X-Message-Number: 5705
Date: Mon, 05 Feb 1996 00:44:29 GMT
From:  (Garret Smyth)
Subject: Church of Elvis oops, Man

>  (Dwight G. Jones):

> ...I am convinced more than ever that you 
> shall find your identity to be in your DNA and not your memories. 

Okay, okay, a lot of us have read "The Selfish Gene", but most people who
feel that they are their genes deal with with it by the conventional method
(which I am told, and have observed, can be very satisfying if you do it right
- and I refer here to the parent/child bit, not the grunty squelchy bit that
leads to it). If you haven't read Dawkins's book you should. The Church of
Man might use it as a scripture.

> More and more genes are being found that influence behaviour. You will 
> find that you are truly "in the grasp", to quote the football people, of 
> DNA, in ways you do not yet appreciate, . And it's something the Church 
> of Man welcomes.

Halelujah, brother. You are right. More and more genes are being found, but
this won't make all that big a difference in the estimates of the degree of
bahaviour that is inherited. It is most likely to affect the specific types
of behaviour that are considered inheritable and those considered learnable,
and the crossover between the two.

Eysenck (a well known psychologist over here, less well known over there) is
usually known amongst the lay public for his controversial espousment of the
idea that some aspects of personality and intelligence are inherited and are
culturally independant. I think his highest estimate was 70:30 inherited to
aquired, his lowest 50:50 but he settled on 60:40.

There is no conflict here with Dawkins, who is happy with selection affecting
DNA and other information patterns.

If we isolate all the genes involved in behaviour we will probably only get the
same figure since scientific psychologists use well designed experiments and

rigorous statistics. We will understand the mechanism better and in more detail,
but we are unlikely to be shocked.

It comes to this: some behaviour is inherited, some is learnt. The whole nature
nurture thing is a waste of breath since any serious commentator agrees that 
there is a good measure of both. The main benefit of the argument is that it
intrigues that public and hence helps raise funds for research.

If you don't think that anything is learnt, read anything by Watson, Skinner,
oh hell, it just ocurred to me that if you don't believe that anything is
learnt then there is no point in you reading anything, eh?

And as for identity; if you met your revived mother, but she had absolutely
no idea who the hell you were, would you jump for joy? Is your name genetically
programmed into you? You might think it a genetic effect that all children
in an island nation had a behavioural quirk involving ducking behind living 
room funiture, especially on a Saturday afternoon. This happened in Britain 
during the Sixties and went on into the early Seventies. I was one of those
afflicted kids. It had a genetic component - the flight response. It was, 
however, triggered by a very environmental stimulus: any episode of Dr Who
that had Daleks in it. You may be happy to come back with only your fear 
response intact, but no experience of what leads to it, but most cryonicists
don't.

If you really only want to pass on your genes I suggest you find someone of

the opposite sex, and faites la bete a deux dos and, for the sake of those of us
who are so silly as to feel nostalgic about our memories, do it elsewhere.

TTFN

Garret

-- 
Garret Smyth

Phone:  0181 789 1045 or +44 181 789 1045


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