Balancing Weltanschauungen (Ouch!!)

• Human Genome Project: Implications by Brian Robinson, 10/2/98
  • The Other Options by James Brody, 10/2/98
    
    

Jim, you opened new worlds for me and I'm constantly re-reading you. Indeed, my studies in this field take the form of a constant debate between what you send to the PC monitor and words from the bookshelf across the room!

Consider 'Dangerous Ideas', a posting to Paleopsych & Appl Ethology &c of 5th June 98, on the 2nd Law vs Reciprocity. There you state, "I'm a 'genetic determinist', probably always have been. No other point of view makes sense to me" and you go on to draw a comparison with being a 'gravitic determinist'. This IS illuminating and is a great answer to a lot of woolly-minded anti-science folk who would have us believe any child can be Mozart and so on.

I think what Wilkie and, for example, Steve Jones, the likes of Rose, Kamin and Lewontin et al, are cautioning against is the possibility of a new pardigm where the ONLY things that matter are genes, to the consequent diminishment of the humanity of humans - even AS we are wise to recognise the limitations which genes place upon our possibilities.

As far as behaviour goes, children come with genes, interact with mothers and others, learn adaptive & maladaptive personality characteristics from life experiences whose power to influence derives from the emotional impact they carry. Memories of experience, thoughts, feelings can become inaccessible to the individual's central consciousness, &c, &c ...

My worry is that in the hands of journalists and others, phrases such as 'genetic determinism' can be too easily taken out of context and lead to new forms of misunderstanding - as in the past with 'survival of the fittest' just for example.

I'll have to return to this another time because other events are calling me! All best.

• Opportunists and Ideas by James Brody, 10/4/98