Monday, May 24, 2010

How Has It Changed You?

How has it changed you? What good has it done? Who has it brought you closer to, and who has it distanced you from? Are you happier, or less happy? How? Do you love more or fewer people more or less? Do they love you? Does it matter? And how did you come to this place, anyway? And why?

Saturday, May 22, 2010

And Man Made Life

TO CREATE life is the prerogative of gods. Deep in the human psyche, whatever the rational pleadings of physics and chemistry, there exists a sense that biology is different, is more than just the sum of atoms moving about and reacting with one another, is somehow infused with a divine spark, a vital essence. It may come as a shock, then, that mere mortals have now made artificial life.

Craig Venter and Hamilton Smith, the two American biologists who unravelled the first DNA sequence of a living organism (a bacterium) in 1995, have made a bacterium that has an artificial genome—creating a living creature with no ancestor (see article). Pedants may quibble that only the DNA of the new beast was actually manufactured in a laboratory; the researchers had to use the shell of an existing bug to get that DNA to do its stuff. Nevertheless, a Rubicon has been crossed. It is now possible to conceive of a world in which new bacteria (and eventually, new animals and plants) are designed on a computer and then grown to order.

--"And man made life: Artificial life, the stuff of dreams and nightmares, has arrived," The Economist, Leaders section (5.20.10)


The genie is out of the bottle--for good and ill. We knew it would likely happen, sooner or later. The path was being revealed: the work of the cloning scientists; the mapping and research of the genome; the growing knowledge of the details of how our genes dictate our form and function--and our deep-seated need to know more, author more, and control more. We cannot be surprised that we are brought to this place.

But if there is reason for hope, there is reason for concern. We will have to be at our very best. In whatever good, protecting and guiding way we may entertain a notion of relationship with Deity or Truth, in whatever way we may hold to a sense of Purpose or Providence, may that power and wisdom, that creative process, purpose or providence be with us and guide us. For we have so often proven that we humans acting individually or collectively, privately or in the process of governing, are unreliable stewards of those things that offer the potential for the greatest good and the greatest harm. The article elaborates:

That ability would prove mankind's mastery over nature in a way more profound than even the detonation of the first atomic bomb. The bomb, however justified in the context of the second world war, was purely destructive. Biology is about nurturing and growth. Synthetic biology, as the technology that this and myriad less eye-catching advances are ushering in has been dubbed, promises much. In the short term it promises better drugs, less thirsty crops, greener fuels and even a rejuvenated chemical industry. In the longer term who knows what marvels could be designed and grown?

On the face of it, then, artificial life looks like a wonderful thing. Yet that is not how many will view the announcement. For them, a better word than "creation" is "tampering". Have scientists got too big for their boots? Will their hubris bring Nemesis in due course? What horrors will come creeping out of the flask on the laboratory bench? ...

The other [advancing] development is faster and cheaper DNA synthesis. This has lagged a few years behind DNA analysis, but seems to be heading in the same direction. That means it will soon be possible for almost anybody to make DNA to order, and dabble in synthetic biology.

That is good, up to a point. Innovation works best when it is a game that anyone can play. The more ideas there are, the better the chance some will prosper. Unfortunately and inevitably, some of those ideas will be malicious. And the problem with malicious biological inventions—unlike, say, guns and explosives—is that once released, they can breed by themselves. What if a home-brew synthetic-biology club were accidentally to launch a real virus or bacterium? What if a terrorist were to do the same deliberately?

The risk of accidentally creating something bad is probably low. Most bacteria opt for an easy life breaking down organic material that is already dead. It doesn't fight back. Living hosts do. Creating something bad deliberately, whether the creator is a teenage hacker, a terrorist or a rogue state, is a different matter. No one now knows how easy it would be to turbo-charge an existing human pathogen, or take one that infects another type of animal and assist its passage over the species barrier. We will soon find out, though.

But how do we protect the world from ourselves, from the harm, if not the horror, we could unleash? Rather than a poor job of paraphrasing, I offer the thoughtful considerations of The Economist:

It is hard to know how to address this threat. The reflex, to restrict and ban, has worked (albeit far from perfectly) for more traditional sorts of biological weapons. Those, though, have been in the hands of states. The ubiquity of computer viruses shows what can happen when technology gets distributed.

