ABSTRACT
This chapter suggests that environmental and genetic influences are absolutely inextricable. Genetic and environmental influences on behavior are absolutely inextricable, and genetic influences are therefore anything but immutable. The genetic codes making up the strands of DNA axe designed to produce different proteins. Many other psychological functions are molded in a similar way by the constant interaction of environmental and genetic mechanisms. The intimacy of the link between genetic and environmental influences varies for different psychological functions at particular periods in the developmental process. Many people appear to have something of a phobia about genes: an aversion to, or mistrust of, genetic “explanations” of behavior. The transcription function of genes is closely bound up with what we call the “expression” of genes. The gene sequences on the chromosomes have two functions, the conventional terms for which are template and transcription functions.
