Genes 2 Brains 2 Mind 2 Me

Humans are spiritual creatures – there’s no denyin’.  How & why we got this way is one of THE BIG questions of all time.  Since our genome shapes the development of our brain and its interaction with our culture, its not a surprise to see that, from time to time, folks will look for and find genetic links to various forms of spiritual and religious behavior.  Here’s a recent paper from Kenneth Kendler’s research team at the Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics, Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine entitled, “A Developmental Twin Study of Church Attendance and Alcohol and Nicotine Consumption: A Model for Analyzing the Changing Impact of Genes and Environment” [link to abstract].  An analysis of more than 700 pairs of twins found that the correlation between alcohol and nicotine consumption and church attendance (more church predicts less smokin’ and drinkin’) is more than 50% influenced by genetic factors – in adults.  In children and teens, the genetic contribution to the correlation is much less and the strength of the correlation stems more from shared environmental factors (parents, school etc.).  Is there a gene for going to church? Nope.  Are there genes that shape a person’s inclination toward novelty or conscientiousness? More likely so.  Are they distributed across all races and cultures? Yep.  Lots to ponder next Sunday morning.