RE: Humans 'Predisposed' to Believe in Gods and the Afterlife
August 3, 2011 at 3:05 pm
(This post was last modified: August 3, 2011 at 3:17 pm by The Grand Nudger.)
"Although it is always difficult to determine the many interacting functions of a gene, VMAT2 appears to be involved in the transport of monoamine neurotransmitters across the synapses of the brain. This is a long way from a "God Gene", as PZ Myers notes:
"It's a pump. A teeny-tiny pump responsible for packaging a neurotransmitter for export during brain activity. Yes, it's important, and it may even be active and necessary during higher order processing, like religious thought. But one thing it isn't is a 'god gene.'"[4]
Carl Zimmer claimed that, given the low explanatory power of VMAT2, it would have been more accurate for Hamer to call his book A Gene That Accounts for Less Than One Percent of the Variance Found in Scores on Psychological Questionnaires Designed to Measure a Factor Called Self-Transcendence, Which Can Signify Everything from Belonging to the Green Party to Believing in ESP, According to One Unpublished, Unreplicated Study.[5] However Hamer notes that the importance of the VMAT2 finding is not that it explains all spiritual or religious feelings, but rather that it points the way toward one neurobiological pathway that may be important."
bolding is mine
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_gene
Is more where I'm coming from. (thats a nice cover, the folks in the art dept managed to make that less than creepy, also, they added a quiz, which is sweet of them, was reading about this a ways back, not sure if it was before Oct '04)
Not making these distinctions leaves the door open for some douche to come wash this thread in his voodoo blood, claiming this gene is proof of god, and his design. Just regard my comment as a preemptive strike on idiocy.
"It's a pump. A teeny-tiny pump responsible for packaging a neurotransmitter for export during brain activity. Yes, it's important, and it may even be active and necessary during higher order processing, like religious thought. But one thing it isn't is a 'god gene.'"[4]
Carl Zimmer claimed that, given the low explanatory power of VMAT2, it would have been more accurate for Hamer to call his book A Gene That Accounts for Less Than One Percent of the Variance Found in Scores on Psychological Questionnaires Designed to Measure a Factor Called Self-Transcendence, Which Can Signify Everything from Belonging to the Green Party to Believing in ESP, According to One Unpublished, Unreplicated Study.[5] However Hamer notes that the importance of the VMAT2 finding is not that it explains all spiritual or religious feelings, but rather that it points the way toward one neurobiological pathway that may be important."
bolding is mine
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_gene
Is more where I'm coming from. (thats a nice cover, the folks in the art dept managed to make that less than creepy, also, they added a quiz, which is sweet of them, was reading about this a ways back, not sure if it was before Oct '04)
Not making these distinctions leaves the door open for some douche to come wash this thread in his voodoo blood, claiming this gene is proof of god, and his design. Just regard my comment as a preemptive strike on idiocy.
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