Re: [xmca] epigenesis

I have no idea what happened with these links..

try this again

http://psychiatry.ucsd.edu/faculty/mschuckit.html

On 10/27/07, deborah downing-wilson <ddowningw@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Marc Schuckit at UCSD studies the mechanisms of inherited alcohol
> dependence, collecting DNA and extensive lifestyle information on three
> generations - Several decades of work. Fascinating stuff.
>
>
> psychiatry.ucsd.edu/faculty/m*schuckit*.html
> <http://www.upress.umn.edu/Books/U/urban_metaculture.html>
>
> http://www.upress.umn.edu/Books/U/urban_metaculture.html
>
> Deb
>
>
> On 10/27/07, Cathrene Connery <cconnery@ithaca.edu> wrote:
> >
> > Very interesting, Martin. Aside from PTSD, do you know of other
> > conditions that might be inherited? What about alcoholism, bulimia,
> > allergies, etc? This is an intriguing dialectic between biology and
> > environment.
> > Cathrene
> >
> > Martin Packer wrote:
> > > Paul,
> > >
> > > The PBS documentary includes discussion of a retrospective analysis of
> > data
> > > over at least 3 generations in a relatively isolated Scandanavian
> > community:
> > > in particular, records of births and deaths (with cause of death) and
> > annual
> > > harvest yields. The focus of the documentary was not merely on the
> > > epigenetic pathways of individual development (e.g. that genetically
> > > identical twins diverge in their patterns of gene expression over the
> > > years), which is a notion that's been around for a while, but on
> > mechanisms
> > > of *inheritance* of epigenetic pathways. So post-traumatic stress in
> > one
> > > generation may well be *inherited* by children and even
> > grand-children. To
> > > my knowledge this is a new idea, and one for which the mechanisms are
> > now
> > > being worked out (methylation of the DNA, I think).
> > >
> > > Martin
> > >
> > >
> > > On 10/26/07 1:49 PM, "Paul Dillon" <phd_crit_think@yahoo.com > wrote:
> > >
> > >
> > >> I'm looking forward to learning mmore about the research in that
> > field by
> > >> definition it would seem to require a study that tracked three or
> > more
> > >> generations of families at both that genetic and socio-cultural
> > levels which
> > >> is 90 years for humans populations. That's long after I'll be
> > following
> > >> all of this. :)
> > >>
> > >> Paul
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> Bruce Robinson < bruce@brucerob.eu> wrote:
> > >>
> > >> Paul Dillon wrote:
> > >>
> > >>> Jay,
> > >>>
> > >>> Any possible answer your question " . . . why is the model of
> > >>> gene-determinism so appealing, almost a religion today, both among
> > molecular
> > >>> biologists and the lay public? Why has it been so easy for the media
> > to
> > >>> spread this gospel?"
> > >>>
> > >> I was pleasantly surprised to hear human genome mapper (and would be
> > >> privatiser) Craig Venter dissociate himself from crude genetic
> > >> determinism in an interview he gave to the BBC Today programme. He
> > came
> > >> out against the one to one 'a gene for...' idea, talked about the
> > social
> > >> environment of development interacting with genetic tendencies and
> > being
> > >> more important in a whole range of behaviour, as well as, in a
> > comment
> > >> on the Watson controversy, describing race as a social construct with
> > no
> > >> scientific basis. So there clearly are exceptions. But I do accept
> > that
> > >> genetic determinism is pervasive and think Jay is right to point to
> > the
> > >> resulting fatalism about social inequality as a cause, perhaps less
> > as
> > >> an excuse for people to do nothing and more as a justification of why
> > >> things are the way they are in the first place. This is not new -
> > Marx
> > >> pointed to Darwin's drawing on Malthus and his picture of nature
> > >> reflecting the model of competitive capitalism.
> > >>
> > >> Bruce R
> > >>
> > >>> would seem to require an adequate theory of why any "knowledge
> > >>> system/ideology" is dominant in a given society at a given time.
> > From the
> > >>> perspective of the classic Marxist model, i.e., "dominance of the
> > ideas of
> > >>> the dominant economic forces" , the dominance of the genetic
> > metaphor in
> > >>> contemporary capitalist societies seems to provide a text book case.
> > The
> > >>> primary client for the products of the bio-technology and
> > pharmaceutical
> > >>> industries in which most geneticists is the health care industry
> > (15% of US
> > >>> GDP) , then there's the GMO dominance in capitalist agriculture.
> > Along with
> > >>> cybenetics , genetic technologies , suffuse the fabric of modern
> > economic
> > >>> activity.
> > >>>
> > >>> But that's only a formal cause and although probably a necessary
> > condition
> > >>> for the ideological dominance of some branch of knowledge, still
> > insufficient
> > >>> to answer your question. I think one of the effective causes at the
> > >>> psychological level , might have to do with the utopian futures
> > genetics
> > >>> provides the "cult of eternal youth" , likewsie a root metaphor of
> > popular
> > >>> consumer culture. The promised developments of genetic technologies
> > certainly
> > >>> have that Utopian dimension, better futures quality that makes of
> > good
> > >>> ideology.
> > >>>
> > >>> Paul
> > >>>
> > >>>
> > >>>
> > >> _______________________________________________
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> > >>
> > >>
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> > >
> > >
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> >
> >
> > --
> > Dr. M. Cathrene Connery
> > Assistant Professor of Education
> > 607.274.7382
> > Ithaca College
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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> > xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
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> >
>
>
>
> --
> Deborah Downing Wilson
> Laboratory for Comparative Human Cognition
> University of California San Diego

-- 
Deborah Downing Wilson
Laboratory for Comparative Human Cognition
University of California San Diego
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