Re: "crime gene"-was it founs??

From: Tim Tyler (tim_at_tt1lock.org)
Date: 09/07/04 

Date: Tue, 7 Sep 2004 15:31:50 +0000 (UTC)

Anon. <bob.ohara@sod.off.spammers.helsinki.fi> wrote or quoted:
> Tim Tyler wrote:

> > As he says, his interpretation is an "absurdity".
> > But Gould is attacking a straw man of his own making.
> > Noboby using the "gene for X" terminology was ever
> > asserting that single genes determined behaviour -
> > and Gould should have been aware of that.
>
> But is the general public aware of that? I suspect not - which is why
> things like the "gay gene" get so much prss attention. Given that most
> people will interpret statements about a "gene for X" in a literal way,
> I think Gould was quite right to attack the absurdity - it's a straw man
> for geneticists, but not for the press and public.

I don't see anything wrong with a completely literal interpretation:

A "gene for trait X" doesn't mean that no other factors are involved -
any more than a "vote for candidate X" means tht there are no
other factors influencing the election result.

The word "for" simply doesn't mean the same as "determines". 

-- 
__________
 |im |yler  http://timtyler.org/  tim@tt1lock.org  Remove lock to reply.

Relevant Pages