Thoughtful observers of synthetic biology favour a different approach: openness. This avoids shutting out the good in a belated attempt to prevent the bad. Knowledge cannot be unlearned, so the best way to oppose the villains is to have lots of heroes on your side. Then, when a problem arises, an answer can be found quickly. If pathogens can be designed by laptop, vaccines can be, too. And, just as "open source" software lets white-hat computer nerds work against the black-hats, so open-source biology would encourage white-hat geneticists.

Regulation—and, especially, vigilance—will still be needed. Keeping an eye out for novel diseases is sensible even when such diseases are natural. Monitoring needs to be redoubled and co-ordinated. Then, whether natural or artificial, the full weight of synthetic biology can be brought to bear on the problem. Encourage the good to outwit the bad and, with luck, you keep Nemesis at bay.

The computer hackers and computer virus analogies are useful, and perhaps our most reasonable guideposts. And the approach offered reflects wisdom, or at least fair understandings of our experience. It is likely the better of unnerving alternatives.

A longer article, a fascinating treatment of the actual biological technology employed and other approaches in progress, is provided in a Briefing article in the same issue of The Economist: "Genesis Redux: A new form of life has been created in a laboratory, and the era of synthetic biology is dawning." It is definitely worth the read.

http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=16163154
http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=16163006

Friday, May 21, 2010

Sojourners

If you've believed in better understandings and answers (better thinking), new beginnings and endings (cycles and changes), causes and effects (reasons), that there is something right or true out there to believe in (or at least something more), then you've had no choice, no other way to go. You've had to keep seeking, testing, accepting and rejecting--and moving on, again and again.


Wednesday, May 19, 2010

'Tweaks' Can Save Social Security. A Congressional Report.

WASHINGTON - On its current path, Social Security is projected to run out of money by 2037, largely because of aging baby boomers reaching retirement. For the first time since the 1980s, Social Security will pay out more money in benefits this year than it collects in payroll taxes. The longer action is delayed, the harder it will get to address the program's finances.

Social Security faces a $5.3 trillion shortfall over the next 75 years, but a new congressional report says the massive gap could be erased with only modest changes to payroll taxes and benefits. Some of the options are politically dangerous, such as increasing payroll taxes or reducing annual cost-of-living increases for Social Security recipients. Others, such as gradually raising the age when retirees qualify for full benefits, wouldn't be felt for years but would affect millions. Many wouldn't affect current recipients, according to the report by the Senate Special Committee on Aging. Sen. Herb Kohl, chairman of the committee, said small "tweaks" are all that is needed to bolster Social Security's finances for future generations of retirees.

--Can tiny changes save Social Security? by Stephen Ohlemacher, Associated Press, as reported in msnbc.com (5.17.10)

This is not news. Not the fundamental conclusions, anyway. I remember concerns raised and similar prescriptions offered in the WSJ and other financial publications 20 or more years ago. And just a few years ago, there was another round of these observations, including a particularly good article in The Atlantic. Had the changes been made twenty years ago or even five or ten, the cost and impact on retirees would have been negligible. Even now, the effects would apparently be bearable. If frogs had wings...

But no one dared touch the "third rail" of retirement benefits or increase taxes. After all, we have an electorate with an exagerated sense of public entitlement, regardless of income level or status--an electorate that at the same time is often ungrateful, and dismissive or disapproving of the necessary size of the governing enterprise and the work of governing. And nothing has changed. If anything, the ideological polarization of today's poisonous political climate makes it more difficult than ever.

So what kind of "tweaks" are we talking about? Just what is the report suggesting? Actually, it makes no particular recommendation, but offers various possibilities, alone or in combination, which would provide an effective solution:

The entire $5.3 trillion shortfall over the next 75 years would be wiped out if payroll taxes were increased by 1.1 percentage points for both workers and employers. It would also disappear if Congress started taxing all wages, not just those below $106,800, said the Senate report, citing projections by the actuaries at the Social Security Administration.

