遗传学在人口等社会科学研究中的应用

The application of genetics in demographic social science

社会科学遗传学旨在理解个体基因差异是否、为何以及如何解释他们在行为和社会经济特征上的差异。本文讨论了这一领域中的研究目标、方法、挑战以及启示。本文通过若干具体实例回溯了近期遗传学上的进展如何为社会科学研究者提供了一个帮助理解遗传及环境因素的方法。此外,本文还探究了医学研究和遗传社会科学研究相互促进的机制。最终,本文讨论了研究个体基因差异领域的常见误区。

Social science genetics aims to understand the impact of individuals’ genetic variation on their social economic behavior and outcome. This article discusses the methodology, challenges and perspectives within this field. By reviewing the existing empirical works, this article explains how genetic methodologies provide the new solution for social scientists to understand genetics and environment factors. Also, this article specifies a few common misconceptions in empirically applying genetics in social science research.