Sociogenomics is opening a new door to eugenics

Want to predict aggression? Neuroticism? Risk aversion? Authoritarianism? Academic achievement? This is the latest promise from the burgeoning field of sociogenomics.

There have been many “DNA revolutions” since the discovery of the double helix, and now we’re in the midst of another. A marriage of the social and natural sciences, it aims to use the big data of genome science—data that’s increasingly abundant thanks to genetic testing companies like 23andMe—to describe the genetic underpinnings of the sorts of complex behaviors that interest sociologists, economists, political scientists, and psychologists. The field is led by a group of mostly young, often charismatic scientists who are willing to write popular books and op-eds, and to give interviews and high-profile lectures. This work shows that the nature-nurture debate never dies—it is just cloned and raised afresh in a new world.

Advocates of sociogenomics envision a prospect that not everyone will find entirely benevolent: health “report cards,” based on your genome and handed out at birth, that predict your risk of various diseases and propensity for different behaviors. In the new social sciences, sociologists will examine...