Word: hamer
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Molecular biologist Dean Hamer has blue eyes, light brown hair and the goofy sense of humor of a stand-up comic. He smokes cigarettes, spends long hours in a cluttered laboratory at the National Institutes of Health, and in his free time clambers up cliffs and points his skis down steep, avalanche-prone slopes. He also happens to be openly, matter-of-factly...
What is it that makes Hamer who he is? What, for that matter, accounts for the quirks and foibles, talents and traits that make up anyone's personality? Hamer is not content merely to ask such questions; he is trying to answer them as well. A pioneer in the field of molecular psychology, Hamer is exploring the role genes play in governing the very core of our individuality. To a remarkable extent, his work on what might be called the gay, thrill-seeking and quit-smoking genes reflects his own genetic predispositions...
That work, which has appeared mostly in scientific journals, has been gathered into an accessible and quite readable form in Hamer's provocative new book, Living with Our Genes (Doubleday; $24.95). "You have about as much choice in some aspects of your personality," Hamer and co-author Peter Copeland write in the introductory chapter, "as you do in the shape of your nose or the size of your feet...
...psychologists, who based their most compelling conclusions about the importance of genes on studies of identical twins. For example, psychologist Michael Bailey of Northwestern University famously demonstrated that if one identical twin is gay, there is about a 50% likelihood that the other will be too. Seven years ago, Hamer picked up where the twin studies left off, homing in on specific strips of DNA that appear to influence everything from mood to sexual orientation...
Besides, the American civil rights movement wasn't just Martin Luther King Jr.; it was also Ella Baker, Fannie Lou Hamer, Rosa Parks. As for nonviolent social activists and leaders--What about Jane Addams, Petra Kelly, Dorothy Day, Aung San Suu Kyi? And why flatter Lenin by leaving out two of his staunchest ideological opponents, the Polish-German socialist Rosa Luxemburg and the American anarchist Emma Goldman...