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Summary Of All In The Genes By Richard Lewontin

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Often people will find that human existence is controlled by DNA. It has a major effect on society because people will not stop believing that the differences between us whether it’s ability, mental or physical health are coded in our genes. Even if humans were completely different from one another, that alone would not prove that society gives power to people who are different. With the goal to make the biology as ideology determinism complete, a theory of unchangeable human nature seems appropriate, coded in our genes we can find human nature. In the book, Richard Lewontin makes it clear that there is a relationship between genes, society and genetics. The book explains how one’s environment effects who you are as a person more than DNA. …show more content…

His objective I believe is to influence us by telling readers that science doesn’t tell us the total truth that most people think it does. Mainly because it’s operated by society which reflects the ideas we see every day. Science has its purposes, some might say the real purpose is to figure out how to handle nature and the explanation behind how nature functions. Though many things have been invented without the help of science, it also has a different impact on society people don’t see. In the chapter titled “All in the genes” he expresses his personal feelings about IQ test which differ from what other people think. In society, people have no interest in defined abilities, instead are more concerned about achieving social tasks that are only relevant to people’s social life. (Lewontin, 1992) He’s trying to prove society should be doing IQ tests to measure the unseen abilities people possess, however someone’s intelligence can’t be measured through a single test. In the book, another point that really stood out, was his explanation on homosexuals. I think his words are interesting as he explains how homosexuals didn’t leave an offspring but instead focused on trying to help brothers and sisters to raise more children by sharing resources, and this in fact helped keep genes for the homosexuality. (Lewontin, 1992) This really stood out, cause even in today’s world there’s controversy over marriage and homosexuality in

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Inheritance by Dr. Sharon Moalem is an exceptional book. Dr. Moalem’s goal for writing this book is to convey a new idea of genetics and inheritance to the reader. In middle school and high school we were taught that our genetics comes from our parents and that they are fixed throughout our lifetime, but Dr. Sharon Moalem brings the idea that the environment may alter them. He states that the food we eat and the trauma we endure during life can imprint onto our genes. Dr. Moalem works with rare genetic disorders where he accumulates his knowledge from research to help treat his patients with changing some environmental factors in their lives.

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The majority of what makes up an organism is its genetic variation, but it is impossible to not suffer from changes due to the environment, some of these changes may be unnoticeable, but some can determine life and death. This is caused by something known as epigenetics, which is the modification of gene expression, rather than the sequence of genes themselves. A few of the disease found in humans that are dependent on the environment of the human are type two diabetes, alcoholism, some forms of cancer, schizophrenia, heart disease, along with many others. A person's personality is also determined by the society around them. It is only natural for the human mind to accept the folkways, mores, and taboos of the people around them and thus strengthen these norms.

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He goes on to explain what people who go into science as a career expect, and how this can be corrupted by government intervention. He effectively makes his argument and supports it with details about the life of a

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Through bio-technology parents choose the genes of their children and attempt to replace the creators design. D’Souza quotes leading techno-utopian Lee Silver who states, “The human mind is much more than the genes that brought it into existence” (D’Souza, 2010, para. 17). In changing the child’s genetics, bio-technology changes the child’s entire future existence. The parents determine the traits the child will exhibit and their capabilities. However, the human mind is vast and expands beyond the limitations of the genes which brought it into being.

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IQ while a good evaluation of a persons ability to solve logic problems is not the epitome of intelligence. If you have IQ with out practical or social intelligence in a significant quantity it wont garner you much success in the world. It needs an addition of that practical or social intelligence in order for you to become exceptionally successful within the world. The examples put forth in the book are of Chris Langan who’s IQ was in the 190 to 200’s range, Terman’s Termites (a group of students with IQ’s of 140+ that Terman followed for his Genetic Studies of Genius.), and Robert Oppenheimer. We also have two differing tests one that touches on just IQ and the other that touches on practical intelligence.

