From Nature magazine

“The invalid assumption that correlation implies cause is probably among the two or three most serious and common errors of human reasoning.” Evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould was referring to purported links between genetics and an individual’s intelligence when he made this familiar complaint in his 1981 book The Mismeasure of Man.

Fast-forward three decades, and leading geneticists and anthropologists are levelling a similar charge at economics researchers who claim that a country’s genetic diversity can predict the success of its economy. To critics, the economists’ paper seems to suggest that a country’s poverty could be the result of its citizens’ genetic make-up, and the paper is attracting charges of genetic determinism, and even racism. But the economists say that they have been misunderstood, and are merely using genetics as a proxy for other factors that can drive an economy, such as history and culture. The debate holds cautionary lessons for a nascent field that blends genetics with economics, sometimes called genoeconomics. The work could have real-world pay-offs, such as helping policy-makers to set the right level of immigration to boost the economy, says Enrico Spolaore, an economist at Tufts University near Boston, Massachusetts, who has also used global genetic-diversity data in his research.

But the economists at the forefront of this field clearly need to be prepared for harsh scrutiny of their techniques and conclusions. At the centre of the storm is a 107-page paper by Oded Galor of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, and Quamrul Ashraf of Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts. It has been peer-reviewed by economists and biologists, and will soon appear in American Economic Review, one of the most prestigious economics journals.

The paper argues that there are strong links between estimates of genetic diversity for 145 countries and per-capita incomes, even after accounting for myriad factors such as economic-based migration. High genetic diversity in a country’s population is linked with greater innovation, the paper says, because diverse populations have a greater range of cognitive abilities and styles. By contrast, low genetic diversity tends to produce societies with greater interpersonal trust, because there are fewer differences between populations. Countries with intermediate levels of diversity, such as the United States, balance these factors and have the most productive economies as a result, the economists conclude.

The manuscript had been circulating on the Internet for more than two years, garnering little attention outside economics — until last month, when Science published a summary of the paper in its section on new research in other journals. This sparked a sharp response from a long list of prominent scientists, including geneticist David Reich of Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts, and Harvard University palaeoanthropologist Daniel Lieberman in Cambridge.

In an open letter, the group said that it is worried about the political implications of the economists’ work: “the suggestion that an ideal level of genetic variation could foster economic growth and could even be engineered has the potential to be misused with frightening consequences to justify indefensible practices such as ethnic cleansing or genocide,” it said.

The critics add that the economists made blunders such as treating the genetic diversity of different countries as independent data, when they are intrinsically linked by human migration and shared history. “It’s a misuse of data,” says Reich, which undermines the paper’s main conclusions. The populations of East Asian countries share a common genetic history, and cultural practices — but the former is not necessarily responsible for the latter. “Such haphazard methods and erroneous assumptions of statistical independence could equally find a genetic cause for the use of chopsticks,” the critics wrote.

16 Comments

1. 1. sjn 04:32 PM 10/10/12

   The unasked question is why use or look for genetic diversity as a marker for sociological, political or economic differences in the first place?? What drives so many, particularly US scientists. to avoid historical, political or sociological tools in place of a search for genetic drivers or markers???
   
   Here the work of Steven J Gould and others, in works such as The Mismeasure of Man, show the long historical basis for such directions.
   
   Reducing the issue to the question of technique and appropriate statistical methods is just another way of avoiding the broader issues. Why look in genetics for an explanation of human culture that works out on such shorter time lines and across much broader variation than any average genetic differentiation, than to specifically avoid discussing historical, political and cultural factors.
   
   

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2. 2. jtdwyer 04:57 PM 10/10/12

   Isn't this silly idea immediately falsified by the amazing economic recovery of Japan in the post-WW-II era and its continued phenomenal success in recent decades?
   
   I suggest that the current availability of natural resources and an educated populace might be better predictors of a nation's economic success. Economists, in particular those concerned with the U.S. performance, return to considering these factors: both are deteriorating!

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3. 3. priddseren 02:32 AM 10/11/12

   I thought Eugenics concepts died in the late 1800s, guess not. Though the problem of correlation implying cause is rampant in science today, as demonstrated by global warming will cause WWIII nonsense or any commercial with a drug or dietary supplements which are "clinically proven". In fact, science is more and more becoming nothing more than so called scientists with theories and too lazy to do any real research so they do a clinical study instead.
   
