“Both”
June 14th, 2010 by Mac
Scientists had until very recently believed that there were around 100 000 human genes, available to make each and every one of us in our splendid diversity. Now, the two rival teams decoding the book of life, have each found that instead there are only some-where between 30 000 and 40 000 genes. So that grand panjandrum, the human, may not manage to boast twice as many genes as that microscopic worm, with its 18 000 genes, the nematode. Even the fruit fly, considered so negligible that even the most extreme of animal rights activists don't kick up a fuss about its extensive use in genetic experimentation, has 16 000 genes. Not for the first time it has to be admitted that it's a funny old world, and that we humans are the beings who make it such.
Without understanding in the least what the scientific implications of this discovery might be, anybody with the smallest curiosity about people—and that's pretty much all of us—can see that it is pretty significant. The most obvious conclusion to be drawn from the limited number of genes available to programme a human is that biological determination goes so far and no further. Human complexity, on this information, can be best explained in the manner it looks to be best explained before scientific evidence becomes involved at all. In other words, in the nature versus nurture debate, the answer, thankfully, is "both".
Why is this so important? Because it should mean that we can accept one another's differences more easily, and help each other when appropriate. Nurture does have a huge part to play in human destiny. Love can transform humans. Trust can make a difference. Second chances are worth trying. Life, to a far greater extent than science thought up until now, is what we make it. One day we may know exactly what we can alter and what we cannot. Knowing that there is a great deal that we can alter or improve, as well as a great deal that we must accept and value for its own sake, makes the human journey progressive rather than deterministic, complex and open, rather than simple and unchangeable.
For no one can suggest that 30 000 genes doesn't give the human race much room for ma-noeuvre. Look how many tunes, after all, we're able to squeeze out of eight notes. But it surely must give the lie to the rather sinister belief that has been gaining credence in the West that there is a hard-wired, no-prisoners-taken, gene for absolutely everything, and that whole sections of the population can be labelled as "stupid" or "lazy" or "criminal" or somehow or other sub-human. Instead, like the eight notes which can only make music (albeit in astounding diversity), the 30 000 genes can only make people. The rest is up to us.
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