Amerika

The mysteries of nature confuse us despite the obvious likelihood of Darwin being right, mainly because the idea of things being out of our control like natural selection and genetics threatens our sense of being the authors of our own lives.

Consider the case of the long-distance bird and its mysterious abilities that enable it to fly nine thousand miles over eleven days and still end up in the right place:

A four-month-old godwit born and raised in Alaska must somehow “know” where to go for the winter. And it does not follow its parents, who migrate before the nestlings are physically ready for the trip. Instead, young godwits gather and repeat the adults’ flight south. To do this, the birds have to possess a hardwired program to guide them on this maiden flight.

After traveling some 8,000 miles southward, it was off course, about 500 miles east of her Tasmanian wintering ground. But instead of continuing southward, which would mean exhaustion and certain death, the tracking device captured B6 making a sharp turn westward at just the right spot, supporting the notion that these birds can accurately determine longitude as well as latitude.

Yes, many yearling migrants must perish on their first long flight south, selecting out the nonperformers. But those that make their first trip back north can live as many as 28 years and migrate more than 300,000 miles in a lifetime, about 60,000 miles farther than the moon. Apparently, natural selection took a long-shot evolutionary bet that has produced a winner.

While science can offer insights as to the methods the godwit uses to find out where it is, the inherent desire to undertake this flight must be hard-coded and not “software” or learned behaviors.

Some aspects of science recognize the possibility of genetic memory:

Genetic memory, simply put, is complex abilities and actual sophisticated knowledge inherited along with other more typical and commonly accepted physical and behavioral characteristics.

Carl Jung used the term “collective unconscious” to define his even broader concept of inherited traits, intuitions and collective wisdom of the past.

Wilder Penfield in his pioneering 1978 book, Mystery of the Mind, also referred to three types of memory. “Animals,” he wrote, “particularly show evidence of what might be called racial memory” (this would be the equivalent of genetic memory). He lists the second type of memory as that associated with “conditioned reflexes” and a third type as “experiential”.

Let us make an assertion clear: culture is genetic, just like abilities are. Look at the handwriting of your four grandparents and you will find everything that you do. We the conscious souls are at best passengers in our meat conveyances.

Tags: Culture, genetics, idiocracy