Page 323 - The Social Weapon: Darwinism

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Francis S. Collins, director of the National Human Genome
Research Institute, makes it clear that genes are not what makes

human beings human. In an article titled "Heredity and
Humanity: Have No Fear. Genes Aren't Everything," Collins says:
Fortunately, ten years of intensive study of the human genome
have provided ample evidence that these fears of genetic deter-
minism are unwarranted. It has shown us definitively that we
human beings are far more than the sum of our genetic parts.
Needless to say, our genes play a major, formative role in human
development—and in many of the processes of human disease;
but high-tech molecular studies as well as low-tech (but still emi-
nently useful) studies of identical and fraternal twins make it per-
fectly evident that our genes are not all-determining factors in the
human experience. 189
In the same article, Collins states that genes have no major
effect on human behavior. He explains how looking at a crimi-
nal's genes to see if this person has a genetic predisposition to
crime and determining a punishment in that light could lead to
unjust outcomes:

But what about non-disease-related traits, such as intelligence
and violent behavior? ... The discovery of a prevalent gene vari-
ant strongly correlated with violence could have a profound ef-
fect upon our millennia-old understanding of free will, and
weigh down the scales of justice in two equally dangerous ways.
If someone who commits a violent crime has the gene variant, his
lawyer could use a DNA defense ("If it's in the gene, the man is
clean!"), and the defendant could well be seen by a judge and jury
as not responsible for his actions. Yet it is also possible to imagine
a scenario in which someone who has never even contemplated a
violent act is found to have the gene variant and then subjected to
the presumption of guilt (or even sent away to a postmodern-day
leper colony) for the rest of his life.

Harun Yahya - Adnan Oktar