On the benefits side, more than three-fourths of the shortfall would vanish if Congress reduced annual cost-of-living increases by 1 percentage point each year. Social Security recipients get annual increases based on inflation. This January, for the first time since automatic adjustments were adopted in 1975, there was no increase because prices decreased last year. About 23 percent of the shortfall would be gone if Congress gradually increased the age when retirees qualify for full benefits from 67 to 68. Nearly a third of the shortfall would disappear if the full retirement age were gradually increased to 70.

But the article made no mention of "means testing"--although I have to believe the study and report dealt with the possibility. Means testing is merely a measure for reducing or eliminating social security benefits for those who otherwise will have significant assets or income--means--in retirement. This approach reinforces the notion of social security insurance: although we all pay into it, we only receive payments from it if we do not already have significant retirement assets or income.

Although it would doubtless eliminate some or all of the social security benefit I now receive, I support means testing. I think it is reasonable and fair. I would also support lower cost-of-living increases, especially since there is evidence that the measure used has overstated actual inflation. And they could increase payroll taxes as a last resort. I would not raise the qualifying age further, not when employment is harder to retain for older employees, and very difficult to find if you are older and lose your job.

But even if legislation could be passed, even if a reasonable, acceptable cobbling together of these approaches would solve our intermediate-term funding problem, we will have done nothing to address the funding of the following period. The article:

One expert cautioned that adjustments designed to fully fund Social Security for only 75 years will almost certainly have to be revisited well before then. Here's why: In 15 or 20 years, the Social Security trustees will be looking at a new 75-year window, one that includes future shortfalls beyond the current 75-year horizon. Those shortfalls will have to be addressed years in advance to avoid dramatic tax increases or significant benefit cuts, said Kent Smetters, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton business school. "If you only fix it for 75 years at a time, the same problem suddenly reappears every 15 to 20 years," Smetters said.

I know. Manana. Let tomorrow take care of tomorrow. Which is, of course, how we got where we are.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37195779/ns/business-personal_finance/


Tuesday, May 18, 2010

More on Genes: How DNA Turns Stress Into Illness

Misery isn't just depressing, it's bad for your health. People going through stressful events, like divorce, are more likely to get sick. People who are HIV-positive see their condition worsen more quickly if they don't have good social support. But nobody knows exactly how mental stress causes illness and death.

--"Misery in the Genes: How DNA Turns Stress Into Illness," by Helen Fields, Chronicle of Higher Education (5.2.10)

We all know that, of course. Simple correlation studies and multivariate analysis have long made the association clear. But because we did not know how stress caused physical illness, we could not be certain that there was not another concomitant or associated factor that was the actual, hidden cause. We just couldn't know for sure.

But that has all changed now--or at least it is changing. Now the causative relationship between stress and physical illness is becoming clear, the pathways are becoming known. From the Chronicle article:

Now a study by researchers at the University of California at Los Angeles and several other institutions has come up with an actual biological pathway: a chain of molecules that connects stress to disease through genes. The scientists also learned that some people can get through tough times without ruining their health, thanks to a particular genetic variation that breaks the chain.


The study, published this spring in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is wildly multidisciplinary, spanning psychology, molecular biology, immunology, and epidemiology. That posed challenges in lining up grants, says Steven W. Cole, an associate professor of medicine at UCLA, who led the research. But the study's success signals the growth and increasing sophistication of Mr. Cole's field, psychoneuroimmunology, the study of connections between mind and health.

As interesting as the finding is the ingenuity, breadth and reliability of Dr. Cole's methodological approach--and the possibility of a remedy:

He took inspiration from scientists who scan the entire human genome looking for genes that can be linked to diseases. He developed a computer program with a specific goal: to find mutations in stretches of DNA that attract transcription factors, molecules in a cell that activate genes. Transcription factors can be pushed into action by environmental factors like stress. A mutation in the DNA regions that attract them, which are called binding sites, could disrupt this "on-off switch" and thus change the stress response.

