LYNNE KELLY The Knowledge Gene. Reviewed by Lucy Sussex

Researcher Lynne Kelly explains the groundbreaking discovery of the gene that enables humans to store knowledge – and create art.

What makes us human? The question is philosophic, but increasingly the answer concerns DNA. We share 98.7 per cent of our genetic matter with our closest relatives, who are different species: the Pans Troglodytus and Paniscus, chimpanzees and bonobos. They do not have a language, nor create art, nor war. Only a small fraction of our genetic matter is distinct from these cousins, yet it is crucial. Without it we would not be homo sapiens.

Recently science has made extraordinary discoveries about the distinctively human genes. In 1998, genetic analysis of a family with a hereditary speech disorder revealed mutations in their FOXP2 gene, which consequently has been dubbed the language gene. The human FOXP2 is almost the same as that found in Neanderthals, who are increasingly also classed as sapiens. Without it I would not be writing this review.

Nor would I without the gene that is the subject of this book: NFI. Again, it was discovered via a mutation, this time one associated with neurofibromatosis – a disorder more common than cystic fibrosis. It can be physically devastating, but also affects thinking and cognition: commonly attention deficiency and problems with spatial reasoning. Those affected can have difficulties learning – and education is like language, something that makes us sapiens human. If FOXP2 is the language gene, then NFI is the knowledge gene.

It has been with us a long time, over 500,000 years. In that time Neanderthals and Denisovans came and went (though their genes survive in us, through interbreeding), as did ice ages and the rise and fall of civilisations.  Our survival is a direct product of genetic mutations. FOXP2’s effects are known, and now NFI has to be considered in the complex picture of humanity.

This book is a product of a trans-Pacific collaboration: researchers in the US reached out to Lynne Kelly, an academic and science writer with a speciality. Her observations of Indigenous Australian memory codes such as songlines have led to a radical reinterpretation of prehistoric monuments such as Stonehenge. She read them as sites where memories could be impressed, knowledge transmitted across the generations. As a consequence, Kelly became an expert in preliterate memory across cultures and time. She was therefore the ideal person to consult regarding what NFI did to early human societies.

What she does in this book is to explain the genetics (elegantly) and also survey cultures ranging across the world. She notes their similarities in preserving information, and the role that the arts plays. Deficient NFI causes amusia, a condition where people cannot recognise tunes, or even rhythms. Music is fundamental to us – even people suffering advanced dementia can recognise singing that is out of tune. And it is ancient. The famous Neanderthal Divje Babe bone flute has been dated at 67,000 years BCE. NFI gives us music, something that is a feature of knowledge rituals worldwide.

And consider the sculptures of bison at Le Tuc d’Audoubert. This is not something the Pan-cousins could create, and shows art at a high level. So do the kangaroo dances of Indigenous Australia, which imitate, but also teach how to hunt. Kelly’s argument is that NFI gives us the arts, music and performance, whose initial and vital importance was to teach and convey information. It shows the gene is as significant as FOXP2 to humans.

At a time when universities have discarded the humanities for STEM and trade skills, this information is heretical to many, from tech bros to management. How significant does the human in humanities sound now! It also underlies the danger of AI, fake art that consumes sinful levels of computer power. If we divest ourselves of the arts, with nobody educated in poetry, painting, drama, then we lose something significant and very ancient that has been a major factor in human survival.

In George Turner’s award-winning 1987 near-future climate-change novel, The Sea and Summer, he shows performance and acting working as agitprop, but also transmitting information and skills. What Turner understood intuitively, coming from a family of actors, Kelly proves via science. At a time when scientists warn of climate change causing the collapse of yet more civilisations, we will surely have need of memory codes. As this wise and informative book shows, the genetic code carries the means. It is up to us to embrace what NFI gives us. Recommended.

Lynne Kelly The Knowledge Gene Allen and Unwin 2024 PB 432pp $36.99

Lucy Sussex is a researcher and writer of crime fiction and true crime. in 2025, she and Megan Brown will publish Outrageous Fortunes,  a biography of crime-writer Mary Fortune and her criminal son George. She is an Honorary Associate in the Humanities and Social Sciences at LaTrobe University, where Lynne Kelly is an Adjunct Research Fellow.

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Tags: creativity, DNA, FOXP2, genetics, George Turner, Lynne | Kelly, memory codes, NFI, science writing, the humanities