The Concept of the Environment

In those projects that attempt to explain variations in complex human traits on the basis of human genetics research, the concept of the environment almost invariably gets used in ways that are conservative. Many of these research projects give the current environment a priority that is hard to defend by, for example, not explicitly exploring the role that the environment, and especially culture, plays in the formation and expression of such traits, and by all too often ignoring the role that, for example, behaviors themselves play in shaping the environment in which genetic effects are supposed to play out in human populations. In many of these research projects, it is the status quo that is the standard against which genetic influences are measured and the effects of intervention are judged. Decisions from what counts as a phenotype worthy of study to what sorts of conditions represent problems worthy of medical intervention are made with respect to contemporary standards, often in an uncritical way. It is in part this unself-critical acceptance of the current environment, and especially the current culture, that so often makes the concept of the environment used in many aspects of human genetics research, and, to a lesser extent, evolutionary theory more broadly, so conservative, in at least its effects, whatever its intentions.