‘The Press’ – response to “Urge for Thrills Genetic” article

Published on Wednesday, June 21st, 2006, under Media

The Press, June 21, 2006

I write regarding Eleanor Wilson’s article Urge for Thrills Genetic (June 17).

A persistent problem scientific research faces (especially in an area as theoretically sensitive as behavioural genetics) is the ambiguity often contained in media reports.

Results that support the possibility of a genetic component to a behavioural disposition are not meant to suggest that individuals carrying the relevant genes are somehow “hostage to their genetic make-up”, a regrettably ubiquitous fallacy that serves only to undermine otherwise promising research.

As Wilson suggests, the thrill-seeker Ellis Emmett could have “blamed it all on his genes” but he would have been quite mistaken. That a set of genes may determine some aspect of human psychology needn’t imply that an individual carrying those genes is somehow stripped of autonomy.

In our choices to have children, eat unhealthily, or take risks, we often enough successfully force our genes to take a back seat.

– SIMON MURPHY Linwood –