SUMMARY

The argument advanced here is that both school-based learning of genetics and contemporary discourses on popular genetics are likely to promote a deterministic interpretation. By this logic, factors that prompt a view of the gene as all-embracing "blueprint" for fixing adult behaviour enjoy a greater prominence than those that stress the importance of the interdependency of genes and environmental influences.

Centre for Science Education, The Open University UK

Email: j.n.thomas@open.ac.uk

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By the measure of public interest and apprehension, genetics is now emerging as the pre-eminent biological science. The subject has the capacity to captivate and enrage the public in equal measures. For example, the presumed outcomes of the Human Genome Project include the eventual control or eradication of a number of genetically-based debilitating conditions, but yet the same methodology opens up the possibility that genetic testing will be used for a variety of controversial social purposes. Of critical importance to the level of apprehension is what view and understanding the public has of how genes work - and to what degree genes are seen as directly responsible for determining human traits and behaviours. Public attitudes are likely to reflect a complex mix of influences, some derived from the remembered experience of school science, others from the contemporary discourse of the type that influence adult opinion, notably media coverage in newspapers and TV. An increasingly important influence on public attitude in the UK is the buoyant market in science books aimed at the popular market. Many such publications — for example, those of Steven Pinker and Richard Dawkins — relate to genetics, often linked to analyses that have a transparent bias towards evolutionary psychology.

The argument advanced here is that both school-based learning of genetics and contemporary discources on popular genetics are likely to promote a deterministic interpretation. By this logic, factors that prompt a view of the gene as all-embracing ‘blueprint’ for fixing adult behaviour enjoy a greater prominence than those that stress the importance of the interdependency of genes and environmental influences.

Within school science in the UK national curriculum, there is currently an emphasis on the Mendelian laws of inheritance and the structure and function of DNA. Despite such emphasis, there is convincing evidence that the level of public understanding about Mendelian inheritance is very low (see Richards, 1996). One presumed reason is that the topic is not seen as relevant to the pupil’s own life. Richards’ constructivist interpretation goes further ; he claims that formal scientific explanations of inheritance are at odds with lay notions of kinship, which are re-inforced by everyday social practices and relationships. Where pedagogic attempts are made to highlight the importance of Mendelian inheritance, the most commonly-chosen examples are medical cases of single gene disorders — cystic fibrosis, Huntingdon’s chorea. These conditions undeniably have significant impact, but they run the risk of over-stating genetic influence, implying that all-embracing genetic effects are routinely brought into play in the absence of environmental influences. By such routes, students become unwittingly drawn to a belief in ubiquitous power of the gene.

At school level, the structure and mode of replication of DNA is highlighted in the curriculum, partly on the understandable grounds that the breakthrough initiated by Watson and Crick represent one of the triumphs of modern science. Indeed, a knowledge of the workings of DNA is one of the cornerstones of the case presented by those who argue the need for ‘genetic literacy’ amongst the public at large (see for example, Bodmer and McKie, 1995). But if students invest their energies in getting to grips with the mechanics of DNA action, little wonder that they are more than likely to lean towards ‘deterministic’ models of gene action, as they recollect how the base pair coding dictates the structure and function of gene products. This model, though compelling, inevitably underplays the metabolic fate of gene products, for example, how their actions may be moderated by other effects, some of which doubtless stem from environmental effects. There is rather too little and ineffectual emphasis on genes as units of inheritance, at the expense of a broader and more balanced understanding of their role of cell control and development — a point supported by the findings of Wood —Robinson et al, 1997.

Widely read publications on genetics may also be contribute to a common perception of genes as the ‘cultural icons’ characterised by Dorothy Nelkins’ seminal 1995 publication. Very few such authors subscribe to a deterministic agenda — for example, Richard Dawkins has described the belief that genes determine human behaviour as ‘nonsense on an almost astrological scale’, but there are grounds for believing that this author’s writings have heightened lay perceptions that genes have an all-enveloping influence, see Thomas, 1999. Dawkins and Pinkers lean towards evolutionary psychology seek to explain much of human behaviour as biologically adaptive, and their writings offer a powerful and seductive explanation of what are more correctly viewed as complex and non-deterministic human attributes.

There is a lack of empirical data on how influences of this type help shape attitudes of the lay public to genetics. Some commentators (e.g., Condit, 1999) suggest that audiences such as college students can offer non-deterministic interpretations of behaviour and a healthy resistance to the ‘blueprint’ metaphor for gene action. But audiences that show this degree of enlightenment are not necessarily representative of the population as a whole. The challenge for the next millennium will be to discover how early experiences of genetic at school level and popular discourse on genetics in the media might create a more balanced view of the subtleties of gene action.

REFERENCES

Bodmer, W. and McKie R. (1995) The Book of Man; the quest to discover our genetic heritage. Abacus Books, London.

Conduit, C. M. (1999) How the public understands genetics; non-deterministic and non-discriminatory interpretations of the ‘blueprint’ metaphor. Public Understanding of Science, 8 pages 169-180.

Nelkin, D. and Lindee, M. S. (1995) The DNA mystique; the gene as a cultural icon. W. H. Freeman and Company. New York.

Richards, M. (1996) Lay and professional knowledge of genetics and inheritance, Public Understanding of Science, 5, pages 217-230.

Thomas, J. (1999) A genetic basis for public enlightenment? Public Understanding of Science, 8, pages 345-351.

Wood-Robinson, C., Lewis, J., Leach, J. and Driver, R. (1997) Understanding the genetics of the cell, A; the discussion task. Working paper 3, presented to the European Science Education Research Association conference, Rome 1997.