Where Are Those Cotton Swabs?

You probably heard about yesterday's scientific news from researchers in Sweden. Shankar Vedantum writes in the Washington Post that the new research found that men are more likely to be devoted and loyal husbands when they lack a particular variant of a gene that influences brain activity. The gene variant, allele, is present in two of every five men. Women who live with men who do not have the variant are more likely to say their partners are emotionally close and available, rather than often being distant and disagreeable.

Our experience as foster parents taught us that biology - down to the level of individual genes - plays a huge role in who we are as human beings. We will not be surprised at much, as the young science of genetics reveals more and more about us and our fellow humans.

Of course, this is not to say that other factors are not important. Obviously, they are. However, I predict that genes are going to be increasingly acknowledged to have a prominent place among those factors that make us who we are, as more scientific research is conducted.

Meanwhile, I have a teenage daughter. Honey, where are those cotton swabs? She has a boy coming over tonight.