   Now if the economists in this article are not really trying to wake up the old Progressive ides of Eugenics and really just mean culture has an effect on success, then they should have just said that. The fact that some groups of people have cultures that are dysfunctional and keeping their people oppressed and starving has nothing to do with genetics, those cultures exist for other reasons, none of which are genetically based.
   The idea of diversity is probably also a correlation that has no real effect. Applying the ideas of natural selection would be a better idea because it is likely some cultures are at the core functional and as new people integrate in the culture they might add a few good ideas and most of the bad parts of old cultures are removed. Their implication is if we all just become diverse in culture and have in effect all cultures together we would have the most success is ridiculous. Some cultures are just not good at all and have nothing to offer and certainly will never improve and can only hurt.
   
   I am curious about how the US is labeled only intermediate in diversity. Having been to dozens of countries around the world, there are just not that many which have anywhere near the amount of cultural diversity America has, I would be curious to know which ones they think have more, I can only think of 3 or 4 at best. Most countries are not only not very diverse, they also are significantly more likely to not allow outside cultural influences in.
   
   This sounds like a variation on the mathematical models that can predict success of students based on where they grew up. None of this type of research is really useful. In the end it will create more problems than it solves because in the end an individual is successful based on his own desire to do what it takes to succeed and in many places there is usually some kind of political class of elites in the way.

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4. 4. amberLi 07:26 AM 10/11/12

   I totally disagree with that the United States has the right amount of genetic diversity to buoy its economy. And I think there is no relation between genetic diversity and its economy.

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5. 5. amberLi in reply to jtdwyer 07:30 AM 10/11/12

   I totally agree with you and I think the vies in this passage is silly.

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6. 6. gesimsek 03:56 PM 10/12/12

   The real cause behind American success is not the genetic variation but the existence of culturally diversified big cities where people coming from outside (brain drain) can feel at home.

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7. 7. jgrosay 08:02 PM 10/12/12

   When you're new to a society, it est, your ancestors never belonged to this place or culture, you're not submitted to the hierarchical bonds that do stablish the social pyramid, and thus you're in a more favorable condition to behave just on your own welfare goals. This may be the reason why you find many times some foreing surnames in power positions, they've just perceived what the local power goals are, and behave in a way that benefits the power's goals, thus obtainig part of its rewards, without caring about the oppinions or needs or sufferings of other persons submitted to this power, they just don't perceive it at all. Genetic diversity of people succeeding is just a marker that they're outsiders, something like chimps given an hallucinogenic drug, that do lose the sensitivity to all the signals, mainly body language ones, that stablish the hierarchy in the monkey herd, inducing a big upset in the chimps still under hierarchy. Leftists will call those foreigners, allways fullfilling the power needs, "fascists", but this is an stupid name, as nazis and fascists dissapeared in 1945, and they've been kept alive only in the red's minds. Poor people are poor people, and never understand!

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8. 8. IslandGardener 07:13 AM 10/14/12

   Jared Diamond looked at the biological and geographical reasons for the historical success of Eurasian societies in his book 'Guns, Germs and Steel'.
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guns,_Germs,_and_Steel:_The_Fates_of_Human_Societies
   Part of his motivation for writing the book was to refute the racist assumption that 'successful' societies are at the top of the heap because they are intrinsically genetically superior.
   I don't know any of the details of the studies which have looked at the 'economic success' and the genetic diversity of different societies. It seems obvious to me that societies with good natural resources, good education, and good governance - the better the government, justice systems, civil institutions, and equality, the better - will be more truly 'successful' in that they will be more productive and happy than other societies. It also seems reasonable to assume that societies which are mature and self-confident enough to be open and welcoming to other cultures will also be truly successful.
   It also seems obvious that genetic diversity and cultural diversity, though sometimes linked, are not the same thing.
   
