In Practice

I find this post a bit disingenuous, quite honestly, especially since "Against Depression" built most of its edifice insisting on a genetic basis for depression, based precisely on studies such as Caspi's. You weren't just speculating there; you were strongly, at times angrily trying to discredit work that didn't see as much proof in the gene-based argument as you did. So your disclaimer here seems more self-serving and an attempt to have it both ways than a frank and open acknowledgment that you almost certainly went too far in your argument--as do so many who use genes to bolster pretty much any argument about illness or behavior they want to make, whether in biomedicine, evolutionary psychology, or wherever.

For what it's worth, the New York Times piece is a lot more critical than you let on:

To quote: The debunking report "does suggest that nailing down those factors in a precise way is far more difficult than scientists believed even a few years ago, and that the original finding could have been due to chance. The new report is likely to inflame a debate over the direction of the field itself, which has found that the genetics of illnesses like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder remain elusive."

That elusiveness hasn't of course stopped a great many extreme and overhasty claims being made. Nor alas is it likely to.

I don't agree that this piece is disingenuous at all. In Against Depression I don't think Dr. Kramer was building his whole argument around this particular study; there's lots of evidence that depression runs in families and that some people just have an inborn vulnerability that others don't.

With most of the research into genetics of all kninds of stuff you see all kinds of conflicting results, and it seems to me it's rare that the studies ever find anything much that's significant on a public health level. A meta-analysis isn't the be-all end-all of research, and it wouldn't be surprising if some new studies resurrect this whole thing in a few years and say it does matter after all. I don't know why people get so fixated on finding some single gene somewhere to explain depression or schizophrenia or preeclampsia or whatever. It seems likely it's way more complicated than that, lots of interactions maybe. I think they should stop using money for that and instead study useful things like treatments until after we make sure everybody in our country can get health care and that even the poorest children can get a top-notch education in public schools, and after that consider using money for these things that don't offer quick benefits.

When he is angry, I don't think it's at people who say, "Depression is serious, it's not weakness or a moral issue, we need to treat it well, but it's not down to some particular gene," he is only angry at the people who say depression isn't a disease, it's a finer sensibility, it's a noble calling, or it's morally wrong to be depressed, or it's wrong to treat with drugs and you should only use talk therapy, all that sort of thing.

The dream is a stream that flows in your head
his observations forever float in the world once read
Darwin's greatness unearthed in each search and each find
Kramer's fossil will one day be revealed in the mind.

Hope you and the family are well. Sincerely,David

Agree with Anon above. This is just Kramer playing CYA about his own over-reaching proclamations about specific genetic evidence. The confounding complexity of the human condition is too much for Kramer with his myopic linear mindset of connect the dots from genetics to psycho-pharmaceutical carpet bombing.

Sorry Peter, you just don't get it done...

Well, any claim for a genetic basis of character traits immediately runs into problems of bias in definition of the object phenomenon. The "Woody Allen gene" might just as well be called the "loyalty gene" or the "persistence gene" or the "scrupulosity gene" or the "look before you leap gene" or the "measure twice, cut one gene" -- all these traits correlate with susceptibility to depression. And we still don't have an equivalent "Pollyanna gene," the presence of which would (let's say) indicate susceptibility to happiness or contentment. (Do we?) This imbalance points to medicine's longstanding and quite natural tendency to look for pathology first, and understand "the normal" only later, making health only a matter of lack of pathology, rather than a condition worthy of investigation in its own right. We don't know enough about depression in part because happiness, too, is still so poorly understood. It does say something about the wealth and stability of our society that such questions should arise in the first place. One other thing the genetic hypothesis overlooks is the social aspect of mental illnesses like depression. That they should still be susceptible to cure, or at least amelioration, through psychotherapy -- and this, despite the large and growing number of pharmaceutical interventions -- suggests that even if a genetic "basis" for depression can be found, successful treatment is still likely to involve transformations in and through relationships.

This blog's definitely got a "troll attractor gene," or maybe just a "troll attractor factor," which is too bad, FWIW. (But what, indeed, is it worth?) I haven't read the other PT blogs much. Wonder if they suffer from the same thing, to the same degree?

finding the gene - can help find ways to prevent the disease - that is the hole point - so that people who are more likely to develop the depression can learn early in life ways to deal with stress and anxiety-

I think it appropriate to wish you a ''Happy Fathers Day'' since you are the intellectual ''Godfather'' of my family. Enjoy your Sunday.

My temporal lobe is posessed by a neurotic amygdala. I can only endure so much hypomanic inspiration so I'll use my old friend, deep dark depression, to turn it off. Did you know the "writer's block" of depression can cure hypergraphia? I've been using it for years. Damn. Here we go again.

I'll gladly give up creativity and insight for solitude. Recommend an amygdala controlling drug and I'll take it. My hyperactive nervous system is killing me and low latent inhibition sucks. My other lifelong friend, suicide ideation, can vouch for my sincerity.