Anthropologist Barbara King takes on Dean Hamer’s The God Gene at Bookslut. Hamer’s basic hypothesis is that there’s a gene that controls the chemical regulators in our brain and that people with one variant of this gene are more open to mystical experiences and other forms of “self-transcendence”. I had the unenviable position of defining the god gene for the forthcoming Encyclopedia of Anthropology, in which I attempted to maintain some degree of balancedness, but if I hadn’t felt obligated to give Hamer a fair hearing, I might well have written along the lines King does:

Let’s deal with the title right away. Pretty unequivocal, no? The God Gene! Already on page 8, however, Hamer inserts a disclaimer: “There are probably many different genes involved, rather than just one. And environmental influences are just as important as genetics.” Hamer is nothing if not savvy: this measured estimation is too tepid by half for marketing a book (or making Time’s cover)….

Science writer and blogger Carl Zimmer is unsatisfied with Hamer’s page 8 retreat. He suggests a title that more accurately reflects the book’s contents: A Gene That Accounts for Less Than One Percent of the Variance Found in Scores on Psychological Questionnaires Designed to Measure a Factor Called Self-Transcendence, Which Can Signify Everything from Belonging to the Green Party to Believing in ESP, According to One Unpublished, Unreplicated Study.

Zimmer’s title pretty much sums up my definition, though I might have added “…on Psychological Questionnaires Administered Only to Americans and Some Aussies and Designed to…” .