Kaplan - Gene Worship

Angel of History

His face is turned towards the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe, which keeps piling wreckage upon wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such violence that the angel can no longer close them. The storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. The storm is what we call progress.

Walter Benjamin, Illuminations, written in the late 1920s

Contents

Part I:

Part II:

Part III:

Acknowledgments

We wish to express our gratitude to Judith Feher Gurewich for inviting us to write this book and our thanks to the entire team at Other Press for a very enjoyable and constructive collaboration, particularly Bob Hack for working so closely with us on the text. We also wish to thank Prof. Irne Matthis and Prof. Mark Solms for inviting us to deliver talks in Stockholm in an intellectual environment and on topics directly relevant to this book (joint conferences on Sex and Gender, by IPA, Committee on Women and Psychoanalysis, followed by Neuroscientific Perspectives organized by the International Neuro-Psychoanalysis Society). It proved to be a stimulating and important sounding board for our ideas and reconfirmed why it is so important at this time to debate issues discussed in the book. We would also like to acknowledge very valuable feedback that we received on the draft of our manuscript from Prof. Hilary Rose, Susan Fairfield and Michael Moskowitz of Other Press, and Dr. Lynda Birke for commenting on the entire manuscript.

In Theory

Freedom from Genes

Genetic explanations for human behavior are popular and pervasive but not because they have scientific validity. Over the past decade we have heard widely promoted claims about discovery of the gene for language; the gay gene or sequence of genes; a gene that causes schizophrenia, or at least increases our chance of becoming schizophrenic; and another causing depression; together with claims of finding genes that cause Alzheimers disease, dyslexia, alcoholism, and even homelessness. Many more medical and social syndromes have been singled out for such biological scrutiny, as if they were clearly defined units of behavior neatly matched and determined by discrete and direct action of the genes. This groundswell of gene-based explanations, stretching well beyond scientific facts, has refueled much older debates, especially about genes and sex differences in behavior. While claims about finding the existence of genes causing depression, homosexuality and so on have come and gone with the flow of claimed scientific proof and subsequent falsification, genetic explanations of a wide range of culturally fostered sex differences have persisted, often finding new and vocal supporters among the scientific community even in the face of little evidence.

Here we step aside from the gathering tide of genetic claims for causes of human behavior and show that these are simplistic explanations based on social ideas hidden falsely in scientific garb. We deal with the pitfalls and dangers of the relatively new fields of sociobiology and evolutionary psychology, by no means insignificant as they are represented by a rapidly growing number of followers. Gene technology, with its associated genetic explanations that resolve complex human behavior into simple units, has, we believe, moved us dangerously close to a new false religion, that of worshiping the genes as the key to understanding human psychology, society, and existence. At the same time as tracing the origins of these ideas, and seeing some fearsome social changes that might flow from them, we offer an optimistic antidote to their gloomy, deterministic perspective. We do so by proposing a strong case for an alternative interpretation of research on genes, brain, and behavior and we do so primarily in the age-old battleground of the sexes and sexual orientation. What really does cause the differences between men and women? What does the gay gene debate signify? How much outrage should we feel when contemporary scientists either inadvertently or quite openly promote a new form of eugenics?

We tackle these questions and put them in a new perspective, not by denying any role of the genes but by recognizing the complex dynamics between gene expression and environmental influences.

Discussion of sex differences raises undiluted passions and multifarious viewpoints, still as vibrant today as they have always been. But have the arguments changed with time? Have biological explanations always been used to uphold traditional sex roles, providing an apparently scientific underpinning for inequalities between women and men?

Research on differences between the sexes is bedeviled by a long history of prejudiced ideas and assumptions about causation. Old ideas about the claimed naturalness, and therefore inevitability, of sex differences in behavior, as we will show, have swayed research design and interpretation of results in every area of research investigating sex differences. Time and time again, genetic and hormonal explanations are accepted as being the fact of the matter, with only passing consideration of the potential influences of experience and learning. The last three decades have seen critiques of biological determinist theories of sex differences by feminists conversant with biology (see Barr and Birke 1998, Fausto-Sterling 1992, Keller 1985, Rose 1983, 1994). Feminists and others have tackled the mainstay of traditional biological thought by pointing out the flexibility of the biological organism and the complexity of the interaction between genes and experience during development. As Oyama (1985, 1993) has pointed out, development is not merely a process involving a battle between nature (genes) and nurture (experience) but the interweaving of dynamic processes within a system that is inseparably both the organism and its environment. These new conceptualizations, and critiques of biology, have been influential but, we regret, not influential enough to become center stage within the discipline and unable to stem the flow to popularity of genetic determinist explanations for human behavior.

We decided to write this book because we believe that it is now timelier than ever to address the issue of biological explanations of sex/gender differences, when new techniques in molecular genetics have turned the attention of a large group of biological scientists to seek genetic explanations for human behavior. A counterforce to this trend might be found in a branch of neuroscience dealing with the processes of development of organisms (often referred to as neurobiology and developmental neuroscience). Contrary to the emphasis on genetic determinism, it has revealed the plasticity of nerve cells and the brain by demonstrating their ability to change in response to a wide variety of inputs, not only during development but also, far beyond expectations, in adulthood. Although not directly investigating human behavior, this field of research presents a model of continuous change and flexibility that pertains to a very different model for understanding the associations between biology and behavior.