Iqra’i

Those who remember my exchange with Will about ADD (lo these many weeks ago) might be interested in this Slate piece about a study that found ADHD to be a benefit to nomads but a hindrance for their settled cousins.

The evidence seems convincing enough to lend credence to three statements of the less-uncontroversial-than-they-sound variety:

1. Genetic variants can have an overwhelming influence on personal behavior and role within a particular cultural setting. The genetic variation that constituted the study’s experimental variable “has been linked to greater food and drug cravings, novelty-seeking, and ADHD symptoms” — a much better description of me than I’d like to attribute to a few nucleotides.
2. The phenotypic expression of said genetic variants is extremely culturally dependent, especially in ascertaining whether or not such behavior is advantageous or detrimental. The mere act of determining the advantage a variation confers — in another cultural context or our own — doesn’t give us license to attempt hastily to protect “natural” biochemical states, or to express indignation when individuals fail (or don’t have the mobility) to choose a lifepath best suited to their particular genetic disposition.
3. The plural of anecdote is not data. Proper, social-scientific experimental frameworks are occasionally useful. (Note that I said “occasionally,” and don’t expect me to take this position often.)

I’d also note that I’d like to see much more research from geneticists about the consequences of globalization — a trend, after all, that seems to focus on the homogenization of lifepaths, especially as long as the mobility of capital and movement toward a “global market” continues to outstrip the mobility of human beings. Consider especially that enforcement of national borders puts nomadic peoples at a particular disadvantage (more people have heard of the much-oversentimentalized “Reindeer People” of the steppe than know that their inability to cross into Chinese territory has resulted in contamination of water sources and widespread illness, particularly among the reindeer themselves). It seems to me that, contradictory as a scientific argument for cultural relativism would be, it could be made — the fact that it hasn’t is likely a result of the fact that those attracted to science are already too much in love with teleological notions of Truth.