On the Political Use of Pseudoscience

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Professor of Public Policy Aaron Panofsky commented in a STAT article on the rise and use of eugenics — pseudoscientific genetic and racial theories popularized around the turn of 20th century — in the 2024 race for U.S. president. Former President Donald Trump’s use of this language in regard to immigrants and minorities underscores a larger trend in which eugenics is being revived in the U.S. in immigration policies, campaign rhetoric and academic literature. Panofsky, director of UCLA’s Institute for Society and Genetics, said that through the Human Genome Project — the mapping of the human genetic code in the 1990s — it was hoped that the idea that genetics was responsible for significant differences among various groups would end, creating a post-racial world. “But it turns out that both scientists and the public spend all their interest in the 0.1% of genetic variation that makes us different, not the 99.9% that makes us the same,” he said.

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Panofsky on Distortion of Science to Further a Racist Agenda

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Undark spoke with public policy professor Aaron Panofsky about soul-searching in the science community after the May 2022 shooting in Buffalo that took 10 lives. The gunman who targeted Black victims cited genetics research as a rationale for his white supremacist views. Panofsky noted that the shooter’s manifesto included “prepackaged, meme-ified research objects” from “various blogs, various components of Reddit and 4chan, and so forth.” Such ready-to-share memes are used by far-right bloggers, white nationalist outlets, amateur scientists and other fringe figures to willfully misinterpret science to further a racist agenda, said Panofsky, director of the UCLA Institute for Society and Genetics. The article also shone a light on large-scale genomic studies aimed at finding genetic solutions to public health and social problems. In addition to fearing that their findings may be twisted in dangerous ways, some researchers acknowledge that the emphasis on genetics might draw attention from the true drivers of these problems.

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Panofsky on Science, Rhetoric and White Nationalism

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Inside Higher Ed spoke to Aaron Panofsky, professor of public policy, about the launch of UCLA’s Initiative to Study Hate, which supports research into understanding and mitigating hatred among social groups. Panofsky will lead one of 23 projects representing several disciplines. His research will explore how white nationalists use and reject scientific research and language in their rhetoric online. Hate is popularly perceived as the emotion felt “when you want to lash out against someone,” Panofsky said. But the ways white nationalists painstakingly attempt to back up their claims with scientific research show hate is more than a knee-jerk emotional reaction. “Part of our study is about how complicated hate can become, especially when it’s connected with science or an ostensibly rational discourse,” said Panofsky, who directs the UCLA Institute for Society and Genetics.

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Luskin Scholars Join UCLA’s New Initiative to Study Hate

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UCLA is launching the Initiative to Study Hate, an ambitious social impact project that brings together a broad consortium of scholars to understand and ultimately mitigate hate in its multiple forms. Supported by a $3 million gift from an anonymous donor, researchers including UCLA Luskin scholars will undertake 23 projects this year, the first of a three-year pilot program. Through his work with the UCLA Institute for Society and Genetics, Aaron Panofsky, professor of public policy and sociology, will map the ways white nationalist groups selectively use and reject science to perpetuate themes of otherization and dehumanization online. Researchers from UCLA Luskin Social Welfare will participate in three projects: Doctoral student Emily Maurin-Waters and associate professor Laura Wray-Lake will examine prejudicial violence against LGBTQ youth and the impact of whether it is framed as bullying or a hate crime. Doctoral student Taylor Reed will lead a team including Sara Wilf and Victoria Millet MSW ’22 to study racism and discrimination within organizing spaces, as experienced by Black and Latinx individuals taking part in youth gun violence prevention movements. And assistant professor Brian Keum and doctoral student Michele Wong will join a team from the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health that will explore the spillover effect on the mental health of Asian Americans in the wake of the mass killing of spa workers in Atlanta, Georgia. From Urban Planning, master’s student Eliza Franklin Leggett will disrupt the built environment in an Alabama town with a history of white supremacy by inserting historical markers documenting hidden Black histories.

