Genetics Best Quotes

Boys always get the best eyelashes; it's like some kind of cosmic law. And half-breed kids get some kind of extra help there from genetics, too.

The brain is heavily influenced by genes. But from birth through young adulthood, the part of the human brain that most defines us (frontal cortex) is less a product of the genes with which you started life than of what life has thrown at you. Because it is the last to mature, by definition the frontal cortex is the brain region least constrained by genes and most sculpted by experience. This must be so, to be the supremely complex social species that we are. Ironically, it seems that the genetic program of human brain development has evolved to, as much as possible, free the frontal cortex from genes.

Never forget that we are more than the genetic code. We can be more than labels applied to us. We can be more than what others whisper behind our backs. Free will exists. We need to choose to be the best we can be and we need to help others do the same. Believe in yourself.

Genetic randomness had already determined how much talent I’d been allotted, and destiny’s randomness would account for my share of luck. The only piece I had any control over was my discipline. Recognizing that, it seemed like the best plan would be to work my ass off. That was the only card I had to play, so I played it hard.

You would think, wouldn’t you, that if you were the child of a happy marriage, then you ought to have a better than average marriage yourself – either through some genetic inheritance or because you’d learnt from example? But it doesn’t seem to work like that. So perhaps you need the opposite example – to see mistakes in order not to make them yourself. Except this would mean that the best way for parents to ensure their children have happy marriages would be to have unhappy ones themselves. So what’s the answer?

When trees grow together, nutrients and water can be optimally divided among them all so that each tree can grow into the best tree it can be. If you "help" individual trees by getting rid of their supposed competition, the remaining trees are bereft. They send messages out to their neighbors in vain, because nothing remains but stumps. Every tree now muddles along on its own, giving rise to great differences in productivity. Some individuals photosynthesize like mad until sugar positively bubbles along their trunk. As a result, they are fit and grow better, but they aren't particularly long-lived. This is because a tree can be only as strong as the forest that surrounds it. And there are now a lot of losers in the forest. Weaker members, who would once have been supported by the stronger ones, suddenly fall behind. Whether the reason for their decline is their location and lack of nutrients, a passing malaise, or genetic makeup, they now fall prey to insects and fungi. But isn't that how evolution works? you ask. The survival of the fittest? Their well-being depends on their community, and when the supposedly feeble trees disappear, the others lose as well. When that happens, the forest is no longer a single closed unit. Hot sun and swirling winds can now penetrate to the forest floor and disrupt the moist, cool climate. Even strong trees get sick a lot over the course of their lives. When this happens, they depend on their weaker neighbors for support. If they are no longer there, then all it takes is what would once have been a harmless insect attack to seal the fate even of giants.

probably the most important fact about genetics and culture is the delayed maturation of the frontal cortex—the genetic programming for the young frontal cortex to be freer from genes than other brain regions, to be sculpted instead by environment, to sop up cultural norms. To hark back to a theme from the first pages of this book, it doesn’t take a particularly fancy brain to learn how to motorically, say, throw a punch. But it takes a fancy, environmentally malleable frontal cortex to learn culture-specific rules about when it’s okay to throw punches.

Truth is in our blood. It is the essennce of our being. It is the best part of us, the core of what makes us human. It is our soul, our fundamental genetic beauty, and our spirit. We were created perfect, and despite the inevitability that we loose some of that perfection when we mature and develop in the midst of others who are wounded, we always retain the capacity to become perfect once again. The soul may be buried deeply, but as long as our hearts beat there remains hope.

How’s this for fascinating: Heritability of various aspects of cognitive development is very high (e.g., around 70 percent for IQ) in kids from high–socioeconomic status (SES) families but is only around 10 percent in low-SES kids. Thus, higher SES allows the full range of genetic influences on cognition to flourish, whereas lower-SES settings restrict them. In other words, genes are nearly irrelevant to cognitive development if you’re growing up in awful poverty—poverty’s adverse effects trump the genetics.fn24 Similarly, heritability of alcohol use is lower among religious than nonreligious subjects—i.e., your genes don’t matter much if you’re in a religious environment that condemns drinking. Domains like these showcase the potential power of classical behavior genetics.

A man cannot un-see the truth. He cannot willingly return to darkness or go blind once he has the gift of sight, anymore than he can be unborn. We are the only species capable of self-reflection. The only species with the toxin of self-doubt written into our genetic code. Unequal to our gifts we build, we buy, we consume. We wrap ourselves in the illusion of material success. We cheat and deceive as we claw our way to the pinnacle of what we define as achievement; superiority to other men. But there is a sickness inside us. Rising like the bile that leaves that bitter taste at the back of our throats. We do our best to deny its existence, dealing in lies and distraction. Until one day the body rebels against the mind and screams out… I am not a well man. Only when we know what ails us can we hope to find the cure.

Male appreciation hardened his features from doubt to certainty. Boobs, the best negotiation strategy of them all. She thanked the Lord and her genetics for her great rack.

Is he a dread genetic determinist, or a dread environmental determinist? He is neither, of course, for both these species of bogeyman are as mythical as werewolves. By increasing the information we have about the various causes of the constraints that limit our current opportunities, he has increased our powers to avoid what we want to avoid, prevent what we want to prevent. Knowledge of the roles of our genes, and the genes of the other species around us, is not the enemy of human freedom, but one of its best friends.

If our best-educated citizens have no idea how to answer these basic questions, we will struggle to build a democracy that can solve the problems we face, whether they are what to do about climate change, the world’s poor, the problems of Australia’s Indigenous people, or the prospect of a future in which we can genetically modify our offspring. An education in the humanities is as valuable today as it was in Plato’s time.

Understanding the often unconscious nature of genetic control is the first step toward understanding that—in many realms, not just sex—we’re all puppets, and our best hope for even partial liberation is to try to decipher the logic of the puppeteer.

A remarkably consistent finding, starting with elementary school students, is that males are better at math than females. While the difference is minor when it comes to considering average scores, there is a huge difference when it comes to math stars at the upper extreme of the distribution. For example, in 1983, for every girl scoring in the highest percentile in the math SAT, there were 11 boys. Why the difference? There have always been suggestions that testosterone is central. During development, testosterone fuels the growth of a brain region involved in mathematical thinking and giving adults testosterone enhances their math skills. Oh, okay, it's biological. But consider a paper published in science in 2008. The authors examined the relationship between math scores and sexual equality in 40 countries based on economic, educational and political indices of gender equality. The worst was Turkey, United States was middling, and naturally, the Scandinavians were tops. Low and behold, the more gender equal the country, the less of a discrepancy in math scores. By the time you get to the Scandinavian countries it's statistically insignificant. And by the time you examine the most gender equal country on earth at the time, Iceland, girls are better at math than boys. Footnote, note that the other reliable sex difference in cognition, namely better reading performance by girls than by boys doesn't disappear in more gender equal societies. It gets bigger. In other words, culture matters. We carry it with us wherever we go.

The only thing you don't have the power to change is your genetics. And someday even that won't be true.

Thus transcription factors regulate genes. What regulates transcription factors? The answer devastates the concept of genetic determinism: the environment.

There is strong evidence that there exists a genetic predisposition for aggression. In all species the best hunter, the best fighter, the most aggressive male, survives to pass his biological predispositions on to his descendants. There are also environmental processes that can fully develop this predisposition toward aggression; when we combine this genetic predisposition with environmental development we get a killer.

if you were to identify a single person who embodies us Indians the best, who do you think it should be? Ideally, it should be a tribal woman because she is most likely to be carrying the deepest-rooted and widest-spread mtDNA lineage in India today, M2. In a genetic sense, she would represent all of our history, with very little left out. She shares the most with the largest number of Indians, no matter where in the social ladder they stand, what language they speak and which region they inhabit because we are all migrants, and we are all mixed.

Because it is the last to mature, by definition the frontal cortex is the brain region least constrained by genes and most sculpted by experience. This must be so, to be the supremely complex social species that we are. Ironically, it seems that the genetic program of human brain development has evolved to, as much as possible, free the frontal cortex from genes.

If you want to know if your kid is going to be fast, the best genetic test right now is a stopwatch. Take him to the playground and have him face the other kids.' Foster's point is that, despite the avant-garde allure of genetic testing, gauging speed indirectly is foolish and inaccurate compared with testing it directly - like measuring a man's height by dropping a ball from a roof and using the time it takes to hit him in the head to determine how tall he is. Why not just use a tape measure?

In particular, while natural selection favors both males and females that leave many offspring, the best strategy for doing so may be different for fathers and mothers. That generates a built-in conflict between the parents, a conclusion that all too many humans don’t need scientists to reveal to them. We make jokes about the battle of the sexes, but the battle is neither a joke nor an aberrant accident of how individual father or mothers behave on particular occasions. It is indeed perfectly true that behavior that is in a male’s genetic interests may not necessarily be in the interests of his female co-parent, and vice versa. That cruel fact is one of the fundamental causes of human misery.

