Would it surprise you to learn that evolution had found a way to encode PTSD-inducing experiences into a parent’s DNA to pass on to their own offspring (and subsequent generations)? Well it has and this has been proven out in both humans (here also) and mice.
Quite to the surprise of scientists and students everywhere who thought the Darwin vs. Lamarck (nature vs nurture) debate was a decisive first round knock-out for Darwin, it turns out that mice and humans (and presumably many other creatures) can encode experiences into their DNA and pass them along to their offspring.
Rather than waiting for a random mutation to confer a new behavior that improves survival (Darwin) both mice and humans can encode a traumatic experience and pass that right along to their children. Babies born to war-starved women store fat with miserly fanaticism and experience far higher rates of chronic health issues. Children of holocaust survivors are prone to anxiety and have elevated stress hormones throughout their own lives. The sons of Union war prisoners were far more likely to die early than the sons of soldiers who were not prisoners.
In other words, our DNA is busy talking with the world around us and storing what seems to be useful information to pass along and/or use. The DNA is the hardware, that’s the part Darwin got right. And epigenetics is the software, which is the part that Lamarck understood.
Carl Jung perhaps understood more of this duality than I’ve appreciated:
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-07-13/do-you-truly-have-free-will
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