Quote:
Originally Posted by iwantchixx
That oft makes me wonder, is the dna the "soul" then? Things we do today, affect how future generations behave. (Sins of the father passed onto the sons)
Our experiences reprogram the dna over time. A perfect example is my Dad. We hardly know each other but years later we began to talk and see each other, we both learned we have the same jokes, same humor and same way of saying and doing things. Which should not be possible as I have only seen him 5 times in my life prior to that and grew up totally different.
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Welcome to the world of epigenetics.
It does appear that the experiences and personalities of our ancestors can be passed on to future generations. There was a study done on rats, the study exposed the rats to a particular scent, every time they exposed the rats to the scent they punished the rats in some way, like Pavlov's dogs the rats became conditioned to the particular scent becoming nervous wrecks whenever they smelled the scent.
They then took the offspring of these rats, children and grandchildren of the rats and exposed them to the same scent, a scent they had obviously never smelled before and what do you know - they freaked out the same way their ancestors did.
So they now do think that it's possible that psychological trauma from your ancestors can be passed on to future generations. Freud would blame your mother and father but it just may be a great great grandparent's legacy passed on to you.
If I remember correctly it's not the DNA, it's the RNA in cells, the RNA contains the instructions which tell the DNA what to do. It's opened up a whole new direction in research, scientists have long believed that lots of traits and illnesses have a strong genetic influence but didn't understand how.