In the list of genes that were physically near the mutations, one stood out: interleukin 6, which...helps turn on the inflammatory response, which brings infection-fighting cells to the area—but a problem if you make it all the time. [I]t can lead to constant inflammation, which is bad for the body. Mr. Cole says, "Things like coronary heart disease, the most prevalent kinds of cancer, neurodegenerative diseases, probably Type 2 diabetes as well" are all linked to chronic inflammation.

Close to the interleukin 6 gene, the computer had turned up a binding site for GATA-1, a transcription factor. "But there was no guarantee that the whole thing the computer recognized took place in reality," says Mr. Cole. So he did a series of experiments to figure out if GATA-1 was indeed the messenger that brings news of stress...

If Mr. Cole was right about the connection between stress and disease, then a change in the GATA-1 binding site—the mutation noted by his computer program, a DNA difference that occurs in about 20 percent of the population—should keep the transcription factor from triggering so much inflammation. So people with that mutation might be healthier than those without it...

[The result:] People who were depressed at the beginning of the study and had the nonmutated sequence were twice as likely to die in the next 10 years as were others; those who had the mutation seemed to be protected. When Mr. Cole examined the data more closely, he saw that this was true only for deaths caused by diseases, such as cardiovascular disease, that are related to interleukin 6. Because the connection held true for such inflammation-related diseases but not for deaths due to other causes, Mr. Cole became more convinced that he was on the right track.

Other researchers have been impressed by Mr. Cole's results and by the combination of computer modeling, experimentation, and epidemiology he used to get there. "It's a fine study," says Gene E. Robinson, a neuroscientist, genome biologist, and professor of entomology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, who studies how the environment affects honeybee behavior. "It's a very creative coupling of different kinds of techniques and different perspectives to provide one of the most complete analyses of, basically, how does the social environment get under the skin."

There are certainly other pathways that link stress to disease. But Mr. Cole's method points to a new way to find links between environment and health...


And out of this research may eventually come a method or medication that deters the transcription factor from triggering illness-generating levels of inflamation in that 80% of us without the mutated GATA-1 binding site. Dr. Cole:

The next question is whether happiness might balance out stress in the cells. "We all secretly hope there's a pill," Mr. Cole says—some way to give everyone the benefit of that mutated GATA-1 binding site. Of course, living a calmer life might have the same effect, but not many people manage that. "If people cannot or will not give up stress, is there something we can do biologically to help?" Mr. Cole asks. It's a big question, one that will probably take research wide enough to span many disciplines to answer.

http://chronicle.com/article/Misery-in-the-Genes-How-DNA/65335/?sid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en

Monday, May 10, 2010

"Contract Employees": The New Normal?

The difference is that now he is a contract employee. He no longer gets any of the perks of being a permanent worker, including paid vacations or sick days, health insurance or tuition assistance. And he estimates that he makes about 20 percent less — for the same job he was doing before. The thing he misses most? "A feeling of security."

--"Need a job? Contract work could be the new normal," by Eve Tahmincioglu, msnbc.com (5.6.10)

And the new contract employee--freelance worker, if you will--must now pay the payroll taxes previously paid by his employer, as well as the portion the employee previously paid. The good news is all for employers, especially the vast majority of employers who previously treated most all their workers as legal employees. As re-employment starts to increase in a recovering economy, changing to contract workers is just too attractive to many of them. The reality:

As employers begin to cautiously hire again after the deepest economic downturn in a generation, [contract workers are] in the vanguard of an emerging new contingent work force. For some businesses, these contingent workers could become a permanent solution, eliminating a huge swath of full-time jobs with benefits, say labor and business experts.

"It's cheaper to hire contingent workers, but also more flexible for employers," said Bill Kahnweiler, associate professor and human resource expert at Georgia State University's Department of Public Management and Policy. Contingent workers allow companies to stay lean and avoid hiring more permanent workers. "If someone decides, 'We need to be this size,' it's far easier to do that with contract workers and temps," Kahnweiler said.

