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Genetics is crude, but neuroscience goes directly to work on the brain, and the mind follows.

The brain is not a bag of traits. It's startlingly complex. There are few or no single genes with a consistent effect on the mind.

Of course, genes can't pull the levers of our behavior directly. But they affect the wiring and workings of the brain, and the brain is the seat of our drives, temperaments and patterns of thought.

First of all, many human diseases are influenced by, if not caused by mutations in genes.

It's a very complex network of genes making products which go into the nucleus and turn on other genes. And, in fact, you find a continuing network of processes going on in a very complex way by which genes are subject to these continual adjustments, as you might say - the computer programmer deciding which genes ultimately will work.

Why do people believe that there are dangerous implications of the idea that the mind is a product of the brain, that the brain is organized in part by the genome, and that the genome was shaped by natural selection?

We know specific genes are turned on in specific cells, but we don't know to what extent this happens.

The neuroscience area - which is absolutely in its infancy - is much more important than genetics.

We know that genes shape human cultures and human societies: The DNA we inherited from our ancestors makes certain foods taste better, affects the way we care for children, influences what colors we find vibrant, and contributes to our love of socializing, among other examples.

But the newest research is showing that many properties of the brain are genetically organized, and don't depend on information coming in from the senses.