Includes bibliographical references and index.

One of the world's leading cultural psychologists debunks the hype surrounding DNA testing and puts to rest our mistaken anxieties about our genes.--So why do we continue to buy into the belief that our genes control our destiny? Heine argues that we are psychologically ill equipped to deal with DNA results, repeatedly falling into predictable biases switch-thinking, essentialism, fatalism, negativity dominance, and more that mold our thinking about the information we receive. Heine shares his research and his own genome-sequencing results to not only to set the record straight regarding what your genes actually reveal about your health, intelligence, ethnic identity, and family, but to also help you counteract these insidious cognitive traps. His fresh, surprising conclusions about the promise, and limits, of genetic engineering and DNA testing upend conventional thinking and reveal a simple, profound truth: your genes create life but they do not control it.