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Panofsky on Distortion of Science to Justify White Supremacy

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Public Policy Professor Aaron Panofsky spoke with STAT News about the distortion of genetics research to rationalize white supremacist ideologies. The gunman who killed 10 Black people in Buffalo, N.Y., this month cited such research in a document claiming that proof of a racial hierarchy is written into the human genome. Panofsky wrote a history of the field of behavioral genetics and has studied how its findings get co-opted by far-right groups. “Of all the ancient racist tropes they could have drawn from, they picked this pseudoscientific package of ideas about genetics and replacement theory,” Panofsky said, referring to the conspiracy theory that white people are being intentionally replaced by immigrants and people of color. “It’s this language of science and genetics that they find empowering and convincing, and which they think legitimates their perspective.” Panofsky called for stronger scientific and ethical standards in the field of sociogenomics, as well as more education so that teenagers encountering misinformation online are more resistant to radicalization.

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Panofsky Named to Class of 2020 Carnegie Fellows

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Associate Professor of Public Policy Aaron Panofsky has been named a 2020 Carnegie Fellow, the Carnegie Corporation of New York has announced. Panofsky, who also holds appointments in sociology and society and genetics at UCLA, is among a class of 27 fellows nationwide — 14 from public institutions — to be honored. Panofsky was selected from among more than 300 nominations submitted to the philanthropic foundation established by Andrew Carnegie in 1911. The Carnegie Fellows program, now in its sixth year, provides a $200,000 stipend designed to allow recipients to devote up to two years to significant research and writing. The award will support Panofsky’s work on a forthcoming book titled, “Unjust Malaise: Race in the Fog of Genetics.” Panofsky’s main research interest is in the sociology of science and knowledge with a special focus on genetics. His first book, “Misbehaving Science: Controversy and the Development of Behavior Genetics,” published in 2014, analyzed the causes and consequences of controversy in the rapidly growing field. In his new book, Panofsky will demonstrate that, as the public and scholars have appealed to the science of genetics to define race and explain racial inequalities in health, behavior and social success, the results have been confusing and ambiguous. “Ambiguity is baked into the science itself, not just its public interpretations,” Panofsky said. His research explores genetic domains such as racial definition, behavioral research, ancestry and identity, and population health.

Panofsky on White Pride, DNA and Denial

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Aaron Panofsky, associate professor of public policy, society and genetics, and sociology, spoke to the New York Times about his research on white nationalists who learn from DNA ancestry tests that they may not be as white or European as they previously thought. By analyzing the “white pride” online discussion forum Stormfront, Panofsky and researcher Joan Donovan of Harvard University found that commenters shared test results even when they indicated mixed heritage, and that their fellow white nationalists offered potential reasons those results should not be trusted. Among them: skepticism about the tests’ interpretations of the science and conspiracy theories about Jewish-owned genetic testing companies’ multicultural agendas. Since he launched the study, Panofsky said, genetic tests have increasingly been used to encourage the “mainstreamification” of white nationalism. “Science cannot save us,” he said. “The political problem of white nationalism needs to be confronted on the level of values and law enforcement.”

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UCLA Study: When Genetics Challenges a Racist’s Identity Researchers analyzed posts on a white nationalist online forum to interpret reactions of subjects whose genetic testing revealed their racial identity wasn’t what they expected

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By Stan Paul

Aaron Panofsky

A new study by UCLA researchers reveals the range of reactions — from rejection to reinterpretation to acceptance — after white nationalists learn that DNA ancestry test results indicate they may not be as white or European as they previously thought.

The study, “When Genetics Challenges a Racist’s Identity: Genetic Ancestry Testing among White Nationalists,” is the work of UCLA researchers Aaron Panofsky and Joan Donovan, who presented their findings at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association held Aug. 14, 2017, in Montreal, Canada.

Upon receiving genetic evidence of non-white or non-European ancestry, those posting online “expend considerable energy to repair identities by rejecting or reinterpreting GAT results,” said the researchers, who studied discussion threads on the topic posted on the white nationalist online forum Stormfront.

In their qualitative study, Panofsky and Donovan looked at more than 3,000 posts in 70 discussion threads on topics related to “test reveals.” These included posts by individuals who revealed results of non-white/non-European ancestry on Stormfront, a website that requires members to be white or European with non-Jewish ancestry. Responses also included the comments on those test results.

Panofsky, an associate professor with appointments in Public Policy at UCLA Luskin and the Institute for Society and Genetics, and Sociology; and Donovan, a postdoctoral fellow at UCLA’s Institute for Society and Genetics, report that while GATs promote “the capacity to reveal one’s genetic ties to ethnic groups, ancient populations and historical migrations, and even famous historical figures … this opportunity to ‘know thyself’ can come with significant risks.”

