Slobbing out beside the gene pool

EVEN THOSE of us who take our science in small, literary bites - a spot of new Darwinism with Melvyn on Start the Week, a dab of quantum physics in a Jeanette Winterson novel - may be slightly alarmed by developments in the decade's most fashionable discipline, genetics.

Conjuring up Dolly the sheep from a blob of DNA was one thing; pumping the countryside full of genetically modified crops, or breeding a fat, bulging tomato crossed with a fish gene, is rather more alarming. "Enhanced" wheat will be a world-beater, argues the creepy Monsanto, but then so were those steroid-enhanced East European weightlifters whose testicles fell off. As for the tomato, some consumers might take the line that, if it's not good enough for the red spider mite, then it's not good enough for them.

Much more useful has been the investigation by geneticists and anthropologists into the way we behave, an area of research believed to have spawned hundreds of Sunday newspaper articles and Channel 4 documentaries. For example, now that we know our DNA makes us wary of tribal leaders, it becomes clear why, quite suddenly, Ann Widdecombe seems cuddly and approachable while even the previously adorable Frank Dobson strikes us as sinister and shifty.

But it's in the area of gender differences that the most exciting advances have occurred. Once it had been assumed that man's need to be in command of the TV remote control was a function of general male bossiness.

In fact, anthropologists reveal, removing this important item from a man's hand is, in a real sense, an act of castration. Such is his genetic need to dominate his bonding group with his sexuality, and his inability to "multitask", that he finds himself unable to differentiate between television and life. Dissatisfied or bored with his partner, he may want to point the remote at her and switch channels; irritated by children, he will absent-mindedly press the mute button in their direction.

More genetically evolved, women have less serious limitations. Having learnt,through basic socialisation skills, how to enjoy football, they understand the concept of overlapping wing-backs, Christmas tree formations and give-and-go. They may even attend matches, where they bounce up and down in their seats, clap their hands in front of their faces and scream when the opposition is about to score. So what could be in their DNA that blocks all understanding of the offside rule?

Simple, say the geneticists. Women are programmed by their biology towards potential, growth and possibility. The idea that life's ebb and flow, its forward movement and achievement of goals can be thwarted by a silly rule about defenders and a silly little man waving a flag in a typically self- important male way is simply rejected by their brain.

This brings us to a more complex area of research. No specialist has yet been able to establish why scientific findings invariably reveal men to be limited,hopeless creatures in thrall to an inferior caveman biology whereas women invariably emerge from tests as nicer, more intelligent, versatile and emotionally mature than their male counterparts. Behavioural scientists are still puzzled as to why, when young men drink large amounts of lager, belch, swear, sing and sexually harass strangers, they are throwbacks to a dark period of emotional deprivation and self-loathing whereas young women, doing the same sort of thing, are celebrated as exemplars of social liberation and high-spirited individuality.

Similarly, when women enter their thirties and begin to fret about the great issues of the age - family or career, shopping as therapy, addiction to chocolate - they are widely perceived as honestly facing up to their own vulnerability. Bestsellers are written about them, kooky comedies explore their cute confused lives. The male pre- midlife crisis, in contrast, is ghastly and intemperate, revealing men either to be over-emotional Nick Hornby types snared in the traumas of their childhood or dysfunctional, under-emotional Hanif Kureishi types unable to hold down a relationship.

Researchers studying television schedules have been unable to understand why, in a documentary last year about an Australian male prostitute, middle- aged women paying for sex with a professional stud years younger were portrayed as healthily exploring their sexuality in an emotion-free, orgasmically efficient manner, while men behaving in a similar way would be regarded as loathsome and sad.

Is it time for the genetically inferior modern male to be enhanced like the tomato? The man from Monsanto, he say yes.

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