Sociogenomics—How our environment molds genes and shapes our

The new field is called sociogenomics, a fusion of behavioral science and genetics that I have been closely involved with for over a decade. Though the field is still in its infancy, its philosophical implications are staggering. It has the potential to rewrite a great deal of what we think we know about who we are and how we got that way. For all the talk of someday engineering our chromosomes and the science-fiction fantasy of designer babies flooding our preschools, this is the real paradigm shift, and it’s already underway.

[T]he central insight of sociogenomics: Genes alone aren’t enough to determine these outcomes and neither is environment, but it’s not just because nature and nurture both shape the individual. It’s because they both shape each other, with nature influencing the way we experience nurture and nurture influencing the way our nature expresses itself. … [K]nowing how our environment shapes the expression of our DNA gives us the chance to change our genetic pathways.

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