Genes and Behaviour: Nature‐nurture Interplay Explained
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/17466660200700040 |
| Pages | 83-85 |
| Date | 01 December 2007 |
| Published date | 01 December 2007 |
| Author | Sheila Greene,Panos Vostanis |
| Subject Matter | Education,Health & social care,Sociology |
practitioners for shortcomings without giving enough
thought to a lack of government funding that has at
times meant that overburdened frontline practitioners
are expected to reach unachievable targets.
Reviewed by: Sam Baeza
Senior Lecturer in Social Work, University of
Chichester, UK
s.baeza@chi.ac.uk
References
Department of Health (1995) Child Protection: Messages
from research. London: HMSO.
Sheldon B (2001) The validity of evidence-based practice in
social work: a reply to Stephen Webb. British Journal of
Social Work 31 801–809.
Webb S (2001) Some considerations on the validity of
evidence-based practice in social work. British Journal of
Social Work 31 57–79.
Book reviews
83
Journal of Children’s Services
Volume 2 Issue 4 December 2007
© Pavilion Journals (Brighton) Ltd
Genes and Behaviour: Nature-nurture Interplay Explained
Michael Rutter
Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2006
280 pages, £14.99
ISBN: 1 4051 1061 9
Review 1
This important book is also an ambitious one. It sets
out to explain how genetic and environmental factors
interact to produce behaviour. The advances in this
area have been dramatic in recent years and have
served mainly to complicate questions that might
have been supposed in the past to be relatively
straightforward. Rutter is at pains to spell out the
complexities and to dispel any naïve assumptions
about how genes determine behaviour and
psychological conditions. He is also concerned to
undermine the ‘hype’ that tends to surround the
pronouncements of gung ho geneticists, psychologists
and psychiatrists who imagine that we are about to
pinpoint the gene or genes ‘for’ IQ, or language, or
empathy, or even the inclination to wear a tie. Equally,
he gives no comfort to extreme environmentalism.
There are few scientists besides Rutter who are
better equipped to review and explain the findings in
this field. Aside from his original empirical research,
Rutter has always excelled at synthesising and
clarifying new or previously poorly understood or
confused topics (see his work on maternal deprivation,
sex differences in mental illness, autism, links between
early and later development, juvenile crime etc.). Here,
once again, he demonstrates his capacity to sort and
evaluate vast quantities of information. In this regard
the book is resoundingly successful.
The author does, however, claim that he set out to
produce a ‘readable’, ‘non-technical’ book and on this
I have a few doubts. The book is readable if you are
prepared for its high level of technicality. It is
demanding, I would suggest, even for the
undoubtedly sophisticated and well-informed readers
of this journal. There is a glossary, but when one is
faced on the second page with terms like ‘restriction
fragment length polymorphism’ and ‘microsatellite
single sequence repeats’ (neither of which appear in
the glossary), it is apparent that the book is clearly
best suited to readers who are either well-versed in
some of the issues and the related vocabulary or
willing to make an effort to get to grips with the
science (an effort that will certainly be rewarded).
This said, the reader is assisted by end-of-chapter
summaries and the book ends with a useful chapter
outlining the author’s seven main conclusions.
Overall, Rutter writes about this complex subject
with clarity and with an undeviating willingness to
encompass all the evidence and to try to make sense
of it. He is comfortable with concluding that we are
only at the beginning of understanding some of the
processes he describes, such as epigenesis
(potentially heritable changes that do not involve
changes in DNA but are due to environmental
influences on gene expression) or the role of ‘junk’
DNA. On finishing this book the reader will understand
the importance of addressing and being aware of the
extent to which behaviour is a function of both genes
and environment and the variety of pathways by which
this complex relationship is played out. Contemporary
research informs us about the way in which genes can
(indirectly) shape the individual’s environment by
influencing the kind of reactions we elicit and the
choices we make. It also highlights (a) the fact that
most genes operate probabilistically not
deterministically, and (b) the level of non-specificity in
many genetic contributions to behavioural outcomes,
and the challenge this offers to traditional diagnostic
categories. These and many more aspects of
gene–environment interaction and interdependence
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