I think this metaphor is being presented in a manner calculated to be misleading--at any rate that is the result. E.g., an egg hatches to "express" a chicken and not a goat exclusively because of its genes . If it hatched to express a dead chicken rather than a live one, than this is because of externalities. The use of the term "independent" makes no sense--there is simply no meaningful relationship to which the it can be applied--e.g., hatching as a chicken not a goat and hatching alive rather than dead are not independent factors, they simply have nothing to do with one another. Of course, that chickens continue to express themselves shows that chickens represent a genetic concocution (of near but obviously not absolute uniformity) not consistently fatal prior to reproduction and it is in this sense that genes and "environment" relate. Lanuage, and presumably other aspects of psychology, are genetically defined in the same way hatching as a chicken is genetically defined. I suspect this fact is disturbing to some because for psychology is the last vestige were free will seems it might be rescued...but can't prove it, obviously.
How significant "environment" is in sculpting genes is a matter of debate. Environment is a factor (at least in the trivial sense noted above), but it may turn out to be an *insignificant* one (strange as that may seem). Therefore, at the very least the quoted statement exaggerates environment's known importance (social or otherwise)--an agnostic position would presumably be a more honest one.
-Peter
> Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 08:06:18 -0700
> From: cqmv at pdx.edu
> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Kenneally, some notes and background
>
> Michael Smith wrote:
> > Sorry if this seems rude -- but the above borders on gibberish,
> > and may indeed have crossed the border. "Independent"?
> > Independent of what? And once again -- who is making these
> > straw-man claims, or assumptions, to the extent that they are
> > intelligible at all?
> >
> I imagine it's gibberish if you haven't studied genetics. Genes can
> have no "independent" effect on anything, because the expression of any
> genes occurs in an environment that also shapes the expression. This is
> an almost banal point that anyone learns in their first course on genetics..
>
> Miles
>
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