But how big an issue is this anyway? Is this a major trend or just a short-term strategy, much as temporary employees have always been used to meet staffing needs in economic declines and the early phase of economic recoveries? Some economists believe that we need more time and data to be confident of longer-term directions and answers, and that data will not be available for a couple years. But many others feel the handwriting is already on the wall. The article continues:

Just check any job search site and type in "freelance," "temporary" or "contractor," and you easily can find hundreds of hits in a broad array of industries. Monster.com saw a 46.2 percent spike in contract job postings in March compared to the same month last year, said Matthew Henson, a spokesman for the jobs site. Overall job listings increased 32 percent in the same period.

Littler Mendelson, one of the largest employment law firms in the country, predicted in a report last year titled "The Emerging New Workforce" that 50 percent of new jobs that emerge after the recession will be contingent positions, and as a result "as high as 35 percent of the work force will be made up of temporary workers, contractors or other project-based labor."

Staffing agencies also are seeing the trend. "Last year, a lot of companies were using temps to fill in as an extension of the work force, or to supplement a new burst in clients, or on a project basis," said Tina Chen, director of operations for Westmont, Ill.-based Carlisle Staffing. She saw a 43 percent increase in her company's billable hours from December to March. "Now they're looking to a supplemental work force full time."

Who are the people now finding their jobs changed to contract worker? And of critical importance to the future of our workforce, what does this mean for healthcare and retirement for the new contract workers? Apparently these contract employees will include large numbers of professional and technical workers, as well as lower-wage hourly workers. Some will still be able to afford their own health insurance and retirement savings, although their monthly take-home earnings will be considerably less. And lower income workers will not likely be able to afford either one. The experts:

Garry Mathiason, senior managing shareholder at Littler Mendelson, said it is the new normal. "As the economy gets moving faster, there will be more opportunities, and many of those will be in contingent jobs," he said. Such free-agent work has gone far beyond low-skilled jobs and the construction sector, he said, where contract work long has been prevalent. Mathiason expects to see a rise in the use of contingent workers in highly skilled positions — including scientists, engineers, professionals and managers — as companies aim to do more project-based work with small groups of professionals they can bring in as needed. He compares it to making a movie, where producers bring in the crew needed to get the job done.

But such a "transient" work force could end up hurting workers because many of the protections and benefits of being full-time employees, including unemployment insurance and some labor laws, don't apply to free agents. Contingent workers typically don't get sick or vacation days, retirement accounts or health coverage. "Companies want a more flexible work force, but we have to think about what's the next way we're going to protect people," said Sara Horowitz, founder of Freelancers Unions.

"This contingent economy is threatening to the American middle class," said Mr. Ackerman. "Workers like the flexibility, but not if they have to trade off guaranteed hours, health insurance or a secure retirement."


Corporations and other employers have never embraced managing health insurance or retirement pensions for their employees. To them it is not so much about providing and managing the the best and most effective health care, but rather, managing and reducing to the extent possible an unwelcome, dramatically rising business expense. And in recent years they have more openly acted as if they would be happy to be relieved of that responsibility. Perhaps a public option or a national health care plan will in time necessarily be back on the table. It will because so many more people will have need of it, and will be more likely to demand it. And what of retirement savings? That will have to be revisited as well.

But aren't there labor and tax laws about who must be treated as a full-time employee, and who can be treated as an "independent contractor?" Yes, there are. The rules are based on how integral the job or function is to the nature of the business, and how much day-to-day management and direction control are exercised by the employer or contractor. Could this put a halt to the broad conversion of employee jobs to contractor jobs, or at least slow it down. Perhaps, but it is sometimes a fuzzy area, and the government is far behind in audits of this issue. The article:

Sometimes contract workers are misclassified as independent contractors because employers don't want to pay benefits," said Mitch Ackerman, executive vice president of one of the Service Employees International Union. "What we find with part-time, contingent and independent contracting work is there's incredibly high incidents of wage theft, labor law violations and health violations," — especially when low-wage earners are involved, he said.

Alexander Passantino, former acting administrator for the U.S. Department of Labor's wage and hour division and an employment attorney with Seyfarth Shaw LLP, said employers need to look to guidelines established by government agencies to determine a worker's status. "The more control, the more likely it will be that the individual will be an employee."
Another factor to look at, he added, is whether the services provided by an individual are an integral part of a business. For example, "in a restaurant, the servers are an integral part of the business, but a plumber is not," he said.

