The CRISPR babies scientist has been fired. (If not worse.) From the news: “CRISPR-baby scientist fired by university” Investigation by Chinese authorities finds He Jiankui broke national regulations in his controversial work on gene-edited babies.” “He provoked international outcry last November when he revealed that he had used the gene-editing technique CRISPR– Cas9 to modify […]
Tag: genetic determinism
Is the age of the gene finally over?
If so, it’s remarkable outcome for genome mapping: So it has been dawning on us is that there is no prior plan or blueprint for development: Instructions are created on the hoof, far more intelligently than is possible from dumb DNA. That is why today’s molecular biologists are reporting “cognitive resources” in cells; “bio-information intelligence”; “cell […]
Making epigenetics (non-Darwinian evolution) instead of genetics destiny
It had to happen: Someone making epigenetics stand in for the selfish gene, an all-purpose gene-splain: If epigenetic research utilizing these new technologies will successfully shed some light in disease prevention, diagnosis, and therapy, then the research can expand to study epigenetics related to human behavior and moods. Aggression, violence, adultery, sexual preferences, risk-taking, happiness, […]
Researchers claim to have discovered genes re the “meaning of life”
That guy at Nature who rides “Genetic determinism rides again” was right. Now, from ScienceDaily: For the first time, locations on the human genome have been identified that can explain differences in meaning in life between individuals. This is the result of research conducted in over 220,000 individuals by Professor Meike Bartels and PhD student […]
Why genetic determinism can’t simply be disproven
Reviewing behavioral geneticist Robert Plomin’s Blueprint: How DNA Makes Us Who We Are, a history of medicine prof writes, Crude hereditarianism often re-emerges after major advances in biological knowledge: Darwinism begat eugenics; Mendelism begat worse eugenics. The flowering of medical genetics in the 1950s led to the notorious, now-debunked idea that men with an extra […]