July 24, 2009 Mark S. Blumberg is Professor and Starch Faculty
Fellow at the University of Iowa. His books include The Oxford
Handbook of Developmental Behavioral Neuroscience, Body Heat:
Temperature and Life on Earth, and Basic Instinct: The Genesis
of Behavior. He is Editor-in-Chief of the journal Behavioral
Neuroscience, and President of the International Society for
Developmental Psychobiology. His newest book is Freaks of
Nature: What Anomalies Tell Us About Development and Evolution.
In this conversation with D.J. Grothe, Mark Blumberg describes
how he became interested in "freaks of nature" as a way to
question prevailing concepts within biology regarding genes,
instincts, and pre-formed abilities. He talks about why he sees
genetic determinism as "action at a distance thinking," and why
he thinks it is similar to creationist views, and describes both
as "magical ways of thinking about nature." He explains
epigenetics. He describes how certain non-genetic factors that
shape behavior may be inherited fr