ONE of the scientific subjects best guaranteed to get people hot under the collar is genetic determinism, especially if what is allegedly being determined is behavioural. Studies of adopted children (and particularly of twins adopted at birth by different sets of parents) suggest some behavioural traits are indeed heritable. Geneticists, though, have had difficulty identifying specific genes whose variants, known as alleles, cause different predispositions in those possessing different versions. That is why a new piece of research on one of the few genes for which such evidence exists is likely to get considerable scrutiny and cause much controversy—not least because the work in question suggests that a second gene, hitherto fingered as a cause of behavioural variability, has no effect, while a third, hitherto unfingered, does.The first two genes are called MAOA and HTR2B. The behaviour they allegedly predispose people to is aggression. The latest data, collected by Jari Tiihonen of the Karolinska Institute, in Stockholm, and his colleagues, and published in Molecular Psychiatry, come from convicted criminals in Finland, some of whom were banged up for violent crimes and some for offences such as theft that involved no violence.Breaking the codeMAOA encodes monoamine oxidase A,...
from The Economist: Science and technology http://ift.tt/103DuKP
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