Chapter 9 Have you cheated?

You have trouble concentrating. Whose inheritance is it?Is your father?The girl inherited her grandma's intelligence and was very smart.Nancy Sinatra can sing very well, it must be in her father's genes.Admit it, we hear more and more these days that a skill or error is explained by genetics.Sometimes it even feels as if only genetics can explain our behavior, as if culture and education have no influence.But at the same time, people are also particularly resistant and even hostile to using genes as the basis for explaining human behavior in science.A scientist will explain human behavior in terms of genes, whereas a listener or reader will tend to use reason.We’re all rational creatures after all, aren’t we?Also, there is a problem with accepting an evolutionary perspective on human behavior. If behavior is genetically determined, that means it has evolved through natural selection, with roots in the distant past.This kind of evolutionary reasoning met with great resistance, also in those who inherited grandma's wisdom and dad's singing skills!Isn't it strange?

I am overjoyed to see a study that adds to the idea that human behavior has a genetic basis.I've brought up this topic many times, and to be honest, that study caught my eye because I had predicted its findings in lectures and lectures.Everyone wants to prove themselves right, right?So I am very happy to tell you now what I have predicted. In my 2008 book "The Mind Machine," I described how the monogamous behavior of cute little voles is controlled by a hormone called vasopressin, which is produced in the pituitary gland. And the role of this hormone in the human body sounds less noble.They manage water in the body through blood pressure and are responsible for the functioning of the kidneys.Earlier experiments with voles concluded that males with more vasopressin in their blood are more bonded to their lovers and more protective of their enemies than males with less vasopressin in their blood. companion.That said, monogamy manifests itself well in them.I predict—that is, prophesy—that the same is true of human beings.However, this view was not confirmed at the time.These days I try to be as realistic as possible in my speeches and writings, however, scientific reality catches up to you very quickly, and the writers are always... lagging.A few months after The Mind Machine was published, that phenomenon was fully confirmed in humans!That's why I'm ecstatic.

Allow me to put a paragraph in scientific terms, if it gets in the way, you can skip it.Hormones act on cells through a receptor.The receptor is a large protein molecule in the cell membrane to which the hormone molecule binds, like a key in a lock.There is a gene on chromosome 12 that produces a receptor protein that binds to vasopressin.The study pointed to an important role in a region of DNA on the edge of the gene, which is also controlled by the gene itself. This region is the so-called 334 allele. Chromosome 12 either has or does not have this allele. Because we all have double chromosomes, half from our mother and half from our father, and because we either have or don't have the 334 allele in each chromosome, it turns out that we may have none, one or two times the 334 allele.Well, the terminology is used here, and the next step is interesting.

Swedish researchers studied the link between the number of the 334 allele and marital behavior, this time in humans, not voles.They found 552 pairs of male and female heterosexual couples and observed them.It turned out that a connection was found—at least in men.The more men carried the 334 allele on their chromosomes, the less loyal they were to their partners.Those men without the 334 allele on their chromosomes were the most loyal.Are you still saying that human behavior is not based on genes?Also, men with twice the 334 allele were much more likely to be unmarried.Even if they are married, the probability of a marital crisis occurring in them is greater than that of men with only one or no allele.Women's ratings of their partners were also associated with the 334 allele, with wives of men without the allele rating much more positively than wives with double or double.Therefore, the closeness between a man and his wife is determined by the number of 334 alleles on their chromosome 12!Since the gene responsible for making the lock that matches pituitrin, a series of links between pituitrin and human monogamous behavior were confirmed.It's always nice when a prophecy comes true.

The number of an allele determines whether you, as a man, are faithful to your partner.Oh, of course the American media will not stand idly by.Soon, "my vasopressin told me to" became an excuse for cheating.I don't need to tell you that this is too exaggerated and ridiculous.Genes never alone control a certain behavior, but just play a role in it, pushing the behavior in a certain direction under certain circumstances.Sir, even if you have the 334 allele on chromosome 12, you can still decide to leave it alone and remain faithful to your partner.And vice versa, if you're poor on the 334 allele, you can also choose to have several girlfriends.Genes simply amplify your chances of making this or that choice.

Seeing this, you may ask, what about genes in women?What about their monogamous behavior?Pituitrin doesn't control women's fidelity, women are always special (read: complicated) anyway.For them, oxytocin is more important socially, but that's another story. It's interesting to know the above information, because what we know so far is that natural selection creates our behaviors, social behaviors like our level of loyalty to our partners.Social behavior, specifically bonding between partners, is a very important element in the evolution of humans.We have seen that the gene responsible for the operation of vasopressin, which has managed the water in the human body for millions of years, has made a great contribution to the development of human beings after several mutations.Small elements can have big effects in evolution, and the same is true in our brains.

Nancy, of course, inherited her singing talent from her pituitary-poor father, Frank.But if she was thrown into a thatched hut on the edge of the Kalahari Desert and raised there, she might not be able to sing "Boots are for walking."