Wishful Science and Problems of Perception: Genetics in the Service of Entrenched Privilege

In this chapter I respond to Helen Gunter's 2018 book, The Politics of Public Education: Reform Ideas and Issues. With Gunter as my 'discussion partner', I think out loud about the uses of science to entrench eugenics in education policy. Specifically, I argue that environmental epigenetics is a contemporary form of wishful science. Wishful science is science that is vulnerable to wishful thinking. The normal processes of science should eventually identify and correct the consequences of wishful thinking within science" however, the process is slow and politically fraught. In the meantime, the realist ontology that underpins science is co-opted to create the illusion that humans should be categorised and ranked, with some deemed more worthy than others. I suggest a series of questions intended to clarify the limits of the application of science to education policy and practice and to make more apparent the moments at which science responds to human wishful thinking. My hope is that this chapter will provide a perspective complementary to Gunter's, from which we can continue to think about what we are doing.