Our Genes, Our Choices

David Goldman received his B.S. from Yale University in 1974, graduating in only three years, and his M.D. degree from the University of Texas Medical Branch in 1978. He joined the intramural program of the National Institutes of Health in 1979, and is currently Clinical Director and Chief of the Laboratory of Neurogenetics of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. Throughout his career, he has identified genetic factors responsible for inherited differences in behavior, his laboratory pioneering in functional genomics – how differences in DNA sequence translate into behavioral differences from molecule to intermediate brain processes to behavior. He is recipient of many awards for his research and is one of the most highly cited scientists in biological psychiatry. His laboratory is currently exploring the genetics of substance use disorders and related health problems.

"Our genes, our choices’ is thought provoking and well argued…With its witty writing style, many personal accounts and analogies to books and movies, ‘Our genes, our choices’ is far from being a textbook and should be of interest to a wide range of readers." --Human Genetics online, October 2012"...the complexity of human behavior and a person's ability to choose is explained as deriving from a relatively small number of genes which direct neurodevelopmental sequence. The author uses judicial, political, medical, and ethical examples to illustrate that this lifelong process is guided by individual genotype, molecular and physiologic principles, as well as by randomness and environmental exposures we choose and do not choose." --Doody.com, April 2013"In a bold, new integrative treatment of the confusing facts and fictions about human behavior and genetic determinism, David Goldman has provided a user-friendly death to determinism and a rebirth of genetic probabilism. He uses his breadth and depth of neuroscience experience to optimize the necessary reductionism for understanding violence, impulsivity, depression, anxiety, and personality variations while explaining the newest technologies of the researcher with access to the laboratories of the National Institute of Health and his colleagues. He bravely confronts the numerous ethical dilemmas that arise when dealing with new knowledge about our genetic makeup and their implications for good and evil. Drawing on his personal exposure to mental disease in his own family, his sensitive and energized writing reminds me of Sylvia Nasar’s explication of "A Beautiful Mind", now giving us a beautiful genome from a self-described "behavioral genomicist." We are treated to an insider’s knowledge about the work and hoopla about a gay gene and what may be a better conceptualization closer to the facts. Freed from the constraints of journal writing with its 3 to 6 page shackles, Goldman tackles the utility of race as a construct without racism, communist ideology in science, insurance discrimination against the mentally ill, free will, and even pedophilia. His work provides essential reading across the humanities, social and medical sciences, and the courtroom. As fascinating as any whodunit, he tries to account for the origins of our behavioral outcomes, for good or for evil or for mental anguish –was it genes, was it environment or culture, or bad luck, or a conspiracy among some subset of culprits? I won’t give it away –read the book." --Irving I. Gottesman Ph.D., Hon.FRCPsych, Bernstein Professor in Adult Psychiatry & Senior Fellow, Department of Psychology University of Minnesota & Sherrell J. Aston Professor of Psychology Emeritus, University of Virginia

• Chapter 1: INTRODUCTIONChapter 2: The Jinn in the genomeChapter 3: 2B or not 2B?Chapter 4: Stephen Mobley and his X-chromosomeChapter 5: Dial Multifactorial for Murder: The intersection of genes and cultureChapter 6: Distorted capacity: The measure of the impaired willChapter 7: Distorted capacity: Neuropsychiatric diseases and the impaired willChapter 8: Inheritance of Behavior and Genes “For” Behavior Gene WarsChapter 9: The scientific and historic bases of genethics: Who watches the geneticists and by what principles? Chapter 10: The world is double helical DNA, RNA and proteins, in a few easy piecesChapter 11: The stochastic brain: From DNA blueprint to behaviorChapter 12: Reintroducing genes and behavior Chapter 13: Warriors and WorriersChapter 14: How many genes does it take to make a behavior? Chapter 15: The genesis and genetics of sexual behaviorChapter 16: Gene x environment interaction Chapter 17: The epigenetic revolution: Finding the imprint of the environment on the genomeChapter 18: DNA on TrialChapter 19: Parents and children: Neurogenetic determinism and Neurogenetic individualityChapter 20: Summing up genetic predictors of behaviorGlossarySuggested readingsIndex