
We are not nearly as determined by our genes as once thought - joeyespo
http://nautil.us/issue/68/context/its-the-end-of-the-gene-as-we-know-it
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georgewfraser
The title of this article should be, “We are exactly as determined by our
genes as once thought, but we don’t know precisely how this works”.

We can estimate how genetically determined a trait is by comparing identical
to non-identical twins, or by comparing full siblings to half siblings and
adopted siblings. There is a long history of data in this area which is just
as valid today as ever. This article points out that we know very little about
how specific genes determine specific traits. True. But we can know _that_ a
trait is genetically determined without knowing _how_ a trait is genetically
determined.

~~~
chongli
We don't even have to do that. Just compare humans to mice or fruit flies or
nematodes. Genes make all the difference there. If people can accept that
genetics cause the huge variations between species, why not accept the small
variations between individuals? Why this "100% nurture" fundamentalism?

~~~
opwieurposiu
The left abhors facts of genetics just as the right abhors facts of climate
change. In both cases there is a lot of virtue signaling going on, they know
that the science is not on their side but they can not admit it because to do
so would get them cast out of their in-group.

~~~
tormeh
I dunno. What if the right found out that poor people are poor because of
genetics, luck and environment, i.e. no fault of their own, rather than
laziness? Oh man, that'd be a problem, wouldn't it?

~~~
opwieurposiu
Once you account for "genetics, luck and environment" the only thing left is
free will. I think you are absolutely correct, "Does free will exist?" is a
huge problem for politics, philosophy, sociology etc.

~~~
ahartmetz
My position is that if it doesn't exist, it is a necessary fiction to keep our
laws and social norms working. They are based on what feels just and right,
the rationalization of which requires free will.

I don't see how laws and social norms would work without the assumption of
free will. I'm not saying it would be absolutely impossible.

~~~
ListeningPie
I agree with you. We are determined by factors we do not control (genes,
environment)

The justification of criminal justice is to make an example to society that a
behavior is unacceptable. Thus creating an environment where that behavior is
discouraged.

In my mind the environment is responsible for a criminal. The way we have
chosen to punish their environment is to remove the individual from it. This
brings shame to the family or splitting up a family or loss of income due to
the person being removed. The person with the hardest punishment(in jail) is
least responsible.

In dictatorships they actually punish the family of the criminal, which is a
contributing factor to how they can hold power. Everyone is more invested in
everyone conforming.

On the positive side, is parents feeling pride if their children succeed. We
cannot give the success directly to the parents for raising their child,
therefore they enjoy the success of their children by proxy, pride.

This of course extends to every link being a product of their environment and
thus, for now, we need the fiction of free will. How would a society that
accepts there is no free will function? That would make a mind blowing sci-fi
film or novel.

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biomcgary
The author's fear is that current views of genetics will lead to horrible
policy decisions; thus, genetic determinism should be undermined. Evidence
against simple, linearly addititive genetic determinism is used to argue
against genetic determinism more broadly.

I am very much in favor of genetic agnosticism, the position that we are
currently very poor at predicting complex traits from genetic data (and may
always be). Failure to predict does not negate genetic determinism per se.
However, clonal animals and human twins provide fairly strong evidence of the
limits of genetic determinism.

~~~
ummonk
Identical twins raised separately end up rather similar in adulthood. So human
twins actually provides fairly strong evidence that genes substantially
(though not exclusively) determine how we end up.

~~~
solveit
They end up remarkably similar, but it turns that remarkably similar isn't
nearly similar enough to be useful in most contexts. In fact, I think the
biggest lesson of the social sciences is a deeper intuitive understanding of
how individual variation will completely dominate any other statistical factor
in anything made of people, and how fortunate we were that the physical
sciences were much simpler.

~~~
philipov
Stanford's Youtube channel has a series of lectures for Robert Sapolsky's
class on Human Behavioral Biology, and he spends a good amount of time on
genetics there. The view he presents there is that there is no such thing as a
gene FOR something, because the effect of a gene is a function of the
environment in which it is expressed. For example, it's incorrect to think in
terms of a gene for depression, but it is more reasonable to think of a gene
that will make you vulnerable to depression if you are exposed to strong
stressors during childhood.

I recommend watching the entire playlist, but I've linked to the punchline at
the end of Behavioral Genetics II. I've linked to him discussing the
heritability of plant IQ, followed by the heritability of depression example I
alluded to earlier.

[https://youtu.be/RG5fN6KrDJE?t=3200](https://youtu.be/RG5fN6KrDJE?t=3200)

Again, I recommend watching the entire lecture if you have an hour and a half,
both lectures if you have 3 hours, or all the lectures if you have, like, 40
hours.

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falcor84
As someone who actually does have a bit of knowledge of genetics and molecular
biology, I couldn't get through all the fluff. What are the actual news
presented here?

~~~
api
TL;DR: we don't understand genetics well enough to make definite statements
about the degree to which genes determine phenotypes, how this happens, how
malleable or environmentally influence-able it is, etc. As a result we should
not dogmatize statistical inferences from genomics and heritability studies,
especially if such dogmas influence policy or prejudice.

