DNA revolution and where it’s leading
Blueprint
By Robert Plomin, PenguinRandomHouse, $40
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Robert Plomin is a leading and respected psychologist and behavioural geneticist. His early work in the US in the 1970s focused on the relative impact of nature (DNA) and nurture (environmental influences) on behaviour and psychopathology using twin and adoption studies. His finding that, on average, at least 50 per cent of behaviour was due to nature was very controversial at the time.
He moved to the UK in the 1990s where he was able to access a much bigger pool of data that confirmed his results, and gradually the possibility that DNA was at least as important as environment in determining who we are began to gain traction.
In 1995, the first complete sequence of the human genome was produced and since then Plomin and his peers have looked for DNA markers that determine individual psychological profiles. Progress was slow at first, due to the cost and time-consuming nature of DNA sequencing, but today Genome Wide Analysis is providing them with clues.
It seems that there are thousands of small genetic changes that have a cumulative effect on traits such as cognitive ability/disability, personality and mental health and illness. As a population we are all somewhere on the continuum for every characteristic, so Plomin promotes the idea that, rather than diagnosing learning disabilities and mental disorders, we should be describing dimensions — quantitative descriptions of where people lie on the continuum.
Plomin believes that knowledge is power, and that while DNA describes what is, we still have some control over what will be.
The book contains clear scientific explanations of the relevant biology, the results of Plomin’s research and his extrapolation from those results to draw out, not just the balance of nature and nurture, but also the nature of nurture itself. He has written this book to promote wider discussion about the applications and the ethical implications of the DNA revolution in behavioural psychology.
It is up to us to educate ourselves and join that conversation, and this book is a good place to start.
— Lynda Stallworthy
Anne Frank’s Diary: The Graphic Adaptation Adapted by Ari Folman, illustrations by David Polonsky, Penguin random House, $40
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There are some things that should just not be messed with. Anne Franks’ poignant diary of a young German Jewish girl hiding from the Nazis in a secret annex is one of them. Most read this in our teens. It is a book that once read, is never forgotten.
This graphic novel version focuses on her humour, observations and insight. It is a version authorised by the Anne Frank Foundation, but for me it was a struggle to read — or rather look at the pictures.
Anne is drawn much as photos of her reveal, a moody teenager with an extraordinary imagination, a wry sense of humour and a natural curiosity about life, sex and