MY GENES MADE ME DO IT

I remember reading a newspaper article on a murder case and the murderer tried to defend himself saying, ‘My genes made me do it.’ Do our genes define our character? Many scientists have been doing a lot of research to answer this for many years. There is no doubt that our genes have a great impact on our looks, from our eye colour to height, from our hair colour to illnesses we inherited from our parents, but what about our character? While some scientists claim they can predict if three-year-old children will become criminals or will achieve success, the others argue environment has a greater role on our personality. Although, I believe, experiences of a person have a greater impact on one’s personality and development, latest studies in genetics show that there are lots of questions to be answered to prove the importance of our genes in our personality.

One of the latest studies has been done in Edinburgh University.Researchers from Edinburgh University studied more than 800 sets of identical and non-identical twins. They wanted to learn whether genetics or upbringing has a greater effect on how successful people are in life. Twins are useful in such studies because almost all twins share the same home environment as each other, but only identical twins share exactly the same genetics. Prof. Timothy Batessaid: “Previously, the role of family and the environment often dominated people’s ideas about what affected psychological well-being. However, this work highlights a much more powerful influence from genetics.”

The study was focused on personality traits They asked the question ‘How determined are we to overcome challenges -difficulties- in life? Prof. Bates said: “If you think of things that people are born with, you think of social status or virtuoso talent, but this is looking at what we do with what we’ve got from our genes. ‘He continues: “The biggest factor we found was self-control. There was a big genetic difference in [people’s ability to] restrain themselves and persist with things when they got difficult and react to challenges in a positive way.” This means it is your genes that make you determined to get what you want despite difficulties. I think further studies in genetic engineering and behavioural genetics will help us understand the role our genes play in determining who we are and how we act. However, it is still frightening to think that criminals will tend to put the blame on their genes for their unforgivable acts.