Hmmmm ... No, I don't buy it

'God gene' discovered by scientist behind gay DNA theory

Ah! It harkens back to Mind-Brain Identity Theory! Tad's class just keeps rearing its ugly head ... What's reality? It's all just a bunch of electrical impulses ... ;) Shut up Tad, and go back to playing with your cat. What was that cat's name? Something horribly corny, I recall.

Basically, the scientist's idea is that some people are more "wired" for spirituality than others. I guess you could find an example of this in that both me and my identical twin sister are Catholic Wackos :) Yet, is he suggesting that the presence of this gene makes for a hard and fast rule - "have gene, will pray?" ;)

Surely, among identical twins, there is at least one counterexample. And doesn't one counterexample disprove his theory? If all identical twins are genetic copies, and at least twin of one set that has the "God gene" does not have this spiritual aptitude ... I guess you could investigate whether other physical variables negated the gene's effect. But would the same physical attributes be consistent in all the counterexamples?

In my opinion, there are too many variables involved in this kind of investigation. Environment has to play a role. Siblings are very close, genetically, although not as close as twins. We were all raised in a non-practicing, sometimes-not-even-Christmas-and-Easter Catholic household, and my brothers (who, like I said, have a very close genetic code to we girls) have never shown the slightest interest in religion. Another interesting question that would have to be answered: Where did my sister and I "get" this "God gene" from? We certainly did not inherit it from our parents or either set of grandparents. I can not speak very much for my great-grandparents on either side. I have a gut feeling, however, that my father's people were "it's convenient" Protestants. And as for my mother's people - well, my intuition tells me that we were the original Bad American Catholics, TM ;)

Interestingly, Dr Hamer's little caveat at the end - that "religious believers can point to the existence of god genes as one more sign of the creator's ingenuity - a clever way to help humans acknowledge and embrace a divine presence" does not fit very well at all with Catholic theology, but it does seem like it would work well with Calvinist theology - the Elect receive the gene, while those who are not destined for salvation do not.

I would also like to add that I do not find his research into homosexuality terribly compelling, either. Although the homosexual orientation may very well be natural, I wouldn't think it would have a genetic cause - it would be natural more in terms of a psychological phenomenon.

Sorry for the novel. Writing long posts on Telegraph articles is a nice way to burn time when trying to avoid the Logic Final Exam "natural deduction" material that can actually cause tears if you work and work and work and still swing and miss ;)