The Dominant Animal
Yesterday I borrowed The Dominant Animal: Human Evolution and the Environment by Paul R. and Anne H. Ehrlich from the local library. Each chapter begins with a quote, and the quote beginning the fourth chapter, "Of Genes and Culture," was this:
"If you think we are hard wired [by our genes]-that is, everything is deterministic-there should be a lot more genes because we have a lot more traits. This makes me as a scientist both laugh and cry. I laugh at the absurdity of it and I want to cry because it is accepted by so much of our society."
-J. Craig Venter (who led the sequencing of the human genome), 2001
"If you think we are hard wired [by our genes]-that is, everything is deterministic-there should be a lot more genes because we have a lot more traits. This makes me as a scientist both laugh and cry. I laugh at the absurdity of it and I want to cry because it is accepted by so much of our society."
-J. Craig Venter (who led the sequencing of the human genome), 2001