Seventy-one years ago today, on April 25, 1953, the scientific journal Nature published a series of five articles on the double-helix structure of DNA, a discovery resulting from the work primarily of James Watson, Francis Crick, and Rosalind Franklin.  DNA is the molecule inside of cells that contains the genetic information necessary for humans and most other organisms to grow and reproduce.

While Watson, Crick and Franklin did not discover the existence of DNA itself (that was nearly one hundred years earlier), their work did reveal its intricate shape and design and function.  It gave insight into how cells are replicated, how mutations and genetic diseases work and might be treated (like cancer, for example), and how certain traits—like your hair and eye color—are passed down from your parents in somewhat predictable ways.

With this new knowledge, some scientists were tempted to declare that DNA and genetics were responsible for just about everything in our lives—not just our hair and eye color, but whether we are kind, or successful, or brave.  They surmised that there might be gene for kindness or happiness, for example, and that whether or not we inherited the right genes—not our individual choices—would determine whether we’re a virtuous person. 

But recent research has also shown that how DNA works is far more complex than even Crick, Watson, and Franklin could have imagined—and, even more, that there is no specific gene that correlates with a specific character trait, and that our choices affect our genes as much as our genes affect our choices. 

My question for you this morning is this: What, if anything, do you think can science tell us about virtue?

Have a wonderful day.