Usually. But what does?
Maybe genes are a bit like politics. That is, pundits claim they know exactly why this person or that was elected, but many of their predictions are wrong. They’re wrong because there were other factors of whose existence they were unaware or whose effects they misread. And maybe so with genes’ role in disease.
The body is as complex as the body politic, arguably more. (Hard to say, really, because the one is concrete and the other is abstract.) So, it is heartening to read about new methodologies:
DNA is the blueprint according to which our body is constructed and functions. Cells “read” this blueprint by transcribing the information into RNA, which is then used as a template to construct proteins — the body’s building blocks. Genes are scanned based on the association of their RNA with ribosomes — particles in which protein synthesis takes place.
It’s not whether it exists, but whether its existence makes any difference in the long run.
“Until now, researchers have been focusing on the effects of disease-associated genomic variants on DNA-to-RNA transcription, instead of the challenging question of effects on RNA-to-protein translation,” says Dr. Polychronakos. “Thanks to this methodology, we can now better understand the effect of genetic variants on translation of RNA to protein — a powerful way of developing biomarkers for personalized medicine and new therapies.”
The chief evil of eugenics and related destructive social trends was the pretense that there were genes-for-this and genes-for-that, which is not really how life works. It will be much different when the doctor can say to a patient: Your personal profile suggests a higher than average risk for early onset arthritis if you do thus-and-such instead of so-and-so. And then leave it with the patient. At that point, it is all personal and voluntary – people taking charge of their own health, not the government saying who has a right to live.
As to the fact that we are not so much the victims of our genes as we were once thought to be, it is interesting to note that, besides environmental factors having epigenetic effects on our genes, even our thoughts and feelings can reach all the way down and ‘epigenetically’ control the gene expression of our bodies:
It is simply completely contrary to the materialistic/Darwinian perspective, since ‘mind’ is held to be merely ’emergent’ from a materialistic basis, that conscious thought and attitude would have the ability to reach all the way down to the genetic level.,, Here are a few more supporting studies:
Whereas conversely, it is found that the positive mental state of happiness, love, caring, and nurturing, have a pronounced positive effect on health,,
Moreover the positive effect of a caring attitude is found to work both ways, in that not only does the person receiving loving care from another person heal more quickly, but it is also found that people of a giving, loving, nature also receive the tangible benefits of a longer and healthier life in return:
Perhaps this tangible effect of love on health goes towards explaining why women, who are generally more loving and caring than men are, live on average five to 10 years longer than men do??? Of course from a Christian perspective this tangible effect of love is to be expected, whereas from a materialistic perspective, well to put it mildly, from a materialistic perspective of survival of the fittest, dog eat dog, it is very counter intuitive:
Of related note, Dr. Jeffery Schwartz has had much success in treating Obsessive Compulsive Disorders (OCDs) through “The Mind” of the patient. This simply should not be possible if the deeply ingrained behavior of a person truly had a material basis for its origination:
Verse and music:
Reviewing the book Genetic Prophecy, Malcolm Browne wrote in the November 1981 issue of Discover magazine: “For the first time it begins to seem possible to look at the chemistry of even an unborn child and make some shrewd guesses about its future—its probable state of health and susceptibility to diseases, its athletic potential, its tastes, interests, and ability to get along with other people, its life expectancy, and, yes, its intelligence.”
From this, some may conclude that a person’s life course is predetermined by his genetic makeup. However, even the writer of the book feels that “the genes propose, the environments dispose.” Heredity may incline a person in a certain direction, but his upbringing and, above all, his exercise of free will and choice ultimately determine the outcome.