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-- BOOK REVIEW --
BORN THAT WAY
by William Wright
Routledge, 1999
Paperback, $18.95
An informative and entertaining book, Born That Way offers readers insights into both the strong effects of genes on behavior and the politics of scientific debate.
Wright, a lay writer, outlines the evidence showing how profoundly genes influence a wide range of human behavior ranging from aggression to religious views and food preferences. He also devotes much of the book to describing the controversy generated by research into gene-behavior links, and details the ferocity of attempts to vilify or suppress scientists working in this field. While slightly dated-the original hardback came out in 1998-Born That Way offers a fascinating look at what happens when new scientific ideas collide with long-held views about sensitive issues.
The book has two quirks that some readers may find irritating. One is Wright's sometimes heavy-handed "good guys vs. bad guys" view of genetic and environmental researchers. Another is his tendency to attribute political views with which he disagrees to hard-wired genetic tendencies, while attributing his own views to logic. Overall, however, Born That Way is an engaging book that will bring lay readers up to speed on much of the research showing that our genes powerfully affect who we are and what we do.
(Note: Are We Hardwired? By William R. Clark and Michael Grunstein- see Crime Times, 2001, Vol. 7, No. 4, Page 6 -is another good choice for readers interested in this topic.)
QUOTES FROM BORN THAT WAY
by William Wright:
"The new genetic perception has a potential for dispelling guilt on both the part of those with behavioral problems and the part of parents who, in the environmental paradigm, have been wrongfully accused of causing it. One's heart goes out to the couple who stares at the floor as a therapist explains that their lack of love and support for their son has turned him into the depressed addict they now confront. Often, they are too cowed by the degree-holder before them and too ashamed of their inevitable parental failings to cite less supportive parents whose kids turned out okay."
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"While genes are not all-powerful with behavior, evidence mounts that they are all-pervasive in that they appear to influence, to however small a degree, our every thought and action.... In countless studies aimed at sorting out genetic from environmental effects, not one of the numerous traits examined failed to show at least some degree of genetic influence."
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"Whether we welcome or resist a genes-behavior link and whether or not the link is seen to be compatible with this or that political vision, the evidence is now overwhelming that our nature is as much a product of evolution as our physiques, that each of us is born with an array of behavioral dispositions-some noble, some ruthless, some species-wide, some individual, some general, some of a birth-mark specificity-and that the more we know about these internal givens, the more effective we will be at dealing with ourselves, with others, and with the psychological and societal problems that, till now, have proved intractable."
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