DNA & Destiny: Nature & Nurture In Human Behavior [Paperback]

R. Grant Steen (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 2001

A perceptive examination of the on-going debate over the influence of genetics in our lives.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In a useful, opinionated, accessible survey of the nature-versus-nurture controversy, Steen, a Tennessee medical researcher in brain physiology, argues that human behavior is roughly half the result of genes and half the result of the environment, with an ongoing interplay between the two forces. He reviews recent research suggesting that children structure their own environments, selecting milieus congruent with heritable personality traits and proclivities. Steen defends intelligence tests as a measure of general problem-solving ability, but he attacks Richard Herrnstein's and Charles Murray's bestseller The Bell Curve as a pseudoscientific legitimization of racism. He finds the evidence of a genetic and hormonal basis for homosexuality to be fairly compelling. Alcoholism, he maintains, is a disease to which many people inherit a genetic susceptibility, although family environment plays a strong causative role. His synthesis touches on many topics, from cognitive and emotional differences between men and women to transsexuality, eugenics, sociobiology and a reported link between attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder and criminality.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"A satisfying overview of such topics as heritability of traits, environmental influences, sexual orientation, and mental illness." -- Discover magazine

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Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Da Capo Press (September 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0738206199
• ISBN-13: 978-0738206196
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,333,435 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Delivers, May 7, 1999

By 

SeanFurl (San Francisco) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dna And Destiny (Hardcover)

Excellent look at the question of "Nature Versus Nurture In Human Behavior", assuming you like getting facts and percentages from good quantitative studies, and you'd also like to know why the studies were good, and you don't want any speculative unified theories. It rambles off the point from time to time, though I found it rambles fairly engagingly myself. My favorite item in the book is about schizophrenia in identical twins. If one identical twin has it, the chances the other has it are around 1 in 3. When one with and one without the disease are looked at with magnetic resonance imaging it can be seen that their brains are significantly different in structure and function.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Nothing new, February 21, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Dna And Destiny (Hardcover)

This book has nothing that I was looking for...
It's not very well fundamented on scientific studies, nor it is a thourough study of what Nature (genes) and Nurture (environment, education) can influence you.

It's just a fun reading for a weekend, nothing more.

The author just finalizes by saying that it's not anyone's fault that they are what they are... and they can't blame their parents for their inherited genes or by the education they had, because parents allways hope for the best...

Nothing new...