However, many questions remain. Some are strictly matters of scientific fact. It is difficult to devise empirical tests for adaptationist perspectives on psychopathology. Moreover, we still have no general agreement on the degree to which human behavioral traits are inherited. Even if they do, phenomona like stimulus-transcription coupling, which may allow learned changes in brain physiology to feed back on gene expression, raise doubts that DNA's effects on the mind are unidirectional.
Further questions raise troubling philosophical and social issues.
Not only does the paradigm of Lamarckian cultural transmission continue to challenge the most overarching claims of genetic reductionism. In addition, it is possible that cultural biases, rooted in the competitive ideology of our market-driven economy, are actually fueling our current fascination with the inherited aspects of mental illness.