jonesmat at physiology.wisc.edu (Matt Jones) wrote in message news:<b86268d4.0202221212.7fed3106 at posting.google.com>...
<snip a bunch of history>
>> <richard norman>
>> Since our memories are coded in our DNA
>> which is passed on to our offspring...
> <matt jones>
> Are you trolling or serious about this "memory is coded in our DNA"
> thing?
>> Certainly, our -capacity- for memory is coded in DNA to some degree,
> since that's the blueprint for the machinery that will ultimately hold
> the memories. But are you saying that you think -individual- memories
> are coded in DNA?
> < snip details discrediting this possibility, especially about the
> McConnel planaria claims>
You forgot to quote the second part of my posting:
"neither reincarnation nor genetic memory nor any of the nonsense I
just spouted has anything to do with science". Unfortunately, sarcasm
all too often goes unnoticed so I tried to very clearly indicate that
I was not serious.
For any people who actually believe "genetic memory" is possible --
It is clear that nervous activity can influence gene expression (as
through metabotropic receptors, cAMP, CREB, etc). It is quite
possible even for genes to get somehow "marked" (methylated?)
in this process. However, there is no conceivable mechanism
for any of this to somehow migrate to the very protected and
sequestered germ cell line and to ever get passed on to our
offspring. It is conceptually possible for cytoplasmic factors
or mitochondrial genes to get passed through the maternal line
in the egg, but again there is no way for neural activity to
influence the secondary oocytes which have been sitting quiescent
in the ovaries from before birth until after fertilization.
In other words, inheritance of acquired characters in this way is
not at all reasonable. Those who wish to speculate on any possibility
in this area have the enormous burden of providing, not only a
plausible biochemical and molecular biological mechanism, but also
hard experimental evidence that such a mechanism is actually at work.
A separate question is whether memory can be "encoded" somehow in
DNA. This doesn't involve the translocation of genetic information
from neuron to germ cell, but it still bears the heavy burden of
mechanism and experimental evidence. With our present knowledge it
is virtually impossible even to imagine a mechanism that would allow
such a thing. However it is very easy to imagine how nervous activity
could influence gene expression and thereby up/downregulate protein
production and thereby produce structural changes in synaptic
connections. So that is the appropriate direction to continue to
explore.