In the target article, Charney delineates some of the most central traditional assumptions which have guided the conceptualization of heredity in the past century. Much research in recent years has provided many challenges to these traditional assumptions as Charney convincingly articulated. Woven together, these challenges present an appealing basis for a new paradigmatic conceptualization of the etiology of phenotypic manifestations. The emerging scientific picture provides a more complex, rich, and ultimately probabilistic portrayal of the integration between nature and nurture, which will undoubtedly guide future heredity research. It is paramount that this paradigmatic shift will also reach the lay public in its complexity for more than just scientific literacy reasons.

Whereas the majority of people are unlikely to summon terminology from advanced, complex scientific theories such as quantum mechanics or the string theories, most individuals seem to hold mental representations of genetics (Henderson & Maguire Reference Henderson and Maguire2000) and even preschoolers invoke the concept of genes to explain human phenotypes (Heyman & Gelman Reference Heyman and Gelman2000). These mental representations are quite limited and inaccurate even when they are assessed relatively close to the time when most individuals learn about genetics (i.e., high school; see Henderson & Maguire Reference Henderson and Maguire2000). The mental representations of genetics are not only inaccurate, but they also seem to provoke cognitive fallacies collectively termed genetic essentialist biases (Dar-Nimrod & Heine Reference Dar-Nimrod and Heine2011).

The genetic essentialist biases contribute to an increase in the likelihood that specific outcomes/phenotypes will be viewed more deterministically while alternative etiological explanations will be devalued (for a review, see Dar-Nimrod & Heine Reference Dar-Nimrod and Heine2011). Demonstrating some of the effects of these biases, empirical research showed that exposure to genetic etiological accounts affects a slew of outcomes ranging from dislike of ethnically dissimilar individuals (Keller Reference Keller2005) and increased gender stereotyping (Brescoll & LaFrance Reference Brescoll and LaFrance2004) to altered moral evaluations (Dar-Nimrod et al. Reference Dar-Nimrod, Heine, Cheung and Schaller2011; Monterosso et al. Reference Monterosso, Royzman and Schwartz2005), academic underperformance (Dar-Nimrod & Heine Reference Dar-Nimrod and Heine2006; Moè & Pazzaglia Reference Moè and Pazzaglia2010), and adverse health behavior intentions (Beauchamp et al. Reference Beauchamp, Rhodes, Kreutzer and Rupert2011). These findings demonstrate that laypeople's perceptions of genetic etiology for various human phenotypes are not only incongruent with the current scientific picture of genotype-phenotype relationships (Charney), but they may also facilitate undesirable beliefs and suboptimal behaviors.

Although the mass media may have been the main contributor to the simplistic and deterministic lay representations of genetics (Conrad Reference Conrad1997; Reference Conrad2001), scientists have arguably contributed to this distortion unwittingly (Dar-Nimrod & Heine Reference Dar-Nimrod and Heine2011). As gatekeepers of much of the new knowledge that originates on heredity, one may argue that we have a responsibility to portray our findings in a manner that minimizes activation of deeply rooted biases, which seem to be exacerbated by the public's misguided yet impactful understanding of genetics (Dar-Nimrod Reference Dar-Nimrod2007).

The postgenomic paradigm that emerges from Charney's account challenges some of the last strongholds, which facilitate genetic essentialist biases, portraying a system in which the genome loses its primacy in favor of dynamic interactions between various heredity and environmental components. Staying true to these intricacies may have great potential in reducing the adverse effects of the perceived genetic attributions among the lay public by minimizing essentialist cognitions. To facilitate such a shift it is necessary for researchers and journalists to work together to reduce deterministic portrayals of genetic research. It is also advisable to target the first systematic exposure to heredity science in our society – the science curriculum in schools.

Currently, Mendelian inheritance and the ubiquitous Punnett squares seem to be the focus of much of the schools' science curriculum involving heredity (Dougherty Reference Dougherty2009). As a result, these conceptualizations arguably dominate individuals' mental representations of heredity after graduation (Henderson & Maguire Reference Henderson and Maguire2000). However, as Charney observed, Mendelian inheritance is only one part of a much larger picture connecting heredity to phenotypes. By favoring these narrow exemplars of heredity science above all others, the majority of people, whose only in-depth knowledge of scientific accounts of genes comes during school, are left with an oversimplified understanding of genetics, an erroneous understanding that promotes the assumption of a one-to-one relationship between genes and phenotypes. To reflect our current understanding of the genotype–phenotype relationships, there is a need to overhaul the current genetic module in science education. Revamping this curriculum is especially pertinent given the cognitive biases and deleterious outcomes that seem to arise from misconceptions about heredity. This suggestion is not designed to advocate abolishment of Mendelian inheritance from the curriculum altogether but rather to place it in its appropriate context as only one of many processes that shape human phenotypes. As some of the most unfortunate misrepresentations of genetic science relate to behaviors and diseases, it is prudent to emphasize how largely irrelevant the simplified portrayals of Mendelian inheritance processes are for the majority of these outcomes.

The paradigmatic changes in the scientific understanding of genetics do not make us immune to essentialism. For example, in reviewing research on copy number variation, (CNVs) and behavior genetics, Charney cites findings that reported increased CNVs in children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD; Williams et al. Reference Williams, Zaharieva, Martin, Langley, Mantripragada, Fossdal, Stefansson, Stefansson, Magnusson, Gudmundsson, Gustafsson, Holmans, Owen, O'Donovan and Thapar2010). Although this research may be part of the new paradigm that challenges the traditional genetic research assumptions, the article itself is plagued by essentialist-promoting language. Williams et al. argue that their findings “allow us to refute the hypothesis that ADHD is purely a social construct” (p. 1407). The use of such language, which is reminiscent of the commonplace inclination to pit nature against nurture, was exacerbated in the media coverage of the research. In one such article, the reporter teamed with a genetic scientist to suggest that these reported genetic underpinnings indicate that ADHD is “a real hard and true disorder” (Landau Reference Landau2010). Such statements evoke blatant essentialist cognitions placing the ultimate test for “real hard disorders” in our genes and imply that disorders that cannot be traced to the genome are “not true” or just “social constructs.” To make a true paradigmatic shift in our accounts of heredity, we should all be best advised to avoid falling into the old essentialist traps in the new postgenomic era.