Gene Found to Explain Repeated Mistakes

palegray.net writes "A December 6th article in Nature explores the relationship between a specific gene and those of us prone to repeatedly making the same mistakes. From the article: "Drug addicts, alcoholics and compulsive gamblers are known to be more likely than other people to have this genetic mutation ..." The gene results in the development of fewer D2 receptors in the brain, a condition which the study has shown leads to a lessened ability to learn from experience." So no complaining about dupes and typos: it's genetic!

Comments

Now, for the most useful one

[MikeRT]

The gene that controls the impulse to tell others what to do, when it isn't necessary to tell them what to do. The 'busybody' gene.

Re:Now, for the most useful one

[gweihir]

I think that having this repeated mistake poriblem directly causes you to want to tell others what to do. After all, you do not learn from giving bad advice or instructions either. Explains a lot in politics, religion and management. All these creers where you can be sucessful even after having repeatedly demonstrated bad judgement.

Re:Now, for the most useful one

[DaedalusHKX]

No, because politicians do what is best for them. They lose nothing by being removed from office, they get to retire and spend their money or write books. No, this gene only affects the voters, the mass of sheep who keep running into the arms of new politicians each election cycle, despite NEVER getting a better deal than they would by simply walking away and firing all the politicians. Anyone who wants the job has already proven their desire for power and for a free ride at the expense of those who are taxed. Yet people still vote for 'em? They still consent to be ruled? Remarkable. This gene must be more effective than we think!!

Re:Now, for the most useful one

[j-pimp]

This American disdain for politicians is perplexing. You claim to be so proud of your democracy. And yet you despise the people who personify and work for that democracy?

American's hate all forms of government. We just hate ours the least. I doubt hating our government officials is a uniquely American phenomenon either. Perhaps our two party system makes it a bit more pronounced, but I find it hard to believe that no other country shows disdain for its leaders. Also hating ones leaders fits well into the belief that government is a necessary evil.

Re:Now, for the most useful one

[QuickFox]

You trust your politicians? Of course not. Quite the contrary. For instance here in Sweden there have recently been several scandals with politicians not paying their taxes. We expect them to be selfish, and adapt our systems in such ways that their selfishness will work in our interest.

For example, here in Sweden the members of the government, the ministers, have no right to give orders to authorities. Ministers decide about policy, and are expressly forbidden from meddling in the day-to-day matters of the authorities. That's to limit the influence of the power-hungry. The only exception is when an authority asks for a policy decision, and also some exceptional authorities such as the one that manages embassies and foreign affairs.

This arrangement complicated matters a lot when a Swede was released from Guantanamo. The US demanded guarantees from the Swedish government that he would be supervised. Since the government is expressly forbidden from giving any such orders they couldn't give any such guarantees.

It would make more sense for you Americans to simply expect your politicians to be selfish like everybody, and not despise them for that, and instead despise your system if it doesn't provide suitable checks and balances. Which I think it doesn't.

Re:Now, for the most useful one

[fyngyrz]

It would make more sense for you Americans to simply expect your politicians to be selfish like everybody, and not despise them for that, and instead despise your system if it doesn't provide suitable checks and balances. Which I think it doesn't.

+1 insightful, buddy. But the average American confuses the system with the nation. Despise the system? Then you're being unpatriotic. Another built-in design problem is that as you say, we should change the system so that the politicians have checks and balances. But we can't do that; only the politicians can. This is a deep and serious design flaw.

Re:Now, for the most useful one

[QuickFox]

One of the best systems for checks and balances is the press, the media, checking on the politicians and reporting to the people. Of course this requires that a large proportion of the citizens be active, carefully choosing media that play this role faithfully, demanding that they do it well.

Re:Now, for the most useful one

[fyngyrz]

One of the best systems for checks and balances is the press, the media, checking on the politicians and reporting to the people.

Ok, let's look at that. The press discovers behavior X, for instance, voting themselves a raise constantly. Reports it to the people. The people have no method to control, punish or regulate this behavior. So the one thing the people can do is vote a politician out on the next cycle. This has to be done one at a time, because if you live in state A, you can't vote on the politician from state B. This also has to be done in the face of perceived good the politician has done in other areas for the locals. If successful, the political party, another entity the people have no power over, promptly provides a new candidate set with the same sets of inclinations, while rewarding the first politician with a lucrative seat on a thinktank or something similar for their service to the party. The people choose from this set, and we're right back where we started.

This is why the press doesn't work to police the system. The best it can do is knock off a politician here and there, but that has no significant effect on legislation or the behavior of the group because no law or other output from the group can be affected by the actions of any particular member. Remember: They're misbehaving as a group.

That's why we're getting laws that proclaim the Internet is a terrorist threat, the USAPATRIOT act (which very few legislators bothered to read), numerous unconstitutional laws, that's why the head of a committee very much responsible for affecting regulation of the Internet thought it was a "series of tubes", and so forth on the legislative front. There's no means for us to change any of that.

