(C)1995 Lee Kent Hempfling All Rights Reserved The headline read: "SCIENTISTS IDENTIFY PERSONALITY GENE". The story beneath it is nothing at all like the claim.The article, buried deep in the publication was no larger than a typical hometown newspaper would devote to the high school football team's loss to a cross state school. Yet the implications were enormous. Scientists had discovered yet another gene in the Human Genome Project's search for mapping the entire double helix of the human race. The gene, one of three known, causes a rare form of heart failure. Hopes were high that additional research might lead to preventative measures and perhaps even a diagnosis aid to help keep people alive who have the rare heart ailment. The other article, published the same day, was planted brusquely at the top of the national news round up page, across from the ever popular viewpoints section. It's headline stretched the entire width of the paper. Scientists had found a gene responsible for personality in the human. Only if the hometown football team had won and the other team had suffered serious medical injuries would an article of such size and placement be warranted. The football story could be real. The personality story is not. Perhaps the questions of mental processes deserve a greater space? Perhaps the glamour of the claim to finding a potential cause to something everyone can relate to deserves grand coverage? It would be the case if the story were true. But it is not. In a far too prevalent Associated Press tactic the personality gene article makes a claim to justify the headline and then backs off to justify the ethics of journalism. It is understandable for a lay journalist to come to a great conclusion from the claim. What if science had identified a gene that controlled a trait of mental processing? It would be a grand claim indeed. But it would be biased and filled with intention overcoming reality and would accomplish nothing but to mislead the reading public. Much like intelligent popcorn, oil and that disgusting mop have relegated intelligence to an advertising slogan. It would dash into obscurity the true research into neurological results. Claimed as a possible step in unraveling the genetics of personality the claim begins with identifying the result. A potential find that identifies the gene that controls how impulsive, excitable, quick tempered and extravagant you, the human being might be. In the January issue of the Journal of Nature Genetics, research published by lead biologist Brian Gladue of the University Of Cincinnati, Institute for Policy Research and others unnamed claims to have found a gene responsible for the creation of one form of dopamine. Dopamine, in it's varied forms is the receptor chemical used to transfer signals from one neuron to another. So the find was of a chemical. Not of a trait. The claim for a trait is a biased opinion. The study, conducted in Israel with 124 adult subjects compared blood samples with questionnaires. It was repeated successfully with 315 American subjects by the National Institute of Mental Health and the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Maryland. But just because results are the same from the same form of inquiry, does that make the conclusion the same? No it does not. Let alone, correct. The studies both identified the gene as the cause of a personality trait they call, "novelty seeking." For there to be a gene that causes novelty seeking in the brain the brain would have to have another gene responsible for the opposite of novelty seeking. Perhaps a "stoic hermit" gene? Then perhaps they will declare the finding of the gene responsible for "scrooge syndrome." After all, this one, they claim is responsible for extravagance. There must be one responsible for rich old curmudgeon misers. The fallacy of the whole process is that biology has entered into a world they know nothing about. The brain does things that can be observed. Some of those things result in impulsive, excitable, quick tempered and extravagant behavior. But a gene is not responsible for the emotions and results of the brain. The process of the brain is. A gene that creates the neuro transmitter or receptor chemical will effect the process of the brain, it may even permit it, but it does not make it. The brain consists of two essential elements. The physical hardware made up of it's biological parts and the computational process which results from those biological parts. Take a look at your table top radio. What these biologists are suggesting in personality gene research is the same as the electronics engineer declaring that the physical make up of the wire that permits radio wave reception to be sent from one electronic component to the next is responsible for the result we perceive as a radio signal which is actually a processed value dependent upon the components and not the wire that connects them. Sure, if the wire is not in existence at all there can be no values shared by components, and if the wire is defective the signals may slow down. A wire leading to a resistor may lend to the resistance value that will enter the component but it will not change the value that exits it unless it has already lowered the value of the signal below the resistor's value. In the brain, values are compared with other values. If the connecting transmitters and receptors change that value instead of simply passing it on the next neuron will receive a corrupted value