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This is such an odd preoccupation of places like the guardian and has a lot of the hallmarks of the discredited recovered memory movement/therapy[1][2]. There's

• moralestapia 2y ago
  >This is obviously such a nonsense interpretation of epigenetic changes that it's hard to take anything in the article seriously. No one (including you) really knows the whole extent of epigenetic effects, so I would suggest you give it another read. We are still at (estimate) 10% known / 90% unknown in Biology. Source: Biologist for 20 years now.
  • ch4s3 2y ago
    I read the article, the linked study, and two studies citing the linked study. The claim that memories or “lived experience” is inherited is not supported by the study.
  • BenFranklin100 2y ago
    Erm…memories — by any biologically reasonable definition— are separate from epigenetic changes. No serious researcher would conflate the two, other than perhaps hippy-dippy ‘biologists’ who struggled through ‘Physics for Poets’, as undergrads. Source: Biophysicist for 30 years now.
    • moralestapia 2y ago
      And yet ... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2248710/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2248710/ Btw, read the site guidelines. This is a place for discourse, not berating others.
      • ch4s3 2y ago
        Follow up work has not held up the 2008 article you shared[1], and has in fact shown that larvae do not carry over memories through metamorphosis. [1] https://www.quantamagazine.org/insect-brains-melt-and-rewire-during-metamorphosis-20230726/#:~:text=The%20reshuffling%20of%20neurons%20during,don't%20persist%20in%20adults https://www.quantamagazine.org/insect-brains-melt-and-rewire....
        • BenFranklin100 2y ago
          Further, even if the study had held up, there is a vast difference between memories retained through an individual metamorphosis event, and passing memories along to offspring resulting from sexual reproduction. The OP fails to recognize this obvious point.
          • ch4s3 2y ago
            Yes, I completely agree.
          • moralestapia 2y ago
            >The OP fails to recognize this obvious point. I don't. You're attacking a straw man. You wrote, >Erm…memories — by any biologically reasonable definition— are separate from epigenetic changes. I replied with a study showing the opposite to be true.
            • BenFranklin100 2y ago
              No, I said, “There is a vast difference between memories retained through an individual metamorphosis event, and passing memories along to offspring resulting from sexual reproduction. The OP fails to recognize this obvious point.” You’re selectively quoting and then re-arranging the quotes to attempt to make yourself look better. Honestly, for someone to be posting this nonsense with a link to their LinkedIn professional profile in their bio is kind of career suicide. You’ve inadvertently stumbled into an argument on a IT tech website with people who are bona fide life scientists and are embarrassed and are clumsily trying to save face.
• deleted 2y ago
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• giantg2 2y ago
  Eh, I mean what other explaination is there for "instinct". You have genetic and epigenetic factors that give something a predisposition to respond to stimuli in a specific way. Makes sense to me, but it's just a theory (as most things are) and we have a lot more to learn.
  • ch4s3 2y ago
    There’s a big difference between DNA methylation on gametes leading to behavioral predispositions in offspring and the claim that memories and experiences are inherited.
    • giantg2 2y ago
      It depends on what you mean by memories. I'm not a fan of the Guardian as I've seen stuff editorialized to the point it conveys misinformation. This article is poorly written to the point the writer doesn't seem to understand the topic. "Epigenetic memories" is different than colloquial "memories". The article seems to completely miss this. And of course people who haven't been exposed to that domain specific concept are likely to misinterpret it.
      • everdrive 2y ago
        It's intentionally misleading given that "memory" has a common understanding. If they simply wanted to keep the article approachable, they could even just simply write "they're analogous to memories, but don't work like memory as most people understand it."
      • ch4s3 2y ago
        Memory is the wrong word to use even like that. To the extent that there is DNA methylation in gametes, it will up or down regulate the expression of existing genes in the DNA. Nothing is created de-novo as in memory, you can’t look at the resultant gene regulation and look backwards to a cause.
        • giantg2 2y ago
• everdrive 2y ago
  Is there a good, real-world example of how we think epigenetics works? I've seen a lot of mentions that "epigenetics _proves_ that intergenerational trauma is real!" -- and at least to my eyes this feels like a stretch of the science. For instance, why are epigenetic effects inherited? Why is it not the case that in environment, the parents experience one environment and so some genes are expressed. (ie, epigenetics happens based on that environment) and then the children are in the a different environment, and so different genes are expressed. Do I have a wholly-incorrect understanding of epigenetics? Is there a clear and simple example of an epigenetic mechanism?
  • ch4s3 2y ago
    It seems pretty clear for example that being an alcoholic can cause DNA methylation in your gametes such that your offspring have a higher risk above and beyond regular genetic factors to become an alcoholic. However that is at a population level and there are complicating factors. Inherited trauma is totally unsupported but up or down regulated gene expression based on environmental factors before your conception are supported by some compelling evidence.
    • jvanderbot 2y ago
      I'm trying on a mental model re: Epigenetics. How does this look: Your genes are a recipe book, not a blueprint. What recipe is chosen is based somewhat on environmental effects. When you reproduce, you shuffle together the parents book + the earmarks on the pages.
