Well a lot of our policies are based on the tabula rasa theory. Gender or racial imbalances between professions for instance are attributed to cultural bias and discrimination. It may be the case, I think only science will provide a definitive answer. And you are right, far right activists do assume full genetic determinism and they may also be proven wrong by advances in genetics. But they are kind of a smaller marginal group, whereas partisans of the tabula rasa are pretty powerful, particularly in academics.
Or to restate, equality of opportunity and equality of... "ability" (in the sense of Phelps-ian genetic uniqueness) get conflated. As though admitting the latter differs somehow effects the righteousness of the former as a goal.
Agree that genetics v activism is going to get very ugly here.
We're already seeing it in health insurance: that's the essence of the pre-existing condition debate.
Should people bear the cost or accrue the benefit of their uniqueness, or should we share them as a community?
> Well a lot of our policies are based on the tabula rasa theory.
I don't think very many policies actually are.
> Gender or racial imbalances between professions for instance are attributed to cultural bias and discrimination.
That's not based on tabula rasa theory, that's based on actual experience of (often, until quite recently, overt and direct) gender and racial discrimination. It certainly tends to involve a belief that certain traits (whether or not genetically determined) are not intrinsically associated with gender or race (or, sometimes, when there is evidence that such an association does exist, that the association is not strong enough to explain the outcome difference.) But that's very different from, and entirely neutral toward, the question of tabula rasa vs. genetic determinism.
> partisans of the tabula rasa are pretty powerful, particularly in academics.
The closest thing I can see to "partisans of the tabula rasa" in the real world, with any kind of power, are religious conservatives, who have a very strong incentive to believe that things for which there is already very strong evidence are genetically determined are choices, so as to ascribe moral virtue to certain traits and moral vice to others. But plenty of them have over time adopted a model of accepting genetic predisposition in (at least some of) those areas while still finding a moral command to act in a certain way regardless of predisposition, so even with them I don't see things quite so irreconcilable as the upthread characterization.
With sincere respect, I think you’re understating the power and prevalence differential across the political spectrum. :) There are a handful of far right “activists” who believe in genetic determinism and they are rightly marginalized and have no platform whatsoever. Left wing proponents of blank slatism are mainstream, particularly in the (often publicly funded) “grievance studies” fields, and they have a significant cheering section comprised of journalists at leading media institutions (Guardian, NYT, etc), corporate diversity consultancies, and elsewhere. Not only are there far more proponents on the left; they enjoy enormous platforms and public coin.
Climate-change denialism is a more bipartisan problem than this. :)