and the result will be different than if a virgin signal has passed into it. So the finding of the scientists actually indicates that the body does indeed have a gene that determines that dopamine is made and that it's purity in relation to it's intent is necessary for proper transmittal of values. That does not mean the it's existence is responsible for common everyday human traits. Impulsive, excitable, quick tempered and extravagant behavior, claimed by scientists to be indicative of "novelty seeking" is based on observations by biased opinion. If you are slow to decide, calm, even tempered and thrifty the process performed in the brain is no different from the person who is impulsive, excitable, quick tempered and extravagant. They are all results of mental processing. The parts that make up the circuitry that permits the mental processing are essential to it's existence but they are not the cause of it's outcome anymore than the resistor is responsible for the wake up call you get every morning when the radio turns on. Of course if the wiring in the radio is amiss the sound will not be normal. And if the chemical make up of the parts of the brain are amiss the results will not be normal. But who determines normal? By lumping impulsive, excitable, quick tempered and extravagant as results of the "novelty seeking" gene these scientists have determined that impulsive, excitable, quick tempered and extravagant behavior is abnormal. Assuming the obvious from this research indicates that these learned men of science have determined that if you are impulsive, which means your decision process is quick and not heavy laden with self-doubt, if you are excitable, which means the incoming signals from your senses make quick results of the impressions of their motivation, if you are quick tempered, which means you are able to determine a bridge of your safe condition very quickly and if you are extravagant, which means you do things in a grand way with pride and determination then you are abnormal. In reality what they are saying is that if you are highly intelligent you are wrong. The results of high intellect are novel. The displaying of internal intellect by methods we all can associate with college professors, successful business people, politicians, motivated individuals is a novelty caused not by the process of the brain, but by the presence of a gene that does nothing but make a particular form of dopamine receptor chemical. It is the in thing these days. Delve into the inner workings of the brain. Determine how it does what it does. Establish causes for object oriented results. We're even teaching our children in this method. Object Oriented Education is the process where the goal is established, ‘Johnny shall read," and the end justifies the means which is a duplicate of it. What is reading? It is the reciting of words. Teach the child to memorize words then Johnny can read. But that does not teach the child to read new words. It teaches Johnny to read words he has already seen. Johnny today can not break the words down into their syllable parts, sound them out then reconstruct the words to make new words. Object oriented thinking claims the result is the motivation. Where in fact the motivation is the result. So is an illiterate America. The National Cancer Center spent money to fund research into personality genes when the cure for cancer still eludes. So we have biased research that injects biologists away from their calling into the neuroscientists realm of thinking. In Philosophy it is called Epistemology. The study of how we think. It is permitted by the biology of the body but it is not determined by it. The company that makes electronic components is in the business of making parts. It is not in the radio business. So it is with the biological process of the double helix of DNA. It is in the part business. Should the parts be defective the results will not be the same but the defective parts are no more responsible for the result of normal processing than the perfect parts are. They only permit it. That article on finding one of three genes responsible for a rare form of heart failure is relegated to a deep page. The heart is a part. It pumps blood. It is not the blood. While the article of mental discovery in gene therapy grabs a headline. It is a shame when not even a journalist will ask a question of a scientist. Scientists are just people. They make mistakes too. The sad part is that just like the cult leader who professes to know a motivation for your life, so you follow him instead of his message, too many people will follow the unchallenged claims of a biased research procedure. After all, if a mop can be intelligent, a can of oil can be intelligent. If advertising agencies can make intelligence a commodity then who's to say that a gene can't control your abnormal intellect? Shame on you for being smart. But it's OK. You see these scientists are doing what scientists did hundreds of years ago. They're searching for the right measurement to determine whether you're fit or not. Then it was calipers measuring the width of the eyes and the bridge of the forehead and the placement of the knots on your head. It declared you to be a potential criminal. Now the study of science has gone high-tech. Your observational traits are not your fault. It's not your brain. It's a gene. Bah-Humbug! I didn't say that. It was from my old curmudgeon miser gene. Possibly defective. I demand a research study.
