Chapter 8 - Behavioral Genetics

Question 1

• co-discoverer of double-helix structure of DNA and former head of the Human Genome Project
• “We used to think that our fate was in our stars. Now we know, in large part, that our fate is in our genes.”

Answer 1

James D. Watson

Question 2

• biologist at the University of California-Berkeley and editor of Science magazine
• “the nature/nurture debate is over and genes influence many aspects of behavior’

Answer 2

Daniel E. Koshland Jr.

Question 3

• may help eliminate society’s most intractable problems including drug abuse, homelessness and violent crime
• will lead to better diagnoses and treatment as well as compassion towards sufferers and their families

Answer 3

genetic research

Question 4

the scientifically erroneous and immoral theory of “racial improvement” and “planned breeding”

Answer 4

eugenics

Question 5

• Father of Eugenics
• cousin of Charles Darwin
• convinced by appearance of geniuses within families that intelligence is inherited

Answer 5

Francis Galton

Question 6

what did Francis Galton say about human society in an article entitled ‘Hereditary Talent and Character’

Answer 6

can be improved through better breeding

Question 7

Eugenics is from the word…

Answer 7

Greek
‘good birth’

Question 8

• American sexual libertarian
• “while the good man will be limited by his conscience to what the law allows, the bad man, free from moral check, will distribute his seed beyond the legal limit”

Answer 8

Humphrey Noyes

Question 9

• ability to be a naval officer is a heritable trait composed of subtraits for thalassophilia and hyperkineticism
• tried to prove heretability of traits as pauperism, feeblemindedness and criminality
• helped to persuade more than 220 US states to authorize sterilization of men and women in prisons and mental hospitals and urged the federal government to restrict the immigration of ‘undesirable races’

Answer 9

Charles Davenport

Question 10

love of sea

Answer 10

thalassophilia

Question 11

wanderlust

Answer 11

hyperkineticism

Question 12

practiced euthanasia (good death) of the mentally and physically disabled Jews, Gypsies, Catholics and others in Nazi Germany and occupied countries

Answer 12

Adolf Hitler

Question 13

the prime minister promoted policies that encourage middle class to bear children and discouraged childbearing by the poor and uneducated

Answer 13

Singapore (1983)

Question 14

Result of study on twins reared apart and together

Answer 14

monozygotic twins reared apart are about as similar as monozygotic twins reared together

Question 15

• said that results were ‘grossly exaggerated’
• “If you bring together strangers who were born the same day in the same country and ask them to find similarities between them, you may find a lot of seemingly astounding coincidences”

Answer 15

Richard Rose

Question 16

• said that Minnesota study had inconsistencies and was possibly fraudulent
• biased selection method
• Minnesota study relied on media coverage to recruit twins ‘twins interested in publicity and willing to support it’

Answer 16

Leon Kamin

Question 17

evidence supporting genetic models can be explained by other biological factors, such as virus that strikes the utero. Genes may just create a susceptibility to the virus

Answer 17

E. Fuller Torrey

Question 18

tiny neural structure in the hypothalamus which controls sexual response

Answer 18

interstitial nucleus

Question 19

postulated that interstitial nucleus is ‘large in individuals oriented toward women-whether male or female’

Answer 19

Simon LeVay

Question 20

• studying a strain of fruit flies that court other males
• names them ‘fruity’ or ‘fruitless’

Answer 20

Angela Pattatucci

Question 21

“Intelligence is 80% heredity and 20% environment”

Answer 21

• Jensen
• Hernstein

Question 22

Classical methods for studying the relationship between genes and behavior

Answer 22

1. Twins (same genes diff. environment)
2. Adoptees (diff. genes same environment)

Question 23

• fraction of total variability due to genetic differences
• is determined by studying twins and adoptees

Answer 23

heritability

Question 24

Behavior Gene Discovery

Answer 24

1. complications
2. multiple genes
3. environment is important
4. pleiotropy
5. measurement