I studied genetics quite extensively and none of that is news to me at all.
Dogmatic genetic determinism is Dunning-Krueger effect territory, not because
it's _impossible_ but because we don't know enough to be certain enough about
it to make it useful. Trying to assert otherwise is wishful thinking, usually
by people who really wish there were a way to make scientifically credible
assertions about the value of human beings based on their genetic lineage
(hint hint).

The best way I can describe what _seems_ to be happening with genes and
development is that it's something loosely analogous to procedural world
generation in games. You have this genetically encoded series of very complex
chemical structures that when embodied in a given environment and "executed"
via energetic processes generate a phenotype. The phenotype is the product of
a set of genes _embodied in_ an environment. Beyond protein structure genes do
not contain any kind of "blueprint" for anything any more than e.g. a fractal
equation actually contains its complete output. The blueprint analogy is even
wishy washy in terms of direct protein structures due to things like RNA
transformations, epigenetics, proteins influencing how other proteins form,
etc.

~~~
Kim_Bruning
I really like the idea of comparing procedural generation to genetics! I'll
use that myself next time I need to explain things.

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mattnewport
No mention of twin studies? The article doesn't appear to distinguish between
genes as unit of inheritance and heritability of traits which many studies
seem to indicate is quite significant.

~~~
petermcneeley
I think its common to focus on the similarity of identical twins. But I
actually think the variance in identical twins is far more interesting because
it suggests something very radical about the role of development in the non
biological sphere.

I can give you one example that gave me pause and you should know.

At the EAC cafe there were twin kitchen staff. However one was lean and the
other was more tubby. Unless there was a transcription issue in the gene for
metabolism I think there were identical genes at play. Thus the resulting
variance is non biological developmental.

There are tons of other anecdotal observations I have made in my experience
with identical twins. I think any variance (assuming perfect cloning) suggests
something that is non biologically determined.

~~~
feanaro
> Unless there was a transcription issue in the gene for metabolism I think
> there were identical genes at play. Thus the resulting variance is non
> biological developmental.

This conclusion is incorrect. The variance was perhaps not due to genetics,
but it would be really strange if it wasn't _biological_.

~~~
SamReidHughes
Well obviously it's partly non biological. For example, I weighed 52 pounds
more several years ago compared to Monday morning. The reason for this
disparity is social and psychological.

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Real_S
I agree with most of the comments made so far, that this article is terribly
written and generally uninformative. Nevertheless, I believe that the author
in primarily trying to convey that "genes" themselves are far less important
that science used to think they were. Although this isn't huge news to
geneticists, it may be to some.

However, if this is the intended message of this article, much of his writing
is, at best, slightly off topic. Even though the protein coding regions of the
genome are far less important than we first believed, that does not mean that
genetic heritability is necessarily unimportant. I would have loved to see a
discussion about the heritability caused by non-protein regions of the genome.
Maybe another time...

~~~
feanaro
> Even though the protein coding regions of the genome are far less important
> than we first believed, that does not mean that genetic heritability is
> necessarily unimportant.

In fact, it _cannot_ be unimportant since evidence showing genetic
heritability (in the sense of explaining a part of phenotype variance between
ancestor and descendant) is not invalidated by the fact that it does not
explain the variance completely.

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1_over_n
I did _in vivo_ brain surgery using animal models. The rats were all from
specific strains geared towards being almost genetically identical as
possible. I can say, each one of these rats developed in a completely unique
way from behaviour through to anatomy despite being kept in a highly
controlled environment (same food, light, water, routine, conditions etc).
Even the location of their brain anatomy differed highly. So even in almost
genetically identical models, there is a high degree of individual
variability.

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8bitsrule
"Governments followed a famous 1938 United Kingdom education commission in
decreeing that, “The facts of genetic inequality are something that we cannot
escape,” and that, “different children ... require types of education varying
in certain important respects.”

It's unfortunate that some people will leap into new and unsettled scientific
'discoveries' as if they were gospel. It's as though cultural responses to the
old 'supreme authority' were simply transferred onto a new one.

Sadly, in this case, the historical outcome is a prime example of that danger.
The tentative - and upgradable - nature of science must be communicated in the
teaching of it, including the news and the reference works.

Now and then it's only human to admit 'I don't know'. (As Jacob Bronowski took
pains to demonstrate in 'The Ascent of Man'.)

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ineedasername
I thought this was already a fairly established fact vis a vis epigenetics and
the mechanisms behind which genes actually get expressed.

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buboard
biorxiv is not a journal

~~~
Bartweiss
This is actually a good point. I love arXiv and what it's done for article
access, and I hope biorXiv takes off.

But "in the online journal _Biorxiv_ " is still a sort of ridiculous attempt
to drum up credibility. Heck, I'd be more inclined to overlook it, but the
mis-capitalized title and nonstandard italics both serve to make it look more
like a traditional journal than it really is. (And, of course, it's being
cited to prop up a _really_ sloppy article.)

