By: Nadia Harerimana, ESSGN doctoral candidate at MPIB.
All views expressed are those of the author.
When people ask what I study, I usually hesitate before answering. Saying “social science genetics” often prompts a familiar reaction: curiosity mixed with concern. Some people immediately worry about genetic determinism, while others are unsure how genetics could possibly belong in the social sciences at all. I have learned to follow up quickly, explaining that my work sits at the intersection of genetics, social science, and ethics, and that it is deeply concerned with environments, institutions, and social inequality.
What I do not usually say is that this field relies heavily on genetic datasets that overwhelmingly represent individuals of European ancestry. This limitation is not only a matter of smaller sample sizes or constraints in existing genomic tools; it fundamentally shapes how findings should be interpreted, how carefully they must be qualified, and what responsibility researchers carry in this field.
This is a glimpse behind the scenes of doing a PhD in social science genetics: an exciting new field full of promise, complexity, and unresolved tensions.
What social science genetics is trying to do
At its core, social science genetics aims to move beyond the long-standing divide between “nature” and “nurture.” Rather than treating genes and environments as competing explanations, the field asks how they work together to shape social outcomes such as education, health, and behavior. Genetic influences are understood as estimates, not deterministic, and always rootedwithin social contexts.
This approach challenges simplistic narratives on both sides. It resists the idea that genes determine who we are, while also acknowledging that genetic variation can help explain patterns observed at the population level.
Learning to speak multiple scientific languages
Doing a PhD in social science genetics means constantly moving between disciplines. On any given day, I might engage with genomics tools, population genetic concepts, and social theory, each with its own assumptions, terminology, and standards of evidence.
One of the earliest and most important lessons I learned was language as much as technical: learning to say correlates with or is associated with, rather than causes. At the end of the day, much of the work in social science genetics relies on statistical estimates derived from observational data. These estimates can be informative, but they are not equivalent to causal explanations. This distinction matters, not only for scientific accuracy, but for how findings are communicated and understood beyond academia.
Working in a field shaped by underrepresentation
One of the most visible limitations of social science genetics is the lack of diversity in available genetic data. Most large-scale genome-wide association studies have been conducted using samples of European ancestry. This imbalance has real consequences. Findings may not generalize across populations, and tools such as polygenic scores often perform unevenly depending on ancestry. When associations are treated as universal or causal without sufficient qualification, these limitations become especially problematic.
For me, this reality is impossible to ignore. It serves as a constant reminder that scientific knowledge is shaped not only by what we study, but also by who is included in the data and who is not.
Being both researcher and reminder of the gap
Doing research in a field where you rarely see yourself reflected in the data creates a particular kind of reflection. It shapes how I read papers, how I evaluate claims of universality, and how cautious I am when translating statistical associations into broader narratives about society.
Rather than resolving this tension, I have learned to sit with it. Awareness of underrepresentation does not mean rejecting the field, but it does mean engaging with it critically, especially when the results carry social, political and now clinical implications.
Ethics
Social science genetics carries a heavy historical legacy. The misuse of genetic ideas in the service of inequality and exclusion is not a distant past – it continues to happen. This makes ethical reflection an essential part of the work.
In practice, this means being attentive to language, transparent about uncertainty, and explicit about the difference between association and causation. Precision is not just a methodological concern; it is an ethical one. How findings are framed can shape how they are interpreted, applied, or misused beyond the research context.
What this PhD has changed about how I see science
Perhaps the biggest change my PhD has brought is a deeper appreciation for uncertainty. Social outcomes are complex, and no single dataset or method can fully explain them. Progress in this field is often incremental, and that slowness is not a failure.
I have also come to see critique as a form of care. Questioning methods, assumptions, emphasizing limitations, and resisting overstatement are ways of strengthening the science rather than undermining it.
My cautious optimism about social science genetics comes less from the field in the abstract and more from the people I am trained alongside. I am fortunate to work with doctoral candidates and mentors who are acutely aware of the field’s limitations and committed to addressing them. There is growing recognition of the need for more diverse data and perspectives, not only among research participants but also among the researchers asking the questions and interpreting the results.
essgn.org 