Why I Keep Harping on the Dynamic Genome

This week one of my readers, Lauren, suggested that epigenetics is a leftist plot:

The entire concept of epigenetics is being highjacked today for the Left’s eternal propaganda of neo-Lysenkoism — that “Nurture over Nature”, environment and not heredity, is what most significantly determines human qualities.It’s essential to understand that the “methylome” is NOT — as the Left would like to give us the impression — an alternate kind of biological code created by the environment. It is not a competing genome that can overrule inherited DNA. It’s only a part of the chemical apparatus produced BY the DNA, to operate the cell.

I wouldn’t bother giving Lauren any attention except that the comment gets under my skin. I never said or implied that environmental influencesdetermine human qualities, for one thing. But worse than that, implicit in her remark is the opposite claim, which is just as insidious and, unfortunately, much more commonly argued: that genes determine our fate, that the genome is fixed, that environments don’t matter.I’ve ranted before about the perils of genetic determinism and how it has contributed to an overblown fear of all things genetic. Where does the idea come from? And why does it have such a stronghold on our culture? Should I blame social Darwinism? Nazis? Gattaca? Or maybe it starts in biology class.Read more at...Only Human, April 2013.