Panofsky points out that based on white nationalists’ responses to genetic information, upon learning their test results, there is no reason to believe that they would give up their racial ideology, and, more importantly, that genetic information cannot be relied on to change the views of white nationalists.

In addition, Panofsky said that, as a group, white nationalists appear to have a combination of sophisticated and unsophisticated methods of interpreting the data from statistical and genetic viewpoints, as well as on their own historical reasoning or reinterpretation.

“In this framework, the repair strategy is not to reject scientific or historical knowledge, but to educate oneself to understand the construction of GAT results and to explain those results in alternate terms,” the researchers conclude.

In parsing responses to GAT results posted on Stormfront, Panofsky and Donovan created a “decision tree” consisting of “good news” responses, or confirmation of white identity, or “bad news,” revealing results of non-white or non-European ancestry.

“Good news” served a confirming purpose and was well-received, but “bad news” elicited responses of rejection of the GAT. The alternatives to the rejected responses included championing of traditional methods, citing family history or using a “mirror test,” whereby individuals evaluated their outward appearance as a gauge of racial identity.

When appealing to the online community for more information about confusing results, “Many of the responses to bad news are about how to repair the damage, rather than latching onto the ideology of Stormfront,” Panofsky said. “Even though they have that idea of purity, they help people explain away or dismiss the result.”

The researchers also found that some who reject unfavorable GAT results interpret them as the product of companies with an anti-white bias, or Jewish ownership “invested in sowing racial doubt and confusion among whites.” They also attribute a small percentage of non-white or non-European markers as being “part of a multicultural conspiracy,” according to the study.

Another way the online community dealt with bad news, Panofsky and Edwards reported, was to discount indications of “non-white” ancestry as a statistical error, or “noise” to engage in “scientific reinterpretation of the results.”

The findings also indicate that white nationalists are using GAT results to rethink “the boundaries of whiteness.” Panofsky and Donovan point out that a great deal of discussion on Stormfront focuses on “what are the genetic markers of legitimate whiteness or European-ness,” and how to think about white nationalism in the era of GAT.

“They are doing so based not on wild misinterpretations or anti-scientific conceptualizations, but rather by processing through a racist cognition the materials that geneticists and genetic ancestry companies churn into the public,” Panofsky said.

Aaron Panofsky Explores Controversies in “Misbehaving Science” The Public Policy professor's book explores the roots of simmering battles in science

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Aaron Panofsky, a professor of public policy with an appointment at the Institute for Society and Genetics, recently published his book “Misbehaving Science: Controversy and the Development of Behavior Genetics.” The book analyzes the causes and consequences of controversies surrounding behavioral genetics, often leading to debates about race and inequality.

In a recent interview with UCLA Luksin, Panofsky discusses his findings and how science and policy come to be at odds with one another, tracing behavior genetics to its origins and analyzing five major controversies in the field.

Panofsky will discuss the book in an April 30 webcast.

Your book, “Misbehaving Science,” looks at the field of behavioral genetics as a way of showing how scientific consensus — or the lack thereof — and cross-disciplinary relationships can influence the progress of knowledge. What made behavioral genetics the right topic for this kind of study?

At some level, controversy is inherent to science, that’s what distinguishes it from other forms of culture. Scientists propose findings, explanations, and theories, and others try to tear these down. Historians and sociologists have focused on occasions when this process fails to go smoothly. For example, perhaps what’s at stake is not a fact but what counts as a fact, what a method is capable of demonstrating, what evidence is meaningful, or who is even a legitimate participant in a scientific debate. On such occasions…there is a breakdown in the mutual trust and common standards necessary for Popper’s machine to keep running smoothly. So sociologists and historians have been interested in the social processes that get the scientific machine running again.

Behavior genetics—the field devoted to studying genetic influences on intelligence, personality, mental illnesses, criminal behavior, etc.—is interesting from this perspective because it has remained controversial since its founding as a field fifty years ago. The field’s researchers have managed to have productive careers despite there being across this entire period fundamental disagreements across science about the validity of the scientific tools behavior geneticists use and the inferences they make. Behavior genetics is thus an anomaly from the tradition above—controversies must either be resolved or science will grind to a halt. In behavior genetics the scientific machine keeps turning though controversy persists, and my book tries to explain why.

