The question of whether human beings have free will and are not simply mindless automatons battered by the undirected forces of entropy and chaos has been dealt yet another blow with the suggestion that one of the most basic choices a human being can make is not a bold expression of personal freedom but might in fact just be a genetic inevitability.
That choice is “would you prefer tea, or coffee?”
Lightweight.
It transpires that scientists around the world took the question “is sensitivity to bitterness a determinant in our beverage tastes?” and the results seem to indicate that they are, but in the opposite direction to what was expected.
The study was just published in Nature Science Reports and was carried out using data from the UK Biobank taking in over 400,000 participants, and measured DNA variants of genes involved in detecting caffeine, quinine (the tang in tonic water) and a synthetic chemical called propylthiouracil. Catchy name!
Part of the hypothesis was that people that were more sensitive to bitter compounds in caffeine and other compounds would avoid coffee. However, it turns out that people with a variant on the rs2597979 gene which makes them better attuned to bitterness (which is a survival trait as many naturally occurring poisons taste bitter) actually prefer coffee.
“Mmmm, I can really feel my genetic predisposition to certain tastes kicking in!”
The difference, however, isn’t clear cut. Previous studies have not found any genetic correlation between beverage taste, and in any case a lot of people drink both coffee and tea which muddies the science-water a bit.
So it’s OK, you definitely have free will and are not responding to your genes’ taste in bitterness. It’s far more likely that you’re reacting to your genetic ability to break down caffeine in the liver OH GODDAMMIT.