Scientists Believe They Have Isolated Gene for Failure

By Andy Borowitz, The New Yorker

15 June 15

The article below is satire. Andy Borowitz is an American comedian and New York Times-bestselling author who satirizes the news for his column, "The Borowitz Report."

eneticists at the University of Minnesota believe that they have isolated the gene that makes some people much more prone to failure than others.

While the research is preliminary, the scientists said that they were able to successfully identify the failure gene by studying the DNA of males in two generations of the same American family.

“If we have indeed isolated the gene that makes people fail—and we believe we have—all of the subjects in our study are carriers,” said Davis Logsdon, the geneticist who supervised the research.

According to Logsdon, those who carry the gene for failure have “absolutely no idea that they have it” and thus project the confidence and self-assurance of people whose genetic material does not make them likely to wreak havoc on a massive scale.

“Not only does this gene cause people to fail, it makes them fail to understand that they have failed,” he said. “It is a really bad gene.”

While scientists have not yet found a cure for the failure gene, they consider isolating it a major breakthrough in itself.

“Once we identify someone as a carrier of this gene, we can try to keep him out of situations where he might do great harm to others,” Logsdon said.