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Additionally, the book modified my judgments of inheritance. Many research topics can stem out of these inherited defects with beneficial advantages for survival such as taking a part of the G6PD- deficiency gene to cure malaria. Furthermore, studying defects like hemochromatosis, diabetes, or favism may be crucial to taking a leap (and hopefully, landing) in the scientific and medical community. And we end on this quote from Dr. Sharon Moalem himself which very accurately sums up my comprehension of evolution from this book, “If you’ve come this far on our journey across the evolutionary landscape, you’ve probably gathered a good sense of the interconnectedness of — well, just about everything. Out genetic makeup has been adapting in response to where we live and what the weather’s like.

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Lastly, passage three contrasts with passage two in that society believes that high IQ, an innate ability that is out of one’s control, is the determinant in how successful people will be. However, innate IQ only matters to a point and beyond that there is no significant difference between high IQ people and average IQ

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Summary: DNA makes us human. We are different in hight, color, shape but and the end we are bonded 99.9 percent. I choose to read “Seeing Beyond Our Differences” by Sherry White because she talks about how DNA make human all equal despite our nature laguage, gender, or sexual orientation. Sherry White,daughter of mix-races, she describes the diferenece of her parents skin color; mother; dark skin originally from india. she came to the United States in 1960 and married her father- a white boy from Indiana whose ancestors came from Germany in the mid-1800s and England in the mid-1600s.

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Dr. Rettew connects to class discussions and readings on shared and unshared environmental influences, evocative gene environment correlation, temperament, and the goodness-of-fit. Twins that with unshared environmental influences, such as different placentas, could adapt different temperaments (Berk, 2009). Also, twins that have been adopted into separate families could have different personality traits because they lived in completely different environments their whole life, even if they shared environmental influences of the same placenta (Berk, 2009). With an evocative gene environment correlation, a child’s genotype could draw in a certain type of environment, such as babies who appear more attractive will receive more attention (Berk, 2009). The type of attention a child gets could affect its temperament.

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Another factor that is affected by genes is one's’ personality. Scientists have studied many sets of twins and came to the conclusion that personality is based on five traits: agreeableness, openness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and how extraverted a person is (Bouchard). Recently in my psychology class, my professor mentioned a story that I found very interesting. She told us that researchers found that identical twins who were separated at birth, still developed the same likes and dislikes, dressed the same, and were interested in the same career paths. This suggests that a large part of a person’s personality is genetic.

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He aimed to disclose the drawbacks of following the experts blindly and to encourage people to pay attention to their own thoughts. Last but not least, based on my

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The idea of whether the genetic makeup of a human or the circumstance in which they were brought into affects how they are has been a topic of discussion for as long as psychologists can remember. One may research for days, months, even years, and never truly find the real answer to the age old question. There is an abundance of evidence that supports both sides, only making it harder for experts to understand or even begin to form an answer. What we do know is that it may vary from person to person. In no way are we able to, at least not now, generalize the origin of the behavior of our society.

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Based on the unit’s readings, the post will explain how genetics and epigenetics affect people, their interactions, understanding the kinds of perceptions and judgments people have about others, cultures, and populations; additionally, how public policy, government benefits, corporate structure, and other systemic structures can be changed (if needed), and explain how people values can change or be modified to make room for a new understanding of epigenetics. Finally, it will describe how the Haitian culture explains heritability (genetics and epigenetics). According to Spielman (2017), “Psychological researchers study genetics to better understand the biological factors that contribute to certain behaviors. While all humans share certain

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A person’s biological and psychological traits interact with each other and the environment to form an individual’s experience of existence, influencing self-identity, social interaction, and perception of self/others. Biological traits include ethnicity, gender, physical abilities and/or limitations, such as height, weight, stature, strength, are a result of inherited traits can impact self-perception, educational/recreational pursuits, social status and subsequent life goals, and career options within a given society (Krumboltz,

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Genes act at a cellular level in the development and maintenance of the structure that do have positive or negative effect for behaviour. Psychological Geneticists have stated that interaction between nature and nurture is of a complex category. Human development cannot be fully understood without proper knowledge and understanding of the interaction between internal and external variables on personality, it is obvious that human behavior is an experience of a life span. Thus, our ideas about life and the way we react to the situation around us is as a results of interaction between different biological and environmental factors such as genetics, social norms, core faith, and attitude. In addition, Bronfenbrenner, 1979 and Lerner, 2002 “expressed a similar position that human behavior cannot be fully understood without mentioning the changing relationship between human and the contextual environment”.

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