Who Is to Blame -You or Your Genes? - The Evidence Against Biology

For a long time, scientists have been tracking the monumental task of finding genetic causes and 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 genes 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 specific genes to human behavior has been unsuccessful.  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 1095 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 eternal or social factors can bring about such dramatic changes in such a short time. 

What do these and numerous other studies tell us?  While genes 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 says 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, which children grow up listening to music which glorifies rape, suicide, drugs, alcohol, sex, homosexuality, 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: Who Is to Blame - You or Your Genes? - The Root of Mankind's Trouble

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