Re: [xmca] epigenesis

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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>
> --
> Dr. M. Cathrene Connery
> Assistant Professor of Education
> 607.274.7382
> Ithaca College
>
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-- 
Deborah Downing Wilson
Laboratory for Comparative Human Cognition
University of California San Diego
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