The greatest power one human being can exert over others is to control their perceptions of reality, and infringe on the integrity and individuality of their world. This is done in politics, in psychotherapy.

McKusick's belief in this paradigm-the focus on disability rather than abnormalcy-was actualized in the treatment of patients in his clinic. Patients with dwarfism, for instance, were treated by an interdisciplinary team of genetic counselors, neurologists, orthopedic surgeons, nurses, and psychiatrists trained to focus on specific disabilities of persons with short stature. Surgical interventions were reserved to correct specific deformities as they arose. The goal was not to restore "normalcy"-but vitality, joy, and function. McKusic had rediscovered the founding principles of modern genetics in the realm of human pathology. In humans as in wild flies, genetic variations abounded. Here too genetic variants, environments, and gene-environment interactions ultimately collaborated to cause phenotypes-except in this case, the "phenotype" in question was disease. Here too some genes had partial penetrance and widely variable expressivity. One gene could cause many diseases, and one disease could be caused by many genes. And here too "fitness" could not be judged in absolutes. Rather the lack of fitness-illness [italicized, sic] in colloquial terms- was defined by the relative mismatch between an organism and environment.

As far as you can, get into the habit of asking yourself in relation to any action taken by another: "What is his point of reference here?" But begin with yourself: examine yourself first.

Accustom yourself not to be disregarding of what someone else has to say: as far as possible enter into the mind of the speaker.