That's why pork and bill stuffing continues unabated; that's why PACs and corporations continue to purchase laws with money, sex, junkets, etc. on the manipulation front. That's why senators feel free to hardly ever show up in the senate when running for president or (fill in the blank) on the "duty" front. These things are blessed by the political parties, and that means that you will never have a candidate that doesn't support them, albeit tacitly.

Further, that's why the press feels free to try to manipulate the election process - because the only difference it will make is how responsive the system is to the corporations that own the press. So they're quite intent on getting the most corporate friendly candidate in there, it can affect their bottom line. Watch how they behave, and have been behaving, with regard to Ron Paul for a terrific current example of this kind of behavior. Poll manipulation, sidelining in debates, failure to mention in (otherwise) general coverage of the candidates... if you actually pay attention, it could hardly be more obvious. The problem is, and has been for quite some time, that paying attention doesn't solve the problem. We have no mechanism that can solve the problem; the system has evolved to lock us - the citizens - out.

Politics explained

[El Yanqui]

Now I know why so many politicians get re-elected: Too few D2 receptors in the voting population.

Re:Politics explained

[marcello_dl]

Now I know why people upgrade their windows installation.

Just what we need

[CRCulver]

When our society already has plenty of excuses to avoid personal responsibility (e.g. overdiagnosis of ADD to include kids who are just undiscipled), we give more ammunition to people who just don't want to try to get it right.

Re:Just what we need

[CRCulver]

That's exactly what I'm suggesting. The practice of science should be punishable by death.

Re:Just what we need

[caution live frogs]

My biggest problem with this sort of science is that the general public usually gets everything about it wrong, thanks to bad reporting or poor understanding of science in general. Someone publishes an article stating that morph A of gene X is found more often than one would statistically expect in a number of persons with a specific condition, but when the public gets the results we get headlines screaming "OMFG TEH GHEY GENE FOUND" and that kind of crap, because it makes better press. Yes, there are conditions that can be caused by an aberration in a single gene (albinism, narcolepsy, etc.) but more often than not genes that control complex behaviors require multiple interactions between multiple genes; until proven otherwise you should always understand that publication of a finding like this is indicitave of a contributing factor, not a causal factor, for a given condition.

Trust me. I do neuroscience for a living. When you're preparing the publication for submission, you always work your hardest to ensure that everything is accurate and properly phrased to be crystal clear about the limitations and drawbacks of the findings, only to have a reporter read nothing more than the abstract and get everything wrong. Don't blame the societal excuses on the scientists. People inclined to take the easy way out don't end up with PhDs, research careers, and articles in Nature.

Re:Just what we need

[QuickFox]

(e.g. overdiagnosis of ADD to include kids who are just undiscipled), [...] people who just don't want to try to get it right. Which kind are you? Undiscipled? Or don't want to get it right?

Re:Just what we need

[abigor]

Right, well that's fair enough then.

Re:Just what we need

[Lemmy Caution]

We already know that a lot of bad decisions are motivated by other physiological factors - adolescent "testosterone poisioning", PMS, dementia, etc. The fact that cognition has a material basis puts us in a place beyond either "excuses" or simple "suck it up" volitionalism. Each of us is, ultimately and existentially, "responsible" for ourselves. Yet much of our behavior and attitudes are still formed by factors out of our control, and there is no one I know who doesn't have thoughts, behaviors, and emotions which baffle them.

Knowing the roots of these behaviors gives us a way to short-circuit the negative ones.

Re:Just what we need

[Tablizer]

When our society already has plenty of excuses to avoid personal responsibility (e.g. overdiagnosis of ADD to include kids who are just undiscipled),

I think the problem is that humans on average are not designed to sit still for hours at little desks and move little symbols on flat bleached trees. A "problem child" may have been a brilliant hunter in an earlier era. I've seen families where one kid is almost an angel and the other from the same parents is a hyper mess. Whips and chains may work in the short term, but create a disturbed personality later in life.

Re:Just what we need

[bigpicture]

"Personal Responsibility" What's that? Is it in the dictionary somewhere between "blame personal circumstances or others" and "It's not my fault".

Re:Just what we need

[Artifakt]

My daughter was diagnosed with ADHD and treated with Ritalin for a number of years. We eventually took her off it, against the school system's collective advice, and her grades and behavior improved remarkably, and she proved to be quite able to control and motivate herself. I question whether the diagnosis was ever really correct, but assuming it was, I'd like to add the following incident.

Daughter was 9, and hiking in the Great Smoky Mountains. Daughter pointed, and whispered "See that deer?" We looked, puzzled. Daughter: "That deer on the hill - no not that hill, the hill behind the other hill behind that hill." Focused 12x binoculars right where she pointed. Yep, there was a deer there, laying down in high grass, about 2 1/2 miles away. With binoculars, you could see just her head and neck. Daughter "She's pregnant!". Deer stood up, waddled a few feet - appeared either preggers or seriously overweight. Asked daughter "Was she standing up when you first saw her?". Daughter: "You can tell she's retaining fluids, like mommy did with me!".
      We've tested this various ways since. Take my daughter to a place where there are exposed fossils, and she can find dozens of specimens in the time it takes most people to find one. Fill a tabletop with a hundred intricate knick-knacks, glass figurines and such, let her look at it casually for a few seconds, and then leave. Let people rearrange a few items, take a few, or add a few new ones, then let her reenter the room and ask her to describe the changes (Do this without telling her it's a test).

