There Is Such a Thing as Genetic Predisposition
In this section, I propose to wander over to a relevant although incessantly controversial discussion of DNA and RNA. Let me state categorically and unequivocally that I do not speak to the genetic theory of capacity or capability but to matters of inclination, disposition, and proclivity. I see the distinction paramount to its relevance to the discussion of social psychology.
There is genuine, positive, science that confirms the existence of genetic codes that predispose humans to many consequences, including attitudes that influence behavior. In likely all of these cases the ultimate expression and actualization of that genetic code depends on other factors, but that does not negate the potential influence of DNA on prejudice – for good or ill.
One can argue that the predisposition to prejudice is an encoded primal mechanism in all humans as well as most other animals. The etymology of the word prejudice is simple. To exercise a prejudice is essentially to decide about or to do something without thoughtful deliberation or methodological calculation. Neuroscience tells us is that prejudice is exercised in the amygdala of the brain. That organ and the prejudicial process exerted in its confines is the reason there are humans alive today.
Before intellectualization assigned pre-judging things a bad rap, the instinctual response was the best way of staying alive on the primordial savannah. If you took the time to deliberate about the possibility that the approaching presence might be a friend or a predator, you were unlikely to get to the end of your deliberation before its jaws crushed your skull like a ripe melon. Either you charged or you ran for your life. The intuitional response was a lifesaver; unless of course you intuit to run in the wrong direction and end up going off an unseen precipitous cliff. If we subscribe to Darwin’s theory of evolution and natural selection, it is only natural to conclude that those who made the intuitive break away from the nearest predator were more likely to survive to reproduce, even if some of them went over the cliff. Those who stood still, considering the possibilities while the predator drew ever nearer were not available to reproduce. In the first instance, the continual re-occurrence of survival eventually turned the epigenetically generated DNA sequences turned into consistently transferred genetic codes that favored intuitive thinking and action over delivery and sedentary approaches.
This kind of genetic transfer is never likely to occur with 100% consistency in any population. But it is possible that certain populations will carry and actualize the genetic code in a plurality and even in a majority of cases.
In 2013, on the cover it its 125th anniversary issue, National Geographic Magazine posed the question: Why do we EXPLORE? The answer, in part was DNA. Apparently, populations which are known for extensive explorations (Micronesian Natives, for one, come to mind; along with Spaniards, Portuguese, Dutch, English, French, Americans, and Vikings to mention notable others) possess a greater likelihood to inherit a particular variant of a gene named DRD4. The conversation which the National Geographic made popular was further expanded upon by Tom Cheshire in his 2013 book The Explorer Gene: How Three Generations of One Family Went Higher, Deeper, and Further Than Any Before about the Piccard family, which did exactly that.
