The Evidence Against Biology

For a long time, scientists have been tackling the monumental task of finding genetic cures for human pathology and behavior. After ten years of work by six teams of researchers, the gene linked to Huntington's disease was isolated, although the researchers have no idea how the gene causes the disease. However, reporting on this research, Scientific American quoted Harvard biologist Evan Balaban, who said that it would be "almost infinitely harder to discover genes for behavioral disorders."

In fact, research attempting to link specific genes to human behavior has been unsucessful. For instance, in Psychology Today, a report on efforts to find genetic causes for depression states: "Epidemiologic data on the major mental illnesses make it clear that they can't be reduced to purely genetic causes.." The report gives an example: "Americans born before 1905 had a 1 percent rate of depression by age 75. Among Americans born a half century later, 6 percent become depressed by age 24! " It thus concludes that only external or social factors can bring about such dramatic changes in such a short time.

What do these and numerous other sutdies tell us? While genes may play a role in shaping our personalities, there clearly are other influences. A major factor is our environment, which has undergone radical changes in modern times. Concerning what today's youth are exposed to in popular entertainment, the book Boys Will Be Boys observes that it is unlikely that children will develop sound moral principles when they "grow up watching tens of thousands of hours of TV shows and films in which people are assaulted, shot, stabbed, disemboweled, chopped up, skinned, or dismembered, when children grow up listening to music which glorifies rape, suicide, drugs, alcohol and bigotry."

Clearly, Satan, "the ruler of this world," has shaped an environment that caters to man's baser desires. And who can deny the powerful influence that such an environment exerts on all of us? - John 12:31; Ephesians 6:12; Revelation 12:9, 12.
Next time: The Root Of Mankind's Trouble