The motto here is that sometimes the apparently inferior choice has a better upgrade path: Evolution can’t know this, and we aren’t particularly good at recognizing it ourselves. On the genetic level, it translates as follows: Natural selection may solve the same problems differently in different populations, and what appears to be the most elegant solution at the time may not in fact turn out to be the one that works best in the long run. The seemingly inferior choice

I placed some of the DNA on the ends of my fingers and rubbed them together. The stuff was sticky. It began to dissolve on my skin. 'It's melting -- like cotton candy.' 'Sure. That's the sugar in the DNA,' Smith said. 'Would it taste sweet?' 'No. DNA is an acid, and it's got salts in it. Actually, I've never tasted it.' Later, I got some dried calf DNA. I placed a bit of the fluff on my tongue. It melted into a gluey ooze that stuck to the roof of my mouth in a blob. The blob felt slippery on my tongue, and the taste of pure DNA appeared. It had a soft taste, unsweet, rather bland, with a touch of acid and a hint of salt. Perhaps like the earth's primordial sea. It faded away. Page 67, in Richard Preston's biographical essay on Craig Venter, "The Genome Warrior" (originally published in The New Yorker in 2000).

The world is full of Guses--good-looking boys and girls who've been dealt the best possible genetic hand by parents and grandparents and great-grandparents who have been doing neither well nor badly for generations; who engender these decent kids and give them just enough to survive in the world but no more--no spectacular beauty, no uncontainable brilliance, no kingly, unstoppable ambition. Isn't it the task of art to acclaim these people, to ennoble them? Consider Olympia. A girl of the streets becomes a deity.

K. Kidd et al., "An Historical Perspective on 'The World-Wide Distribution of Allele Frequencies at the Human Dopamine D4 Receptor Locus,'" Human Genetics, 133 (2014): 431.

Bettinger bought his first genetic test in 2003. A few years later he launched a blog—The Genetic Genealogist—with the aim of explaining the science behind the tests in simple language.

Asilomar’s lack of focus on ethical issues bothered many religious leaders. That prompted a letter to President Jimmy Carter signed by the heads of three major religious organizations: the National Council of Churches, the Synagogue Council of America, and the U.S. Catholic Conference. “We are rapidly moving into a new era of fundamental danger triggered by the rapid growth of genetic engineering,” they wrote. “Who shall determine how human good is best served when new life forms are being engineered?”13 These decisions should not be left to scientists, the trio argued. “There will always be those who believe it appropriate to ‘correct’ our mental and social structures by genetic means. This becomes more dangerous when the basic tools to do so are finally at hand. Those who would play God will be tempted as never before.

A “neurobiological” or “genetic” or “developmental” explanation for a behavior is just shorthand, an expository convenience for temporarily approaching the whole multifactorial arc from a particular perspective.

Years later, I read that someone had found genetic components to good motherhood. The Mest and the Peg3 genes occur on chromosome 19, and, ironically, they only work if they’re inherited from the father. Imprinting like this usually occurs in evolution because of a genetic battle of the sexes; it’s in the best interests of the female to have more litters, but it’s in the best interests of the male to protect the child that’s already been born. The jury is still out on these

People in here, People everywhere, they all want to take their own problems, usually created by themselves, and try to pass them off on someone or something else. I know my Mother and Father did the best they could and gave me the best they could and loved me the best they could and if anything, they are victims of me. I could say I'm flawed in my genetic makeup, that I have this disease and my addictions are caused by the presence of it, but I think that's a load of shit. I'm a victim of nothing but myself, just as I believe that most People with this so-called disease aren't victims of anything other than themselves. If you want to call that philosophy stubbornness, go right ahead. I call it being responsible. I call it the acceptance of my own problems and my own weakness with honor and dignity. I call it getting better.

This has been a book about people trying to solve problems created by people trying to solve problems. In the course of reporting it, I spoke to engineers and genetic engineers, biologists and microbiologists, atmospheric scientists and atmospheric entrepreneurs. Without exception, they were enthusiastic about their work. But, as a rule, this enthusiasm was tempered by doubt. The electric fish barriers, the concrete crevasse, the fake cavern, the synthetic clouds- these were presented to me less in a spirit of techno-optimism than what might be called techno-fatalism. They weren't improvements on the originals; they were the best that anyone could come up with, given the circumstances... It's in this context that interventions like assisted evolution and gene drives and digging millions of trenches to bury billions of trees have to be assessed. Geoengineering may be 'entirely crazy and quite disconcerting', but if it could slow the melting of the Greenland ice sheet, or take some of 'the pain and suffering away', or help prevent no-longer-fully-natural ecosystems from collapsing, doesn't it have to be considered?

As you study the trait in more environments, the heritability score will decrease. This is recognized by Bouchard: “These conclusions [derived from a behavior genetics study] can be generalized, of course only to new populations exposed to a range of environments similar to those studied.”31

We face no such difficulty if we see that what is being transmitted genetically is not ADD or its equally ill-mannered and discombobulating relatives, but sensitivity. The existence of sensitive people is an advantage for humankind because it is this group that best expresses humanity’s creative urges and needs. Through their instinctual responses the world is best interpreted. Under normal circumstances, they are artists or artisans, seekers, inventors, shamans, poets, prophets. There would be valid and powerful evolutionary reasons for the survival of genetic material coding for sensitivity. It is not diseases that are being inherited but a trait of intrinsic survival value to human beings. Sensitivity is transmuted into suffering and disorders only when the world is unable to heed the exquisitely tuned physiological and psychic responses of the sensitive individual.

I explained at the time. “There’s a difference between not expressing things and not feeling them. Remember me, Poker-face Paul? It’s a blessing and a curse. I’m a guy. It’s how we are, genetically. You know, hard on the outside, soft on the inside. The delay, honey, is all in your pretty little head.

You told me that Kafka was not a thinker, and that a "genetic" approach to his work would disclose that much of it was only a kind of very imaginative whining. That was during the period when you were going in for wrecking operations, feeling, I suppose, that the integrity of your own mental processes was best maintained by a series of strong, unforgiving attacks. You made quite an impression on everyone, in those days: you ruffled blouse, you long magenta skirt slit to the knee, the dagger thrust into your boot. "Is that a metaphor?" I asked, pointing to the dagger; you shook your head, smiled, said no.

Women prefer the smell of moderately related over unrelated men. And in a study of 160 years of data concerning every couple in Iceland (which is a mecca for human geneticists, given its genetic and socioeconomic homogeneity), the highest reproductive success arose from third- and fourth-cousin marriages.

Csikszentmihalyi teamed up with two other leading psychologists—Howard Gardner at Harvard, and William Damon at Stanford—to study these changes, and to see why some professions seemed healthy while others were growing sick. Picking the fields of genetics and journalism as case studies, they conducted dozens of interviews with people in each field. Their conclusion32 is as profound as it is simple: It’s a matter of alignment. When doing good (doing high-quality work that produces something of use to others) matches up with doing well (achieving wealth and professional advancement), a field is healthy. Genetics, for example, is a healthy field because all parties involved respect and reward the very best science. Even though pharmaceutical companies and market forces were beginning to inject vast amounts of money into university research labs in the 1990s, the scientists whom Csikszentmihalyi, Gardner, and Damon interviewed did not believe they were being asked to lower their standards, cheat, lie, or sell their souls. Geneticists believed that their field was in a golden age in which excellent work brought great benefits to the general public, the pharmaceutical companies, the universities, and the scientists themselves.

In fact, like other personality traits, personal happiness appears to be strongly influenced by our genes. Studies of identical and fraternal twins show that identical twins are significantly more likely to exhibit the same level of happiness than are fraternal twins or other siblings. Behavior geneticists have used these studies to estimate just how much genes matter, and their best guess is that long-term happiness depends 50 percent on a person’s genetic set point, 10 percent on their circumstances (e.g., where they live, how rich they are, how healthy they are), and 40 percent on what they choose to think and do.31

Other mysteries have been untangled. Redheads are known to feel pain especially acutely. This confused researchers until someone realized that the same genetic mutation that causes red hair also increases sensitivity to pain. One study found that redheaded patients require about 20 percent more general anesthesia than brunettes.

EVOLUTION RESTS ON three steps: (a) certain biological traits are inherited by genetic means; (b) mutations and gene recombination produce variation in those traits; (c) some of those variants confer more “fitness” than others. Given those conditions, over time the frequency of more “fit” gene variants increases in a population.

Of course genes are not directly visible to selection. Obviously they are selected by virtue of their phenotypic effects, and certainly they can only be said to have phenotypic effects in concert with hundreds of other genes. But it is the thesis of this book that we should not be trapped into assuming that those phenotypic effects are best regarded as being neatly wrapped up in discrete bodies (or other discrete vehicles). The doctrine of the extended phenotype is that the phenotypic effect of a gene (genetic replicator) is best seen as an effect upon the world at large, and only incidentally upon the individual organism—or any other vehicle—in which it happens to sit.

