The Genetic Leash
by Steven Gussman Our genes are ultimately responsible for the existence of our brains (to date, developmental biology is the only process capable of building this complex machine); but the genes clearly build it to be a somewhat (though by no means completely ) plastic processing unit. i And yet this degree of plasticity is itself a heritable, genetically encoded trait— the product of natural selection (which would by definition never be able to produce a genetic leash of zero percent). ii How else would we have evolved from brainless cells, to our simple hardwired ancestors, to the complex behavioral great apes? iii Neurobiologist Leo M. Chalupa points out that, “what's special about brain plasticity... is that the changes are mediated by events that are in some sense adaptive,” (what a fantastic coincidence that would be, if plastic-learning were a genuinely arbitrary process victim to the whims of, “cultural constructs”). iv Let's look at an example whic