Analogies or metaphors are often useful for starting to understand a given topic, but in my view, serious engagement requires that we progress from this to a description of what is really going on operationally. (Technically, at some linguistic level, I’m sure it all remains some kind of metaphor, but at least things get much, much more concrete.)
The blog Gene Expression has a recent post which explains why when we read a headline about a “gene for depression” or whatever, this is usually very misleading. It is a model of science writing. It’s not easy to engage seriously with the science, avoid jargon, and keep your eye on the main issue. I think that a broadly educated person in the 21st century should have the level of understanding on this topic that you will get from the post.
I wrote an article for National Review a couple of years ago in which I argued that the fact of our ignorance in this area — that while intelligence and other mental traits have been understood to be somewhat heritable since at least the time of Homer, we do not have the practical ability to understand why person X has normal psychological make-up Y based on analysis of his or her genome — is likely to be very important to thinking about public policy in the upcoming decades.
... so can we finally discard the lie that gays are "born that way" - which is used to sidestep criticism of their "lifestyle"?
Or are we still beholden to that bit of PC misinformation - even though the human genome was mapped years ago, and no "gay genes" were found?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe fact that it's an incorrect (or sometimes misleading) turn of phrase to say that a gene is "for" something has nothing to do with whether or not homosexuality has a genetic basis. If you have a serious interest in learning about genetics, there are some fine books I can recommend.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThis from the same website: http://www.gnxp.com/wp/2010/06/03/sexual-orientation-–-in-the-genes/
I know how much some people want it to be a choice so to justify their discomfort with gay people. Really it is this crap that is going to be the death of the Republican party.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseOnly God can make a tree.
The same complexities which confound climate science, from 6 billion breathing people to cloud formation, exist in brain science. It is unknowable because there are influences both genetic and environmental which determine the outcome. To tweak a metaphor: the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, unless the tree is on a hill!
To build a model which completely predicts the outcome requires a model so perfect that the construction of the model itself would require perfect knowledge. From a public policy perspective, we should be deeply skeptical of models which purport to predict the outcome of the random interaction of a couple of zygotes. Just as metaphors must give way to data, any claim to public policy grounding in predictive models must give way to falsifiable results. "More intelligent" is not enough. It must prove greater intelligence and predict it to a high degree of accuracy for each offspring. It is not enough to say smart parents = smart children. Smart parents must be specifically and unambiguously defined, and any prediction of smart children must be similarly, reliably, predictive. Since smart parents sometimes produce a dim bulb in the litter, our knowledge of genetics must be nearly perfect. And to go back to my climate science comparison, cosmic rays from the outer reaches of space spawn clouds. Imagine what we might learn about ourselves along the way.
Otherwise "the apple doesn't fall far from the tree" is a far less expensive and sufficient (and arguably more accurate) model.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseOne other thought: definitions. We all remember the white mouse, black mouse, brown mouse, brown mouse genetics matrix from high school. My wife (Vietnamese) and I (Irish as Irish gets), have three "brown mice" so to speak.
It gets a LOT thornier when discussing subjectives like intelligence. Or, to borrow from the brief (and odd) shouting match below...sexual proclivities.
The real risk to public policy is the hubris of mathematicians and engineers selling genome snake oil as a solution to complex public policy issues. We all know from other areas of science how subject to political manipulation the models tend to be.
Once the computer pops out an answer, an answer predetermined often unconsciously by the programmer, people have a tendency to switch off the one computer capable of making sense of the results.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseGenetic causation of homosexuality is pretty well debunked here - among other sites:
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abusewww.mygenes.co.nz