In the 1970s Allan Wilson and Mary-Claire King at Berkeley correctly theorized that the evolution of genes is less important than the evolution of regulatory sequences upstream of genes (and thus how the environment regulates genes). Reflecting that, a disproportionate share of genetic differences between chimps and humans are in genes for TFs.

Mother Nature, truly we are grateful for what you have made us. No doubt you did the best you could. However, with all due respect, we must say that you have in many ways done a poor job with the human constitution. You have made us vulnerable to disease and damage. You compel us to age and die – just as we’re beginning to attain wisdom. And, you forgot to give us the operating manual for ourselves! … What you have made is glorious, yet deeply flawed … We have decided that it is time to amend the human constitution … We do not do this lightly, carelessly, or disrespectfully, but cautiously, intelligently, and in pursuit of excellence … Over the coming decades we will pursue a series of changes to our own constitution … We will no longer tolerate the tyranny of aging and death … We will expand our perceptual range … improve on our neural organization and capacity … reshape our motivational patterns and emotional responses … take charge over our genetic programming and achieve mastery over our biological and neurological processes.

This is the thing about my sister and I: we’ve never gotten along, even when we’ve gotten along. This is what happens when you have parents who fetishize family, and the viscosity of blood relative to water: you resent the force with which they push you together with this person who is, genetics aside, a stranger. And that’s what my sister is: a stranger.

Our best minds are not wasting their time trying to give meaning to death. Instead, they are busy investigating the physiological, hormonal and genetic systems responsible for disease and old age. They are developing new medicines, revolutionary treatments and artificial organs that will lengthen our lives and might one day vanquish the Grim Reaper himself.

Other researchers think that evolutionary transformations are best studied by the comparison of embryonic development and its underlying genetic causes. The conceptual justification for that approach is the claim that what is inherited from the parents and ancestors are not adult traits but rather developmental programs that regulate the development of adult traits.

The more I know the human being, the more I cling to animal nature. Mention poem 2013 Since its beginnings, the human being has been a complex and enigmatic being, capable of great achievements and feats, and at the same time, of the most cruel and vile acts. There is no doubt that our species is one of the most evolved and sophisticated of the planet, but at what cost? What is behind our apparent superiority? When we observe human behavior, we can see that it hides a mixture of animal instincts and rational thoughts. Although human beings take pride in our ability for critical thinking and reflection, We are also emotional, impulsive and visceral beings. And it is precisely this duality that makes us so different from animals. that cohabit this planet with us. It is often difficult for us to understand the nature of animals, because we cannot access their internal world. However, what we can say is that animals are transparent beings, His actions are always a consequence of his instincts, not from premeditated thoughts or complex emotions. For animals, living is following their instinct, something that allows them to act quickly and effectively in situations of danger or threat. Animals are beings in balance with their environment, They don't feel the need to constantly change, nor to think beyond the here and now. On the other hand, we have human beings, beings capable of conceiving abstract thoughts, create works of art, invent technologies and, at the same time, of destroying the environment, oppressing other human beings and commit acts of extreme cruelty. The human being is a complex, contradictory being, capable of loving and hating, forgiving and punishing, healing and destroying. We are creatures of light and darkness, in a constant search for balance between both parties. But what is behind our duality as human beings? Why are we capable of the worst acts of destruction and cruelty? If we look back at the history of humanity, we can see that our genetic patterns are impregnated of violence, war and resentment. History has been a constant parade of wars and conflicts, each one more brutal than the last. This being the only way in which many cultures they have found to impose their ideas or consolidate power. It is precisely here that the idea is born that the creators of humanity They have intoxicated us with the yoke of evil. Who are these forgers? They are the same societies, cultures, religions, policies, which have used violence, war and resentment as a tool to impose their desires and ideals on others. This is the curse that we have dragged like chains since long ago, that of a genetic pattern that drags us towards violence and war. It is true that, as human beings, we can choose our own paths, our own decisions, and not fall into the trap of cruelty and evil. However, it is also true that we carry within us an ancestral burden that is difficult to overcome. What will the most advanced civilizations in the universe think of us? Will we be violent and hateful beings for them? Or will we be beings like animals, in balance with our environment? The answer is not easy, since it remains an unknown. if we are able to overcome our animal instincts and embrace only the best of our humanity. The key to this lies in becoming aware of our own duality, to recognize that we carry both light and darkness within us, and make a real effort to choose the best of ourselves, instead of letting ourselves be carried away by our internal evil.

Since it is all based on statistics, the size of the company's database is the key to make accurate predictions. Hence the first company to build a giant genetic database will provide customers with the best predictions, and will potentially corner the market. US biotech companies are increasingly worried that strict privacy laws in the USA combined with Chinese disregard for individual privacy may hand China the genetic market on a plate.

All societies that have tried to keep themselves ‘pure,’ from the Confucian Chinese through to the Castilian Spanish to the post-Wilhelmine Germans, have collapsed into barbarism, insularity and superstition. And swiftly enough for us to be certain that the fall was no more connected to the genes than was the rise. There is no gene for I.Q., and there is no genetic or evolutionary timing that is short enough to explain histories or societies.

My opponents seemed to be fluent in genetics, molecular biology, and PhD-level horticulture. Played against me were words like “amitoses,” “auxins,” and “zoea”. After a quick search online, I found the stink’s source: the game is filled with cheaters. Turns out, there are multiple hacks giving *players,* and I use that term loosely, the best word to play given all options. After uncovering the scheme, I could only shake my head in disgust at my fellow humans.

The world has been changing even faster as people, devices and information are increasingly connected to each other. Computational power is growing and quantum computing is quickly being realised. This will revolutionise artificial intelligence with exponentially faster speeds. It will advance encryption. Quantum computers will change everything, even human biology. There is already one technique to edit DNA precisely, called CRISPR. The basis of this genome-editing technology is a bacterial defence system. It can accurately target and edit stretches of genetic code. The best intention of genetic manipulation is that modifying genes would allow scientists to treat genetic causes of disease by correcting gene mutations. There are, however, less noble possibilities for manipulating DNA. How far we can go with genetic engineering will become an increasingly urgent question. We can’t see the possibilities of curing motor neurone diseases—like my ALS—without also glimpsing its dangers. Intelligence is characterised as the ability to adapt to change. Human intelligence is the result of generations of natural selection of those with the ability to adapt to changed circumstances. We must not fear change. We need to make it work to our advantage. We all have a role to play in making sure that we, and the next generation, have not just the opportunity but the determination to engage fully with the study of science at an early level, so that we can go on to fulfil our potential and create a better world for the whole human race. We need to take learning beyond a theoretical discussion of how AI should be and to make sure we plan for how it can be. We all have the potential to push the boundaries of what is accepted, or expected, and to think big. We stand on the threshold of a brave new world. It is an exciting, if precarious, place to be, and we are the pioneers. When we invented fire, we messed up repeatedly, then invented the fire extinguisher. With more powerful technologies such as nuclear weapons, synthetic biology and strong artificial intelligence, we should instead plan ahead and aim to get things right the first time, because it may be the only chance we will get. Our future is a race between the growing power of our technology and the wisdom with which we use it. Let’s make sure that wisdom wins.

Heritability of various aspects of cognitive development is very high (e.g., around 70 percent for IQ) in kids from high–socioeconomic status (SES) families but is only around 10 percent in low-SES kids. Thus, higher SES allows the full range of genetic influences on cognition to flourish, whereas lower-SES settings restrict them. In other words, genes are nearly irrelevant to cognitive development if you’re growing up in awful poverty—poverty’s adverse effects trump the genetics.

Genes have plenty to do with behavior. Even more appropriately, all behavioral traits are affected to some degree by genetic variability.65 They have to be, given that they specify the structure of all the proteins pertinent to every neurotransmitter, hormone, receptor, etc. that there is. And they have plenty to do with individual differences in behavior, given the large percentage of genes that are polymorphic, coming in different flavors. But their effects are supremely context dependent.

I saw all of you. The best and the worst. I saw what they tried to shape you into, and I know that's part of who you are. I also know they didn't succeed the way they wanted because of your character, because of who you were born to be. Because of your genetics and your parents and your brothers. You might not have been raised with them, but they were there for you. Inside you. Helping you hold out against the monsters. I see you, Casimir, and the man I see, the one you are, that's the man I love. Don't take him away from me.

For it is not cell nuclei, not even individual chromosomes, but certain parts of certain chromosomes from certain cells that must be isolated and collected in enormous quantities for analysis; that would be the precondition for placing the chemist in such a position as would allow him to analyse [the hereditary material] more minutely than [can] the morphologists ... For the morphology of the nucleus has reference at the very least to the gearing of the clock, but at best the chemistry of the nucleus refers only to the metal from which the gears are formed.

