# Fact or Fiction - Devouring knowledge
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fact-or-fiction-devouring-knowledge/259485
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [August 12, 2004, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fact-or-fiction-devouring-knowledge/259485 "2004-08-12T03:53:20Z")
**Posts on this page:** 14
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Saranga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saranga)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2004, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fact-or-fiction-devouring-knowledge/259485/1 "2004-08-12T03:53:20Z")
I came across an anecdote about planarian worms, and googling for info led me to this post on a website:
> [@](#):
>
> During experiments conducted in 1962 at the University of Michigan, scientists successfully extracted memory from one animal and transferred it to another. The experiment was conducted in the following manner. Over a period of time planarian worms were trained to behave in a particular way when exposed to light. These worms were then cut into pieces and fed to untrained planarians, and the untrained worms were put through the same learning paces as their predecessors. The second batch of worms, those that had dined on the first, learned many times faster than the originals, indicating that knowledge had somehow been transferred through body tissue. Similar experiments were later conducted at Baylor University: mice were trained to run though a maze, and an extract was then made of their brains. This extract was fed to untrained mice, which then learned the same maze twice as fast as their predecessors. If placed in a different maze, the untrained mice showed no particular aptitude for learning the layout. The implication of these experiments is that memory can be transferred from one being to another somatically as well as experimentially.
Is any of this true or is it urban legend?
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### Author:  [@Baldwin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baldwin)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2004, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fact-or-fiction-devouring-knowledge/259485/2 "2004-08-12T04:09:54Z")
I’m pretty sure that this stuff has been debunked over the years, and hypotheses about RNA encoding memory are in desrepute. I’ll look up some cites tomorrow (although probably somebody will beat me to it).
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### Author:  [@Chairman\_Pow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chairman_Pow)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2004, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fact-or-fiction-devouring-knowledge/259485/3 "2004-08-12T04:11:53Z")
Somebody’s been reading SWAMP THING!
Hijack: How does this relate, if at all, to “genetic memory” as evidenced in elephants, birds, etc.?
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### Author:  [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2004, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fact-or-fiction-devouring-knowledge/259485/4 "2004-08-12T04:32:39Z")
> [@](#):
>
> the study of memory where early reports of startling results seemed to show that memories could be transferred from one organism to another, presmably via ‘memory molecules’. These studies were conducted by William McConnell who taught flatworms (Planaria) to traverse a maze and then showed that untrained planaria who were fed the ground-up remains of their more learned colleagues also seemed to know the maze habit. Later reports by Hyden seemed to indicate that transfer of information was also possible by feeding the gound-up brain of a trained rat to an untrained rat.
>
> The results on transfered memories did not hold up well and are no longer regarded as good evidence on the molecular basis of memory. However the theory that memory has a molecular basis is still viable in more complicated forms.
[Psych 312 at Ohio State](http://www.psy.ohio-state.edu/psy312/brain.html)
Similar experiments were tried with IIRC, Bees in the early 80’s, also with statistically insignificant results.
If the results of the memory transfer experiments had held up, they would be a _very_ big deal in the neurosciences. They’re not.
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### Author:  [@Shalmanese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shalmanese)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2004, 10:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fact-or-fiction-devouring-knowledge/259485/5 "2004-08-12T10:29:35Z")
The methodology used was later found to be severely flawed and no other team has been able to replicate the result.
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### Author:  [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2004, 11:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fact-or-fiction-devouring-knowledge/259485/6 "2004-08-12T11:47:16Z")
Perhaps we ought to infer instead that cannibalism enhances problem-solving skills… 😃
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### Author:  [@bonzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bonzer)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2004, 11:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fact-or-fiction-devouring-knowledge/259485/7 "2004-08-12T11:47:51Z")
There’s a relatively detailed discussion of the controversy at a popular level in one of the chapters of _The Golem: What You Should Know about Science_ (Cambridge, 1993) by Harry Collins and Trevor Pinch. Basically what seems like an almost trivial idea to test - and repeating this sort of stuff was very popular for projects amongst schoolkids and students at the time - has endless pitfalls when you actually try the experiment. The idea never gained much support at all and the controversy completely petered out in the 70s when its two most vocal proponents - McConnell and Ungar - either gave up or died.
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### Author:  [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2004, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fact-or-fiction-devouring-knowledge/259485/8 "2004-08-12T13:28:31Z")
The popularity of these experiments spawned a scientific humor journal called _The Worm Runners Digest_.
Alas, with the dying off of worm runners, it became (or was replaced by) _The Journal of Irreproducible Results_, which became _Annals of Improbable Research_, which died and…
But at least somewhere in all these incarnations we got the Ig® Nobel Prize Awards as a lasting gesture.
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### Author:  [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2004, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fact-or-fiction-devouring-knowledge/259485/9 "2004-08-12T15:46:36Z")
> [@bonzer](#):
>
> The idea never gained much support at all and the controversy completely petered out in the 70s when its two most vocal proponents - McConnell and Ungar - either gave up or died.
Neither had the foresight or commitment to science to arrange for their brains to be eaten after death?
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### Author:  [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2004, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fact-or-fiction-devouring-knowledge/259485/10 "2004-08-12T15:56:45Z")
SDSTAFF Doug on [If Flatworm A eats Flatworm B, will it absorb Flatworm B’s knowledge?](http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mflatworm.html)
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### Author:  [@Shalmanese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shalmanese)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2004, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fact-or-fiction-devouring-knowledge/259485/11 "2004-08-12T15:58:05Z")
> [@Exapno Mapcase](#):
>
> The popularity of these experiments spawned a scientific humor journal called _The Worm Runners Digest_.
>
> Alas, with the dying off of worm runners, it became (or was replaced by) _The Journal of Irreproducible Results_, which became _Annals of Improbable Research_, which died and…
>
> But at least somewhere in all these incarnations we got the Ig® Nobel Prize Awards as a lasting gesture.
The AIR is still very much alive and holds the regular ignobel awards ceremony at MIT.
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### Author:  [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2004, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fact-or-fiction-devouring-knowledge/259485/12 "2004-08-12T16:56:37Z")
In a thread on devouring knowledge, a post by **Bibliophage**.
I love the SDMB!
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### Author:  [@Saranga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saranga)
#### Post date: [August 13, 2004, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fact-or-fiction-devouring-knowledge/259485/13 "2004-08-13T03:59:11Z")
Thanks **Bibliophage**! I did a search for “planarian” (kudos **Chairman Pow** ) but not for flatworm. Good to know the SD has already tackled this topic.
Now how can I get my hands on some “active learning chemicals”? 😉
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### Author:  [@BlackKnight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlackKnight)
#### Post date: [August 13, 2004, 6:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fact-or-fiction-devouring-knowledge/259485/14 "2004-08-13T06:40:22Z")
The webpage of the Annals of Improbable Research can be found here:
> **[Improbable Research](https://www.improbable.com/)**
>
> Research that makes people LAUGH and then THINK