BOOKS ON SCIENCE
In Search of the ‘God Gene’
By John Langone & The New York Times
- Nov. 2, 2004
“The God Gene: How Faith Is Hard-Wired Into Our Genes,” by Dr. Dean Hamer. Doubleday, $24.95.
Why, the geneticist-author of this provocative book asks, is spirituality such a powerful and universal force? Why do so many people believe in things they cannot see, smell, taste, hear or touch?
Dr. Dean Hamer, a molecular geneticist, argues persuasively that genes predispose humans to believe that “spirituality is one of our basic human inheritances,” and that, indeed, there is a specific individual gene associated with faith. “I propose,” he writes, “that spirituality has a biological mechanism akin to birdsong, albeit a far more complex and nuanced one.”
Genes, Dr. Hamer adds, do not tell the whole story. Humans’ genetic predisposition for spiritual belief is expressed in response to personal experience and the cultural environment, and it is shaped by them.
But the genes, he says, “act by influencing the brain’s capability for various types and forms of consciousness, which become the basis for spiritual experiences.”
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In other words, an inclination toward religious faith is no accident.
What captured Dr. Hamer’s attention was a gene, called VMAT2, that controls the flow of mood-regulating chemicals called monoamines in the brain. Crucial to making the connection was a scale called “self-transcendence,” which, the author writes, “provides a numerical measure of people’s capacity to reach out beyond themselves — to see everything in the world as part of one great totality.”
How to measure such an amorphous linkage was tricky, given that one cannot simply examine the genome sequence and identify the location of any “God genes.”
“Even if we knew the biochemical function of all the genes,” he writes, “we would not know how they interact with one another, and with the environment, to mold a trait as complex as spirituality.” So, convinced that the brain chemicals controlled by the “God gene” influenced spirituality by altering consciousness, he studied DNA samples from volunteers, trying to identify sequences of DNA that might be involved in the degrees of spirituality observed from one person to the next.
He was, he says, looking for what has been called the “causes of human diversity,” not the reason that humans have aptitude for spirituality “but the reason that some have more or less than others.”
Dr. Hamer is best known for a 1993 study linking male homosexuality to a region of the X chromosome. Other researchers tried to replicate the findings in 1999 but were unable to do so.
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Dr. Hamer writes that while he found an apparent association between VMAT2 and spirituality, the gene is not the only one to affect spirituality.
“It plays only a small, if key, role,” he writes. “Many other genes and environmental factors also are involved. Nevertheless, the gene is important because it points out the mechanism by which spirituality is manifested in the brain.”
He also points out that science can tell us whether there are “God genes,” but not whether there is a God. “Our genes can predispose us to believe,” he writes, “but they don’t tell us what to believe in. Our faith is part of our cultural heritage, and some of the beliefs in any religion evolve over time.”
Needless to say, many geneticists are skeptical. When Dr. Hamer told his former boss at the National Institutes of Health that he was writing this book, her suggestion was, “Wait until you’ve retired.”
Another colleague said: “A God gene? That’s got to be nonsense. Have you replicated it?” Theologians, too, are not always thrilled when science encroaches on their territory. “Theologians often see science as irrelevant, incomprehensible, or even destructive,” Dr. Hamer said.
Still, he writes, the fact that spirituality has a genetic component implies that it has evolved for a purpose. “There is now reasonable evidence that spirituality is in fact beneficial to our physical as well as mental health. Faith may not only make people feel better, it may actually make them better people.”A version of this article appears in print on Nov. 2, 2004, Section F, Page 6 of the National edition with the headline: BOOKS ON SCIENCE; In Search of the ‘God Gene’. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe