quote:

---

The twins believed that when they were younger, all of their family members - including themselves - shared similar religious behaviour. But in adulthood, however, only the identical twins reported maintaining that similarity. In contrast, fraternal twins were about a third less similar than they were as children.

---

quote:

---

Genes may help determine how religious a person is, suggests a new study of US twins. And the effects of a religious upbringing may fade with time.

---

These are the opening sentences of the article, (I added the italics) and, as they suggest, the article is limited in just what can be determined and how well it can be generalized. That "may" is a significant word - I can understand why clueless AP reporters drop the word from headlines, but why does Newscientist do it?

[ March 16, 2005, 05:44 PM: Message edited by: sndrake ]
 

---

Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
 
Just a bid to get attention, I'd guess.
 

---

Posted by Altáriël of Dorthonion (Member # 6473) on :
 
I think that would explain Flanders too.
What is the LDS anyway?
EDIT: oh wait, never mind.

[ March 16, 2005, 05:32 PM: Message edited by: Altáriël of Dorthonion ]
 

---

Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
 
Sensationalization of science is especially irksome when the publication purports itself to be scientific, like, in the title.

At least they make it clear in the article.

My favorite misleading Top!Science!Story! is the wooden cutting boards one. Non-replicable, but you never hear about that part.
 

---

Posted by Lady Jane (Member # 7249) on :
 
What was the wooden cutting boards story?
 

---

Posted by Altáriël of Dorthonion (Member # 6473) on :
 
I was raised catholic, and still am, but sometimes I think I should break away from organized religion and become a self practitioner. Your relationship with God is, I think, very personal and very diffrent from person to person.
 

---

Posted by skillery (Member # 6209) on :
 
I would think agnostics and atheists would embrace this study, knowing that it gives overzealous religious proselytizers an excuse to leave non-believers the heck alone: God gave you unbelieving genes.
 

---

Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
 
It irritates me when they do that too. I actually posted the link while I was waiting for the article to come up (New Scientist stories always seem to take forever to load for some reason), so it wasn't until after I posted it that I realized the bait and switch. I'm also surprised that they'd pull something like that--it doesn't seem like them.
 

---

Posted by Bob_Scopatz (Member # 1227) on :
 
So, maybe some of my Baptist friends are right. They told me that God decided who would be saved and who would be damned from the very beginning. We are predestined.

And now we know how God did it.

It's in our genes.

Of course, from an evolutionary standpoint, both atheists and religious people can now argue that there must be survival value in their belief/nonbelief.

by the way, I've always found something a bit troubling about twin studies. Think about the sample...

identical (and fraternal) twins raised together versus raised apart...shake well...look for similarities and differences.

I'm not denying there are genetic components to lots of things. I just think that the methodology leaves a bit to be desired. I mean, how many identical twins raised apart can there be? What range of circumstances (socio-political, economic, etc.) could possibly be represented in these pairs?

I think the magic of statistics can't begin to substitute for good old squinty-eyed logic when trying to figure out if we should ever believe these studies' results. Or, more importantly, act on them.

Oh well, my genetic make up is telling me that God exists, but I shouldn't get all worked up about the whole "worship" thing, you know. Maybe send a nice card at Easter...
 

---

Posted by HRE (Member # 6263) on :
 
A similar article:

'God gene' discovered by scientist behind gay DNA theory
By Elizabeth Day

Religious belief is determined by a person's genetic make-up according to a study by a leading scientist.

After comparing more than 2,000 DNA samples, an American molecular geneticist has concluded that a person's capacity to believe in God is linked to brain chemicals.

His findings were criticised last night by leading clerics, who challenge the existence of a "god gene" and say that the research undermines a fundamental tenet of faith - that spiritual enlightenment is achieved through divine transformation rather than the brain's electrical impulses.

Dr Dean Hamer, the director of the Gene Structure and Regulation Unit at the National Cancer Institute in America, asked volunteers 226 questions in order to determine how spiritually connected they felt to the universe. The higher their score, the greater a person's ability to believe in a greater spiritual force and, Dr Hamer found, the more likely they were to share the gene, VMAT2.