Employers who misclassify an employee can face fines and back taxes and may have to pay benefits such as overtime or retirement. A 2000 Labor Department study, the most recent available, found 10 percent to 30 percent of firms audited in nine states misclassified at least some employees. Some government estimates show that more than 3 million workers are misclassified.

The federal government and state officials have recently pledged to crack down on such practices. The White House's latest budget includes funding to hire federal investigators to look into violations, and the IRS announced a three-year contractor classification audit of thousands of companies.

Lets hope so. But these wheels turn slowly, and IRS and labor audits can take years from the date of these employer changes before they are addressed and concluded. A lot of change may have already taken place, a new direction set, and the damage will likely be done. And regardless, most of the employers who are well advised will recast and redefine these new job requirements to come closer to the legal definition of an independent contractor. Get used to it; it may be the new normal.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36826679/ns/business-careers

Sunday, May 9, 2010

Love & Russian Orthodox Mystics

Thomas Merton provides us a useful summary review of the Russian Orthodox monastics and their contemplative spirituality. I've referred to Thomas Merton before. A 20th-century American Cistercian (Trappist) monk, he was a prolific writer on the contemplative traditions of Christianity and other faiths and spiritualities.

The following quote summarizes his thoughts on Christian love and the orientation of the Russian Orthodox mystics reflected in Starchestvo, the process of spiritual direction by a staret or the startsy (pl.) (monk elders gifted and experienced as teachers and directors).

Thomas Merton, from his essay, "Russian Mystics" (1):

It is not so much that the startsy were exceptionally austere men, or that they had acquired great learning, but that they had surrendered themselves completely to the demands of the Gospel and to Evangelical charity [love], totally forgetting themselves in obedience to the Spirit of God so that they lived as perfect Christians, notable above all for their humility, their meekness, their openness to all men, their apparently inexhausible capacity for patient and compassionate love. The purpose of Starchestvo is, then, not so much to make use of daily spiritual direction in order to inculcate a special method of prayer, but rather to keep the heart of the disciple open to love, to prevent it from hardening in self-centered concern (whether moral, spiritual, or ascetical).

All the worst sins are denials and rejections of love, refusals to love. The chief aim of the starets is first to teach his disciple not to sin against love, then to encourage and assist his growth in love until he becomes a saint. This total surrender to the power of love was the sole basis of their spiritual authority, and on this basis the startsy demanded complete and unquestioning obedience. They could do so because they themselves never resisted the claims and demands of charity [love].

...So many Christians exalt the demands and rigors of law because, in reality, law is less demanding than pure charity [love]. The law, after all, has reasonble safe limits! One always knows what to expect, and one can always hope to evade, by careful planning, the more unpleasant demands. (Emphases added.)

Whatever some may feel about Christianity, or the Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox contemplative traditions, this understanding of Christian love--Love from, of and with God, individually and in community--has to resonate or appeal more than the everyday secular and faith expressions of relationship and community we most often encounter.

(1) in Mystics and Zen Masters (1967), by Thomas Merton

Saturday, May 8, 2010

An empty branch--at rest, then filled.


Mary Oliver, from Evidence (2009):

Empty Branch in the Orchard

To have loved
is everything.
I loved, once,

a hummingbird
who came every afternoon--
the freedom loving male--

who flew by himself
to sample
the sweets of the garden,

to sit
on a high, leafless branch
with his red throat gleaming.

And then, he came no more.
And I'm still waiting for him,
ten years later,

to come back,
and he will, or he will not.
There is a certain commitment

that each of us is given,
that has to do
with another world,

if there is one.
I remember you, hummingbird.
I think of you every day

even as I am still here,
soaked in color, waiting
year after honey-rich year.


Jesus, Matt. 10:16-17:

But Beware of Men...

I send you out as sheep among wolves.
Therefore, be as shrewd as serpents,
and innocent as doves.

But beware of men...


Jeremiah 6: 16:

The Good Way

Stand by the roads and ways,
and watch.

Ask for the ancient paths,
where the good way is.

Then walk in it,
and you will find rest for your soul.


