Man’s genome is his destiny – or at least a part of it. A part about which one knows more and more. An exhibition in the German Hygiene Museum in Dresden is now devoted to this fact and its consequences.
One man has a somewhat round, rosy, chubby face hidden under long, dark hair and a wildly overgrown mustache. The other man has straight, shoulder-length dark hair, an oval face with prominent cheekbones, blue eyes, and, importantly, a rather dark complexion, typical of a North African. He purses his lips mockingly, as if amused that his real identity has only been discovered after such a long time.
One skull, two faces
Both men are one and the same. Or rather, they are two three-dimensional reconstructions of the Cheddar Man more than 20 years apart. The approximately 9,000-year-old skeleton of the earliest archaeologically detectable human to have lived in what is now the British Isles was discovered in 1903 in a cave in south-west England and has since been examined time and time again with the current state of science. Based on his skull, a first reconstruction of the face of the original islander was made in the 1990s – at that time without the help of his DNA. However, an examination in 2018 revealed from the man’s genetic makeup that the “first Briton” must have been a dark-skinned person.
Apart from the fact that this news split British society at the time, especially on social media – advocates of a liberal migration policy on the one hand felt legitimized in their views, while their opponents on the other hand criticized the political instrumentalization and drew the scientific nature of the Investigation in doubt – this case shows one thing: Genetic research has made giant strides since the turn of the millennium. Almost a quarter of a century after Dolly the sheep was cloned and the decoding of the human genome seemed within reach at the time, science knows more than ever before. But at the same time, every answer gives rise to new questions that forcefully show researchers how little they actually know.
Many questions remain unanswered
In this respect, the new special exhibition “Of genes and people – who we are and could become”, which has been on show for two weeks in the German Hygiene Museum in Dresden, raises more questions than it can provide clear answers. This is also conceded by exhibition curator Viktoria Krason from the German Hygiene Museum, who put the exhibition together with her colleagues Nele-Hendrikje Lehmann and Bettina Beer and numerous experts in two and a half years. “A lot has to remain open because we simply don’t know. But the exhibition gives its visitors plenty of food for thought.”
In this situation, the exhibition consistently approaches its subject from the perspective of social and cultural sciences. After all, scientific advances such as the sequencing of the Neanderthal genome, the development of the Crispr-Cas 9 gene scissors and modern mRNA vaccines, such as those spread worldwide in the course of the corona pandemic, are not without consequences for society.
We are 99.9 percent the same
Even basic scientific knowledge offers enormous potential for discussions. The fact that the genome, i.e. the entirety of all genetic information, is 99.9 percent identical for everyone in the world. Can one still speak of human races in view of such a high degree of genetic resemblance in purely mathematical terms between a black African and a Japanese, a Maori woman and a representative of the Inuit?
Molecular genetics showed in the 1980s that this construct lacks any basis, says archaeogeneticist Johannes Krause in a remarkable interview that runs in an endless loop in the exhibition and can be read in the accompanying book: “I think that other disciplines such as Anthropology and archaeology, including the history of science, may have been instrumentalized more in the early 20th century, when our discipline did not even exist.It took a different path because it produced reliable data for the first time.It shows it like no other discipline that human races do not exist.”
From a genetic point of view, Krause doesn’t think it makes much sense to even speak of continental populations: because the modern people who live outside of Africa today split off from the East Africans around 50,000 years ago: “That means we people outside of Africa are more closely related to East Africans as East Africans with West Africans.” Human history to date has been too short for fixed, different positions in the human genome to have developed.
A boy cannot be transformed into a girl
But not only “origin” but also “identity”, last but not least the sexual one, is apparently written in the genes and cannot be changed by massive social influences. The case of David Reimer is an example of this in the exhibition. Born in Canada in 1965 with an identical twin brother, his penis was so irreparably injured during circumcision as a result of a narrowing of the foreskin in infancy that it was decided to have it amputated and castrated together with plastic remodeling of the genital tract, the child was subjected to hormone treatments and the boy, initially named Bruce, as a girl brought up. The whole thing ran under the leadership of the sexologist John Money, who hoped to find confirmation of the thesis discussed in sexology, according to which education in the early years of life was exclusively or predominantly responsible for the development of a sexual and gender identity plays a role. But Brenda, the mutilated child’s maiden name, felt miserable in the role he had been given without knowing why. When he found out what was going on at the age of 14, he insisted on going back to being a boy and took the name David.
A story, of course, from which one can draw many, even contradictory, conclusions. One thing is clear: gender identity is in the genes. But, and this objection is justified, whether the psychic sex always behaves parallel to the clinical sex or whether the former is not contrary – or in countless other variants and ramifications! – can be created, this question remains open.
“Is what is technically feasible a contribution to the society in which we would like to live?”
The “Health” section of the exhibition, which deals with therapeutic approaches to genetic engineering, does not set a clear course either. The question formulated by museum director Iris Edenheiser is particularly loud at this point: “Is what is technically feasible a contribution to the society in which we would like to live?” You have to find the answers yourself for the most part in this exhibition, which literally goes to the heart of humanity and which, with its wealth of facts and its bulkiness – unsuitable for visitors under 16 – you have to work through piece by piece. She is her own key witness for the thesis that there are no simple answers, no simple truths when it comes to who we are and what we could become. It is stories like these that the exhibition tells. According to curator Viktoria Krason, they lead to the statement: “People are not predictable.” But, hand on heart: would we live in a better world if he were?
The exhibition “Of genes and people – who we are and could become” can be seen in the German Hygiene Museum in Dresden until September 10, 2023. It is open Tuesday to Sunday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. A comprehensive accompanying book of the same title has been published for the exhibition. » dhmd.de