Genetics vs. Environment

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I know many people go down the genetic route when it comes to what causes autism, even thou there is still no proof this is so.

Is there anybody who believes it may be an environmental issue, I know many scientists believe the environment does play a major roll.

What exactly do they mean when they say autism may be an environmental issue, can anybody explain what they mean? What in the environment could cause autism?

I can't really answer you your questions and I also don't have a real opinion to it, because I don't exactly know.

But what I think is, that there could be influences between genes and environment:
no autism-genes = no autism
but most of the time you also have environmental factors and when those two come together you have autism.
Maybe not in every single case, there is no 100% truth applying to all autistic cases. But I know that my mom had a lot of stress while being pregnant with me, because short before that my brother died, she had a cold and my grandfather died while being pregnant with me. Then she also had a bad allergic reaction after she had the cold and I had a difficult birth.

I could imagine that all those things contribued to my autistic symptoms. Everyone in my family is a bit BAP, but it doesn't really influence them negativly in their lifes, just in my case my symptoms are very often too much to deal with them.

I think this is a false dichotomy. Thinking in this either or way hinders understanding.

The key is to explore the concept of epigenetics until you absorb the idea that environmental and genetic effects combine to produce the traits we observe.

Putting it as a choice is like asking if it's the car or the diver that wins the race.

My mother fled from Ireland to give birth to me in the 1960s, she was 16 and fled to England where she married my stepfather whilst pregnant with me, he was a complete and utter control freak, he never liked me from the moment I was born. It didn’t help that I popped out light brown in colour and the rest of the family was lily white.

My mother also had a difficult birth with me, I was born 9 weeks premature, it was touch and go. Stress played a major role in my delivery into the world also, with my mother fleeing her family from Ireland, giving birth out of wedlocke was frowned upon in those days, she was under a lot of stress and very young.

Stress is an environmental issue, it seems to play a major part in autism along with anxiety.

Genetics and the environment are not even in the same ball park.

If an explosion takes place right in front of you, the sudden change in the environment provokes how you may react, your behaviour towards the explosion will more than likely be fear, an instinctive reaction. Where does genetics come into it?

Genetics built the tools so I’m able to respond to the explosion on a physical level, mentally there is no proof what so ever genetics plays apart in how I might behave.

It would probably be helpful to look I to the chemistry that underlies the cellular activity that is involved in DNA and RNA information transfer and the creation of proteins based on instructions encoded in DNA.

The idea that behavior is independent of genetics is as misguided as the idea that it's all genetically determined. The systems we are discussing are extremely complex. Our minds require that we create simplified models of such systems in order to think about them, but oversimplifying them or mistaking the model for reality is unlikely to further understanding.

Maybe we are the cutting edge of human evolution.

All living people are the cutting edge of evolution, by definition.

So far scientist have managed to sequence 90% of the genome, the other 10% is apparently junk not worth sifting through, so far there is no indication that genomes have anything to do human behaviour.

Since when did DNA have anything to do with instincts, thoughts, or even how we sense the world and consciousness, these are subjects scientists are still baffled by.

I suspect that we don't read the same books.

The 90% 10% stats you give are inaccurate and based in misunderstandings of several ideas. Sequencing is not the same as understanding.

The questions that you pose rhetorically actually have lots of good answers about which you can educate yourself at no cost through credentialed academic institutions on the internet.

There has never been a better time to ask such questions because of the depth and breadth of easily available information. Seek and ye shall find!

Point me in the direction where it says that DNA is responsible for human behaviour such as laughing and a smile, than I will happily oblige.

Behavioural genetics is an entire field of study. Here is a wiki introduction.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioural_genetics



There are also many, many books devoted to the subject. Here is a small sampling.


http://books.google.com/books/about/Han ... P_SLtfIN0C

I doubt you have the time or money to read many of those (academic books tend to be very expensive) but this is just to show you how well researched the area is.

The Human Genome Project has allowed scientists to understand the coding sequence of human DNA nucleotides. (”Once candidate genes for behaviors are discovered“), scientists may be able to genetically screen individuals to determine their likelihood of developing certain pathologies.

It doesn’t cost me anything to look at the net, in fact I found this for you above.

You seem to be talking about behavioral genetics, the relationship between genes and behavior, it’s not what I’m talking about.

Seeing as I don’t have the time or money to find the answers, maybe you can find the genome for a laugh or a smile for me. like a genetic scientist, I can’t find it anywhere.

One gene by itself does not create a specific behavior. Behaviors are affected by traits, which can be characterised as the result of a specific combination of multiple genes, and these traits can also be affected by different factors. Environment for example, is amongst the primary factors affecting trait development. Genes can be manipulated and modified and the environment can increase certain outcomes of genes. Understanding genetics in relation to behavior is difficult and research is currently ongoing.

(Research is on going) what does that mean, I thought it had been established genomes control human behaviour?

I looked as best as I can and found nothing on the net that points to DNA being responsible for laughing and smiling.

I hope you don't think there is one specific gene that codes for laughing or smiling. There isn't. Those things are much too complex. What there is is genes that code for the creatio of certain brain structures. These are the brain structures (from a wiki about laughing):

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The part I bolded is what establishes that.

specific combination of multiple genes>>>>>traits>>>>>specific behaviours.

Genes code for proteins. Some proteins are enzymes, some do transport within the body. Some are structural. If you absolutely insist on tying a gene to a behaviour, here is a possibility:



This is the gene SLC6A3 which codes for a dopamine transporter. If you want to simplify and distort, you could say that how well or poorly you transport dopamine will affect your behaviour which will in turn affect how much or little you laugh and smile. It's a stretch and a mighty absurd one (as I'm sure other posters will point out) but you insisted.