Why is behavioral genetics such a controversial field of study?

The effort to link behavior to biology has always been controversial because it is political. If social status is linked to biology, perhaps inequality is natural rather than caused by exploitative relationships. These ideas are associated with eugenics and scientific racism. Perhaps social problems can be addressed through genetic testing and differential treatment, or perhaps there’s very little to be done and investments in school and social welfare are just wasted money.

Behavior genetics was founded in the 1960s (with) the hope that (it) could be studied separate from politics, racism, and eugenics. But in 1969, educational psychologist launched a national debate… to argue that programs to decrease racial inequality like Project Head Start were doomed to fail because genetically determined differences in intelligence. That controversy…turned a once-cooperative multidisciplinary space into an archipelago of mutually distrusting groups of scientists with opposed scientific purposes.

Many people have suggested that behavior genetics has inherently controversial ideas. But other fields…neuroscience, for example, have much more successfully resisted politicization. I argue that behavior genetics’ problem is due to this unfortunate history, which (fragmented the scientific community and) led to ambiguous intellectual and scientific norms.

Have recent technologies such as genetic sequencing and computer modeling reduced the chaos or further fanned the flames?

Behavior genetics…have long been based on studies using twins and adoptees to separate effects of “nature and nurture” without ever measuring DNA. Molecular technologies were supposed to correlate DNA directly to behavior, but…there have been no discoveries of genes for normal range behaviors accepted widely by scientists. Instead (these molecular methods) have gained importance and have been used to warrant increased investments in costly molecular research. At the same time, facing the highly reductionist approach of molecular geneticists, behavior geneticists have moderated their approach and spoken more of environmental effects on behavior. This new focus has made their research more acceptable to a wider population of social scientists—but fundamental disputes about the field’s methods (haven’t) been resolved.

What lessons can this episode teach us about other areas where policy and science intersect?

Behavior genetics is a high public profile…but its direct policy impact has been limited thus far. As far as I’m aware, there are no implemented behavior genetics informed educational or child welfare policies. I think this is a good thing because the idea that genes limit what societies might do to reduce inequality or improve education is at best too controversial to act upon responsibly.

But I worry that behavior genetics may culturally influence the ways people think about policy objectives in less than salutary ways. There’s evidence that behavior genetics findings could make people more fatalistic about the effectiveness of interventions and diminish their support whether or not the intervention might actually be effective.

Behavior genetics has also helped promote the idea that interventions might affect individuals in different ways. Some have argued that this suggests giving individuals more choices could be more effective than necessarily investing more in problem areas. This too could lead to a kind of policy fatalism. The direct and indirect impacts of behavior genetics ideas on policy are another area I hope to think about more in the future.

How can policy makers and the public help the scientific community avoid these pitfalls and advance knowledge?

One of my basic arguments is that…whether scientists in a specialty take seriously the mutual scientific competition with each other and the cultivation of social ties, boundaries, policing, etc. affects the style and quality of research and commitments to group responsibility. I worry that trends in the management of science…may be pushing scientific fields in the wrong direction. Interdisciplinary science may promote innovation through novel combinations of expertise, but it may also undermine the kinds of disciplinary structures that help build robust fields in the long run. The rush to promote interdisciplinarity may lead fields to experience problems like behavior genetics has faced over the long term.

What perspectives have your colleagues in science shared with you about this research?

Not many yet! I look forward to their feedback as more people get to read the book.

Aaron Panofsky

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Aaron Panofsky is a Professor in Public Policy and the Institute for Society and Genetics. Prior to joining UCLA in January of 2008, he was a Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Scholar at UC Berkeley from 2006 through 2007. Panofsky received his Ph.D. in sociology from New York University in 2006.

Panofsky’s main research interest is in the sociology of science and knowledge with a special focus on genetics. He recently published his first book, Misbehaving Science: Controversy and the Development of Behavior Genetics (Chicago, 2014), is an analysis of the causes and consequences of controversy in the field of behavioral genetics. A second major project is investigating how patient advocate groups are seeking to affect the research process in the medical genetics of rare disorders. Of particular interest are the means by which patient advocates and scientists can form successful, mutually beneficial collaborative partnerships. These and other projects fit with his abiding science policy interests in the governance of science and technology and the relationship between expertise and democracy.

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