Jesus, Matt. 11: 28-30:

Come To Me

Come to me
all you who are weary and heavy laden,
and I will give you rest.


Take my yoke upon you,
and learn from me,
for I am gentle and humble of heart.

And you will find rest for your soul,
for my yoke is easy,
and my load is light.  


Jesus, John 15: 9-10, 12:

Abide in My Love

Just as the Father has Loved me,
I have also Loved you.
Abide in My Love.


If you keep my commandments,
you will abide in My Love...

This is my commandment,
that you love one another,
just as I have Loved you.


Thursday, May 6, 2010

Nature-Nuture: The Orchid Hypothesis

Few things have captured my interest so completely for so long as questions of nature and nurture. That is, to what extent are our behaviors, our very personalities, temperaments, aptitudes, successes and failures a function of our genetic prescriptions, predispositions or environmental trigger mechanisms. And, to what extent are they a function of what we learn, our acculturation, how we are shaped by our family, community and education experiences. In college, I was intensely focused on psychology, learning theory, classical and operant conditioning--but only as balanced by a secondary focus on biology and genetics, the brain, neurological and endocrine systems. And little about that has changed for me--except the notable, even illuminating, advances in genome research and evolutionary psychology. And I'd like to share with you one of the more fascinating and useful implications of recent research: The Orchid Hypothesis.
As reported in The Atlantic:
Most of us have genes that make us as hardy as dandelions: able to take root and survive almost anywhere. A few of us, however, are more like the orchid: fragile and fickle, but capable of blooming spectacularly if given greenhouse care. So holds a provocative new theory of genetics, which asserts that the very genes that give us the most trouble as a species, causing behaviors that are self-destructive and antisocial, also underlie humankind's phenomenal adaptability and evolutionary success. With a bad environment and poor parenting, orchid children can end up depressed, drug-addicted, or in jail—but with the right environment and good parenting, they can grow up to be society's most creative, successful, and happy people.  
Introduction, "The Science of Success," by David Dobbs, The Atlantic (December 2009)
The story begins with some genetics basics: there are certain key genes affecting our behavior that have variations called "alleles." Such genes are called "polymorphisms." As the article notes, it has long been known that variants of these genes "affect either brain development or the processing of the brain's chemical messengers, making people more vulnerable to certain mood, psychiatric, or personality disorders." Such variants are known as "risk alleles"--in contradistinction to the more normal, more prevalent "protective alleles"--because they increase our likelihood of developing a behavioral problem. And according to this article, based on many studies over the last decade or so,
...researchers have identified a dozen-odd gene variants that can increase a person's susceptibility to depression, anxiety, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, heightened risk-taking, and antisocial, sociopathic, or violent behaviors, and other problems—if, and only if, the person carrying the variant suffers a traumatic or stressful childhood or faces particularly trying experiences later in life.
 This became known as the "stress diathesis" or "genetic vulnerability" model. And most of the research advancing this hypothesis was focused on the presence or absence of the risk allele in individuals and the resulting effect of childhood stress or trauma on the individuals' behavior. What was affirmed again and again was that having a risk allele did not mean that you would necessarily exhibit these various behavioral problems, only that you were vulnerable to them if you had suffered oppressive levels of stress or trauma. But because of the focus on behavioral dysfunction, no one was looking for whether there were other possible results--upsides, perhaps, in cases of particularly supportive environments.

But that has changed in the last few years. New research directions and initial results have offered a broader and deeper understanding of the range of circumstances and results that obtain from the presence of these risk alleles. In fact, these risk alleles are, in certain circumstances, "possibility alleles." From the Atlantic article:
Recently, however, an alternate hypothesis has emerged from this one and is turning it inside out. This new model suggests that it's a mistake to understand these "risk" genes only as liabilities. Yes, this new thinking goes, these bad genes can create dysfunction in unfavorable contexts—but they can also enhance function in favorable contexts. The genetic sensitivities to negative experience that the vulnerability hypothesis has identified, it follows, are just the downside of a bigger phenomenon: a heightened genetic sensitivity to all experience.
There are apparently references in Swedish folk wisdom to "dandelion children": normal, healthy, resilient children who adapt and thrive almost anywhere. In noting this, Bruce Ellis and W. Thomas Boyce, offer that their research now suggests that there are also "orchid children," children who "will wilt if ignored or maltreated but bloom spectacularly with greenhouse care."

