Page 682 - Atlas of Creation Volume 3

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, erro-

neously, 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 running the Human
Genome Project and scientists involved in the field have clearly stated, this in no way justifies loading un-
realistic functions onto the genes. Research reveals that human genes play so small a role in character, be-

havior 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 extravagant 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

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 determinism 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
eminently useful) studies of identical and fraternal twins make it perfectly 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 criminal'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 variant strongly correlated with violence could have a profound effect 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 post-
modern-day leper colony) for the rest of his life.

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 survive? What about the idea of merit? Just
think of the frightening "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 intellectual ca-
pacity and professional potential as inscribed in their DNA. 190

In his article, Collins describes the illogicality of claiming 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
behaviors 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 or-
chestras, with each of our approximately thirty thousand genes representing a unique instrument playing in the
wondrous and massive concert that is molecular biology. Each instrument is essential, and each must be in tune

680 Atlas of Creation Vol. 3