No one will admit it, of course, and no honorable scientist will say that current research on the inheritance of social or behavioral traits perpetuates the old notions of eugenics. Yet in the last several years, book after scientific book and paper after paper have reported genetic links to everything from alcoholism and criminality to homosexuality, shyness, "risk taking," and psychiatric conditions such as manic depression and schizophrenia.
What is even more startling is that these ideas are being popularized at a great rate. Since 1987, Time, U.S. News and World Report, Newsweek, and the Wall Street Journal have all run major stories describing how "new" genetic research has shown that many human social and behavioral traits are to a large extent genetically controlled. The popular accounts have all stressed that the new research is much more "clear-cut" than the eugenics of 50 years ago. They have also stressed that ...