That's all well enough, even exciting, if like me you are fascinated by such things. But what does it all mean for our understanding of human potential, behavioral management or remediation, even for our understandings of evolutionary processes? More from the article:
At first glance, this idea, which I'll call the orchid hypothesis, may seem a simple amendment to the vulnerability hypothesis. It merely adds that environment and experience can steer a person up instead of down. Yet it's actually a completely new way to think about genetics and human behavior. Risk becomes possibility; vulnerability becomes plasticity and responsiveness. It's one of those simple ideas with big, spreading implications. Gene variants generally considered misfortunes (poor Jim, he got the "bad" gene) can instead now be understood as highly leveraged evolutionary bets, with both high risks and high potential rewards: gambles that help create a diversified-portfolio approach to survival, with selection favoring parents who happen to invest in both dandelions and orchids.  
In this view, having both dandelion and orchid kids greatly raises a family's (and a species') chance of succeeding, over time and in any given environment. The behavioral diversity provided by these two different types of temperament also supplies precisely what a smart, strong species needs if it is to spread across and dominate a changing world. The many dandelions in a population provide an underlying stability. The less-numerous orchids, meanwhile, may falter in some environments but can excel in those that suit them. And even when they lead troubled early lives, some of the resulting heightened responses to adversity that can be problematic in everyday life—increased novelty-seeking, restlessness of attention, elevated risk-taking, or aggression—can prove advantageous in certain challenging situations: wars, tribal or modern; social strife of many kinds; and migrations to new environments. Together, the steady dandelions and the mercurial orchids offer an adaptive flexibility that neither can provide alone. Together, they open a path to otherwise unreachable individual and collective achievements. 
This orchid hypothesis also answers a fundamental evolutionary question that the vulnerability hypothesis cannot. If variants of certain genes create mainly dysfunction and trouble, how have they survived natural selection? Genes so maladaptive should have been selected out. Yet about a quarter of all human beings carry the best-documented gene variant for depression, while more than a fifth carry the variant that Bakermans-Kranenburg studied, which is associated with externalizing, antisocial, and violent behaviors, as well as ADHD, anxiety, and depression. The vulnerability hypothesis can't account for this. The orchid hypothesis can.
The article returns to a recent study comparing children with and without the risk allele. In this study, there is a risk allele control group and a group where parents of children with the risk allele were trained to intervene in constructive and supportive ways. The author notes that both the "vulnerability hypothesis" and the "orchid hypothesis" would predict that the control group with the risk allele would exhibit worse behaviors than the the group with the protective allele. And they did. But the surprise came with the risk allele group that received parental interventions. The "vulnerability hypothesis" would suggest that they would improve, but not achieve the same level of normative behavior as the group with the protective allele. Wrong. The Atlantic article, in conclusion:
As it turned out, the toddlers with the risk allele blew right by their counterparts. They cut their externalizing scores by almost 27 percent, while the protective-allele kids cut theirs by just 12 percent (improving only slightly on the 11 percent managed by the protective-allele population in the control group). The upside effect in the intervention group, in other words, was far larger than the downside effect in the control group. Risk alleles, the Leiden team concluded, really can create not just risk but possibility.  
Can liability really be so easily turned to gain? The pediatrician W. Thomas Boyce, who has worked with many a troubled child in more than three decades of child-development research, says the orchid hypothesis "profoundly recasts the way we think about human frailty." He adds, "We see that when kids with this kind of vulnerability are put in the right setting, they don't merely do better than before, they do the best—even better, that is, than their protective-allele peers."
A long article, it is nonetheless worth reading in full for those with an appetite for more depth of coverage. Complementary, affirming research with Rhesus monkeys is also examined at length. And the author's personal examinations and reflections on his own risk allele raise another set of very human considerations and decisions.
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/print/200912/dobbs-orchid-gene