"It's in your genes" theory fading in the wake of epigenetics?

In "Getting Over the Code Delusion" (The New Atlantis, Summer 2010), Steve Talbott
muses on the mystique around the genetic code in past decades, especially in the light of modern findings:

Meanwhile, the epigenetic revolution is slowly but surely making its way into the popular media — witness the recent Time magazine cover story, “Why DNA Isn’t Your Destiny.” The shame of it is that most of the significance of the current research is still being missed. Judging from much that is being written, one might think the main thing is simply that we’re gaining new, more complex insights into how to treat the living organism as a manipulable machine.

The one decisive lesson I think we can draw from the work in molecular genetics over the past couple of decades is that life does not progressively contract into a code or any kind of reduced “building block” as we probe its more minute dimensions. Trying to define the chromatin complex, according to geneticists Shiv Grewal and Sarah Elgin, “is like trying to define life itself.” Having plunged headlong toward the micro and molecular in their drive to reduce the living to the inanimate, biologists now find unapologetic life staring back at them from every chromatogram, every electron micrograph, every gene expression profile. Things do not become simpler, less organic, less animate. The explanatory task at the bottom is essentially the same as the one higher up. It’s rather our understanding that all too easily becomes constricted as we move downward, because the contextual scope and qualitative richness of our survey is so extremely narrowed.

The search for precise explanatory mechanisms and codes leads us along a path of least resistance toward the reduction of understanding. A capacity for imagination (not something many scientists are trained for today) is always required for grasping a context in meaningful terms, because at the contextual level the basic data are not things, but rather relations, movement, and transformation.

It could be pared down to a long inscription in marble, and worthy a monument too.

I, for one, believe that the pop gene revolution has been socially harmful. To the extent that people look for the "infidelity gene", the "violence gene", the "religion gene", the "altruism gene", they are refusing to explore the actual ways they made up their minds about things. Like all junk psychology, it's way too easy to be true.

I wonder what nonsense will grow from epigenetics.

Your friends? You pick them by the cut of their genes, not jeans. You didn't know?

In "Friends connect on a genetic level: Social scientists reveal genetic patterns in social networks," Amy Maxmen reports for Nature,

Groups of friends show patterns of genetic similarity, according to a study published today in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The findings are based on patterns of variation in two out of six genes sampled among friends and strangers. But the claim is a hard sell for some geneticists, who say that the researchers have not analysed enough genes to rule out alternative explanations.

[ ... ]


"If this was a study looking for shared genes in patients with diabetes, it would not be up to the standards of the field," says David Altshuler, a geneticist at the Broad Institute in Cambridge. "We set these standards after 10 years of seeing so many irreproducible results in gene-association studies."

Evolutionary psychologists have jumped on this "friends 'r genes" thesis because it shores up their slender database, but if it is true it probably means that humans have "jumping genes" and perhaps that there is a shared gene field, similar to Rupert Sheldrake's proposed morphic fields. But, to the extent that the proponents of evolutionary psychlogy would be strict Darwinian natural selectionists, they can't now break the rules and accept this without courting even greater disrepute.

Nature vs. nurture: Intriguing new research

In "Nature v nurture? Please don't ask", Mark Henderson believes we have an answer to the question of whether you are born bad or grow that way through experiences (The Times March 28, 2009):

Even more striking evidence has come from a recent series of studies led by Avshalom Caspi and Terrie Moffitt. These scientists have been following up a cohort of children born in 1972-73 in Dunedin, New Zealand, recording details of their life experiences and testing their DNA. The results have demolished the nature- nurture dichotomy.

First, Moffitt and Caspi studied a gene called MAOA, which has two variants or alleles. Boys with one allele are more likely to behave antisocially and get into trouble with the law - but only if they were also maltreated as children. When raised in well-adjusted families, those with the “risky” allele are fine. It is not a gene “for” criminality, and no determinism - genetic or environmental - is involved. A genetic variant must be activated by an environmental influence to do any potential harm.

The serotonin transporter gene, 5HTT, also has two alleles, and is known to be involved in mood. Moffitt and Caspi found that people with one allele were 2.5 times more likely to develop clinical depression than those with the other - but, again, only under particular circumstances. The risk applies only to people who also experience stressful life events such as unemployment, divorce or bereavement. When their environments are happy, their genotypes made no difference.

