|
|
|
|
| |
 |
|
|
1st
EMBL/EMBO Joint Conference 2000 |
 |
|
Session
III |
|
|
| Past
and future of behavioural genetics |
|
| |
Benno Müller-Hill, Professor, Genetics Institute of Cologne University, Germany
Human
behavioural genetics had a bad past, particularly in Germany.
Not much was known in the thirties. Guesswork was used to
justify crime. Not much is known even now in the field, but
this will change. Proper definitions of phenotypes will announce
success. The phenotypes are still the domain of psychiatrists
and pyschologists. At the moment phenotypes seem to me a muddle
and the reason that success has been rather limited in this
field of Human Genetics. Yet sooner or later this will change.
Success will be reached when phenotypes can be correctly predicted
from genotypes.
In the past, German psychiatrists did not hesitate to connect
phenotypes with values. So it was their general habit to call
schizophrenics minderwertig, leere HŽlsen or Ballastexistenzen.
Then, as today, violent crime was regarded by human geneticists
as a phenotype. Whole ethnic groups, like the Gypsies, were
then believed to carry such alleles. After 1945 the counter-belief
was announced that there are no genetic differences between
ethnic groups with regard to behavioural genes. One avoided
by that to state that genetically different persons should
have equal rights. This dogma may break down soon. Therefore
it is important that geneticists avoid connecting values with
phenotypes and that they defend equal rights of genetically
different persons. If they do not do so, we all may move into
a global disaster.
Biography
Benno Müller-Hill was born in Freiburg i.Br., Germany in 1933.
He studied chemistry in Freiburg and Munich. He worked for three
years as a research fellow with Walter Gilbert in the laboratory
of James Watson at Harvard University. In 1966, he isolated Lac
repressor with Walter Gilbert, and in 1968 he became full professor
at the Genetics Institute of Cologne University. His main area of
research is protein-DNA interaction and gene control. He recently
published a book entitled The lac Operon. A Short History of a Genetic
Paradigm.
In 1984 he published a book ["Tödliche Wissenschaft"] on the
history of human genetics in Nazi Germany. The book has been translated
into English [Murderous Science, Oxford University Press, 1988]
and six other languages including Japanese and Hebrew. A paperback
edition with an afterword by James Watson was recently published
by Cold Spring Harbor Press.
He is an elected member of the European Molecular Biology Organisation
[EMBO], the Human Genome Organisation [HUGO], the Acad emia Europaea
and Honorary Fellow of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. |
|
|
|
|
