Nature vs. Nurture Most of us have the intuition that, although our genes provide advantages and constraints, we retain a great deal of control over our lives. However, we are developing a second, competing intuition that, whether we like it or not, our genes determine our abilities, our preferences, and our emotions. We'd like to think that we are much more than the sum of our genes, but scientists have apparently shown that our genes determine some of our most complex behavioral and cognitive characteristics. The focus on genes as the primary mode of biological explanation has been particularly clear in the commercialization of the Human Genome Project. In support of this project, Robert L. Sinsheimer, biologist and former president of the University of California, Santa Cruz, said: "[in] the deepest sense, we are what we are because of our genes." (Berkowitz 1996) Does available scientific evidence actually tell us that our genes determine our behavioral, emotional, and cognitive characteristics? Do individual genes specify particular behavioral traits? To answer these questions, most nonscientists rely on the superficial reports of new research findings that appear regularly in the lay press. These accounts are oversimplified and may be shaped by the desire of both journalists and scientists to create an exciting story. As a result, our perception of scientific evidence may be distorted by some dramatic findings, some of which may be incorrect. Nowhere has this been clearer than in the portrayal of the roles of genes in determining uniquely human characteristics, involving our thoughts. , emotions and behaviors. Over the past decade, there have been highly visible reports of the localization of manic-depression genes (Baron et al. 19... half of article... Sussex, KK Kidd, CR Allen, AM Hostetter, and DE Housma. 1987. Bipolar affective disorder linked to DNA markers on chromosome 11. Nature 325: 783-787 Gelernter, J., S. O'Malley, N. Risch, H.R. Kranzler, J. Krystal, K. Merikangas, J. L. Kennedy, and K. K. Kidd 1991. No association between an allele of the dopamine D2 receptor gene (DRD2) and alcoholism JAMA 266: 1801-807Hamer, D.H., S. Hu. , V. L. Magnuson, N. Hu and A. M. L. Pattatucci 1993 Link between DNA markers on the X chromosomes and male sexual orientation 261:321-327Kelsoe, J.R., E.I. Ginns, J.A. Egeland, D.S. Gerhard, A.M. Goldstein, S.J. Bale, D.L. Pauls, R.T. Long, K.K.Kidd, G. Conte, D.E. Housman, and S.M. Paul 1989. Reevaluation of the linkage relationship between loci of chromosome 11p and the bipolar affective disorder gene in the old order Amish nature 342: 238-243.