The Genius in All of Us: New Insights Into Genetics, Talent, and IQ by David Shenk Read Free Book Online Page A

epidemiology,” pp. 164–65. The paper Vineis is referring to is Lewontin, “The analysis of variance and the analysis of causes.”)
         “the way genes and environments interact dialectically to generate an organism’s appearance and behaviour ”: Pigliucci, “Beyond nature and nurture,” pp. 20–22.
         “the individual animal starts its life with the capacity to develop in a number of distinctly different ways ”: Bateson and Martin, Design for a Life , pp. 102–3.
    “Everything we have learned about molecular biology has shown that gene activity is regulated by the intracellular environment,” explains McGill’s Michael Meaney. He continues:
    The intracellular environment is a function of the genetic make-up of the cell and the extracellular environment (e.g. hormones released by endocrine organs, cytokines from the immune system, neurotransmitters from neurons, nutrients derived from food) [which is] also influenced by the environment of the individual. Neurotransmitter and hormonal activity is profoundly influenced, for example, by social interactions, which lead to effects on gene activity. (Meaney, “Nature, nurture, and the disunity of knowledge,” p. 52.)
         Your life is interacting with your genes .
       If genes are merely the bricklayers, where’s the foreman? Where’s the architect?
    Amazingly, there is no architect. Like ant colonies, galaxies, and other complex emergent systems, the human body is a dynamic assembly abiding by certain strict laws of science but not following any master set of instructions. The outcome is a function of the ingredients and the process.
    The University of Virginia’s Eric Turkheimer explains it this way: “Individual genes and their environments interact to initiate a complex developmentalprocess that determines adult personality. Most characteristic of this process is its interactivity. Subsequent environments to which the organism is exposed depend on earlier states, and each new environment changes the developmental trajectory, which affects future expression of genes, and so forth. Everything is interactive, in the sense that no arrows proceed uninterrupted from cause to effect; any individual gene or environmental event produces an effect only by interacting with other genes and environments.”
    The point here is not to suggest that every person has exactly the same biological advantages or limits, or exactly the same potential. We clearly do not. But understanding each person’s true potential is not something we’ll ever be able to do from a genetic snapshot. Too many developmental factors matter too much. When it comes to complex traits like intelligence and talent, we need to drop casual use of the word “innate” and instead strive to understand as much as we can about the gene-influenced, environment-mediated process called human development.
    While the scientific use of the word “innate” is still under intense discussion among biologists, it’s clear enough that its popular use to refer to fixed, built-in, predetermined causes of complex traits is simply no longer supportable. It has become obsolete.
    Like the popular use of the word “genes,” it is a mere stand-in for things we don’t understand about how we become who we are, a shorthand for the rich and enigmatic incubator of temperament, inclinations, and abilities. (Turkheimer, “Three laws of behavior genetics and what they mean,” p. 161. Bateson and Mameli, “The innate and the acquired.”)
         Dynamic development was one of the big ideas of the twentieth century, and remains so .
       Without an infectious symbol like E = mc 2 or a phrase like “nature versus nurture,” this idea has been difficult to introduce to the public; few even bothered to try. Several decades passed while this transformative idea languished in obscurity and was eclipsed by other, more enthralling genetic headlines about Dolly the sheep, the Human Genome Project,