Studies on twins showed that those with this gene, a vesicular monoamine transporter that regulates the flow of mood-altering chemicals in the brain, were more likely to develop a spiritual belief.

Growing up in a religious environment was said to have little effect on belief. Dr Hamer, who in 1993 claimed to have identified a DNA sequence linked to male homosexuality, said the existence of the "god gene" explained why some people had more aptitude for spirituality than others.

"Buddha, Mohammed and Jesus all shared a series of mystical experiences or alterations in consciousness and thus probably carried the gene," he said. "This means that the tendency to be spiritual is part of genetic make-up. This is not a thing that is strictly handed down from parents to children. It could skip a generation - it's like intelligence."

His findings, published in a book, The God Gene: How Faith Is Hard-Wired Into Our Genes, were greeted sceptically by many in the religious establishment.

The Rev Dr John Polkinghorne, a fellow of the Royal Society and a Canon Theologian at Liverpool Cathedral, said: "The idea of a god gene goes against all my personal theological convictions. You can't cut faith down to the lowest common denominator of genetic survival. It shows the poverty of reductionist thinking."

The Rev Dr Walter Houston, the chaplain of Mansfield College, Oxford, and a fellow in theology, said: "Religious belief is not just related to a person's constitution; it's related to society, tradition, character - everything's involved. Having a gene that could do all that seems pretty unlikely to me."

Dr Hamer insisted, however, that his research was not antithetical to a belief in God. He pointed out: "Religious believers can point to the existence of god genes as one more sign of the creator's ingenuity - a clever way to help humans acknowledge and embrace a divine presence."
 

---

Posted by Annie (Member # 295) on :
 
I'll have everyone know I successfully resisted the dobie thread:

Genesis Contributes to Religious Inclination.


 

---

Posted by Dan_raven (Member # 3383) on :
 
I think they are giving this Gene guy a lot more credit than he deservers. Either that or he is one heck of an evangalist.

And they don't even mention his last name, or title. I hear DNA but I assumed that was initials, and there is no G in it. Maybe its a foreign name--Chinese or Canadian or Floridian or something. Is he Reverend Gene Dna?
 

---

Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
 
Dan

::Thanks Annie from the bottom of his heart, despite the fact that that would have been a better than average Dobie::
 

---

Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
 

quote:

---

His findings were criticised last night by leading clerics, who challenge the existence of a "god gene" and say that the research undermines a fundamental tenet of faith

---

quote:

---

He also points out that the finding may not be universal because the research focused on a single population of US men

---

Wouldn't it be fascinating to see a published study on religiosity that is either a) about women or b) at least includes a more representative sample of the population . . .

*fumes remembering a particular professor in college that continued to insist the study on teen, upperclass, privatly schooled boys really did describe the evolution of spiritual growth and was applicable to all segments of the population . . . breathes deeply and laughs remembering the look on his face after ripping the pages of the text out of the book and crumpling them up and throwing them in the garbage can . . . *
 

---

Posted by dkw (Member # 3264) on :
 
Neither Rev. Polkinghorne nor Rev. Houston's quotes seemed to me to be commenting on the biological research. Merely noting that there's a bit more to religious life than can be measured by 226 questions about "how spiritually connected they felt to the universe."

And frankly, I'm suspicious of the way the author of the article slants their comments. I can not for one minute imagine John Polkinghorne objecting to research on the grounds that it "undermines a fundamental tenent of faith." The man's a physicist, for pete's sake. Now objecting to overstating the implications of the study, that I could believe.
 

---

Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
 
Yes - the summary doesn't seem to accurately summarize the quotes from the skeptics.
 

---

Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
 

quote:

---

And just what makes these clerics qualified to comment on biological research?

---

Probably the same hubris that allows scientists to comment on Jesus' genetics.


