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Nature via Nurture: Genes, Experience, and What Makes Us Human
http://www.100md.com 《新英格兰医药杂志》
     A revolution is sweeping the field of biology that holds that the influences of nature and nurture are so inextricably linked that it is difficult to speak of them as distinct forces that shape who we are. We now know that our environment can change us only if we are genetically predisposed to change and that our genes are powerless if they are not primed by the environment. When it comes to understanding our fate, we can no longer study the effect of genes or the environment without considering the interaction between them.

    In Nature via Nurture, Matt Ridley describes the fascinating research underlying this revolution and lays bare the historical context that led to the present situation — a 100-year battle that pitted behaviorists against geneticists and fueled the most tragic events of the past century. Ridley's deeply researched and literary book begins with a hypothetical group photograph of the grand men in this historic debate and proceeds to interweave descriptions of their contributions to the debate (rarely balanced and often destructively self-obsessed) and recent research on the dialogue between proponents of the forces of nature and those of nurture. Charles Darwin, Gregor Mendel, and Sigmund Freud are here, as are William James, Francis Galton, Jean Piaget, Emil Kraepelin, Hugo DeVries, Ivan Pavlov, Emile Durkheim, Franz Boas, Konrad Lorenz, and the outspoken behaviorist John Broadus Watson. Throughout, Ridley makes a point of emphasizing the complex personalities and contradictory views of historically misrepresented figures, such as DeVries, and is meticulous in placing experimental facts within their historical context.

    The book is best when Ridley delves into the strange and unexpected results of recent research on the interplay between genes and the environment. The descriptions of the mouse cross-fostering experiments of Darlene Francis and Tom Insel, Ray Blanchard's research on birth order, and the studies of childhood maltreatment that were performed by Avshalom Caspi and Terrie Moffit leave the reader gripped by the complex surprises of the biologic machine. Many of the data described by Ridley have appeared in print only since the publication of his book.

    Ridley appears to have a bias on the side of genes. Admittedly, the research he chooses to cite repeatedly supports the power of genes to determine who we are. In this sense, he is following the current trend, which has swung back in favor of genetic determinism. But where, for example, is the work of Vincent Felitti, a strong proponent of the power of the environment regardless of genes, whose work on the effect of adverse experience in childhood underscores the dramatic and costly impact of environmental factors on our health system?

    Toward the end of the book Ridley takes up the evolutionary perspective popularized by Richard Dawkins and moves to more speculative ground. He fashions his conclusion around a set of morals, taking off from specific examples to propose that genetic and environmental effects are so interlinked as to have become effectively one factor. The message is reassuring, and Ridley concludes that ultimately we need not fear losing free will in the face of a new determinism because the mechanisms of the interaction between genes and the environment are sophisticated and flexible and leave us to be the servants of our experience.

    Cornelius T. Gross, Ph.D.

    European Molecular Biology Laboratory

    Monterotondo 00016, Italy

    cornelius.gross@embl-monterotondo.it(By Matt Ridley. 326 pp. N)