Tim Tyler wrote:
> Larry Moran  wrote or quoted:
> 

> 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.

Alas, "Gene correlated with X found" won't make the front pages.

Bob

-- 
Bob O'Hara

Dept. of Mathematics and Statistics
P.O. Box 68 (Gustaf H„llstr”min katu 2b)
FIN-00014 University of Helsinki
Finland

Telephone: +358-9-191 51479
Mobile: +358 50 599 0540
Fax:  +358-9-191 51400
WWW:  http://www.RNI.Helsinki.FI/~boh/
Journal of Negative Results - EEB: http://www.jnr-eeb.org
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