The single genetic variant identified that most powerfully predicted height explained all of 0.4 percent—four tenths of one percent—of the variation in height, and all those hundreds of variants put together explained only about 10 percent of the variation. Meanwhile, an equally acclaimed study did a GWAS regarding body mass index (BMI). Similar amazingness—almost a quarter million genomes examined, even more authors than the height study. And in this case the single most explanatory genetic variant identified accounted for only 0.3 percent of the variation in BMI.

In a 2008 retrospective paper on the 1975 Asilomar conference that he co-organized—the conference that led to a moratorium on genetic modification of humans—the biologist Paul Berg wrote,16 There is a lesson in Asilomar for all of science: the best way to respond to concerns created by emerging knowledge or early-stage technologies is for scientists from publicly funded institutions to find common cause with the wider public about the best way to regulate—as early as possible. Once scientists from corporations begin to dominate the research enterprise, it will simply be too late.

In this section I have tried to demonstrate that Darwinian thinking does live up to its billing as universal acid: it turns the whole traditional world upside down, challenging the top-down image of designs flowing from that genius of geniuses, the Intelligent Designer, and replacing it with the bubble-up image of mindless, motiveless cyclical processes churning out ever-more robust combinations until they start replicating on their own, speeding up the design process by reusing all the best bits over and over. Some of these earliest offspring eventually join forces (one major crane, symbiosis), which leads to multicellularity (another major crane), which leads to the more effective exploration vehicles made possible by sexual reproduction (another major crane), which eventually leads in one species to language and cultural evolution (cranes again), which provide the medium for literature and science and engineering, the latest cranes to emerge, which in turn permits us to “go meta” in a way no other life form can do, reflecting in many ways on who and what we are and how we got here, modeling these processes in plays and novels, theories and computer simulations, and ever-more thinking tools to add to our impressive toolbox. This perspective is so widely unifying and at the same time so generous with detailed insights that one might say it’s a power tool, all on its own. Those who are still strangely repelled by Darwinian thinking must consider the likelihood that if they try to go it alone with only the hand tools of tradition, they will find themselves laboring far from the cutting edge of research on important phenomena as diverse as epidemics and epistemology, biofuels and brain architecture, molecular genetics, music, and morality.

When it comes to solving problems, one of the best ways to start is by putting away your moral compass. Why? When you are consumed with the rightness or wrongness of a given issue—whether it’s fracking or gun control or genetically engineered food—it’s easy to lose track of what the issue actually is. A moral compass can convince you that all the answers are obvious (even when they’re not); that there is a bright line between right and wrong (when often there isn’t); and, worst, that you are certain you already know everything you need to know about a subject so you stop trying to learn more.

There are not different disciplinary buckets. Instead, each one is the end product of all the biological influences that came before it and will influence all the factors that follow it. Thus, it is impossible to conclude that a behavior is caused by a gene, a hormone, a childhood trauma, because the second you invoke one type of explanation, you are de facto invoking them all. No buckets. A “neurobiological” or “genetic” or “developmental” explanation for a behavior is just shorthand, an expository convenience for temporarily approaching the whole multifactorial arc from a particular perspective.

The late Jonathan Rowe, one of the visionaries of the new networked Commons, best explained the idea of what a Commons is all about. He wrote: To say “the commons” is to evoke a puzzled pause. . . . Yet the commons is more basic than both government and market. It is the vast realm that is the shared heritage of all of us that we typically use without toll or price. The atmosphere and oceans, languages and cultures, the stores of human knowledge and wisdom, the informal support systems of community, the peace and quiet that we crave, the genetic building blocks of life—these are all aspects of the commons.41

SO MUCH FOR our dispassionate examination of the germ’s interests. Now let’s get back to considering our own selfish interests: to stay alive and healthy, best done by killing the damned germs. One common response of ours to infection is to develop a fever. Again, we’re used to considering fever as a “symptom of disease,” as if it developed inevitably without serving any function. But regulation of body temperature is under our genetic control and doesn’t just happen by accident. A few microbes are more sensitive to heat than our own bodies are. By raising our body temperature, we in effect try to bake the germs to death before we get baked ourselves.

The obvious question is, what are the “conditions to which presumably we are genetically adapted”? As it turns out, what Donaldson assumed in 1919 is still the conventional wisdom today: our genes were effectively shaped by the two and a half million years during which our ancestors lived as hunters and gatherers prior to the introduction of agriculture twelve thousand years ago. This is a period of time known as the Paleolithic era or, less technically, as the Stone Age, because it begins with the development of the first stone tools. It constitutes more than 99.5 percent of human history—more than a hundred thousand generations of humanity living as hunter-gatherers, compared with the six hundred succeeding generations of farmers or the ten generations that have lived in the industrial age. It’s not controversial to say that the agricultural period—the last .5 percent of the history of our species—has had little significant effect on our genetic makeup. What is significant is what we ate during the two and a half million years that preceded agriculture—the Paleolithic era. The question can never be answered definitively, because this era, after all, preceded human record-keeping. The best we can do is what nutritional anthropologists began doing in the mid-1980s—use modern-day hunter-gatherer societies as surrogates for our Stone Age ancestors.

Glaciers used to be fun, even thrilling. It’s hard to believe now, but there was a time when geology was much like genetics today, the cutting-edge inquiry that routinely delivered breathtaking insights that captivated the educated world. Many of those insights, starting in the mid-1700s, had to do with the age of the Earth, as people looking closely at rocks found evidence that our planet was a lot older than the 6,000 years suggested by the Old Testament—​perhaps many millions of years older. For this reason, the nineteenth century is said to have discovered “deep time,” the astronomical and geological time scales that reach into pasts so distant that our minds struggle to imagine them.

The existence of sensitive people is an advantage for humankind because it is this group that best expresses humanity’s creative urges and needs. Through their instinctual responses the world is best interpreted. Under normal circumstances, they are artists or artisans, seekers, inventors, shamans, poets, prophets. There would be valid and powerful evolutionary reasons for the survival of genetic material coding for sensitivity. It is not diseases that are being inherited but a trait of intrinsic survival value to human beings. Sensitivity is transmuted into suffering and disorders only when the world is unable to heed the exquisitely tuned physiological and psychic responses of the sensitive individual.

The American system of jurisprudence recognizes a wide range of factors, predispositions, prejudices, and experiences that might cloud our judgment, or affect our objectivity—sometimes even without our knowing it. It goes to great, perhaps even extravagant, lengths to safeguard the process of judgment in a criminal trial from the human weaknesses of those who must decide on innocence or guilt. Even then, of course, the process sometimes fails. Why would we settle for anything less when interrogating the natural world, or when attempting to decide on vital matters of politics, economics, religion, and ethics? — If it is to be applied consistently, science imposes, in exchange for its manifold gifts, a certain onerous burden: We are enjoined, no matter how uncomfortable it might be, to consider ourselves and our cultural institutions scientifically—not to accept uncritically whatever we’re told; to surmount as best we can our hopes, conceits, and unexamined beliefs; to view ourselves as we really are. Can we conscientiously and courageously follow planetary motion or bacterial genetics wherever the search may lead, but declare the origin of matter or human behavior off-limits? Because its explanatory power is so great, once you get the hang of scientific reasoning you’re eager to apply it everywhere. However, in the course of looking deeply within ourselves, we may challenge notions that give comfort before the terrors of the world.

I was warmly amused at the way each one tried to outdo the others in showing how her ape was the “most human”—trying to win the audience over to favor her animal. Orangutans, Biruté said, seemed the most human because of the whites of their eyes. Dian insisted that her gorillas were most humanlike because of their tight-knit family groupings. And Jane reminded us that chimps are the apes most closely related to man, sharing 99 percent of our genetic material. I was reminded of kids who insist “my dad can beat up your dad,” or of grandmothers comparing their grandchildren. None of the women would ever think of disparaging the others’ work, but each is firmly convinced that the animals she loves are the best. For they do love them.

Right now we’re enjoying first generation GE crops; soon we’ll have versions that can grow in drought conditions, in saline conditions, crops that are nutritionally fortified, that act as medicines, that increase yields and lower the use for pesticides, herbicides, and fossil fuels. The best designs will do many of these things at once. The Gates Foundation–led effort BioCassava Plus aims to take cassava, one of the world’s largest staple crops, fortify it with protein, vitamins A and E, iron, and zinc; lower its natural cyanide content, make it virus resistant, and storable for two weeks (instead of one day). By 2020, this one genetically modified crop could radically improve the health of the 250 million people for whom it is a daily meal.

Despair could never touch a morning like this. The air was cool, and smelled of sage. It had the clarity that comes to Southern California only after a Santa Ana wind has blown all haze and history out to sea — air like telescopic glass, so that the snowcapped San Gabriela seemed near enough to touch, though they were forty miles away. The flanks of the blue foothills revealed the etching of every ravine, and beneath the foothills, stretching to the sea, the broad coastal plain seemed nothing but treetops: groves of orange, avocado, lemon, olive; windbreaks of eucalyptus and palm; ornamentals of a thousand different varieties, both natural and genetically engineered. It was as if the whole plain were a garden run riot, with the dawn sun flushing the landscape every shade of green.

