Gene Genie

Funny how life imitates art.

Anyone here remember TISM? Australian band, really big about six years ago with that song about River Phoenix, pithily monikered "He'll Never Be An Ol' Man River", and another called "Greg the Stop Sign" (from a Victorian safe driving campaign which, like ours, is basically an excuse for the LTSA to make splatter movies.)

Well, within the lyrics of "Greg the Stop Sign" is a little stanza which goes :

"Hard wired into everyone's head is the person they're going to be
Growing Up is not a matter of choice, it's a matter of wait and see."

I don't know if the band believes in this sort of strict genetic determinism, probably not, they're just a comic band like the Bloodhound Gang. But one group of people who do seem to buy into genetic hard-wiring are the Hitlers of Long Island New York.

You heard me, as Jack says.

Adolf Hitler had a half-brother called Alois Hitler. Alois Hitler had a son called William Patrick Hitler (which makes Hitler his uncle.) The now late W.P. Hitler has three surviving sons (the fourth died in a car crash) who have apparently (the story is a bit contradictory) made a pact not to have children so that the Hitler genes die with them.

If this is true, it is unfortunate. They probably do share genetic material with their infamous great-uncle, but this is hardly a reason for them not to have kids. They might have been great parents, but we'll never know. One thing is certain, if they did have kids we would not be living through "The Boys from Brazil." Why? The answer is a simple word much loved by hippies which they apparently forget when the subject of cloning rears its head…

Environment.

This is not to say that genes can never influence behaviour. Far from it, some genetic fuck-ups can be behaviourally severe. The point is that humans have this massive command and control center behind the eyes, the size of which is the cause of much swearing and vows to never dance horizontally again by human females during childbirth, and which also has the ability to tell genes to go fuck themselves. As Steven Pinker writes:

"Well into my procreating years I am, so far, voluntarily childless, having squandered my biological resources reading and writing, doing research, helping out friends and students, and jogging in circles, ignoring the solemn imperative to spread my genes. By Darwinian standards I am a horrible mistake, a pathetic loser, not one iota less than if I were a card-carrying member of Queer Nation. But I am happy to be that way, and if my genes don't like it, they can go jump in the lake."

And THAT is the whole point. If we ever managed to clone Hitler by way of an as-yet undiscovered store of genetic material then basically as long as he was raised in a loving environment and educated with the right values I'm sure he would be a model citizen. But not according to the Sue Kedgley's and uneducated luddite Greens of this world who wouldn't even give the guy a chance.

What gets me is that, for some reason, they seem almost 100% assured of the outcome of cloning a person by judging his genetic parentage - ignoring the environment and brain (well their ignoring the brain isn't surprising) - and yet if I have a cabbage, devoid of any central nervous system, and change ONE gene under controlled circumstances being as certain as science can be about exactly what that gene does, then I am condemned because "we don't know what will happen."

Plant genetics is apparently a roulette wheel, human genetics driving a train. Go figure.

--Qohelet

29/01/02