Philosophy of Genetics

Father kills stepdaughter on the Nature Channel

Lions kill their young.  Or, rather, when an arriving male lion wrests control of a pride of lionesses from another male, he often kills the cubs that were fathered by the outsted male.  The new father kills his own stepchildren.

This instinctual behavior in lions could be called evil, since who in their right mind would kill their stepchildren?  But it's also part of the lion's nature, in their DNA.

In human society, we have many instincts as well, retained from our animal ancestors through evolution.  If someone had the instinct to kill his stepchildren (and it seems likely that at least some humans retain these genes, due to genetic diversity), would he be responsible for his actions?

The answer is, of course, yes.  Genes are not something we have, they are something we are.  They define us.  If someone had the genes to motivate him to kill his own stepchildren, it would feel to him that he was expressing his own free will when he carried it out.  It would feel natural, just like a lion, because that's the way his brain would be wired to behave.

But more likely, an instinct to kill would be in conflict with other emotions and feelings he had (like guilt).  Humans have more instincts than animals, not less, and these often conflict with each other.

However, the less conflicted our instincts, the more they feel like free will.

Our moral laws are written in this context of free will.  Everyone is wired to behave differently, with a different set of instincts, numbering in the hundreds.  (What are motivations, if not another type of instinct?)  Our laws were written by people in the context of the free will around them.  Laws label some expression of free will as good, and other free will as bad.  If we kill, we are punished, because this is how one instinctive set of creatures (the law writers) wants to interact with another set of instinctive creatures.

I like to use the example of quantum physics as a metaphor that "you can't step outside the system".  Laws were written by genetic (instinctive) beings, to judge the behavior of other genetic (instinctive) beings.  There is no privileged position outside this system from which to judge, unless, of course, you are God.

Google my genes

The wife of Google founder Sergey Brin recently founded a company called "23andMe" to help usher in the era of personalized medicine.  Someday, you'll be able to log into their website and compare your genome with other people's, and find drugs that work best for you, based on your genes.

It's an exciting development, and like all exciting developments it will lead off in many unexpected and messy directions.  But that's what it will take for society to finally end our denial, and grapple with the implications that not everyone is the same.  Some people have a higher likelihood of getting certain diseases.  Some have a brain that develops differently, making them smarter.  Some genes regulate our social behavior, making us followers instead of leaders.

The era of the Blank Slate, where everyone is considered equal in capacity, will soon be over.  Hopefully, we don't forget that everyone is still morally equal, regardless of the genes we possess.

Everything old is new again

If you held on to that shirt you wore 30 years ago, it may just be back in style now.  You can’t always predict the future, but there’s a good chance that old times will become new again.  Things tend to run in cycles.

In the past, there were Ice Ages and times of Global Warming, and our ancestors evolved to adjust to each of these times.  There were epochs of plenty, and epochs of famine.  For each scenario, our ancestors evolved to fit their new environment, not just with bodily changes, but with instincts to fit the new times as well.  Monkeys evolved traits and body shapes to adapt to life in trees, and at other times, to life on the plains.  Before them, their ancestors evolved instincts for harsh times and flush times; times of war, and times of peace.  (Sorry, Jane Goodall, but even chimpanzees go to war!)

Every instinct is (obviously) an inborn behavior, maintained in our DNA, and expressed in the configuration of our brain.  Each time our ancestors evolved, they kept the DNA for those instincts filed away in our so-called “junk DNA” , the vast library of seemingly unused DNA we all have.  It's an immense burden to pass down this library of genetic knowledge, so it must be of some use for future generations.

And we don’t just get DNA from our ancestors.  Certain retroviruses can transmit DNA from other species to humans.  So we can learn their genetic lessons, even after our family trees split millions of years ago.

Good times and bad times always seem to return, in cycles.  Ten Ice Ages occur every million years or so.  Our DNA takes the long-term view, and retains its knowledge of useful instincts and body types for those previously experienced scenarios.

Over time, for example, there have existed long-necked animals – like giraffes – which evolved when the hunt for food was more competitive.  In other, less competitive times, when there was plenty of low-hanging fruit and leaves, the short-necked animals thrived.  But the evolved characteristic were stored in their collective DNA.  When those characteristics aren't needed, they lay dormant in the genetic code.  When needed again, they can be quickly brought back (or perhaps they were temporarily stored in a virus somewhere for safe-keeping!).

You have to wonder whether our DNA is self-aware enough to actually anticipate the return of bygone eras, since change itself is a constant characteristic of our environment.  And indeed, there is precedent for anticipation in our genes.  Genes also have the ability to modulate themselves, and even switch themselves off between generations.  So Lamarck may have been onto something after all.

Perhaps there are even shorter cycles built-in to our collective genome.  Times of peace and stability may induce children to become more hyperactive.  Who knows?

You can also look at any characteristic that exists today, and imagine it evolved millions of years ago.  For example, humans are intelligent designers, thus perhaps the ability to undergo intelligent design has existed in the DNA code for millions of years.