It was taking too long to get Malina to Australia, so I needed to get her more permanent housing in the States. Fortunately, I had fantastic friends at Wildlife Images near Grants Pass, Oregon. This wildlife rehabilitation facility was the best in the country, run by a family totally dedicated to helping wildlife. They agreed to take Malina and house her in a beautiful enclosure, complete with shady trees and grass under her feet. Steve came with me to Oregon, and we filmed her move to the new luxury accommodations. Sadly, Malina never made it to Australia. About a year after her move to Wildlife Images, she got sick. She was taken to a vet and sedated for a complete examination. It turned out her kidneys were shutting down. It could have been a genetic problem, or just old age. Either way, she never woke up.

It is important none the less that our remotest identifiable ancestors lived in trees because what survived in the next phase of evolution were genetic strains best suited to the special uncertainties and accidental challenges of the forest. That environment put a premium on the capacity to learn. Those survived whose genetic inheritance could respond and adapt to the surprising, sudden danger of deep shade, confused visual patterns and treacherous handholds. Strains prone to accident in such conditions were wiped out. Among those that prospered (genetically speaking) were some species with long digits which were to develop into fingers and, eventually, the oppositional thumb, and other forerunners of the apes already embarked upon an evolution towards three-dimensional vision and the diminution of the importance of the sense of smell.

Jack coughed slightly and offered his hand. “Hi, uh. I’m Jack.” Kim took it. “Jack what?” “Huh?” “Your last name, silly.” “Jackson.” She blinked at him. “Your name is Jack Jackson?” He blushed. “No, uh, my first name’s Rhett, but I hate it, so…” He gestured to the chair and she sat. Her dress rode up several inches, exposing pleasing long lines of creamy skin. “Well, Jack, what’s your field of study?” “Biological Engineering, Genetics, and Microbiology. Post-doc. I’m working on a research project at the institute.” “Really? Oh, uh, my apple martini’s getting a little low.” “I’ve got that, one second.” He scurried to the bar and bought her a fresh one. She sipped and managed to make it look not only seductive but graceful as well. “What do you want to do after you’re done with the project?” Kim continued. “Depends on what I find.” She sent him a simmering smile. “What are you looking for?” Immediately, Jack’s eyes lit up and his posture straightened. “I started the project with the intention of learning how to increase the reproduction of certain endangered species. I had interest in the idea of cloning, but it proved too difficult based on the research I compiled, so I went into animal genetics and cellular biology. It turns out the animals with the best potential to combine genes were reptiles because their ability to lay eggs was a smoother transition into combining the cells to create a new species, or one with a similar ancestry that could hopefully lead to rebuilding extinct animals via surrogate birth or in-vitro fertilization. We’re on the edge of breaking that code, and if we do, it would mean that we could engineer all kinds of life and reverse what damage we’ve done to the planet’s ecosystem.” Kim stared. “Right. Would you excuse me for a second?” She wiggled off back to her pack of friends by the bar. Judging by the sniggering and the disgusted glances he was getting, she wasn’t coming back. Jack sighed and finished off his beer, massaging his forehead. “Yes, brilliant move. You blinded her with science. Genius, Jack.” He ordered a second one and finished it before he felt smallish hands on his shoulders and a pair of soft lips on his cheek. He turned to find Kamala had returned, her smile unnaturally bright in the black lights glowing over the room. “So…how did it go with Kim?” He shot her a flat look. “You notice the chair is empty.” Kamala groaned. “You talked about the research project, didn’t you?” “No!” She glared at him. “…maybe…” “You’re so useless, Jack.” She paused and then tousled his hair a bit. “Cheer up. The night’s still young. I’m not giving up on you.” He smiled in spite of himself. “Yet.” Her brown eyes flashed. “Never.

Since leaving Moscow I have encountered an alarming level of ignorance about biological weapons. Some of the best scientists I've encountered in the West say it isn't possible to alter viruses genetically to make reliable weapons, or to store enough of a give pathogen for strategic purposes, or to deliver it in a way that assures maximum killing power. My knowledge and experience tell me that they are wrong. I have written this book to explain why. There are some who maintain that discussing the subject will cause needless alarm. But existing defenses against these weapons are dangerously inadequate, and when biological terror strikes, as I am convinced it will, public ignorance will only heighten the disaster. The first step we must take to protect ourselves is to understand what biological weapons are and how they work. The alternative is to remain as helpless as the monkeys in the Aral Sea.

With more and more decision making and work done by robots, what will be left for humans to do? Do we really want to compete biologically with robot technology by using brain implants and genetically improved intelligence and social behavior? This choice would mean a sharp departure away from the human nature we have inherited, and a fundamental change in the human condition. Now we are talking about a problem best solved within the humanities, and one more reason the humanities are all-important. While I’m at it, I hereby cast a vote for existential conservatism, the preservation of biological human nature as a sacred trust. We are doing very well in science and technology. Let’s agree to keep it up, and move both along even faster. But let’s also promote the humanities, that which makes us human, and not use science to mess around with the wellspring of this, the absolute and unique potential of the human future.

The genetic economics of sex also predicts that both sexes have a genetic incentive to commit adultery, though for partly different reasons. A philandering man can have additional offspring by impregnating women other than his wife. A philandering woman can have better offspring by conceiving a child by a man with better genes than her husband while having her husband around to help nurture the child. But when a wife gets the best of both worlds from her affair, the husband gets the worst of both worlds, because he is investing in another man’s genes that have usurped the place of his own. We thus get the flip side of the evolution of fatherly feelings: the evolution of male sexual jealousy, designed to prevent his wife from having another man’s child. Women’s jealousy is tilted more toward preventing the alienation of a man’s affections, a sign of his willingness to invest in another woman’s children at the expense of her own.

What motivates Olympic athletes to train for years for one event—in some cases, for just seconds of actual competition? It’s the same thing that kept my friend Pete nosing around old bookstores for years. It’s the same thing that makes a person venture out of a comfortable job to start a new business. We see it in the artist who spends day after day in a studio chipping away at a block of stone. Look closely and you’ll find it in the shopper who passes up the good deal in search of the best deal. It’s one of the things that makes us most human. We consciously pursue what we value. It’s not simply a matter of being driven by biology or genetics or environmental conditioning to satisfy instinctive cravings. Rather, we perceive something, prize it at a certain value, then pursue it according to that assigned value because we were created that way. This ability to perceive, prize, and pursue is part of our essential humanness, and it’s the essence of ambition.

Study a gene in only one environment and, by definition, you’ve eliminated the ability to see if it works differently in other environments (in other words, if other environments regulate the gene differently). And thus you’ve artificially inflated the importance of the genetic contribution. The more environments in which you study a genetic trait, the more novel environmental effects will be revealed, decreasing the heritability score. Scientists study things in controlled settings to minimize variation in extraneous factors and thus get cleaner, more interpretable results—for example, making sure that the plants all have their height measured around the same time of year. This inflates heritability scores, because you’ve prevented yourself from ever discovering that some extraneous environmental factor isn’t actually extraneous.fn22 Thus a heritability score tells how much variation in a trait is explained by genes in the environment(s) in which it’s been studied.

It has always been asked in the spirit of: ‘What are the best sources of our knowledge – the most reliable ones, those which will not lead us into error, and those to which we can and must turn, in case of doubt, as the last court of appeal?’ I propose to assume, instead, that no such ideal sources exist – no more than ideal rulers – and that all ‘sources’ are liable to lead us into errors at times. And I propose to replace, therefore, the question of the sources of our knowledge by the entirely different question: ‘How can we hope to detect and eliminate error?’ The question of the sources of our knowledge, like so many authoritarian questions, is a genetic one. It asks for the origin of our knowledge, in the belief that knowledge may legitimize itself by its pedigree. The nobility of the racially pure knowledge, the untainted knowledge, the knowledge which derives from the highest authority, if possible from God: these are the (often unconscious) metaphysical ideas behind the question. My modified question, ‘How can we hope to detect error?’ may be said to derive from the view that such pure, untainted and certain sources do not exist, and that questions of origin or of purity should not be confounded with questions of validity, or of truth. …. The proper answer to my question ‘How can we hope to detect and eliminate error?’ is I believe, ‘By criticizing the theories or guesses of others and – if we can train ourselves to do so – by criticizing our own theories or guesses.’ …. So my answer to the questions ‘How do you know? What is the source or the basis of your assertion? What observations have led you to it?’ would be: ‘I do not know: my assertion was merely a guess. Never mind the source, or the sources, from which it may spring – there are many possible sources, and I may not be aware of half of them; and origins or pedigrees have in any case little bearing upon truth. But if you are interested in the problem which I tried to solve by my tentative assertion, you may help me by criticizing it as severely as you can; and if you can design some experimental test which you think might refute my assertion, I shall gladly, and to the best of my powers, help you to refute it.

