Anon.  wrote or quoted:
> Tim Tyler wrote:

> > As he says, his interpretation is an "absurdity".
> > But Gould is attacking a straw man of his own making.
> > Noboby using the "gene for X" terminology was ever
> > asserting that single genes determined behaviour -
> > and Gould should have been aware of that.
> 
> But is the general public aware of that?  I suspect not - which is why 
> things like the "gay gene" get so much prss attention. 
Given that most 
> people will interpret statements about a "gene for X" in a
literal way, 
> I think Gould was quite right to attack the absurdity - it's a straw man 
> for geneticists, but not for the press and public.

I don't see anything wrong with a completely literal interpretation:

A "gene for trait X" doesn't mean that no other factors are involved - 
any more than a "vote for candidate X" means tht there are no
other factors influencing the election result.

The word "for" simply doesn't mean the same as "determines".
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