 

---

Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
 
Scott -- if, as most churches suppose, Jesus was fully human as well as being fully God, he'd certainly have human genetics
 

---

Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
 

 

---

Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
 
Kat, I don't have the energy to find links for you, but I can be pushed to do so if anyone is so inclined. Briefly, a study was published that showed wooden cutting boards retained/bred fewer microbes than plastic ones. For a while, the popular media and daily gossip was all about how great wooden cutting boards are.

And then several scientists tried to replicate the study, and they found the reverse conclusion. Upshot: nobody could replicate the original results, but there were several cases of finding the opposite. But this never made a splash in the popular press, so you still get people advocating wooden cutting boards in order to cut down on pathologic microbial flora.

Mind you, I love to cut on wood. I just make sure to use plastic for meats and fish, and then it goes through the automatic dishwasher.

[ March 17, 2005, 12:35 PM: Message edited by: ClaudiaTherese ]
 

---

Posted by Lady Jane (Member # 7249) on :
 
Hmm...that does sound like sloppy science. It always seemed to stand to reason that a pourous, organic surface would harbor more bacteria than a non-porous, non-rotting surface that you can stick in the dishwasher.
 

---

Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
 
Yeah. That's why it initially made such a sexy soundbite!

The later "but is it accurate?" angle kinda didn't sell papers, so, meh.

[ March 17, 2005, 12:37 PM: Message edited by: ClaudiaTherese ]
 

---

Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
 
::looks suspiciously at CT::

You edited that post so it wouldn't say "Mind you, I love wood", didn't you?
 

---

Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
 
Uh, no, why do you ask? *angelic look



Just for completeness, he's a blurb from the University of Missouri's extension website:

quote:

---

Plastic vs. Wood Cutting Boards

[link to audio version of article]

Plastic cutting boards have the seal of approval from research scientists. According to studies, wood cutting boards were more likely to retain bacteria than plastic cutting boards, even after a thorough scrubbing with a cleanser. Bacteria can be absorbed into the pores of wooden cutting boards. Contrary to earlier studies, the bacteria didn’t die in these wooden boards. About 75% of the bacteria lay dormant where they could potentially contaminate other foods placed on the board.

---

[Edited to add italics in quote, as well as to proclaim it loud and proud: I do love wood. ]

[ March 17, 2005, 12:43 PM: Message edited by: ClaudiaTherese ]
 

---

Posted by Lady Jane (Member # 7249) on :
 
The more I think about it, the weirder that starts to sound. The wood would have to have natural antibacterial properties. If that's the case, why didn't we discover this ages and ages ago?

--

Uh...on topic: I think religiosity is a choice, and faith is both a gift and something that has to be cultivated.
 

---

Posted by Belle (Member # 2314) on :
 

quote:

---

So, maybe some of my Baptist friends are right.

---

What baptists are you hanging out with? All the southern baptists I know (and I know a lot) would vehemently deny belief in predestination.

Unless you're referring to a different denomination, there are more than one type of Baptists out there.

Edit: The reason I point that out, is not to be contentious, it's just that I had a very conservative southern baptist grandmother who was horrified when I said I was marrying a presbyterian because "but they believe in predestination." I about gave her a heart attack when I smiled and said "Yes, and so do I."

[ March 17, 2005, 01:04 PM: Message edited by: Belle ]
 

---

Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
 
Well, Mormons believe that God knows who will be saved, and who not. Bob-- is this the kind of predestination you mean?
 

---

Posted by Belle (Member # 2314) on :
 
There are many different beliefs that are lumped under the title "predestination."

Then you can get into discussion of "double predestination" and whether or not God is the author of sin if he reprobates, and pretty soon you have cats and dogs, living together - Mass Hysteria!

Best to just let it lie.
 

---

Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
 
Pfft-- "Let it lie." This is Hatrack! As if!
 

---

Posted by Belle (Member # 2314) on :
 
Ok, I'm game for a hatrack discussion on predestination.

Can it wait until tomorrow though? I have a midterm at 8:30 in the morning. I should be studying history, not theology.
 

---