Peter Moore on DNA

Peter Moore

DNA

It has become a part of the language. “It’s in my DNA”, the idea that a particular belief or ability is in the genes. It is inevitable and cannot be changed. But is that an accurate view of DNA?

DNA is in every gene in every cell and is the template for life but is it really fixed, immovable?

One way to look at DNA is to compare it to the script for a play.  There is a new production of Shakespeare’s Richard III with a woman with no disability playing the lead. This will be very different from the typical productions but will use the same script. Even with traditional productions actors interpret the role differently, from complete evil to someone who is conflicted. 

A song can be played at a different pace and in a different key but uses the same tune. 

The same could apply to our DNA. The “script” may not change but the interpretation can be very different. But how does this happen?

I apologise for the jargon but there is a new science called epigenetics. While the DNA tells the cell what to produce the cell itself can interpret the message. Every cell contains the DNA information for the whole body but one will produce cells for skin, another for the eye and another for the heart. 

We must also look at the environment, the classic nature versus nurture. Upbringing is crucially important. Public school boys predominate our Government but there is no evidence that they are inherently more talented. The upbringing comes with an ability to sound “right” and give confidence. 

We also know that immigrant black boys from Africa are much more likely to be high achievers than black boys from a Caribbean background. The difference can only be explained by the environment. 

People from South Korea are genetically the same as those from North Korea and yet they are taller and their life expectancy is ten years longer. This cannot be due to DNA. 

The false belief that DNA controls all our development and that everything is fixed from birth can justify racism. In Victorian times the British scientist Francis Galton invented the term eugenics, arguing that some races are inherently superior. This meant that we should encourage “superior” people to bred and discourage the “inferior”. This was also the logic behind Marie Stopes first family planning clinic in 1921. She set up the “Society for constructive birth control and racial progress”. The object was “to counteract the steady evil which has been growing for a good many years of the reduction of the birth rate just on the part of the thrifty, wise, well-contented and generally sound members of our community and the reckless breeding from the C3 end (lowest social class), semi-feebleminded (and) the careless”.  In 1930 a doctor at the Torquay Medical Society supported family planning with the argument that it was “folly to allow the mentally unfit and inferior races to bred”. 

It took the Nazis and the holocaust for people to understand where eugenics can lead. 

Racism is not only evil but a modern understanding of DNA has helped us to understand that it is also completely illogical. The human genome, which is our complete set of genes, has shown us that all human races are remarkably similar. Even the word “race” may not be accurate as it implies that we are inherently different. We may have different coloured skin, facial shape or hair but that is as far as the differences go. Race is, quite literally, only skin deep.

Whenever I’m tempted to argue “it’s in my DNA” it would be more accurate to say it’s in a combination of my DNA, the rest of the cell, upbringing and current environment, although that is not such an effective soundbite. Not accepting “it’s in my DNA” also allows people to look at evidence and change. New research into epigenetics is fascinating and only in its infancy. I will always be interested in biological research. It’s in my DNA.