Posted: Aug 11, 2010 6:31 am
Mr.Samsa wrote:Templeton wrote:Gallstones wrote:Sounds good Templeton, and plausible----except for the DNA part.
DNA reading. Messages sent to DNA.
Well, there was a rather broad amount of information to pack in to a couple paragraphs.
Perhaps I should have stated that the genetic code is within the DNA. The body communicates through neuro-chemical messengers, from the brain to the genes in a feedback loop back to the brain.
Better?
I think the problem is the Lamarckian assumption you seem to be making; that is, "if we change our behavior then we change our genes". It's true that certain choices we make may influence the genetic expression of some genes (to some degree), or that our environment may physically change our genes through mutation, but it's not like the choices we make will change our genetic behaviors.
Unless you are simply referring to situations like habituation, which you referred to earlier with your "driving a car" example from another thread. In which case we are able to change our "genetic expression" in that we aren't limited to our fixed-action patterns, but our behavior is obviously still controlled by environmental variables - and that, of course, doesn't change our DNA.
It is important to look at how our brain and genes communicate in order to understand this process.
Also it is important not to assume that because Lamarck was refuted about 150 years ago that he was entirely incorrect. Lamarck believed that physiological changes would occur in a species simply by a change in behavioral pattern, and that change would begin to happen within the next generation. Lamarck's example was of the short necked giraffe and the long necked giraffe. Obviously at the time there was insufficient scientific knowledge to substantiate his claims. Also the problem was that the change that was expected to be seen was of a measurable physiological change. That did not happen.
What wasn't considered nor understood at the time was that before any physiological change could occur there needed to be a behavioral change to begin the process. (This is the slow process; something quicker would be an epigenetic change) A change in behavior necessitated by an environmental impact would begin a change in physiology.
In a previous discussion on this topic I used an example of a fish, one which most of us are familiar; where the fish swims into shallower water among the weeds, and rocks because food is more readily available. In order to navigate these shallower waters the fish would have to use its tail and fins as leverage to maneuver. If the fish was successful in this method of procuring food it would create a memory of the process, and would repeat the process. In repeating (How many times?) the process the fish would create a behavioral change that altered its genetic expression. When the fish reproduces what genetic traits would be passed on - the genes that are expressing at the time of conception.
Successive generations of this type of behavior would result in the fish developing stronger bones and muscles in its fins that would become appendages, and when the fish moved into even shallower and came out of the water it would develop lungs, and in thousands or millions of years we believe we know the rest of the story.
Many of us are familiar with how they brain and genes speak to each other. In the example of the fish it is at a simpler genealogical species that existed in a basic survival mode, with humans, because of the incredible amount of chemical messengers we produce (Emotions) as a species the process can be complicated to say the least.
Just too clear up the vernacular; we would not be changing genes or DNA, what we do is change genetic expression.
I used driving a car as a simple example of how we change behavior to environmental stressors. There really isn’t any difference in our behavior in finding a mate, as in the example of “women turning to stone” than the example of driving a car on a freeway or in the example of a fish finding food; these are all basic survival behaviors.
What makes us different as a species is that we have the ability (Those most don’t always use it) to be consciously aware of our behavioral choices. We can make choices that run contrary to basic survival instincts (behavioral patterns), as referenced earlier with altruism and abstinence.
Just the example of inkaStepa being aware of this behavior in other women means that she can exact control over her own genetic propensity to possibly behave in the same manner by becoming aware of the behavior. Her actions are also a behavior and in this process of understanding these behaviors she may also change genetic expression. What is truly awesome is that through consciousness we have the potential to become deterministic to our genetic evolution. Ha, lol, please excuse me if I add a caveat to that last statement; Theoretically speaking of course.
