Beyond Human Nature by Jesse J. Prinz (review)

It is time for journalists to acknowledge that they do wrong to broadcast on “genes for” whatever. It is they, and not the scientists, who created the bogeyman of genetic determination. Scientists know that “genes for” is guff, but journalists continue to wonder whether experimental results “suggest” genes-for-whatever and flatter the scientists to play along. There is just no excuse. And it is no good saying that of course DNA acts in a matrix that the environment provides, contributing to the determination of a trait. Saying so concedes too much. Prinz comes right out in favor of nurture over putative nature. Environments are much more effective in determining psychology than anything in the genes. The search for human uniqueness is a mistake. What molecular biology has inadvertently confirmed is how astonishingly nature-free we really are. There is no organism with remotely the degree of variation that people routinely have: “The range of human variation at a single cafeteria would make a troop of chimpanzees look as undifferentiated as a school of minnows.” What distinguishes us among contemporary species is not one trait or any ensemble of them, but instead a subtle mix of quantitative differences that add up to something new. The greatest difference is our capacity for cultural learning. The most distinctively human thing we do, and what if anything it is natural for us to do, is to imitate others, acquire cultural ways, and participate in the vast contingency of historical differences. What is biologically peculiar about us is the degree to which there is almost nothing biologically peculiar about us—all the important differences are historical.