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"A boy may have his grandpa’s long legs and a girl may have her mother’s nose, but Jesse had inherited his uncle’s fear of never waking" Wait.. what?? How cou
by kstenerud 11y ago
"A boy may have his grandpa’s long legs and a girl may have her mother’s nose, but Jesse had inherited his uncle’s fear of never waking"
Wait.. what??
How could Jesse inherit something from an uncle who had died before he was born?
This whole article feels too much like magical thinking.
- insickness 11y agoThere's evidence on experiments with mice that they inherit their parent's fears epigenetically. http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2013/11/15/mice-inherit-the-fears-of-their-fathers/ http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2013/11/15/mice-inhe...
- throwanem 11y agoAt least there's a plausible route and mechanism there. How do you see this applying to an uncle?
- alanwatts 11y agoMany people are naturally scared of spiders and snakes. Some evolutionary psychologists like Dr. Paul Ekman claim that some fears like these are coded into our genetics because of the many of our ancestors before us who were killed by them.
- nommm-nommm 11y agoThat doesn't explain phobias of totally non dangerous things though so it feels like a "just so story."
- spangry 11y agoWhat? Evolutionary psychologists believe in inherited memory? I thought the idea was that fear of spiders (a heuristic in an arachnophobic's amygdala that they inherited genetically) was at some point adaptive for their ancestors. That is, people with a fear of spiders are around today because their ancestors had some random genetic mutation that caused them to exercise caution around spiders, which conferred a survival advantage in their particular context. In our context it's maladaptive (evolution is very slow), and so considered an irrational phobia.
- alanwatts 11y ago>What? Evolutionary psychologists believe in inherited memory? Inherited instincts and emotions.
- ams6110 11y agomagical thinking These two words describe most of psychology. It's not a science[1]. I've always thought that people who study psychology are just trying to figure themselves out. [1] http://articles.latimes.com/2012/jul/13/news/la-ol-blowback-pscyhology-science-20120713 http://articles.latimes.com/2012/jul/13/news/la-ol-blowback-...
- dominotw 11y ago>How could Jesse inherit something from an uncle who had died before he was born? Is it much different from elephants being born with 'genetic memory' of migratory routes that their forefathers took http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2009/jan/13/conservation-wildlife http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2009/jan/13/conservat...
- kbutler 11y agoThat link just contains a throw-away mentiin if migratory routes "imprinted on their genetic memory", no evidence that it is factual.