Have we leapt into commercial genetic testing without understanding it?

"Martschenko's argument is largely that genetic research and data have almost always been used thus far as a justification to further entrench extant social inequalities. But we know the solutions to many of the injustices in our world-trying to lift people out of poverty, for example-and we certainly don't need more genetic research to implement them. Trejo's point is largely that more information is generally better than less."

"Trejo is a (quantitative) sociologist at Princeton; Martschenko is a (qualitative) bioethicist at Stanford. He's a he, and she's a she; he looks white, she looks black; he's East Coast, she's West. On the surface, it seems clear that they would hold different opinions. But they still chose to spend 10 years writing this book in an "adversarial collaboration." While they still disagree, by now at least they can really listen to and understand each other."

Genetic research and data have frequently been used to justify and deepen existing social inequalities. Known remedies for social injustices, such as poverty alleviation, exist and do not require additional genetic research to implement. Some argue that more genomic information could yield unforeseeable benefits and that ongoing basic research should be guided toward ethical and beneficial ends. A quantitative sociologist and a qualitative bioethicist hold contrasting views on studying social genomics but spent a decade in adversarial collaboration, learning to listen and understand each other. The work contrasts actual DNA inheritance with cultural myths about heredity and stresses cross-perspective engagement.

Read at Ars Technica