In my draft book World After Capital, I write about how digital technology has given us the possibility to leave the Industrial Age behind and enter the Knowledge Age. In an early chapter on Optimism, I argue against economic, historical and technological determinism. These are all theories in which an external force determines the shape of society, instead of the decisions made by us humans under the guidance of a set of values.
The memo written by a Google employee, is a good reason to add “biological determinism” to this list of false determinisms. Biological determinism argues that certain features of society are the necessary result of some underlying biological process. From there, biological determinism often goes on to argue against efforts to change society with sometimes outright and sometimes veiled claims that such a change effectively goes against (human) nature.
Here is the outline of the post. First, there absolutely are biological differences among humans resulting from our DNA and hence influenced by inheritance and these include our brains. Second, biological differences used to matter a more during the Agrarian Age and somewhat during the Industrial Age (even though they were not determinative even then). Third, with the possibility of entering the Knowledge Age, biological differences can be made irrelevant due to technological progress.
We know that the development of our bodies is influenced by our genetic inheritance. For instance, how tall someone will grow is in part affected by how tall their parents are. The body of course includes the brain and so it would be strange to assume that our cognitive or emotional processes are completely untouched by genetics. I was born a “Lefty,” as in, I liked to pick things up with my left hand. This is a clear and hopefully non-controversial example of a cognitive process with known genetic influence (albeit not super well understood, as it is likely polygenic). Trying to argue away the historic existence of genetic differences goes against science. What we need to focus on is how such differences mattered in the past and, even more importantly, how much they will and should matter in the future.
During the Agrarian Age and even much of the Industrial Age, our technological capabilities were quite limited compared to today. As a result certain tasks, like lifting a heavy object, often required physical strength (“often,” because we had really awesome early technology for lifting, such as pulleys, but unlike today, they were not widely available). On average, males were able to develop more physical strength. Many societies therefore favored males for carrying out these tasks. But even then there was nothing deterministic about it as not every society had exactly the same division of labor or developed the same tools.
Many tools, as it turns out, were designed for right handed people (who make up about 90% of the population). The influence of right handedness on design persisted for a long time, such as most cars having the ignition lock to the right of the steering column (with Porsche as a famous exception). Handwriting a left-to-right language in ink, which was still a common technology when I first got to school, also favors right handedness: try writing with your left hand and not smudging the fresh ink. Handedness gives us a glimpse as to why technology often erases biological differences. At age 16, I learned to write on a typewriter and all of a sudden being left handed made no difference (there is actually more to the story as we will see in a bit).
Technology gives us the potential to make biological differences irrelevant. It does so in two ways: by letting us augment (or supplant) humans with machines and by allowing us to modify ourselves. For instance, physical strength is largely irrelevant already today and will become even more so in the future with robots, exo-skeletons, and advanced light weight materials. I just gave the example of the typewriter, but early typewriters required you to manually advance the paper as part of the “carriage return,” which was operated with the right hand. By the time I was 16 though, IBM had a really cool electric typewriter called the Selectric, which let you just hit a key and that was it. Another fun technological improvement: many modern cars no longer have an ignition lock, but just a button which is easy to press, even for someone left handed (unlike trying to get key into the ignition lock). And here is yet another automotive example of how technology can be used to make cognitive differences irrelevant: some people found it easier to learn how to read a map than others. Well, now we have turn-by-turn directions.
But there is more to cognitive differences and the fallacy of biological determinism. Biological determinists like to trot out IQ results. Here too though they suffer a confusion between what is currently measured as a result of the past and what is possible in the future. We have learned a great deal in recent years about the amazing degree to which the brain can grow new connections (even in adults). The brain is highly (re)programmable. And here is where the rest of my handedness story comes in, which I skipped earlier: I actually learned how write with my right hand. Sure, it took more effort and my handwriting was awful at first compared to other kids, but over a couple of years the difference went away. There are many examples of people who were at first told they couldn’t learn something only to become experts at it. I highly recommend Grit by Angela Duckworth, which in addition to great anecdotes also provides lots of statistical evidence on how much can be learned given enough time (and deliberate practice).
We won’t know for quite some time what people will be able to learn in a world in which we can give everyone access to all the world’s knowledge. That is not the world we lived in until quite recently; where you were born and what your parents were able to afford had a huge impact on what you could learn. The idea though that IQ tests are a good measure of what any one person could learn with enough time and focus is in direct contradiction to what we know about the brain and what we have already observed in individuals. Historical statistics about IQ and race or gender are useless for normative purposes. They measure the past and ignore the potential offered by technological progress. Let’s suppose though for a moment that eventually we figure out that there is a meaningful degree of genetic difference in neuroplasticity. Why would we then assume that this is not something we could and should overcome with technology?
Now if you happen to think that my handedness example throughout is making light of the matter, consider this: at one point being left handed was considered to have been “touched by the devil.” This is reflected in etymology by the Latin “sinister” meaning both left and evil. We have come a long way on handedness since. It is time to do the same with other forms of biological determinism, including what we can and cannot study, what roles we can and cannot have in society, and whom we can and cannot love. We should be actively building towards that future today, including working on increased diversity.
Addendum
After I wrote this post, I read the Slate Star Codex piece. While it is positioned as a defense of the Google Memo, it is actually making arguments about biological differences in interest selection, rather than in potential. Here too the logic of knowledge is more powerful than either biology or society.
Yes, we absolutely have evidence for biological factors influencing interests (see above). Similarly, of course, we also have evidence for social and cultural factors playing a role in interest selection. Particularly relevant to computer science here is the advent of personal computers in the 80s and how those were heavily positioned towards young males. This is likely to have been a factor in the change in CS enrollment patterns in college, as more males arrived with prior knowledge than females.
Critically though, because we understand all of this rationally, we are not slaves to a pattern. Neither biology, nor existing society, has to remain determinative in interest selection. Instead we get to make choices. This is the beauty and power of knowledge! In many fields we have already intentionally chosen to give everyone broad exposure early on, so people can discover and develop an interest.
We should do the same with computers (a great initiative in that regard is my partner Fred’s work on bringing computer science to high schools in New York City). As importantly, we need to revamp the overall education system, including higher education, so that people who get a later start on computers, or any other subject for that matter, can still develop their full potential. Thankfully, technological progress makes that possible (e.g. through online learning), but our institutions are lagging behind substantially.
Changing our institutions requires us to want that change. We have to want to get to the Knowledge Age, it won’t get here by itself.
