The American experiment
Sir: One can test Nicholas Wade’s hypothesis that social and political life is genetically determined (‘The genome of history’, 17 May) by constituting a nation along European lines, admitting immigrants from all over the world, and measuring the extent to which these immigrants assimilate to the dominant culture. That experiment is called the USA, and the evidence from that country suggests that within a generation or two these immigrants hold social opinions more like those of other Americans than natives of their ancestral countries. Cultural inheritance therefore outweighs genetic inheritance in the political sphere, and historians may rest easy.
Dr James McEvoy
Centre for Biomedical Sciences, Royal Holloway University of London
Mind your language
Sir: I arrived at the Spectator offices on Wednesday as part of the protest against Rod Liddle’s article of October 2013 (‘What do we call the people who abducted Maria?’). Your editor was kind enough to share some of his birthday cake with us — but that was, I’m afraid, no substitute for the apology we are still due.
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