One of the key ways we know how genes work is to look at what happens when they go wrong. We do this deliberately in experimental animals, precisely or randomly disrupting genes to see what happens. For obvious reasons, we don’t do that in people, but the equivalent is to study the genetics of disease and disorders.
A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived: The Stories in Our Genes by Adam Rutherford
I wonder how small a minority I belong to when I react allergically to such naval-gazing conceitedness as this (emphasis my own).