This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
Um... "no known basis for instinct"? Bullshit, instincts are coded into your brain in the exact same way that the rest of your unconscious mind is, you know, in your DNA. Look up "fixed action patterns" for a great example. Fixed Action Patterns (awesomely abbreviated to FAP, which caused much hilarity in my Psychology class) are specific behaviors that exhibit themselves whenever a specific, hard coded stimuli is presented. Think of instincts as the "if" statements of the brain's software.
- Agreed. I'm removing the line from the text. It is simply wrong in all possible ways.
The Fifth Element ? (—'Umptyscope')
fleb: Cut some Real Life examples, for spectacularly failing. (The first one has nothing to do with genes. The second one's original point is badly phrased and made me want to dispute its thesis, but ultimately it's not an example and should be merged into the description, if anywhere. And that is not what 'in vitro' means.)
- * Culture and language are an evolutionary advantage because they effectively allow a parent to pass on his/her memories to their spawn. Humanity has pretty much been surviving on the cultivated wisdom and knowledge of their ancestors.
* Genetic memory is impossible because D.N.A. rapidly degenerates. We take half of our genes from parents, 1/4 from grandparents, 1/8 from great gradparents, etc. Our genetic code within a few generations is incredibly diluted!
** Really "acquired memory" would be more accurate since the mother/parent is somehow stimulating the developing neural synapses of their in vitro offspring to match hers.
***No, she isn't.
Cutting this, as the clones in this case aren't made from DNA:
- In the film version of The Prestige, all of Robert Angier's replicas are fully-grown with all of his memories.
