Philosophy of Genetics

Is national character genetic?

Ever so meekly and tentatively, scientists are now exploring genetic differences between world cultures.  Nicholas Wade speculates in the New York Times that "the concept of national character could turn out to be not entirely baseless" due to differences in genetic evolution.  And according to recent article in Science "cultures differ somewhat in aggregate personality levels" due to different distributions of genetic variants across society.

So what could this mean?  Will scientists really be allowed to investigate the answers, or will their research be prematurely shut down due to political concerns?  One can see flashbacks to the time of Galileo and Copernicus, who were threatened with excommunication when they observed the Earth revolves around the Sun.  Sometimes, what you can plainly see will get you into trouble by people who refuse to consider your evidence.

Unfortunately (and this is why scientists are being so timid), humans are hardwired toward prejudice and discrimination, so what people hear and what they believe are two different things.  If scientists can prove that group X is more violent than group Y (on aggregate), many people will naturally jump to the conclusion that all X's are violent.  But the truth is that there's an uneven distribution of (genetic) violent tendencies across group X, with 20% of its members responsible for 80% of the violence.  (A violent tendency is the same thing as having a lowered threshold to respond violently when provoked.) 

Societies and cultures are often (rightly) defined by 20% of their members who are most outspoken. But if one society has 20% of its members with an innately low threshold for violence, and another society has only 10% of its members so pre-disposed, it's easy to see that the former society will be more violent (on average) than the latter.

Since humans are unreliable in explaining why they believe what they do, it's hard to investigate the true causes of national character.  Someone may say "my brother was killed by group X, and therefore it is my duty to avenge him".  But someone else in a similar situation in a more placid culture (think Canada) might say something like "my brother was killed by group X, and therefore we need increased spending on social welfare programs for group X".  Can we really trust the explanation people give, or would it be more accurate to attribute their opinion to their gene variants?

National conversations tend to reach a consensus, of sorts, which define their culture.  If most people in a society tend to have a high threshold before reacting violently, then their opinion will tend to overshadow a small minority of people who promote violence.  On the other hand, in societies where everyone believes they are (or ought to be) the leader, there is a constant blood struggle for supremacy, and their culture also tends to be more violent on aggregate.

Why it's so hard to change yourself

Oprah and Dr. Phil are innately self-confident and charismatic celebrities, who became rich by trafficking their brand of self-help advice to people who (like most of us) are innately insecure.  Their highly addictive product (presented on TV shows, expensive self-help books and magazines) is ingested like a drug by gullible people who desperately want to fix their own personality.

Oprah and Dr. Phil tell their followers that by changing their habits they can change themselves.  Sounds easy.  Of course, the advice has no lasting effect.  People are temporarily happy, of course, to do what their leaders tell them, but are unwilling to change their habits for more than a few days or weeks on their own, without additional moral support from their leaders.  Time to buy a new self-help book, or watch a new commercial-filled episode of Oprah.

Unfortunately, most people are unwilling to believe that their motivations are innate.  They believe that following the right leader will make them change (does anyone see the irony of requiring a leader to tell you how to be more of a leader?), and therefore leaders can endlessly exploit this mistake, and make themselves rich at the folly of others.

What would it take for people to finally understand that motivations and personality are innate?  Paradoxically, it would a charismatic figure, whom people could trust and follow, to preach this new gospel, to make people believe.  But why would a leader do something so self-defeating?  Why would a person with leadership genes want to destroy the myth, and lose their grand position in society?  It's not going to happen.

Get happy, and you'll live longer

It's always safe to tell lies about human nature.  It makes us feel good to hear, for example, that happiness is a learned skill.  Magazines and self-help books constantly repeat this lie, because it's the lie we wish to hear.  What is the alternative?  If happiness were genetic and innate, that would just be too depressing!

A recent article in US News & World Report magazine (among many other sad examples) concludes that:

While some people may be born with sunny dispositions, happiness isn't necessarily based on genes or luck.  Psychologists now believe it's a learned skill, almost like knitting.

Really?  Can we force ourselves to be happy, by willing ourselves (as Martin Seligman suggests) to be absorbed in our work, goals and leisure activities, and by thinking happy thoughts?  Sure, it's true that happier people live longer.  But you can't simply become happy by changing your thoughts and habits.  You can't teach an emotion or motivation.  It has to come from within (read: genetic predisposition) to have any lasting effect.

Self-help books or magazine articles are just trying to separate us from our money, by preying on our fervent desire for happiness and self-fulfillment... but in reality, it's all just a bunch of confabulations by greedy hucksters like Martin Seligman who just want to make a buck.

How memory works

An interesting article describes some of the latest research in how the brain forms memories.  There appears to be a "replay" mechanism, where the higher brain (neocortex) can query the part of the brain responsible for short term memory (hippocampus).

In other words, there is a "dialogue between the hippocampus, where initial memories of the day’s events are formed, and the neocortex, the sheet of neurons on the outer surface of the brain that mediates conscious thought and contains long-term memories."

The repeated cycles of brain activity also happen during sleep, leading researchers to believe that "that part of the function of sleep is to let us process and stabilize the experiences we have during the day".

Also, researchers at the University of Alabama recently found that a previously unknown process of DNA methylation (a genetic change that doesn't alter the underlying DNA sequence itself) can occur in the neurons of adult brains in response to life experiences, allowing for memory formation based on learned behavior.

The nesting instinct

According to PregnancyWeekly, around the fifth month of pregnancy, a woman develops a set of nesting behaviors (cleaning house, etc) that on the surface seem quite rational (preparing for the new baby, etc).

But in reality, the behaviors are a "primal instinct" (like "birds making their nests"), not a rational choice based on a logical deduction (i.e. "I need to clean up to ensure the health and safety of the baby").  We know this, because the woman's behaviors themselves are not rational, and are often counterproductive:

Women have reported throwing away perfectly good sheets and towels because they felt the strong need to have "brand new, clean" sheets and towels in their home. They have also reported doing things like taking apart the knobs on kitchen cupboards, just so they could disinfect the screws attached to the knobs. Women have discussed taking on cleaning their entire house, armed with a toothbrush ... Being preoccupied with ant killing, squishing them one at a time for weeks on end. Packing and unpacking the labor bag 50 times. Cleaning the kitchen cupboards and organizing everything by size to the point that you make sure the silverware patterns match when it's stacked in the cutlery drawer. Sorting the baby's clothes over and over again is a favorite theme. Taking them out of the drawers and re-folding them, putting them away and doing it over and over again.

Clearly, many of these behaviors are obsessive-compulsive, and may actually jeopardize the baby's health by putting stress on the mother.  Because it's not rational, it must be instinctive.  But how do instincts work?  Some of our genes must develop the circuitry in a woman's brain to make the instinct function properly:

1. Genes develop the brain circuitry to motivate women to compusively "clean up" and organize
2. Other genes create an "on switch" that allow simple pregnancy hormones to activate the behavior at the appropriate time

A Nobel prize awaits the scientist who can explain how instincts are manifest in human genes and neurons in the brain.