Has anyone read the book "The God Gene" .....?

Question

How faith is hardwired into our genes by Dean Hamer?

Is it worth the read? What are your thoughts?

Answer 1

I read it. The idea behind it is interesting, but the evidence is hard to swallow. First of all, the author's findings are not peer reviewed. In the scientific community this is a huge deal. He has not published anything on his data either. It is a good read if you would like to learn about new thoughts and ideas, but if you are looking for truth, then don't even bother.

Answer 2

This idea could lead to understanding why so many people continue to hold onto their belief in a sky fairy that they cannot prove exists.

Answer 3

here is an article about it from Chuck Colson breakpoint website. as the other guy wrote it there is no provided evidence for it. he also had "found" the gay gene which later was disproved when it was discovered such a low percentage of gay people had this gene.

Searching for the "God Gene"
By Allan Dobras
4/4/2007

Has Evolution Embedded in the Brain the Concept of God?


A group of five research scientists, puzzled by the broad spectrum of religiosity found in human beings, are looking to see if the human brain has been “wired” by evolution to accept the notion that a “god” is at work in the creative processes of the universe.

In the December 2006 issue of Discover magazine, writer John Horgan explores the work of a handful of scientists who are trying to find some physiological, genetic, or biological origin for religious experiences. “Modern researchers,” said Horgan, “are applying brain scans, genetic probes, and other potent instruments as they attempt to locate the physiological causes of religious experience, characterize its effects, perhaps replicate it, and perhaps even begin to explain its abiding influence.”

Neuroscientist Michael Persinger claimed that he could induce religious experiences in people by “stimulating specific regions of their brains with electromagnetic pulses.” He even coaxed biologist Richard Dawkins—perhaps the world’s most famous and articulate atheist and strident critic of religion—to take his test.

Dawkins accepted the challenge with bravado. “I've always been curious to know what it would be like to have a mystical experience,” he said before the experiment. Unfortunately, Dawkins came away disappointed, noting that he did not experience any spiritual sensation or “communion with the universe.” What he did experience was a slight dizziness and a twitching in the leg.

Undaunted, Persinger has continued with his experiments claiming that in a test involving 600 participants, 80 percent “sense a presence” during the magnetic stimulation process. Swedish researchers at Upp­sala University attempted the same experiment, but have been unable to duplicate Persinger’s results, explaining that since patients are aware that there is an expectation of some sort of “presence,” many will succumb to the power of suggestion. Patients that were unaware of any such expectations experienced no unusual psychological effects. Persinger countered that the “Swedes didn’t use the machine properly.”

Fordham University anthropologist Stewart Guthrie believes that God is an illusion and that religion “may best understood as systematic anthropomorphism,” i.e., an evolutionary adaptive trait that evolved to a point where humans came to believe “the entire world of our experience is merely a show staged by some master dramatist.” In other words, a notion of God and religion was implanted in our brains in much the same way that fundamental life forms supposedly evolved into more complex creatures.

Andrew Newberg, a neuroscientist at the University of Pennsylvania, opines that people from different religious traditions have similar mystical experiences, or visions, which “typically involve sensations of self-transcendence and ‘oneness.’” Newberg hypothesizes that the visions stem from the same neural processes, and he devised a technique called “single-­photon-emission-computed tomography (SPECT)” to test his theory.

To put his hypothesis to the test, Newberg enlisted the aid of more than twenty spiritual practitioners from a number of religious faiths, including a Franciscan nun and Tibetan Buddhist monks. When a nun in deep prayer or a monk in meditation feels that he or she is in communion with the object of their contemplation, a radioactive fluid is injected into the body that reaches the brain and the SPECT chamber then is able to identify the region of the brain that was stimulated by the spiritual experience.

Citing some research that suggests religious contemplation and sexual pleasure have some commonality in neural activity, Newberg concludes that an “evolutionary perspective suggests that the neurobiology of mystical experience arose, at least in part, from the mechanism of the sexual response.”

THE GOD “GENE”
Of all the research, perhaps the most bizarre study is being carried on by Dean Hamer, head of gene structure and regulation at the National Cancer Institute, who is attempting to link religion to a specific gene. He has based his study on an earlier research project that he did on the genetics of nicotine addiction.

Hamer then brought together 1000 volunteer participants, whom he asked to fill out a detailed questionnaire that included a section that asked them to rate their feelings of “absentmindedness, connectedness with nature, belief in extrasensory perception, and other traits.”

Hamer concluded that the answers “provide a measure of the subjects’ affinity for spirituality.” Hamer linked these responses to variant of a gene called VMAT, that he said corresponded to higher scores for what he had defined as spirituality. Hamer, an agnostic, dubbed the variant “the God gene.” However, the gene accounts for only 1 percent of the variance in the test scores of his subjects, prompting Francis Collins, head of the human Genome Project, to characterize Hamer’s thesis as “wildly overstated.”

To put his research into perspective, Dr. Hamer is a homosexual activist who, for many years, has been searching unsuccessfully for a genetic link to homosexuality. In 1993 he published some study results on gene position Xq28 that he alleged showed such a link.The study was widely reported in the press and touted as discovery of a “gay gene.” If verified, Hamer could argue that faith-based criticism of homosexuality was misplaced since the behavior was inborn and unchangeable.

However, his discovery did not hold up to scientific scrutiny. A much larger study by researchers George Rice, et al, concluded, “Our data do not support the presence of a gene of large effect influencing sexual orientation at position Xq28.” Reportedly, Dr. Hamer was later investigated by the NIH on charges of scientific fraud.

Blunted in his quest to bring credibility to the homosexual lifestyle when his “homosexual gene” theory was debunked, evidently Dr. Hamer sought to discredit faith-based opposition to homosexuality by attempting to show that God and religious faith were little more than a biological quirk—a strategically placed “God gene.” But, it’s back to the drawing board for Dr. Hamer, who seems obsessed with finding a biological justification for the dark, dangerous and abnormal lifestyle he has embraced. The greater mystery, however, is why the National Institutes of Health continues to fund Dr. Hamer to pursue this area of “junk science.”

In the final analysis, it should be clear that belief in God is not something to be found in an abstract function of brain chemistry, but rather that men and women are persuaded by the remarkable life and ministry of Jesus Christ—the God/man whose bodily resurrection from the dead changed the course of human history, as evidenced by the record of changed lives, scientific discovery, historical scholarship, and the timeless truths set down through 4000 years of Biblical history.

Spirituality is not a result of the presence of a material “gene” in our body but rather the presence (or absence) of something in our souls. As Saint Augustine put it: “Thou madest us for Thyself and our heart is restless until it repose in Thee” (Confessions 1.5).

Allan Dobras is a freelance writer on religious and cultural issues and an electronics engineer. He lives in Springfield, Virginia.

For Further Reading and Information


John Horgan, “The God Experiments,” Discover, December 2006.

“Homosexuality Is Not Hardwired, Concludes Dr. Francis S. Collins, Head Of The Human Genome Project,” NARTH, 12 March 2007.

“A Spiritual 'Gene'? Bringing a Spiritual Perspective to Daily Life,” Christian Science Monitor, 29 November 2004.

Regis Nicoll, “Chimp Change: Evolution's Underwhelming New Breakthroughs,” BreakPoint Online, 25 January 2006.

Regis Nicoll, “Materialism's Unsolved Mystery: The Question of Altruism,” BreakPoint Online, 23 June 2006.

Travis K. McSherley, "Religion, Believe It or Not: Breaking the Spell," BreakPoint Online, 12 June 2006.