 | Born That Way: Genes, Behavior, Personality Subjects: Behavioral Sciences; Mental Health; Psychiatry & Clinical Psychology - Adult; Child & Adolescent Psychiatry & Clinical Psychology; In spite of fascinating material and an engaging writing style, Wright (Sins of the Father) is largely unsuccessful in his attempt to portray the current state of the nature-vs.-nurture debate as it pertains to the underlying causes of human behavior. On the positive side, Wright does a fine job of explaining the controversy between those who believe that human behavior is significantly controlled by genetic influences and those opting for the primacy of environmental factors. Similarly, his descriptions of the results, both anecdotal and scientific, of the Minnesota Twin Study of identical twins raised apart and brought back together later in life are compelling, clearly demonstrating the importance of heredity. What detracts greatly from these successes is Wright's relentless attack on those who disagree with his pro-genes position (e.g., "Richard Lewontin, one of the Not in Your Genes authors, who has repeatedly proved he needs no collaborators in his campaign of distortion"). Wright's calling his opponents "gene police," "radical environmentalists" and "genophobes" does nothing to elevate the level of the debate. And while Wright interviews and fully develops the personalities of many of the scientists on the "nature" end of the continuum, he presents caricatures of those on the "nurture" side. Nonetheless, many important public policy questions are touched on in this otherwise useful book. (June) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved William Connor Wright Jr. was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on October 22, 1930. He received a bachelor's degree in English from Yale University. He then spent four years as a linguist with the United States Army Language School. He wrote several non-fiction works during his lifetime including Lillian Hellman: The Image, the Woman; Harvard's Secret Court; The von Bu?low Affair; and Born That Way: Genes, Behavior, Personality. He also wrote two as-told-to autobiographies of Luciano Pavarotti entitled Pavarotti: My Own Story and Pavarotti: My World. He died on June 5, 2016 at the age of 85. (Bowker Author Biography) |
