‘It makes a more compelling case, because it's biological. I think people, when they think something is purely psychological, or you know, this is a social problem, because of the way that this individual is thinking about their life, or thinking about the world, it's not as real. But, if you say it's epigenetic, then it comes into the same territory as cancer, infectious disease, and so it can create momentum, that I think psychological problems don't seem to be able to generate.’ (Senior epigenetics researcher 1)

‘I think that my feeling of where epigenetic science leads us is toward the fact that intervention could be useful … We’re really not doomed, we just have to do the right interventions. I think this is where epigenetics intersects with politics and with economics and making the argument that economically it's a good business decision to invest in these kids early in life because we have a lot of evidence that that will make a difference, and we have a mechanistic explanation how these differences can work. So it's not just voodoo science, just belief, just kind of left-wing ideology that government intervention would work. Good policies should be able to epigenetically alter how genes work, and therefore override any underlying genetic differences.’ (Senior epigenetics researcher 2)