So it's nice you regard the speculation about 'great hunters' as amusing. I've heard it and similar from a lot of observers who think it is often objectively true. Doubtless not in nearly all cases, and yes, I have seen ADHD children whose behavior was eternally annoying to simply intolerable for even the shortest exposures, but given your remarks, you would doubtless be amazed by how often this sort of claim comes up. Many of the reports aren't from parents or guardians of the subjects in question. There's a large subset of ADHD kids that focus quite well to absolutely superlatively in some other settings, just not in school.
        While we're at it, a lot of these kids are regarded as needing medication by some female teacher, and any male teachers in the environment disagree, often strongly. Male teachers are 80% less likely to recommend an initial physician's visit than women, and even more likely to have the opinion that the child needs an outlet for his or her energies more than medication. Guess which gender was historically likely to be leading a hunting party?

          In my daughter's case, there is only one group of people who were shown objectively to be wrong. That's the teaching staff who repeatedly warned that her behavior would only worsen if she was taken off Ritalin, who were 180 degrees off axis. The exceptional 7th grade math teacher who saw her at a midnight public astronomy workshop, and said, "If she's like this when she hasn't had a pill since noon, get her off the pills and she can skip bonehead math and be learning calculus by her junior year." was apparently right. The people who dealt with her in the summer that year, and were offering her chances to volunteer at a local museum were right (and sad that their insurance wouldn't let them offer an apprenticeship to a child with her diagnosis). Outside of school, we saw very little ostracism, either by other children or adults. Sure there was some, she's a geek of the old block after all.

Must be widespread....

[gweihir]

Just look at the ad state of the World. What we would need is people that can learn from other's mistakes, but what we have seems to be a majority that cannot even learn from their own.

Back on topic, I think this is very interesting reaearch. Dare one even hope for the possibility of a cure?

Re:Must be widespread....

[Adambomb]

Just look at the ad state of the World Thats either quite clever or the most apt typo ever.

Not to put too fine a point on it

[Colin Smith]

But isn't this almost the definition of stupidity?

Interesting...

[R2.0]

I know a recovering alcoholic pretty well, and one of her pronounced traits is repeatedly doing the same things that she knows she shouldnt. Keep in mind that the phrase "Insanity is doing the same action over and over again and expecting a different result" comes from AA.

Oddly enough, it only became really pronounced AFTER she stopped drinking - gene activation?

More than one way to Rome.

[Trackster]

I think it's interesting that we are so easily convinced that genes control every little detail of our lives. Just because they find a gene that, when modified, affects this trait or that trait; we assume that's all there is to it. It's not. Playing with the genes may be _one_ way to get a certain result. However, it is _not the only_ way to get that same result. Anyone who knows the smallest bit about psychology and sociology know there are many ways to consistantly produce children (and by extension, adults) who repeatedly make mistakes. Heck, even physical injuries to the brain can produce certain behaviors.

The road called "genes" isn't the only one that can take you to Rome. There are plenty of others. If life was like a golf green, genes would be the contour and speed of the green. Learning, society and environment would be the skill of the golfer, the putter, the wind, etc.

Do Petty Criminals Also Lack D2 Receptors?

[osewa77]

Hmmm. I wonder if there's a criminal aspect to this. Do repeat convicts in the US have less d2 receptors on average? People who have been arrested more than once and continue to commit petty crimes?

Re:Genetic databases of individuals...

[the_humeister]

Well that does pose an interesting question. Should people with genetic predisposition to disease have higher insurance rates? Should women with the BRCA mutations pay more? What if they get profilactic surgeries?

I guess this explains ...

[LaughingCoder]

why I keep coming back to Slashdot!

Re:Human behavior is simple...

[Valdrax]

That didn't take a lot of thought. Too lazy to flesh it out?

Isn't this backwards?

[Fractal Dice]

Isn't addiction the result of the brain learning too well that getting a certain stimulus triggers the pleasure/reward sensation? It's only a "mistake" when the stimulus turns out to be a false positive. The same "addicted" reaction to a drug that short-circuits the reward sensation might cause a person to acquire and maintain very good habits for needed nutrients or acquiring resources. It's a tradeoff between locking in behaviors that consistently produce rewards and the risk that you are locking in slowly self-destructive behaviors that only seemed to be a reward. A person who can break addictions easily may also tend to randomly stop doing useful, rewarding things.

Re:I'd want a test for exactly that reason.

[megaditto]

This is exactly the reason we need to get off the socialist society/welfare path we've been goning down. The reason "stupid" people reproduce so much is that they get paid to do that (by taxing "smart" people).

Socialism means the end of progress; I though Nazi example should have taught us as much.