Page 322 - The Social Weapon: Darwinism

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D
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T The Collapse of Genetic Determinism
h
With the sequencing and analysis of the human genome,
the view became widespread that DNA possessed tremendous
power and that genes played an enormous role in determining
who we really are. Almost every day, newspapers featured arti-
cles suggesting that we are under the control of our own genes:
"Scientists Target Genius Gene," "Kennedy Tragedies Put Down
to Risk Taking Gene," "Scientists Say Research on Male Siblings
Proves the Existence of a 'Homosexual Gene.'" Reports about
genes controlling everything from schizophrenia to jealousy,
from alcoholism to television watching habits, appeared in sci-
entific and non-scientific journals.
People reading all these headlines thought that all kinds of
attributes, from intelligence to character, from success to failure,
were encoded in the human genome; and some people began
believing, erroneously, that our lives could be boiled down to a
formula.
Research into the human genome is exceedingly valuable,
and studies on human genetic structure have yielded important
information about a number of diseases. However, as those run-
ning the Human Genome Project and scientists involved in the
field have clearly stated, this in no way justifies loading unreal-
istic functions onto the genes. Research reveals that human
genes play so small a role in character, behavior and thinking as
to be insignificant. In an article titled, "The Human Genome
Map: The Death of Genetic Determinism and Beyond," Mae-
Wan Ho of the Institute of Science in Society, says the following:
The number of genes is far less than needed to support the ex-
travagant claims throughout the past decade that individual
genes not only determine how our bodies are constructed, what
diseases we suffer from, but also our patterns of behaviour, our
intellectual ability, sexual preference and criminality. 188

The Social Weapon: Darwinism