Carl Zimmer

But those diseases are rare.

So just say like, oh, he drinks because his father drank.

Yeah, I think that's too glib.

I am, as you can tell by writing a book about this sort of stuff, I am intensely fascinated by how our genes influence us.

But when people get these results from these companies...

I think they're looking for quick and simple answers.

Tell me what my DNA says about me.

That's a complicated thing to tell for the most part.

It's pretty easy to say, hey, you have this mutation that if you're a man means you're colorblind.

That's pretty clear.

But when you start to get into issues about, say, risks of diseases,

then you really need to read that fine print.

23andMe is now starting to provide results for your risks of diseases like breast cancer and other diseases.

And in some cases, they're only looking at certain mutations in these genes like the BRCA gene.

And if you don't happen to have those mutations, they'll say, okay, you don't have a risk of breast cancer from these mutations.

But we know that people have other mutations on these genes, and they could have risks as well.

So you can't take these things at some sort of like, you know, you can't take a test result that says you don't have these mutations as meaning you will never get cancer.

It's more complicated than that.

No, there's no connection between that and the genes that influence development of your liver or your brain or so on.

It's not like just because you look like one of your parents, you are more like them in some sort of deep way.