Nurturing the genius of genes: The new frontier of education, therapy, and understanding of the brain.

Genes dance. They dance with culture. They dance with environment. Genes act on the world through the brain, mind and behavior. Historically, psychologists, therapists, educators and most lay people have understood genes in the context of Gregor Mendel’s experiments, which were only partially explained to us. While many studies show that brain structures and behaviors have quite robust influences from inheritance, most behavior is not influenced in the classic way we were taught in our introduction to genetics– which has been revolutionized by molecular studies and understandings that most of the important genes of everyday life are quantitative, or polygenic. Popular culture and naïve theory has a very simplistic view of genes. They are bad, impolite and vaguely anti-democratic if not sinister. A very simple truth exists, however. Were it not for the genes of our grand parents, no one would be reading this article. This article introduces the reader to an idea that emerges from evolutionary psychology and behavior genetics, which may turn our thinking inside out. For the most part, genes are gifts of nature to solve problems, and to hedge a bet on the future. Most true genetic diseases, regulated by the classic processes that Mendel observed, are extremely rare – typically below one in several hundred. Most of the behaviors that cause us grief or joy in our homes, schools and communities and with some form of genetic contribution happen far more often –3%, 5%, 10% or more of the time in the population. If such behaviors were “defects” harming our reproductive success, Mother Nature would have quickly made short work of those genes in a handful of generations. The fact that many of the genes related to these behaviors and subtle changes in the brain seem to have been recent changes (pejoratively called by some “mutations”) in the past few thousand years implies that these changes are in some sense Nature’s Gifts. Gifts are to be treasured, saved and perhaps passed on. Sometimes a gift may be burdensome. This paper is about reframing and explaining advances in science in the past 10 years or so, parallel to the brain imaging studies. The molecular studies, explored in the context of evolutionary psychology and behavioral genetic sprovide a new model for human development, enhancing our understanding of more traditional views of human phylogeny and ontogeny. The same molecular studies, when framed in the context of twin, adoption and longitudinal studies, provide new insights for parenting, schools, community and therapy.

Citation: Embry DD. “Nurturing the genius of genes: The new frontier of education, therapy, and understanding of the brain.” Brain & Mind 2002; 3(1):101-132.