Read more
Informationen zum Autor Denis Alexander is Founding Director (Emeritus) of the Faraday Institute for Science and Religion at St Edmunds College, Cambridge, where he is an Emeritus Fellow. He previously spent fifteen years in the Middle East where he helped to establish the National Unit of Human Genetics at the American University Hospital in Beirut. More recently he has been involved in immunology, genetics and cancer research in the UK, latterly at the Babraham Institute, Cambridge. Dr Alexander was previously Editor of the journal Science and Christian Belief, and writes and broadcasts widely in the field of science and religion. He gave the Gifford Lectures at the University of St Andrews, Scotland in 2012. Klappentext How does genetic variation impact on behavioural differences and how does this relate to free will and personal identity? Denis Alexander examines these questions. Zusammenfassung This book is for everyone who values their freedom. Science shows us that we are not prisoners of our genes: there is no gene 'for' any particular behaviour. Older ideas of 'nature' and 'nurture' are defunct! and multiple components are woven together in human development. Denis Alexander concludes that genuine free will is the result. Inhaltsverzeichnis 1. Human personhood fragmented?: nature-nurture discourse from antiquity to Galton; 2. Reifying the fragments?: nature-nurture discourse from Galton to the twenty-first century; 3. The impact of the new genetics?: how contemporary biology is changing the landscape of ideas; 4. Reshaping the matrix: integrating the human in contemporary biology; 5. Is the worm determined?: gene variation and behaviour in animals; 6. Prisoners of the genes?: understanding quantitative behavioural genetics; 7. Behavioural molecules?: understanding molecular behavioural genetics; 8. Mensa, mediocrity or meritocracy?: the genetics of intelligence, religion and politics; 9. Gay genes?: genetics and sexual orientation; 10. Not my fault?: the use of genetics in the legal system; 11. Causality, emergence and freedom?: tackling some tough philosophical questions; 12. Made in the image of God?: a conversation between genetics and theology....