Abstract
In this chapter, I argue that social science and genomics can be integrated – however, the way this marriage is currently occurring rests on spurious methods and assumptions and, as a result, will yield few lasting insights. Recent advances in both econometrics and developmental genomics provide scientists with a novel opportunity to understand how genes and (social) environment interact. Key to any causal inference about genetically heterogeneous effects of social conditions is that either genetics be exogenously manipulated while environment is held constant (and measured properly) and/or that environmental variation is exogenous in nature – i.e., experimental or arising from a natural experiment of sorts. Further, allele selection should be motivated by findings from genetic experiments in (model) animal studies linked to orthologous human genes. Likewise, genetic associations found in human population studies should then be tested through knock-out and overexpression studies in model organisms. Finally, epigenetic and gene expression analysis of corpse brains offers a potentially fruitful way to get at mechanisms by which social environment affects gene pathways.
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Notes
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However, a number of counter examples can be found where associational fishing expeditions have led to more tenuous findings that have not withstood the rigors of replication. One notable example can be found in the so-called “gay gene.” In 1993, Hamer et al. published an article in Science showing an association between a microsatellite on the X-chromosome (called Xq28) and homosexuality in men. The conclusion rested on the greater propensity of gay brothers to share genetic markers at this locus as well as pedigree analysis that showed a greater likelihood of gay men to have other gay male relatives on their maternal side (since the X that males receive always comes from their mother). Later work (see, Rice et al., 1999) failed to replicate the findings among a similar sample of Canadian brothers and a heated debate ensued. Hamer et al.’s study is among the better of the associational studies given its pedigree-based analysis, but like many others in the field it relies on a small, non-representative sample and purports to explain a complicated phenotype: stated sexual orientation. I underline “stated” for a reason: Even if the results could be routinely replicated, it may be the case that the Xq28 locus is associated with willingness to reveal homosexuality to survey takers rather than to homosexuality itself, given its sometimes stigmatizing status in North American culture.
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Conley, D. (2011). In Search of GE: Why We Have Not Documented a Gene–Social Environment Interaction Yet. In: Booth, A., McHale, S., Landale, N. (eds) Biosocial Foundations of Family Processes. National Symposium on Family Issues. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-7361-0_16
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