Well, that at least begins to make some sense, whether or not it is correct.

The way a child is raised is critical because it tells the child what he should think is a reasonable way to behave. Children are not a blank slate, but whatever we write on the slate, early on, matters.

Consider the difference between "Most people in this community are decent people who work hard and want the same things we want" vs. "You can't trust anyone who isn't a close blood relative".

Which will produce a more socially useful individual in a technologically advanced democracy?

Heard way, way too often: The soul boils down to a few genes?

Materialism, as I learned while working on The Spiritual Brain, is exceedingly difficult to parody effectively. Materialists put me out of work by parodying themselves.

Take for example, this gem of a puff by reviewer Michael A. Goldman for the latest molecular biologist Lee Silver's latest book, Challenging Nature, in Science (the AAAS's publication). Silver, a molecular biologist, believes that his field is "compared with every other field of scholarship and science the least compatible with spiritual beliefs." GOldman goes on to say,

Many scientists are afraid to ask what differentiates humans from all other animal species. The Christian view is still heavily influenced by the idea that the human spirit remains beyond scientific inquiry. In Silver's view, the major emphasis of human genome analyses in the Western world has been to enhance health, but some investigators (including researchers at the RIKEN Institute in Japan) have been asking how we differ genetically from chimpanzees. Silver thinks that one day the difference will boil down to a few dozen genes, a kind of "soul code." Of his host at RIKEN Silver writes, "Sakai yearns to answer a question possibly as old as humankind itself: What gives a human being a human mind with the ability to ask the question 'What gives a human being a human mind?'" These investigators were "trying to find the DNA code for the human soul." When Silver asked the researchers at RIKEN whether or not they might one day try to transfer those very genes into a nonhuman primate, their answer was affirmative: they would, if they could, try to imbue a chimp with a human soul. The Neandertal genome projects may provide even more exciting information for the next edition of Silver's book.

If Silver really thinks that the difference between humans and chimpanzees will boil down to a few dozen genes or a kind of "soul code", I think that the incompatibility is not between spirituality and molecular biology but between spirituality and Silver.

Interestingly, Goldman admits that he didn't read Silver's earlier Remaking Eden because

I found the author's bravado in interviews as an unabashed salesperson for our biotechnological future distasteful and embarrassing. I almost dropped a popular textbook just for adding him as a co-author. I still cringe a bit after reading Challenging Nature, but now I think it isn't so bad to have an eloquent, well-traveled, and well-read counterbalance for Leon Kass and Jeremy Rifkin. It is refreshing to see Silver's careful, though biased, examination of the issues from a scientific perspective on bioethics. The Princeton professor's new book provides insight into and ammunition against almost any anti-biotechnology argument scientists are likely to encounter.

It sounds suspiciously like Goldman is willing to put up with any nonsense Silver offers as long as he thinks that spirituality boils down to a few dozen genes or a soul code. Or, as the free summary* of Challenging Nature at Science puts it, "Proclaiming an unlimited promise for biotechnology, the author paints its varied critics as uniformly ignorant and blinded by spiritual beliefs" - which means he is on the side of the lumps of flesh, I guess (a good thing, apparently).

There, you see, if I had just said that on my own initiative, you might criticize me for misrepresenting materialism, implying that it is more foolish than it is. But I didn't say it, I only reported it.

The culturally significant fact is that so few in legacy media take issue with or critique any of this stuff. But then, that's why they are legacy media, right?

By the way, have a look at the next post down, Materialist Mythbusting: Genes 'R' Not Us, if you think genes tell us everything. (For one thing - and this is only one thing among many - with genes, as with music, it is the expression that counts, not the notes written down somewhere.)

Here's Silver's book:


*Note: Michael A. Goldman's review of Challenging Nature at Science (Oct. 20, 2006: Vol. 314. no. 5798, p. 423) is hidden behind a subscribewall, and you need to scroll down at the Biotechnology Knowledge Center link provided above.

Materialist Mythbusting: Genes 'R' NOT Us

"Score one for the nurture side of the nature vs. nurture debate, " says the ambitious press release from the North Carolina State University, following some of their researchers' discovery that

By studying gene expression of white blood cells in 46 Moroccan Amazighs, or Berbers – including desert nomads, mountain agrarians and coastal urban dwellers – the NC State researchers and collaborators in Morocco and the United States showed that up to one-third of genes are differentially expressed due to where and how the Moroccan Amazighs live.