   It seems a shame to me though that we cannot discuss genetics at all without being accused of being eugenic fascists. We are still learning about genetics, and as far as I can make out from what I've read we can't yet make safe judgements about how we might improve ourselves genetically. But I can imagine that it might one day be possible. Don't get me wrong, I don't mean that I want to see a world of people who are white-skinned pale-haired and violent.
   But it seems to me conceivable that it might, just might, be possible that one day we might know enough to be able to consider how the human gene pool coukld change to make us, for example, more intelligent, better at empathy, or less prone to violence.
   This is a very complex area morally. For example, some might say that people convicted of violent crimes should be sterilised - but it seems likely that of all the factors which led to them being violent their genetic makeup will at most be a minor factor, or may have been no different from that of non-violent people. This was the mistake that the early eugenicists made: they assumed that somebody's position in society could be entirely or almost entirely attributed to their genes - an obviously wrong assumption.
   Yet as well as being the product of our environments and our own decisions, we are also the products of our genes, and one day we might know enough to be able to discuss this with more knowledge.

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9. 9. Obbop 06:41 PM 10/14/12

   "Success" is an ill-defined term and wide open to emotion-based defining.
   
   

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10. 10. cocoxia 11:16 AM 10/15/12

    even though the so-called economic success is linked to genetic diversity,there are other factors,are more important,is related with.
    
    

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11. 11. attattatta 04:58 PM 10/15/12

    This idea is hardly well thought out, let alone tested properly.
    It is worth pointing out perhaps that rather than genetic diversity leading to economic success, economic succes may lead to genetic diversity. Genetic diversity as a measure is fairly crude but it will be highest where people have come to a culture from other cultures, rather than occurring from local genetic variation.
    Any culture that is economically successful, is so due to trade and influence over other cultures. Inevitably this leads to economic migration, towards the centre of wealth.
    This works equally well with empires ( Roman, Byxantine, British..) as with colonised areas such as the USA. Note that with increasing success the USA was able to invite in poor migrants from overseas to add to its labour pool. Far from success being driven by diversity, diversity was driven by opportunity.
    In other words, any causal realtionship is probably the opposite of what is being suggested.

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12. 12. commios 06:20 PM 10/15/12

    I must say I agree with the comments so far posted.I can add what Aaron Lynch says in "Units, Events and Dynamics in the Evolutionary Epidemiology of Ideas":
    
    http://web.archive.org/web/20021004140101/www.thoughtcontagion.com/UED.htm
    
    In regard to increasing the incidences of new ideas in education, he says:
    
    "...proposals to make education highly uniform and enforced by nationwide testing may tend to limit creativity by reducing the variability of combinations of important ideas. Creativity in an organization or a society might alternatively be enhanced by encouraging the acquisition of highly unusual combinations of ideas and fields of learning. Cultural, educational, and experiential diversity might turn out to increase population creativity by increasing the occurrence rates for extremely rare combinations of ideas that could lead to the formation of new ideas. In particular, this might result in higher creative output for universities, research institutions, and other organizations that deliberately strive for a culturally diverse mix of people."
    
    Lynch criticized the gene model espoused by Dawkins in his meme theory.
    
    As for eugenics dying out in the 1800's -- I wish that were true. Alberta, Canada, used to often sterilize "mental patients". I brought this fact to the attention of Peter Lougheed, just before he became Premier of Alberta. He quickly moved to change the law and financially compensate those who had been so horribly treated.

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13. 13. commios 06:36 PM 10/15/12

    Sorry about the truncated url in the last comment -- I'm new here.
    
    This should display properly:
    
    http://tinyurl.com/d8hyt5c

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14. 14. vramanatharao 09:43 PM 10/15/12

    I am not sure one should give too much importance to this sort of nonsensical associations that may be found. Here, the economists may now have the proof that one can learn better through a study of history than economic theories. From the the cyclical changes that have occurred during the past millennia in a region's or country's economic development is more akin to 'every dog has its day".
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    

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15. 15. rugeirn 02:53 PM 10/16/12

    Just wondering - has anybody who has commented here read the paper? How about those who are quoted?
    
    There is a long history of over-reaction on politically charged subjects based on incomplete understanding of the actual work. It is not at all rare for that over-reaction to proceed from people who have not read the actual work at all.
    
    It is clear that we are seeing a lot of that right here, right now.

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16. 16. Bob Grumman in reply to sjn 04:57 PM 10/17/12

    I agree that we need a lot more information to be able to discuss this question intelligently.

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