Your arguments were convincing, though I wonder if behind them didn’t lurk a poorly thought out romance with the handicapped child: one of those clumsy but sweet-tempered emissaries of God who teaches his parents that there’s so much more to life than smarts, a guileless soul who is smothered in the same hair-tousling affection lavished on a family pet. Thirsty to quaff whatever funky genetic cocktail our DNA served up, you must have flirted with the prospect of all those bonus points for self-sacrifice: Your patience when it takes our darling dunderhead six months of daily lessons to tie his shoes proves superhuman. Unstinting and fiercely protective, you discover in yourself a seemingly bottomless well of generosity on which your I’m-leaving-for-Guyana-tomorrow wife never draws, and at length you abandon location scouting, the better to devote yourself full-time to our five-foot-something three-year-old. The neighbors all extol your make-the-best-of-it resignation to the hand Life has dealt, the roll-with-the-punches maturity with which you face what others in our race and class would find a crippling body blow.

JULIAN HUXLEY’S “EUGENICS MANIFESTO”: “Eugenics Manifesto” was the name given to an article supporting eugenics. The document, which appeared in Nature, September 16, 1939, was a joint statement issued by America’s and Britain’s most prominent biologists, and was widely referred to as the “Eugenics Manifesto.” The manifesto was a response to a request from Science Service, of Washington, D.C. for a reply to the question “How could the world’s population be improved most effectively genetically?” Two of the main signatories and authors were Hermann J. Muller and Julian Huxley. Julian Huxley, as this book documents, was the founding director of UNESCO from the famous Huxley family. Muller was an American geneticist, educator and Nobel laureate best known for his work on the physiological and genetic effects of radiation. Put into the context of the timeline, this document was published 15 years after “Mein Kampf” and a year after the highly publicized violence of Kristallnacht. In other words, there is no way either Muller or Huxley were unaware at the moment of publication of the historical implications of eugenic agendas.

[L]et us imagine a mirror image of what is happening today. What if millions of white Americans were pouring across the border into Mexico, taking over parts of cities, speaking English rather than Spanish, celebrating the Fourth of July rather than Cinco de Mayo, sleeping 20 to a house, demanding bilingual instruction and welfare for immigrants, opposing border control, and demanding ballots in English? What if, besides this, they had high rates of crime, poverty, and illegitimacy? Can we imagine the Mexicans rejoicing in their newfound diversity? And yet, that is what Americans are asked to do. For whites to celebrate diversity is to celebrate their own declining numbers and influence, and the transformation of their society. For every other group, to celebrate diversity is to celebrate increasing numbers and influence. Which is a real celebration and which is self-deception? Whites—but only whites—must never take pride in their own people. Only whites must pretend they do not prefer to associate with people like themselves. Only whites must pretend to be happy to give up their neighborhoods, their institutions, and their country to people unlike themselves. Only whites must always act as individuals and never as members of a group that promotes shared interests. Racial identity comes naturally to all non-white groups. It comes naturally because it is good, normal, and healthy to feel kinship for people like oneself. Despite the fashionable view that race is a socially created illusion, race is a biological reality. All people of the same race are more closely related genetically than they are to anyone of a different race, and this helps explain racial solidarity. Families are close for the same reason. Parents love their children, not because they are the smartest, best-looking, most talented children on earth. They love them because they are genetically close to them. They love them because they are a family. Most people have similar feelings about race. Their race is the largest extended family to which they feel an instinctive kinship. Like members of a family, members of a race do not need objective reasons to prefer their own group; they prefer it because it is theirs (though they may well imagine themselves as having many fine, partly imaginary qualities). These mystic preferences need not imply hostility towards others. Parents may have great affection for the children of others, but their own children come first. Likewise, affection often crosses racial lines, but the deeper loyalties of most people are to their own group—their extended family.

Many kinds of animal behavior can be explained by genetic similarity theory. Animals have a preference for close kin, and study after study has shown that they have a remarkable ability to tell kin from strangers. Frogs lay eggs in bunches, but they can be separated and left to hatch individually. When tadpoles are then put into a tank, brothers and sisters somehow recognize each other and cluster together rather than mix with tadpoles from different mothers. Female Belding’s ground squirrels may mate with more than one male before they give birth, so a litter can be a mix of full siblings and half siblings. Like tadpoles, they can tell each other apart. Full siblings cooperate more with each other than with half-siblings, fight less, and are less likely to run each other out of the territory when they grow up. Even bees know who their relatives are. In one experiment, bees were bred for 14 different degrees of relatedness—sisters, cousins, second cousins, etc.—to bees in a particular hive. When the bees were then released near the hive, guard bees had to decide which ones to let in. They distinguished between degrees of kinship with almost perfect accuracy, letting in the closest relatives and chasing away more distant kin. The correlation between relatedness and likelihood of being admitted was a remarkable 0.93. Ants are famous for cooperation and willingness to sacrifice for the colony. This is due to a quirk in ant reproduction that means worker ants are 70 percent genetically identical to each other. But even among ants, there can be greater or less genetic diversity, and the most closely related groups of ants appear to cooperate best. Linepithema humile is a tiny ant that originated in Argentina but migrated to the United States. Many ants died during the trip, and the species lost much of its genetic diversity. This made the northern branch of Linepithema humile more cooperative than the one left in Argentina, where different colonies quarrel and compete with each other. This new level of cooperation has helped the invaders link nests into supercolonies and overwhelm local species of ants. American entomologists want to protect American ants by introducing genetic diversity so as to make the newcomers more quarrelsome. Even plants cooperate with close kin and compete with strangers. Normally, when two plants are put in the same pot, they grow bigger root systems, trying to crowd each other out and get the most nutrients. A wild flower called the Sea Rocket, which grows on beaches, does not do that if the two plants come from the same “mother” plant. They recognize each others’ root secretions and avoid wasteful competition.

Dopey, on my right - as usual, I'd ended up sitting on the hump in the middle of the backseat - muttered, "I don't know what you see in that headcase Meducci anyway." Doc said, "Oh, that's easy. Females of any species tend to select the male partner who is best able to provide for her and any offspring which might result from their coupling. Michael Meducci, being a good deal more intelligent than most of his classmates, amply fulfills that role, in addition to which he has what is considered, by Western standards of beauty, an outstanding physique - if what I've overheard Gina and Suze saying counts for anything. Since he is likely to pass on these favorable genetic components to his children, he is irresistible to breeding females everywhere - at least, discerning ones like Suze." There was silence in the car ... the kind of silence that usually followed one of Doc's speeches. Then Gina said reverently, "They really should move you up a grade, David." "Oh, they've offered," Doc replied, cheerfully, "but while my intellect might be evolved for a boy my age, my growth is somewhat retarded. I felt it was inadvisable to thrust myself into a population of males much larger than I, who might be threatened by my superior intelligence." "In other words," Sleepy translated for Gina's benefit, "we didn't want him getting his butt kicked by the bigger kids.

The first result of this randomized trial was predictable from prior studies: in the control group, children with the short variant-i.e., the "high risk" form of the gene- were twice as likely to veer toward high-risk behaviors, including binge drinking, drug use, and sexual promiscuity as adolescents, confirming earlier studies that had suggested an increased risk within this genetic subgroup. The second result was more provocative: these very children were also the most likely to respond to the social interventions. In the intervention group, children with the high-risk allele were most strongly and rapidly "normalized"-i.e., the most drastically affected subjects were also the best responders. In a parallel study, orphaned infants with the short variant of 5HTTLRP appeared more impulsive and socially disturbed than their long-variant counterparts as baseline-but were also the most likely to benefit from placement in a more nurturing foster-care environment. In both cases, it seems, the short variant encodes a hyperactive "stress sensor" for psychic susceptibility, but also a sensor most likely to respond to an intervention that targets the susceptibility. The most brittle or fragile forms of psyche are the most likely to be distorted by trauma-inducing environments-but are also the most likely to be restored by targeted interventions. It is as if resilience itself has a genetic core: some humans are born resilient (but are less responsive to interventions), while others are born sensitive (but more likely to respond to changes in their environments.)

