by Lee Shainen

I'M NOT STUPID. However, I admit to being somewhat mathematically challenged. My first algebra class was in 1967. I was distracted. It was not the best of times for learning math. For years, I blamed "Sex, Drugs, and Rock 'n' Roll" for my ineptitude, but maybe I just didn't have the math aptitude, or, more likely, I cut class to avoid the stress of not knowing what was going on.

We live in an era where age-old questions regarding the influences of heredity and environment are being sorted out in laboratories by scientists studying the human genome. My life mate, Susan Jo, a computer scientist who has worked on the Human Genome Project for close to ten years, keeps me more informed than I would "naturally" be. I also read. The best book, by far, that we have come across on the subject is Matt Ridley's Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters. Ridley's synthesis inspired the theory I am about to espouse. He doesn't know about it. However, I promise you that I will have Susan Jo proofread this piece, and if she says I'm debasing the tenets of research and science, I will recant.

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