I have three children ( adults now ) and my wife uses the term genetic memory to account for a lot of their speech patterns, physical traits, and even speech . Example#1 my middle daughter will often use archaic phrases my Father used and we lived 100 miles away and she was a child when he died. #2 Another child raised 400 miles from his uncle uses the same speech patterns, facial expressions and body movements when he’s excited or upset. #3 the third child is so very much patterned after other family members long deceased it’s uncanny. We have never lived anywhere near any of them and even speaking on the phone was sporatic as it was always long distance and at that time very expensive. A few years ago my brother’s twin girls mistook my son for their father from behind strictly because of his speech pattern and manner of motion
You know this type of thing really strikes me as woo, but I’ve seen some really strange things in my research of my family.
I came across my great grandfather’s signature on his marriage certificate. He died in 1936, years before my father was born and almost 40 years before I was born. We all have a very similar signature. The first time I saw it I swear I could have done it. We don’t have the same first name, but the slopes and the loops look really similar.
My mother died about 9 months before my first daughter was born. My daughter loves sheep. She has about 4-5 stuffed sheep in our homes. My mother raised sheep when she was a girl, something I know little about.
My daughter also sucks her thumb and twirls her hair, something that everyone in my father’s family does. I know my grandfather did it, so did most of his kids. Almost all of my cousins did and at least half of their kids do.
Honestly I don’t know what to think, I try not to believe it, but just the things I’ve seen kind of make me want to.
What are my thoughts on genetic memory?
I think it’s a fluke.
Utter twaddle.
I agree, and I recall my great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather saying the same thing.
In terms of actual memory, I’m firmly in the “twaddle” camp.
Not every attribute described is necessarily–or even probably–related to memory, however. I find it plausible that a genetic predisposition toward certain behaviors is possible. One’s characteristic gait, for example, is influenced by bone structure and musculature, which are dictated in part by genetics. Similarities in brain structure are less obvious, of course, but they could account for specific behaviors–especially unconscious ones–arising more often in a given family.
Since you’re looking for opinions, moved to IMHO (from MPSIMS).
All of these can be explained as confirmation bias; you observe the commonalities but don’t note the disparities.
That being said, there is certainly a degree of genetic predisposition to certain behaviors. It is not necessarily surprising that the handwriting of one family member might resemble another’s, or that instinctual childhood mannerisms like thumbsucking run in families. This isn’t “genetic memory” in the sense of acquired characteristics or behavior transmitted by the genome, however, and memories are coded in the structure of synaptic connections, not in genes.
Stranger
I think it’s confusing two separate things, genetics and memory.
And I think genetics is awesome! My 2 year old daughter makes a “mad face” that is hilariously like her great-grandmother, who died right after my daughter was born. It is awesome, and it is because genetics means they have similar bone structure and facial features. Some behaviors and dispositions are found in family groups because they have roots in genetics.
And this is from the woman who came THIS CLOSE to grabbing her father-in-law’s ass by mistake, because he and his son have a nearly identical stance and gait. I think we can all agree this is evidence that genetics can also be a dangerous game. :eek:
Actual memories, I don’t think so. But I think there’s a lot more to a genome than grandpa’s blue eyes. The twins study makes me wonder about this a lot.
And I’m really wondering if a laugh can be heritable. My sister is starting to sound like our great aunts. She didn’t use to.
I am watching the field of epigenetics with interest, however. It’s still not something that would carry actual memories, but it would account for the transmission of certain acquired characteristics.
I am a firm believer and have been thinking about it lately.
Why is a man sexually attracted to a vagina? There is something inherent about it. The penis and vagina have no connection. It isn’t a taught thing either. There is something in our system that makes the penis want the vagina specifically.
Twin studies (in particular those which examine identical twins raised separately in adoptive families) have proven that even the most random of personal quirks and preferences can have a genetic, instinctual component.
I have a cousin who was given up for adoption at birth by my aunt, who met our family when she was about 30 (she’s since become very close with many of us, and is in fact my favorite cousin). It was incredible, on first meeting, for her and us to discover the similarities she shared with so many of us. Looks and body language of course, but everything from her laugh, to characteristic handwriting, to a love for music (particularly classical, and nearly my entire extended family are classically trained musicians) and literature, to random quirks she’d had since childhood. None if them things she shared with the family who raised her. In fact many of them made her feel alienated from her family, growing up, especially considering she was the lone adopted member of a nuclear family who had many such small things in common.
I don’t believe in anything like ‘genetic memory’ as the OP’s wife seems to be using it, though I am fascinated various theories of epigenetics.
I understand all of that, but I can see why people believe the things they do. I’ve been around here long enough, and paid enough attention in school to not believe that stuff, it’s just coming across things like that makes it seem so possible. I don’t believe in memories that are passed down and the like.
Careful with how you say (and thnink about) that. Epigenetic factors do influence how and when genes are expressed, anfd some of those factors can be conveyed by contents in the gamates, which can influence things like growth rates and tendency toward obesity or developmental problems, but this is not “acquired characteristics” in the Lamarkian sense, e.g. just because your dad was a blacksmith doesn’t mean that you will acquire a propensity for muscled forearms. Epigenetic factors cannot carry any novel information or characteristics between generations; just information about gene expression, which is largely driven by external environmental factors and nutrition. The only mechanisms that can act to make heritable modifications to the genome are errors in replication like mutation and lateral gene transfer.
Stranger
Now, I accept the role of genetics. How does my Australian Sheepdog know how to herd sheep? She was taken from the litter as a pup, and had no opportunity to learn this from the mother.
Oh, FFS. There’s a difference between instinct and memory.
I believe in it in a way. I have a younger brother who is 9 years younger than me so we didn’t really grow up together. I was out of the house for good when he was just a kid and I rarely see him more than once every year or two and that is usually at my mother’s house. However, I went to go visit him last year in Hawaii. He loaned me his car to drive. I don’t usually like driving other people’s vehicle because I am picky about where everything is in mine and I like to listen to my music loudly while driving. Everyone else’s cars are always set on some crappy radio stations and their CD’s usually suck too. I hopped in his and looked at his stack of CD’s on the passenger seat (where I keep my favorites too) and was shocked that his collection was almost identical to mine. I am talking about really obscure and eclectic stuff like old blues recordings and indie rock that few people have heard of. It turned out that we had almost perfect overlap between our in-car music collections and neither were that big although his was a little bigger than mine. The ones he had that I didn’t, I already planned to get.
That was weird enough but then I drove over to his house for the first time. His book and movie collections were almost identical to mine as well right down to the way the were arranged. I hung out there for a couple of days and never had to ask where anything was. I already knew because it was in the same place that I put my stuff at my place and it was the same thing. Again, I am not talking about current hits or really popular items that tons of people have. It is all carefully selected obscure stuff.
I’m well aware of that, hence the qualifier.
As I recall, my first consideration of the topic–long before I actually encountered the word “epigenetic”–was a thought experiment on the development of a trait that contributed toward group survival by reducing the individual reproductive success of offspring born under conditions of nutritional stress.
They do on a good night! Viva la conexion!