Every few months or so at home, Pops had to have Taiwanese ’Mian. Not the Dan-Dan Mian you get at Szechuan restaurants or in Fuchsia Dunlop’s book, but Taiwanese Dan-Dan. The trademark of ours is the use of clear pork bone stock, sesame paste, and crushed peanuts on top. You can add chili oil if you want, but I take it clean because when done right, you taste the essence of pork and the bitterness of sesame paste; the texture is somewhere between soup and ragout. Creamy, smooth, and still soupy. A little za cai (pickled radish) on top, chopped scallions, and you’re done. I realized that day, it’s the simple things in life. It’s not about a twelve-course tasting of unfamiliar ingredients or mass-produced water-added rib-chicken genetically modified monstrosity of meat that makes me feel alive. It’s getting a bowl of food that doesn’t have an agenda. The ingredients are the ingredients because they work and nothing more. These noodles were transcendent not because he used the best produce or protein or because it was locally sourced, but because he worked his dish. You can’t buy a championship. Did this old man invent Dan-Dan Mian? No. But did he perfect it with techniques and standards never before seen? Absolutely. He took a dish people were making in homes, made it better than anyone else, put it on front street, and established a standard. That’s professional cooking. To take something that already speaks to us, do it at the highest level, and force everyone else to step up, too. Food at its best uplifts the whole community, makes everyone rise to its standard. That’s what that Dan-Dan Mian did. If I had the honor of cooking my father’s last meal, I wouldn’t think twice. Dan-Dan Mian with a bullet, no question.

Why are we as helpless, or more so, than our ancestors were in facing the chaos that interferes with happiness? There are at least two good explanations for this failure. In the first place, the kind of knowledge—or wisdom—one needs for emancipating consciousness is not cumulative. It cannot be condensed into a formula; it cannot be memorized and then routinely applied. Like other complex forms of expertise, such as a mature political judgment or a refined aesthetic sense, it must be earned through trial-and-error experience by each individual, generation after generation. Control over consciousness is not simply a cognitive skill. At least as much as intelligence, it requires the commitment of emotions and will. It is not enough to know how to do it; one must do it, consistently, in the same way as athletes or musicians who must keep practicing what they know in theory. And this is never easy. Progress is relatively fast in fields that apply knowledge to the material world, such as physics or genetics. But it is painfully slow when knowledge is to be applied to modify our own habits and desires. Second, the knowledge of how to control consciousness must be reformulated every time the cultural context changes. The wisdom of the mystics, of the Sufi, of the great yogis, or of the Zen masters might have been excellent in their own time—and might still be the best, if we lived in those times and in those cultures. But when transplanted to contemporary California those systems lose quite a bit of their original power. They contain elements that are specific to their original contexts, and when these accidental components are not distinguished from what is essential, the path to freedom gets overgrown by brambles of meaningless mumbo jumbo. Ritual form wins over substance, and

She's my mother. How do you say no to family?" Marie gets a dark look on her face. "There's a difference between relatives and family. You can be related to someone; that is an accident of genetics. Relatives are pure biology. But family is action. Family is attitude. That woman..." Marie's voice drips with venom. "Is NOT your family. WE are your family. That woman is just your relative." Hedy's mouth drops, and Caroline's eyes fly open so wide I think they might get stuck. "Don't hold back there, Marie," Hedy says, finding her voice. "I'm sorry, but..." Marie's eyes fill with tears. "Oh no!" Caroline leans over and takes Marie's hand. Marie shakes it off. "I hate her. I hate that she had the best daughter on the planet and never appreciated her and wasn't ever there for her and never once did anything for her. You guys don't know. She was the most self-absorbed narcissistic cold person..." "She gave me Joe." "But..." she says. I raise my hand. "She. Gave. Me. JOE. Whatever other bullshit happened, the most important thing in my life growing up was Joe. He made me who I am, he helped me find my calling, he was a gift, and everything else is just beyond my ability to get upset about." "You could get a little upset," Caroline says. "It takes nothing away from Joe, and how important he was to you, to acknowledge that your mother failed you in almost every way," Hedy says. "I think you should tell her to go fuck herself," Marie says, leaning back in her chair and crossing her arms like a petulant child. I don't know that I've ever seen her so furious. "You guys don't get it, I was THERE. I MET HER. Wanna know how she screws in a lightbulb? Holds it up in the air and lets the universe just revolve around her." This makes the three of us bust out laughing. "Oh, Marie, I love you. Thank you for being so on my side." It does mean the world to me that my oldest friend is so protective.

Slavery has a special interaction with the normal structures of being a human being. So a human being is sort of a generalist creature with a capacity to have its software re-worked for different habitats. The reason that human beings are able to exploit every terrestrial habitat where plants grow is that they don't all have the software program that's the same, right? You can have a software program for hunting in the Calihari, you can have one for terracing the Andes to grow potatoes, you can have any one of a number of software programs. Well, slavery took the software program that Africans who were brought into the slave trade had, and it did its best to erase that program – and to render that program non-functional. It rendered it non-functional by combining people from different places who didn't even necessarily speak a language so there was not one culture available. And it sort of forces the bootstrapping of a new culture, which was composed of various things but of course it was, you know, prohibition against teaching slaves to read and things like that, and so there was a systematic breaking of the original culture that Africans had during the New World, and a substituting of a version that was not a much of a threat to the slave-holding population, right? And at the point that slavery comes to an end, it is not as if, frankly, even, you know, we didn't even have the tools to talk about these things in responsible terms. There wasn't enough known about how the mind works and what its relationship is to the body and all...so, the thing that makes the black population and the Indian population different, I would argue, is the systematic hobbling of the on-board, the inherited, evolved culture in the case of Indians by transporting them to reservations and by putting them in schools that disrupt the passage of normal culture and in the case of Africans, it was breaking apart of families, keeping people from being in contact with others they had the right language to talk to and all...so in any case, that carries through to the present: it creates a situation where there has not been access to the materials to fully update software.

A man surrounded by genetic damage cannot help but mimic it with his own behavior,” Zoe says. “Matthew, David wants to set up a meeting with your supervisor to discuss one of the serum developments. Last time Alan completely forgot about it, so I was wondering if you could escort him.” “Sure,” Matthew says without looking away from his computer. “I’ll get him to give me a time.” “Lovely. Well, I have to go--I hope that answered your question, Tris.” She smiles at me and slips out the door. I sit hunched, with my elbows on my knees. Marcus was Divergent--genetically pure, just like me. But I don’t accept that he was a bad person because he was surrounded by genetically damaged people. So was I. So was Uriah. So was my mother. But none of us lashed out at our loved ones. “Her argument has a few holes in it, doesn’t it,” says Matthew. He’s watching me from behind his desk, tapping his fingers on the arm of his chair. “Yeah,” I say. “Some of the people here want to blame genetic damage for everything,” he says. “It’s easier for them to accept than the truth, which is that they can’t know everything about people and why they act the way they do.” “Everyone has to blame something for the way the world is,” I say. “For my father it was the Erudite.” “I probably shouldn’t tell you that the Erudite were always my favorite, then,” Matthew says, smiling a little. “Really?” I straighten. “Why?” “I don’t know, I guess I agree with them. That if everyone would just keep learning about the world around them, they would have far fewer problems.” “I’ve been wary of them my whole life,” I say, resting my chin on my hand. “My father hated the Erudite, so I learned to hate them too, and everything they did with their time. Only now I’m thinking he was wrong. Or just…biased.” “About the Erudite or about learning?” I shrug. “Both. So many of the Erudite helped me when I didn’t ask them to.” Will, Fernando, Cara--all Erudite, all some of the best people I’ve known, however briefly. “They were so focused on making the world a better place.” I shake my head. “What Jeanine did has nothing to do with a thirst for knowledge leading to a thirst for power, like my father told me, and everything to do with her being terrified of how big the world is and how powerless that made her. Maybe it was the Dauntless who had it right.” “There’s an old phrase,” Matthew says. “Knowledge is power. Power to do evil, like Jeanine…or power to do good, like what we’re doing. Power itself is not evil. So knowledge itself is not evil.

Unable to understand how or why the person we see behaves as he does, we attribute his behavior to a person we cannot see, whose behavior we cannot explain either but about whom we are not inclined to ask questions. We probably adopt this strategy not so much because of any lack of interest or power but because of a longstanding conviction that for much of human behavior there are no relevant antecedents. The function of the inner man is to provide an explanation which will not be explained in turn. Explanation stops with him. He is not a mediator between past history and current behavior, he is a center from which behavior emanates. He initiates, originates, and creates, and in doing so he remains, as he was for the Greeks, divine. We say that he is autonomous—and, so far as a science of behavior is concerned, that means miraculous. The position is, of course, vulnerable. Autonomous man serves to explain only the things we are not yet able to explain in other ways. His existence depends upon our ignorance, and he naturally loses status as we come to know more about behavior. The task of a scientific analysis is to explain how the behavior of a person as a physical system is related to the conditions under which the human species evolved and the conditions under which the individual lives. Unless there is indeed some capricious or creative intervention, these events must be related, and no intervention is in fact needed. The contingencies of survival responsible for man’s genetic endowment would produce tendencies to act aggressively, not feelings of aggression. The punishment of sexual behavior changes sexual behavior, and any feelings which may arise are at best by-products. Our age is not suffering from anxiety but from the accidents, crimes, wars, and other dangerous and painful things to which people are so often exposed. Young people drop out of school, refuse to get jobs, and associate only with others of their own age not because they feel alienated but because of defective social environments in homes, schools, factories, and elsewhere. We can follow the path taken by physics and biology by turning directly to the relation between behavior and the environment and neglecting supposed mediating states of mind. Physics did not advance by looking more closely at the jubilance of a falling body, or biology by looking at the nature of vital spirits, and we do not need to try to discover what personalities, states of mind, feelings, traits of character, plans, purposes, intentions, or the other perquisites of autonomous man really are in order to get on with a scientific analysis of behavior.

