Page 325 - The Social Weapon: Darwinism
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If genes truly controlled behavior, our justice system and its
guiding principle of equal protection would not be the only
casualties. How would our concept of equal opportunity sur-
vive? What about the idea of merit? Just think of the frighten-
ing "genetocracy" depicted in the movie Gattaca (and note the
letters that make up its name), a world in which children are
assigned to castes at birth, based on an assessment of their in-
tellectual capacity and professional potential as inscribed in
their DNA. 190
In his article, Collins describes the illogicality of claim-
ing that behavior is encoded in the genes with a quotation
from the biologist Johnjoe McFadden:
To build on a metaphor offered by the biologist Johnjoe
McFadden, looking for genes that encode our unique behav-
iors and the other products of our minds is like analyzing the
strings of a violin or the keys of a piano in the hope of finding
the Emperor Concerto. Indeed, the human genome can be
thought of as the grandest of orchestras, with each of our ap-
proximately thirty thousand genes representing a unique in-
strument playing in the wondrous and massive concert that is
molecular biology. Each instrument is essential, and each
must be in tune to produce the proper (and highly sophisti-
cated) musical sound. Likewise, genes are essential to the de-
velopment of the brain, and must be "in tune" to produce
functioning neurons and neurotransmitters. But this emphati-
cally does not imply that genes make minds any more than a
viola or a piccolo makes a sonata. 191
Collins devotes the end of his article to illuminating an-
other reason why human attributes cannot stem from their
DNA, and draws attention to God's superior creation:
For many of us, there is still another powerful reason, wholly
apart from the mechanics of science, to reject the notion that
Harun Yahya - Adnan Oktar