Re: "Genes are followers not leaders". Was: Birds of feather....

From: Tim Tyler (tim_at_tt1lock.org)
Date: 12/29/04 

Date: Wed, 29 Dec 2004 17:13:12 +0000 (UTC)

CNCabej <cncabej@aol.com> wrote or quoted:

> In your reply to my post, on January 6/ 2001 [...]

Ah - the curse of usenet ;-)

> you wrote: "Of course in organisms with complex nervous systems there
> are also epigenetic effects from the environment - but the rest of the
> discussion seems to suggest you're thinking about some source of
> heritable information". I am not sure whether now you consider the CNS
> carrier and generator of the epigenetic information as the quote me are
> refering to sems to suggest:

Brains can transmit information from parent to offspring in species
with parental care. The parent influences the environment of the
offspring and the offspring's brain absorbs those influences.

That's the main reason why catholic parents tend to have catholic sons -
for example.

I understand that it has been demonstrated that birdsong - for example -
can be inherited culturally.

Not many species have much parental care - and of those that do,
it's usually rather hard to believe that very much information
/actually/ gets passed on this way.

Except in humans, of course - where languages, thoughts, ideas and
other "brain-stuff" can get transmitted down the generations with
rather high fidelity - as the bible and the koran demonstrate.

This sort of inheritance is usually referred to as "cultural
inheritance". Sometimes it's called "memetics".

Such non-nucleic acid-based inheritance will prove to be of vastly
increased importance in the future of the evolutionary process. 

-- 
__________
 |im |yler  http://timtyler.org/  tim@tt1lock.org  Remove lock to reply.

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