Quote Originally Posted by frankykeno
The really funky part of this chimp thing is if you believe in Darwin's theories and the fact that we share so much genetic similarities with chimps, there are those that say our fear of snakes comes down from that instinctive reaction. Basically a racial memory concept. Who knows...just kind of interesting.
Quote Originally Posted by MedusasOwl
The idea of racial cellular memory is interesting, I've never really thought of it in terms of instincts, perhaps because I've heard a number of "past life memory=ancestral memory" sorts of theories that I dunno how to feel about. But like the instinctual reactions, like salmon knowing where to go to spawn etc... that's really interesting.
Cellular memory, radical memory, radical cellular memory, past life memory, whatever you want to call it has nothing to do with Darwinism........

Our instinctual reaction to sakes and chimps’ instinctual response to snakes, in terms of Darwinism, would be explained by descent with modification (not cellular memory)

A valid articulation of Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection would be something along the lines…..

Chimps and Humans are derived from an ancestral species....the population of that ancestral hominid species contained individuals with different genes...those members with genes that caused them to be jumpy around snakes survived and reproduced at greater rates than those that didn’t have these genes…..when the parent species gave rise to two daughter species these genetically wired instincts were maintained down the hominid family tree.

This is only one possible articulation of Darwinian perspective….not trying to piss anyone off….but lets not confuse ideas here.

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On a different note…….


Cellular memory itself is a confusing term…...to molecular, cellular, and developmental biologists it means a very specific thing (phenomena collectively known as epigenetics)

Cellular memory also could mean the radical overarching, pseudoscientific theories described here…….. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_memory ; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellular_memory; http://skepdic.com/cellular.html


I'm not sure which one you two meant but nethier has very little to do with traditional Darwinism.

Good find on the livescience page!