical conditions are important for the public to know – but even then, the case of FDR muddies the matter, does it not? Balancing the possibilities revealed by genomics – and statistical possibilities are all we are apt to find – is unlikely to be the best way to select a President. What is the gene for temperament? What is the gene for intelligence? There isn't such a “fact,” we all know that.
And sometimes what the genomic data suggest is just flat wrong. The same Wall Street Journal article cites an anemic woman who was surprised to discover that "she carried a gene for hemochromatosis, in which abnormally high levels of iron build up in the blood." Who you going to believe - the DNA print-out or your lying blood?
Too bad the newly minted Genetic Non-Discrimination Act doesn’t apply to voting.