Perception: Influences of Science v. Culture

I've always thought my life has lacked any readily apparent illuminations of science. However, the first two weeks of this course have (already) made me realize that even my perception of my personal history is an example of the convergence of cultural and scientific thought.

One example is how  I perceive the differences between myself and my twin brother. We are fraternal, or dizygotic, twins. Now, I realize that this means that we are not genetically identical. This is very apparent upon looking or talking to us; however for the longest time - as a child - I firmly believed this was due to nurture and not nature. Although this revelation that genetics was responsible for our dissimilarities is not hard to ascertain, this example of science illuminated something that had an impact on my life. Instead of blaming unequal attention or differences in our weight at birth (granted, silly things), I was able to pinpoint why we were different to a concrete fact. Consequently, I was then able to deal with our differences in mental health and academics more maturely later on in life.

Another is  my struggle with depression. I'm usually happy, content individual, even despite typical  family drama like divorce and separation. However, during my first years of high school, I was diagnosed with clinical depression amongst other things. I had never been ignorant of how depression works, but it still seemed strange to me that I felt to miserable, and so abruptly. Why was there a chemical imbalance at that point in time? What changed to bring it about? Even more troubling was the reactions of family and friends. The perception of how depression works is markedly different across the board. Some blame the inability to 'suck it up' or faulty parenting. Lewontin's s article reminded me of these different reactions I received, given his argument that genetic problems are misconstrued  by social discourse and composition.

Given my two examples of illumination via science, I am very interested in delving into how culture has perpetuated myths and speculation about medical differences and disorders.