The research team, which looked at the 23,000 human coding genes of members of three Amazigh groups, discovered that whether people followed urban, rural, or nomadic lifestyles significantly influenced which genes were expressed, even though members of the group had very few genetic differences. For example,

... they found respiratory genes were upregulated, or turned on, more frequently in the urban population than in the nomadic or agrarian populations. This makes sense, Idaghdour says, as urban dwellers deal with greater amounts of pollution in the city and encounter more difficulties with diseases like asthma and bronchitis. So it stands to reason that certain respiratory genes in city dwellers go into overdrive while staying quiet in rural and nomadic populations, he adds.

Anyone remember the 1997 film GATTACA? Produced in the looming shadow of the mapping of the human genome (2000), it captures the basic idea behind genetic determinism - Genes 'R' Us - and then subverts it.

In the words of David A. Kirby of Science Fiction studies at DePauw University in Indiana,

GATTACA depicts a future world in which parents are encouraged to decide the genetic makeup of their offspring before birth. In this world not everyone has access to the technology, and individuals who have not been genetically enhanced encounter severe discrimination. GATTACA’s narrative focuses on Vincent Freeman, a genetically unenhanced individual, and his interactions with three characters, Eugene, Irene, and Anton, who are genetically enhanced. During the course of the film, Vincent avoids genetic discrimination by passing off Eugene Morrow’s genetic makeup as his own. Because everyone believes that Vincent has Eugene’s genetic profile, he is able to obtain a job at the prestigious Gattaca corporation, which arranges offworld expeditions. ... Early in the film an executive is murdered at Gattaca, and the subsequent investigation is conducted by Vincent’s genetically augmented younger brother, Anton. A stray eyelash provides DNA evidence, making Vincent the prime suspect in the murder.

But GATTACA assumes that determination to succeed is the only thing that eventually enables Freeman to overcome his handicap ("There is no gene for the human spirit"). The handicap itself is viewed as fixed and irrevocable. In a scene near the movie's opening, a health technician informs Freeman's parents that, among other things, he will die in his late twenties, due to a heart defect. There it is, his whole fate, just like a sum drawn correctly on a chalkboard ...

That conventional view of the future of genetics has been widely disseminated in popular media, but recent research, like this North Carolina State study, has dealt some serious blows. As the study illustrates, genes must be expressed in order to be effective, and environment and lifestyle play a role in how they are expressed. Determination to succeed plays a key role in humans, to be sure, but the "Freemen" of the world will doubtless be glad to discover that they have other heavy hitters on their team as well.

Abstract, citation, paper, and other resources

Abstract: The different environments that humans experience are likely to impact physiology and disease susceptibility. In order to estimate the magnitude of the impact of environment on transcript abundance, we examined gene expression in peripheral blood leukocyte samples from 46 desert nomadic, mountain agrarian and coastal urban Moroccan Amazigh individuals. Despite great expression heterogeneity in humans, as much as one third of the leukocyte transcriptome was found to be associated with differences among regions. Genome-wide polymorphism analysis indicates that genetic differentiation in the total sample is limited and is unlikely to explain the expression divergence. Methylation profiling of 1,505 CpG sites suggests limited contribution of methylation to the observed differences in gene expression. Genetic network analysis further implies that specific aspects of immune function are strongly affected by regional factors and may influence susceptibility to respiratory and inflammatory disease. Our results show a strong genome-wide gene expression signature of regional population differences that pesumably include lifestyle, geography, and biotic factors, implying that these can play at least as great a role as genetic divergence in modulating gene expression variation in humans.

Citation: "A Genomewide Gene Expression Signature of Environmental Geography in Leukocytes of Moroccan Amazighs" by Youssef Idaghdour and Greg Gibson, North Carolina State University; John D. Storey, Princeton University; and Sami J. Jadallah, HRH Prince Sultan International Foundation for Conservation and Development of Wildlife, Agadir, Morocco was published April 11, 2008, in PloS Genetics.

The paper is here.

Other resources:

North Carolina State News Release

Note: Materialist myths about human origins and existence - like Genes 'R' Us - are busted weekly at Design of Life blog.