A YOUTHFUL INDISCRETION

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the late US Congressman Henry Hyde both grew up here in Park Ridge, IL. Both had their share of bare-knuckled political battles. But one of Henry's nastiest was the revelation of his sexual improprieties. He admitted to these with the celebrated phrase: "A youthful indiscretion."

Had he lived longer he might have found this month's report from social psychologist Anne Wilson discomforting. She comments from Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada: "There are reasons why all indiscretions appear youthful ...the brain is particularly prone to backdating when it comes to shameful acts....with the result that we can subconsciously create a personal history that, if not perfect, makes us feel we're getting better and better."

Seen in context, this study is one of hundreds in which neuro-biolgists have begun identifying various individual genes and lobes and circuits in us, in order to better understand us. What we do, and why we do it.

So far so good.

However, what happens when the astronomer can identify every star, but has lost sight of the cosmos...? When the forester can identify every tree, but has forgotten what the forest looks like....? When the sex expert can identify 143 ways of making love, but doesn't know any women...?

The 21st C has seen an explosion of dramatic breakthroughs by our evolutionary biologists. And yet how often is the result to know the parts, but miss the whole...? To fathom the encryptions, but never break the code...? To find ourselves sitting wisely before the arrayed pieces to the human puzzle, but forgetting there is a picture in those pieces...?

I can see Henry's old house a few doors down from ours. Whenever I pass it I wonder. He was a publicly religious man. Was he morally comfortable with his explanation about his behavior? Would he have disputed Dr Wilson's
theory? Or would he have said he had come to terms with his God, and would find scant comfort in coming to terms with his physiological genes and lobes and circuits?

I voted for Henry, but never got the chance to ask him about such matters. I'm guessing he would have felt as do I: In the matters of human behavior, mere matter is not all that matters.