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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: epicure who wrote (99247)	3/22/2005 1:37:50 PM
From: cosmicforce	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 108807

Research On Twins Supports 'God Gene' By Jonathan Petre Religion Correspondent The Telegraph - UK 3-22-5 Religious belief is in the genes and can literally be inherited from one's parents, according to new research. While environmental factors were the largest influences on children, genetic make-up played a significant part in whether people continued to believe into adulthood, it found. The research will refuel the controversy about the existence of a so-called God gene, which has been hotly disputed by clerics and theologians. Based on an analysis of more than 500 identical and non-identical twins, the study at Minnesota University in America set out to discover whether spirituality was the result of nature or nurture. It concluded that children's religiousness was primarily the result of whether they had been born into a religious household. "But during the transition from adolescence to adulthood, genetic factors increase in importance while shared environmental factors decrease," it said. The twins answered questions about their religious beliefs, from the regularity of church attendance to how much they relied on prayer. While the identical twins reported similar patterns over time, the non-identical twins diverged as they got older, said the study in the Journal of Personality. However, the researchers stressed that genes were not the only factors that determined how religious people were. Laura Koenig, a co-author of the research, said: "There is still room for cultural and environmental influences." The debate about the "God gene" was prompted last year by Dr Dean Hamer, the director of the Gene Structure and Regulation Unit at the National Institute in America. After comparing more than 2,000 DNA samples, he concluded that the greater people's ability to believe in a higher spiritual force, the more likely that they would share the gene, VMAT2. © Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2005. telegraph.co.uk