The next of what’s next

At the end of summer Sarah and I will move to Scotland (from a small, cramped island to a small, damp island, as m’lady put it). I am starting an MSc in quantitative genetics at the University of Edinburgh.

QG

Quantitative genetics (QG) is the study of traits that vary continuously, like height and weight. Rather than single genes of large effect, the focus is on all the genes that come together to determine (the variation in) a particular trait, as well as all of the other non-genetic sources of difference.

Since agriculture is one of the chief applications of quantitative genetics, here is a picture of domestic bovine.

From back there to up over there

Before college I had always styled myself a computer programmer (or maybe a philosopher). As an undergraduate I was turned on to biology through artificial social life but then spent two years tinkering with evolutionary computation. While watching the women’s rugby team play an intense match in the snow, I understood something: something about competition and cooperation, that somehow biology could be used to study our social organization, our culture, our emotions.

I was not a natural historian as a child. Professional biologists often speak to me of their childhood love of animals and plants, of nature and the outdoors. I was only aware of the fantastical worlds curled up in my own head. I liked camping and collecting rocks, but I was more fascinated by ancient artifacts and ruins. I wanted to explain myth and philosophy, not bones and metabolism. Now I see that these magisteria overlap (pace Gould).

I become more enchanted with biology as I took classes that dealt with organisms. At the last moment, right before graduation, I thought I might want to go on to study the abstractions of “complex and adaptive systems.” Instead, I moved to Japan. Casting around for an organism to study, I came upon the HOPE project at KUPRI, which explores the evolution of mind–body–society–genome in humans and other primates. This connection was what I didn’t know I was looking for. I attended an information session for prospective students and signed up for field work with Japanese macaques. Learning more about primatology and discussing my research interests with the professors at PRI led me from one researcher to another and eventually to the work being carried out in Scotland.