Impact of Environmental Factors

Another contributor to this process is the decision to ignore the great impact of environmental factors on complex human traits such as intelligence, and the fact that a full “98% of all variation in educational attainment is accounted for by factors other than a person’s simple genetic makeup.”45 Like those Beauty AI app designers who seemed to think that there was some universal standard of beauty against which all of humanity could be judged and who expressed surprise when the algorithms they trained showed an overwhelming preference for White contestants, those who hunt for the genetic basis of IQ have already accepted dominant standards of intelligence, starting with their selection of the 2,000 individuals deemed smart enough to be studied. And, given the powerful bioinformatic tools at their disposal, they may very well identify shared alleles in their sample, finding evidence for what they seek without questioning the basic premise to begin with.

In this way DNA Dreams brings to life the dystopian nightmare we encounter in the 1997 film Gattaca, in which the main character Vincent, played by Ethan Hawke, narrates: “I belonged to a new underclass, no longer determined by social status or the color of your skin. No, we have discrimination down to a science.”46 As in so much science fiction, the Whiteness of the main protagonist is telling. Not only does it deflect attention away from the fact that, in the present, many people already live a version of the dystopia represented in the film in future tense. The “unbearable Whiteness” of sci-fi expresses itself in the anxiety underlying so many dystopian visions that, if we keep going down this road, “We’re next.”47 Whether it’s Keanu Reeves in The Matrix, Matt Damon in Elysium, Chris Evans in Snowpiercer – all characters whose Whiteness, maleness, straightness, and (let’s just admit) cuteness would land them at the top of the present social order – they all find themselves in a fictional future among the downtrodden. Viewers, in turn, are compelled to identify with the future oppression of subordinated White people without necessarily feeling concern for the “old” underclasses in our midst. So, while DNA Dreams sits in the shadow of Gattaca, Gattaca-like representations can overshadow the everyday theft of opportunity, stratified as it is by race and justified by eugenic-like judgments about the value of different human lives.