Scientists have found that there are two important genes, the CREB activator (which stimulates the formation of new connections between neurons) and the CREB repressor (which suppresses the formation of new memories). Dr. Jerry Yin and Timothy Tully of Cold Spring Harbor have been doing interesting experiments with fruit flies. Normally it takes ten trials for them to learn a certain task (e.g., detecting an odor, avoiding a shock). Fruit flies with an extra CREB repressor gene could not form lasting memories at all, but the real surprise came when they tested fruit flies with an extra CREB activator gene. They learned the task in just one session. “This implies these flies have a photographic memory,” says Dr. Tully. He said they are just like students “who could read a chapter of a book once, see it in their mind, and tell you that the answer is in paragraph three of page two seventy-four.” This effect is not just restricted to fruit flies. Dr. Alcino Silva, also at Cold Spring Harbor, has been experimenting with mice. He found that mice with a defect in their CREB activator gene were virtually incapable of forming long-term memories. They were amnesiac mice. But even these forgetful mice could learn a bit if they had short lessons with rest in between. Scientists theorize that we have a fixed amount of CREB activator in the brain that can limit the amount we can learn in any specific time. If we try to cram before a test, it means that we quickly exhaust the amount of CREB activators, and hence we cannot learn any more—at least until we take a break to replenish the CREB activators. “We can now give you a biological reason why cramming doesn’t work,” says Dr. Tully. The best way to prepare for a final exam is to mentally review the material periodically during the day, until the material becomes part of your long-term memory. This may also explain why emotionally charged memories are so vivid and can last for decades. The CREB repressor gene is like a filter, cleaning out useless information. But if a memory is associated with a strong emotion, it can either remove the CREB repressor gene or increase levels of the CREB activator gene. In the future, we can expect more breakthroughs in understanding the genetic basis of memory. Not just one but a sophisticated combination of genes is probably required to shape the enormous capabilities of the brain. These genes, in turn, have counterparts in the human genome, so it is a distinct possibility that we can also enhance our memory and mental skills genetically. However, don’t think that you will be able to get a brain boost anytime soon. Many hurdles still remain. First, it is not clear if these results apply to humans.

… The most important contribution you can make now is taking pride in your treasured home state. Because nobody else is. Study and cherish her history, even if you have to do it on your own time. I did. Don’t know what they’re teaching today, but when I was a kid, American history was the exact same every year: Christopher Columbus, Plymouth Rock, Pilgrims, Thomas Paine, John Hancock, Sons of Liberty, tea party. I’m thinking, ‘Okay, we have to start somewhere— we’ll get to Florida soon enough.’…Boston Massacre, Crispus Attucks, Paul Revere, the North Church, ‘Redcoats are coming,’ one if by land, two if by sea, three makes a crowd, and I’m sitting in a tiny desk, rolling my eyes at the ceiling. Hello! Did we order the wrong books? Were these supposed to go to Massachusetts?…Then things showed hope, moving south now: Washington crosses the Delaware, down through original colonies, Carolinas, Georgia. Finally! Here we go! Florida’s next! Wait. What’s this? No more pages in the book. School’s out? Then I had to wait all summer, and the first day back the next grade: Christopher Columbus, Plymouth Rock…Know who the first modern Floridians were? Seminoles! Only unconquered group in the country! These are your peeps, the rugged stock you come from. Not genetically descended, but bound by geographical experience like a subtropical Ellis Island. Because who’s really from Florida? Not the flamingos, or even the Seminoles for that matter. They arrived when the government began rounding up tribes, but the Seminoles said, ‘Naw, we prefer waterfront,’ and the white man chased them but got freaked out in the Everglades and let ’em have slot machines…I see you glancing over at the cupcakes and ice cream, so I’ll limit my remaining remarks to distilled wisdom: “Respect your parents. And respect them even more after you find out they were wrong about a bunch of stuff. Their love and hard work got you to the point where you could realize this. “Don’t make fun of people who are different. Unless they have more money and influence. Then you must. “If someone isn’t kind to animals, ignore anything they have to say. “Your best teachers are sacrificing their comfort to ensure yours; show gratitude. Your worst are jealous of your future; rub it in. “Don’t talk to strangers, don’t play with matches, don’t eat the yellow snow, don’t pull your uncle’s finger. “Skip down the street when you’re happy. It’s one of those carefree little things we lose as we get older. If you skip as an adult, people talk, but I don’t mind. “Don’t follow the leader. “Don’t try to be different—that will make you different. “Don’t try to be popular. If you’re already popular, you’ve peaked too soon. “Always walk away from a fight. Then ambush. “Read everything. Doubt everything. Appreciate everything. “When you’re feeling down, make a silly noise. “Go fly a kite—seriously. “Always say ‘thank you,’ don’t forget to floss, put the lime in the coconut. “Each new year of school, look for the kid nobody’s talking to— and talk to him. “Look forward to the wonderment of growing up, raising a family and driving by the gas station where the popular kids now work. “Cherish freedom of religion: Protect it from religion. “Remember that a smile is your umbrella. It’s also your sixteen-in-one reversible ratchet set. “ ‘I am rubber, you are glue’ carries no weight in a knife fight. “Hang on to your dreams with everything you’ve got. Because the best life is when your dreams come true. The second-best is when they don’t but you never stop chasing them. So never let the authority jade your youthful enthusiasm. Stay excited about dinosaurs, keep looking up at the stars, become an archaeologist, classical pianist, police officer or veterinarian. And, above all else, question everything I’ve just said. Now get out there, class of 2020, and take back our state!

Given that dogs and wolves are virtually indistinguishable genetically, the enormous variation in body size and shape in the dog is truly remarkable.

What we do know from genetic studies so far is that there are genes – the best example, widely discussed in the literature, being FOXP2 – that are important to language. Yet finding a gene that is important to language is not the same as identifying a gene for language.

Though individual genetics play a part in how your muscles look, nobody is genetically incapable of being lean and muscular. I work hard to make the best of what I got. Do likewise and you might just come close to reaching your full potential. It’s actually very simple - but that doesn’t mean it’s easy.

That kind of aura of ambivalence is carried over into Devil May Cry for, after all, Dante in the electronic game is still half-devil, and something brooding and smoldering inside him may yet emerge in future editions of the game. Games technology being what it is, players may in future be able to choose how good or how evil Dante will be. He will never lose his evil side completely. He even has a twin brother who seems destined to convert from evil to good and back again forever. Dante survives in his world of evil because he understands it. He understands it because it is part of him. It is part of his genetic drive. But he makes decisions in his life — rather, the players of the game can decide for him — as to what drives him most, a moral vision or a base, devilish autarky. The way he goes around ruthlessly slaying hordes of his half-cousins, I’d say the equation that makes up Dante is a set of sliding numbers and hypothetical values. For Dante, evil and good are an algebra. They are not absolutes. So it is not as simple as saying ‘there is good in everybody’, but is more to do with complex investigations and calculations as to how best to intersect.

Modern humanism is the faith that through science humankind can know the truth- and to be free. But if Darwin's theory of natural selection is true this is impossible. The human mind serves evolutionary success, not truth. To think otherwise is to resurrect the pre-Darwinian error that humans are different from all other animals. (...) There is no mechanism of selection in the history of ideas akin to that of the natural selection of genetic mutations in evolution.(...) Among humans, the best deceivers are those who deceive themselves: 'we deceive ourselves in order to deceive others better'. A lover who promises eternal fidelity s more likely to be believed if he believes his promise himself; he is no more likely to keep his promise.(...) In a competition for mates, a well-developed capacity for self-deception is an advantage.

All the knowledge serves a purpose, to help you live your life to its fullest potential. When you live your life to its fullest potential, you are making the best use out of your visit here on earth. You are learning as much as you can and receiving the most valuable information.

We believe that the human capacity to live in larger scale forms of tribal social organization evolved through a coevolutionary ratchet generated by the interaction of genes and culture. Rudimentary cooperative institutions favored genotypes that were better able to live in more cooperative groups. Those individuals best able to avoid punishment and acquire the locally-relevant norms were more likely to survive. At first, such populations would have been only slightly more cooperative than typical nonhuman primates. However, genetic changes, leading to moral emotions like shame, and a capacity to learn and internalize local practices, would allow the cultural evolution of more sophisticated institutions that in turn enlarged the scale of cooperation. These successive rounds of coevolutionary change continued until eventually people were equipped with capacities for cooperation with distantly related people, emotional attachments to symbolically marked groups, and a willingness to punish others for transgression of group rules.