That’s the headline in today’s UK Telegraph. It seems that one of the UK’s leading geneticists has concluded that a purely genetic explanation for human traits and disease is ‘plain wrong’.
Professor Steve Jones, one of Britain’s top geneticists, said the belief that a few genes held the key to ridding the world of conditions such as cancer and diabetes has proved to be “plain wrong”.
In most cases hundreds of genes are responsible, and often they have less effect than other factors such as diet, lifestyle and the environment people live in. . . .
“We thought it [genetic research] was going to change our lives but that has turned out to be a false dawn.”
Professor Jones, who does not name the other scientists, said that the idea that the research would be a “cure all” for many common illnesses such as cancer and diabetes has led scientists down a “blind alley” and they must now rethink their approach.
His intervention is likely to trigger a debate into the usefulness of genetic research in Britain and the world, and on whether the hundreds of millions invested would be better off spent elsewhere.
Professor Jones, author and head of the biology department at University College London. said that there had been “too much optimism” surrounding gene research and there is a danger it has become “largely unfounded”.
“Just a couple of years ago, there was real optimism that a new era of understanding was around the corner,” he said.
“That did not last long, for hubris has been replaced with concern: like Macavity the Mystery Cat, the evidence of genetic inheritance is clear, but the genes themselves are just not there.
“Of course there have been some successes, but it is the ‘cure all’ aspect of the work that has proved unfounded.
I don’t know whether Jone’s increasing skepticism will dissuade those determined to find a mechanistic explanation for the variability of human life and behavior. Christians, Jews and even those philosophically inclined have always known that human beings are more than the mere sum of their parts. Indeed, the very idea of ‘life’ is imbued with significance beyond simple animation.
Scientists embarked on a search for rogue genes responsible for just about every modern malady, hoping such conditions could be blamed on a small set of genes – which could then lead to a cure.
But the more they investigated, the more complicated they realise finding a cure would be.
Many individual genes say very little about the real risk of illness, and they found diet and the environment still has an enormous influence on whether we develop a disease, they have found.
The DNA of a person’s height has been examined in some 30,000 people – but, he said, of the 50 different genes associated with being tall, it is only one-twentieth of the variation needed to explain the similarity of children to parents.
Even when they have identified common genes such as in diabetes and Crohn’s disease they have discovered they only account for less than 10 per cent of inherited influence.
So maybe we can now stop blaming our bad behavior on our genes. Perhaps we can own up to the moral choices we all make every day? And maybe – just maybe – we can show a little humility in the face of mysteries that may well lie beyond us.
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