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—BOOK REVIEW—
EVIL GENES:
Why Rome Fell, Hitler Rose, Enron Failed, and My Sister Stole My
Mother’s Boyfriend
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By Barbara Oakley
Prometheus Books, 2007
This quirky, entertaining, and highly informative book lives up to its title, interweaving a rich and reader-friendly review of scientific data on the brain with stories about “evil” people ranging from Chairman Mao to the author’s own deeply troubled sister. In the process, Oakley covers current findings about genes, brain structure, and the neurological roots of psychopathy, borderline personality disorder, and Machiavellianism—with detours into topics ranging from Yixing teapots to Paris Hilton.
While the author is not a medical professional (she’s a professor of engineering whose resume includes working on a Soviet fishing trawler, operating a radio at the North Pole, and serving as a U.S. Army captain), her book has won high praise from influential researchers including Blank Slate author Steven Pinker. Lay readers will find its mix of science, personal stories, and world history fascinating and enlightening—especially if they’re dealing with psychopaths or borderline personalities in their own lives.
QUOTES FROM EVIL GENES
By Barbara Oakley
“Just as a child needs the neurological structure of the eye to process information from the electromagnetic fields that shimmer through the air around him, a child also needs the structure of the orbitofrontal cortex and related neurological features to have a feeling of compassion. Psychopaths, it appears, may be born preprogrammed with a tendency to grow up ‘morally blind.’”
“[T]he effect of the environment on those with a potentially Machiavellian genotype is not necessarily as straightforward as it might seem. For example, a talented boy with an underlying set of problematic genes might, as a result of abuse, descend by adulthood into obviously pathological behavior—borderline or psychopathic—that could result in his incarceration and removal from society. However, the same Machiavellian-oriented child with a mild upbringing might flower into a full Machiavellian as an adult—a charismatic man whose sinister influences could ultimately affect millions.”
“Ultimately… religion, education, and even family may have less of an impact on our innate sense of morality than we may think. Ethics classes, in other words, really may just preach to the choir. Those few who are wired differently—and we are beginning to learn how the wiring’s awry—march to their own moral tune, no matter what they are taught.”
“If I’ve learned anything through these many years of research, it’s that [Oakley’s “borderline personality” sister] Caroline’s choices were a bit like the choices a tree on a windy shoreline has in deciding how tall and how bent to grow.”
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