David:
That 78% figure sounds awfully high to me. Here’s why.
I have bipolar disorder.
Medical studies indicate that, in identical twins where one twin has bipolar disorder, the other twin develops it 70% of the time. This is one of the highest rates of medical “concordance” known among major diseases.
In other words, for all intents and purposes, you inherit it. (And my maternal grandmother suffered from bipolar disorder most of her life, so this makes sense to me.)
Does that mean I can abjure all MORAL responsibility and commit all kinds of crimes and violations of people’s rights and blame it on my disease? No, of course not. Who would WANT to set out to live an immoral life? Not even most “bad” people do. (There’s a reason for that proverb about paving a certain road with good intentions …)
What it does mean, though, is that unlike force-feeding (not literally, but you know what I mean) of “foreign” foods to toddlers to eventually get them to eat — and I went through a stage myself where I only ate PB&J sandwiches and hot dogs, and grew out of it — there’s probably not going to be a cure for my disease until genetic research identifies the exact chromosomes and possible therapies.
Which is why the issue is a heckuva lot more important than you jokingly make it seem as a young dad.

Guys, look… you can’t just jump from a study about juvenile conservatism in trying new foods to the very general discussion of the connection (if any) between genetic proclivity to certain behaviors and moral responsibility for those behaviors.
The whole area of young children trying new foods has been extensively studied. There are obvious survival reasons why juveniles in particular and creatures in general should be very conservative in trying new foods– because a new food could KILL YOU. That’s why some smells (e.g. curdled milk) are repulsive even to human infants. To mammals, spoiled milk is a ‘bad food’, but to let’s say a juvenile fly, it’s quite delicious.
Anyway. Try to keep the ball within the lines at least a little bit.

I wonder if free will is hereditary.

So these kids are born with an eating orientation that has them desiring certain kinds of food and not others?
See where this insanity is leading mankind?
Since the human body needs specific nutrients, from specific foods, I wonder if the term “intrinsically disordered” should be applied to these young people.
But then again, it will be soon that the term “disorder” is removed from our vocabulary in regards to anything except Christians not going along with the absolute stupidity passed off as “research.”
OK, I’ll just say it . . .
These kids have bad parents.
Have you ever really contemplated the phrase “spoiled rotten?”
Leave some food out for a week or two or three, say a filet mignon steak.
Then see what happens.
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Now we know, how we have come to the place in our culture where a human baby inside its mother is just a mass of cells and a whole political and social movement can arise from those desiring deviant sex to define them. (And Hollywood actors can get away with first degree murder.)
“Psyche,” it means the soul.
Psychologist. Those making money to deal with the psyche.
Therapist.
Break that word down.
The rapist.
Welcome to “Progressive” life.
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You look at the DSM IV, “the Bible” for psychology and the guide to ALL of the “research” and you will find that every single person fits some diagnosis in its convoluted pages. And if a person says they do not . . . well, “they are in denial.”
A glimpse of being damned and controlled by forces more powerful than “you.”

All babies are oriented toward certain kinds of food and not others. So food neophobia– the reluctance to eat unfamiliar foods– is a matter of degree. I would say that food neophobia persists into adulthood as well; at least, I was reluctant to eat dog, and sea slugs when given the chance. I settled for a plate of ox tendons.
The result published by Cooke, Haworth and Wardle in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition comes at the same time as another study from Finland (28 families; 468 twin pairs), published in August 2007, in Physiology & Behavior (Vol 91, No. 5), by Knaapila et al. titled “Food neophobia shows heritable variation in humans.”
I don’t think that the import of these studies is the end of civilization as we know it, or a cause for wailing and uninformed hand-wringing. Food neophobia has been documented widely in omnivores and has been observed in warblers, rats, chimpanzees, capuchin monkeys among species. It’s just biology, folks. Don’t get so freaked out.

SkipChurch,
Any children you know eat food with other orifices than their mouth? Any research finalized on that?
I’m curious to where using “biology” in regards to defining what is and what isn’t a “phobia” may lead.
I’m not freaked out at all. Your’s is a comforting post for a Christian to read.

I’m always delighted be a comfort. Try to stay calm and not dwell on where the scary nutrition studies are leading mankind. It’s hardly the earth-shattering result you seem to think. Just FYI, below is a summary from the actual paper. (If you like this, I have a wonderful paper on innate behavior in the laughing gull, Larus atricilla.)
Results: The results showed that neophobia is highly heritable. The heritability estimate from model fitting was 0.78 (95% CI: 0.76, 0.79). A further 22% of the variance was explained by nonshared environmental factors, with no influence of shared environmental factors.
Conclusions: Neophobia appears to be a heritable trait, but almost a quarter of the phenotypic variation is accounted for by nonshared environmental factors. An important aim for future research is the identification of influential aspects of the environment specific to individual children.

Kind of off the subject, but I can’t help but wonder if this is a newly developed trend simply because through out history, most humans haven’t had a wide variety of food to eat, nor much in terms of quantity.
What I’m saying is that eating the same food every meal, day after day wasn’t that strange for people (there is a reason certain things are called staples). Strange new foods were for special occasions – not to be eaten everyday.
*shrug* Maybe it’s not our kids that are strange, but us.

SkipChurch:
The title of the thread is, “Do Genetics Excuse Everything?”
My post was EXACTLY on point, thank you very much.

Larry, yes, your post was on point. The idea that some proclivities are heritable is old news so I can’t see what all the distress is about– as if the inherited aversion to new foods on the part of children is essentially a moral issue. Lots of wacky thinking going on, as far as I’m concerned. It’s well known (for example) that the ability to taste bitterness is broccoli is inherited, and _surprise, surprise_ leads to an aversion to broccoli in some people. “Don’t Care For Broccoli? A Bitter Taste Receptor Gene’s Variation Suggests An Evolutionary Excuse.”
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/09/060918165721.htm
Lactose intolerance is heritable. This is news? Is this is a cause for a big moral-righteousness freakout? I just can’t see it.
By the way, your idea that the 78% heritability of the Cooke study cited in the NYT is high is supported by the Finnish study I mentioned where the heritability estimate for food neophobia was between 66% and 69% (Finnish and British families and twin pairs were included in this study). But the Cooke study did have a very much larger sample size (5390 pairs vs 468 pairs in the Kaapila study).

Maybe that accounts for my extreme (and I mean EXTREME, as in George H.W. Bush extreme) distaste for broccoli. Just the smell makes me want to upchuck.
But I always thought it was just a moral failing of not wanting to take care of my health. So what do I know?