Quotes About Genetics

Genes do not make an individual homosexual. They play their part, but so does the rest of the universe.

The human genome is a life written in a book where every word has been written before. A story endlessly rehearsed.

What if the genetically superior male is actually a bit of a dickhead?

There's one thing this Matt Ridley bloke hasn't factored in," I said. Will looked up from his computer screen. "Oh yes?" "What if the genetically superior male is actually a bit of a dickhead?

I tried - not because I really had an appetite for genetics - but because I couldn't bear the thought that Will would go on and on at me if I didn't. He was like that now. He was actually a bit of a bully. And, really annoyingly, he would quiz me on how much I had read of something, just to make sure I really had.

Social Darwinism had continued to flourish in German. Together with Mendelian genetics, it was widely thought to provide a scientific basis for the eugenic 'Racial Hygiene' movement.

human beings are 90 percent chimp and 10 percent bee.

the third principle: Morality binds and blinds. The central metaphor of these four chapters is that human beings are 90 percent chimp and 10 percent bee. Human nature was produced by natural selection working at two levels simultaneously.

Cultural change works orders of magnitude faster then genetic change. Stephen Jay Gould

After just thirty generations the foxes had become so tame that they could be kept as pets.

he simply picked the cages that produced the most eggs in each generation. Then he bred all of the hens in those cages to produce the next generation. Within just three generations, aggression levels plummeted. By the sixth generation, the death rate fell from the horrific baseline of 67 percent to a mere 8 percent. Total eggs produced per hen jumped from 91 to 237, mostly because the hens started living longer, but also because they laid more eggs

If genetic evolution was able to fine-tune our bones, teeth, skin, and metabolism in just a few thousand years as our diets and climates changed, how could genetic evolution not have tinkered with our brains and behaviors as our social environments underwent the most radical transformation in primate history?

So what do you think? Is musical talent something you're born with? Is talent something you either have or you don't? Is musical ability genetic, a gift that runs in your blood? Or is musical talent a result of practice? Does talent develop from mere exposure to music? Can you become more talented through effort? Your answers to these questions matter in a big way. The biggest way.

Maybe we're just prisoners of our biology.

Blood transmits a propensity for heart diseases; if it also transmits a propensity for treason, no one has ever been able to prove it.

Il sangue trasmette una propensione alle malattie cardiache; se trasmette anche una propensione al tradimento, nessuno è mai riuscito a dimostrarlo.

I can't divorce Kent and his art from what causes pain in Kent's life. This is true in the lives of many individuals labeled ADHD. Their greatest gifts are interwoven with their greatest weaknesses. This might be true for all of us. But we can make something beautiful from this paradox. Our lives can sometimes be a sort of poem—part genetics, part individual adaptation.

The higher the levels of anxiety, the more likely a person is to have a high IQ. Genetic research suggests that intelligence may have co-evolved with worry in humans

Furthermore, a cell has no ability to improve its basic function. Bacteria that becomes resistant to antibiotics are still bacteria. Fruit flies that develop mutations are still fruit flies. Moths that change color are still moths. Birds that develop longer and shorter beaks are still birds. Therefore, one organism has no natural ability to change into another organism. (chapter 10)

How many genetic engineers does it take to screw in a lightbulb? Eleven—one to do the work, and the other ten to figure out why it doesn't have a double helix." "What's the definition of a virgin genetic engineer? A nerd with too many pocket protectors.

there are over six thousand prescription drugs, but we only have pharmacogenomic information for just over one hundred

Presently, there are just over one hundred medications that the Food and Drug Administration labels as having an important, known DNA interaction.42

But today it is possible to find out through a blood test whether you are highly susceptible to breast and ovarian cancer, and then take action. . . . Life comes with many challenges. The ones that should not scare us are the ones we can take on and take control of." —ANGELINA JOLIE1

As long as our laws and ethical codes allow it, they will be able to construct human beings with quite specific characteristics---real works of genetic art. People say that this is 'playing at God'; but they forget that the God (or better, the gods) of the Old Testament created man 'in his image'. He programmed him in the way he wished, and clearly also kept tinkering with his descendants.