      • ch4s3 2y ago
        I'm not sure if that totally fits. There's a kind of signal amplification or de-amplification happening.
        • jvanderbot 2y ago
          Yeah I was using dogear as a way of signalling "prefer this page"
• ChuckMcM 2y ago
  Yeah but so many people want to believe this idea. Consider all the history of people of "royal blood" as if that endeared them with the knowledge and skills of ruling. There is a whole industry that plays to this desire of people to "know". From palmistry to genetic memory, they are all bonkers.
  • 47282847 2y ago
    I can not look into my genes so I know nothing about that, but what I can say with confidence is that trauma therapy continues to fundamentally change how I judge, act and react, and has deeply positive effects on all my relationships. I can totally see how that positively influences how my children will develop. That aspect of “passing on trauma“ is very real. I now stay calm and regulated in most stressful situations, and in the few cases where I overreact I know how to and I have the ability to (!) make up for it later and correct my mistakes. And use the trigger to further heal past pain.
    • rahimnathwani 2y ago
      The article is about genetic inheritance, not about inheritance in general.
  • 0xcde4c3db 2y ago
    Definitely. People want to believe it so badly that they'll just throw all logic out the window. I can't find it with a cursory search, but I recall one case in which a person allegedly inherited a fear of drowning via "genetic memory" from her uncle who drowned shortly before she was born. It's essentially "psychic medium" bullshit with a veneer of pseudobiology. But hoo boy, does that ever play well. It's one thing to suggest that psychological or metabolic stress could affect the dynamics of DNA methylation in a way that crosses generational boundaries. It's quite another to identify those inherited dynamics as "memories".
    • jraph 2y ago
      Why yes, this stuff jumps diagonally. That's called an epigenic memory cross-transfer. It also works backwards and if one of the being is dead, and affects you from your birth even if the event had not happened yet at the time. Retcon Epigenetics 101. :-)
• mech422 2y ago
  I always wonder how animals that aren't raised by parents know various things...like why do predators know bright colors are a 'warning' if they don't have parents to teach them? How do spiders know what their web 'should' look like (spider webs come in multiple styles...) People say 'instinct' by never mention what that means or how it works :-P
  • AQuantized 2y ago
    There's an idea of 'fixed action patterns' where certain behaviors are encoded in the neurology of an animal, and triggered by certain stimulus. For spiders then there is an action pattern that upon certain stimulus they will use their spinnerets begin forming a web, first placing anchor points and gradually building it up with radial threads and spiral. The exact behavior differs by species such that they have different resulting patterns. It seems possible that there is an element of 'learning' beyond the basic pattern as well, even in seemingly very simple animals. I doubt the spiders have a mental model of what their web looks like as such, it's more evolutionary driven genetic behavior, a particular neuronal pattern encoding the action sequence rather than an underlying fundamental understanding.
    • funcDropShadow 2y ago
      I've always wondered why so many different culture know some notion of a dragon. Is it possible that these are based on inherited memories, patterns, insticts of dinosaurs? I know this would be a wild leap but one my wonder.
      • krapp 2y ago
        The trick is that "some notion of a dragon" is incredibly vague, with "dragons" sharing very few commonalities between cultures. A European wyvern and Quetzalcoatl are almost nothing alike, yet people consider them both "dragons." >Is it possible that these are based on inherited memories, patterns, insticts of dinosaurs? It is possible that these are based, at least in part, on the discovery of dinosaur fossils, but humans didn't even evolve until the dinosaurs were long dead. So even if it were possible for "inherited memory" to include visual memories it wouldn't do so for dinosaurs.
• biotinker 2y ago
  I don't see any connection between the Guardian and the recovered memory movement. Throughout this thread you have a bit of an insistence on narrowly defining memory in terms of the brain, i.e. memories that people have. In the field of epigenetics, and in computer science, and other areas, "memory" more broadly means a system of encoding information. Which is what happens here, when methyl groups physically bind to an adenine or cytosine molecule, like flipping a bit. It's incorrect to call information stored in epigenetics "memories", but it's fine to call it "memory". I forgive the article for doing this as it's written for consumption by the broad public, and it's illustrative of the overall point if not literally correct. FYI, the author is a respected neuroscientist: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannah_Critchlow https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannah_Critchlow
  • ch4s3 2y ago
    > I don't see any connection between the Guardian and the recovered memory movement. It’s a comparison. Respected or not she’s making the argument the “the body keeps the score,” which is redolent of the discredited book of the same name.
    • mrcartmeneses 2y ago
      > Respected or not she’s making the argument the “the body keeps the score,” which is redolent of the discredited book of the same name. The body keeps the score is discredited?
      • ch4s3 2y ago
        Yes, the book is by one of the original nut bags behind the recovered memory craze. Here[1] is an academic publication talking about the problems with it. [1]https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16483114/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16483114/
    • stubish 2y ago
      As best we can tell through experimentation, trauma at least is passed on to subsequent generations. Comparing the science to discredited books that were based on the science and extrapolated without evidence is not a valid comparison. Like conflating UFOs with extraterrestrials, it takes a leap of faith to go from one to the other.