Articles - Journaltalk

This article is a response to seven comments on my book manuscript To Have and Have Not: The Determinants of Social Status in England, 1600-2026. The comments (published concurrently in this Journal) are written by Rosalind Arden and Robert Plomin, John Benning, Noah Carl, Nicolai Eftedal, Joseph Francis, Charles Murray, and Jan Stuhler. The more critical comments (Benning, Francis, and Stuhler) object to the most controversial thesis of To Have and Have Not, that genetic inheritance mainly determined social position in England 1600–2026. Their skepticism is captured in Benning's title, "To Know and Know Not." They accept that genetic inheritance constitutes a part of the explanation for social mobility. But it remains only a modest part. Consequently most of this response is devoted to providing further evidence for the genetic interpretation of the book. Arden and Plomin, Carl, Eftedal, and Murray are more comfortable with the dominance of genetic effects. But Arden and Plomin, as well as Eftedal, are concerned about the high degree of marital assortment required to fit the observed lineage correlation with an additive genetic explanation. Eftedal suggests an alternative path for genetic influence through differentiation of social classes by genotype.