Zeitgeist: Moving Forward Page #3

to put you on a different developmental track

which may suit the kind of world you've got to deal with.

So for example.

A study done in Montreal with suicide victims

looked at autopsies of the brains of these people

and it turned out that if a suicide victim

(these are usually young adults)

had been abused as a child, the abuse actually

caused a genetic change in the brain

that was absent in the brains of people who had not been abused.

That's an epigenetic effect.

"epi" means on top of, so that

the epigenetic influence is what happens

environmentally to either activate or deactivate certain genes.

In New Zealand, there was a study

that was done in a town called Dunedin

in which a few thousand individuals

were studied from birth into their 20s.

What they found was that they could identify

a genetic mutation, an abnormal gene

which did have some relation to

the predisposition to commit violence

but only if the individual had also

been subjected to severe child abuse.

In other words, children with this abnormal gene would

be no more likely to be violent than anybody else

and, in fact, they actually had a lower rate of violence

than people with normal genes

as long as they weren't abused as children.

Great additional example of the ways

in which genes are not "be all - end all"...

A fancy technique where you can

take a specific gene out of a mouse

and that mouse and its descendants will not have that gene.

You have "knocked out" that gene.

So there's this one gene that encodes

for a protein that has something to do

with learning and memory and with this fabulous demonstration -

"knock out" that gene and you

have a mouse that doesn't learn as well.

"Oh! A genetic basis for intelligence!"

What was much less appreciated in that landmark study

that got picked up by the media left and right

is take those genetically impaired mice

and raise them in a much more enriched

stimulating environment than your normal mice in a lab cage

and they completely overcame that deficit.

So, when one says in a contemporary sense that

oh, this behavior is "genetic"

to the extent that that's even a valid sort of phrase to use

what you're saying is: there is a

genetic contribution to how this

organism responds to environment;

genes may influence the

readiness with which an organism will

deal with a certain environmental challenge.

You know, that's not the version most people have in their minds

and not to be too 'soap-boxing'

but run with the old

version of "It's genetic!"

and it's not that far from the history of eugenics

and things of that sort.

It's a widespread misconception

and it's a potentially fairly dangerous one.

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes