RE: Nature via Nurture: What makes you who you are.

From: Harvey Newstrom (mail@HarveyNewstrom.com)
Date: Fri May 30 2003 - 10:16:09 MDT

  • Next message: Lee Daniel Crocker: "Re: Why the interest in really big primes? Re: new confuser"

    Brett Paatsch wrote,
    > Matt Ridley author of the Red Queen has written a book Nature
    > via Nurture and in today's version of Time there's an interesting
    > "teaser" article. The science may be light but I liked it.
    >
    > http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101030602/story.html
    >
    > "Only now is it dawning on scientists .... that learning itself
    > consists of nothing more than switching genes on and off "
    > ......

    Meaning what? That we can change our DNA by mental concentration? That our
    DNA changes throughout life as we learn? That learned data are encoded in
    DNA and passed along to our children as some racial memory?

    To say this is "light" on science is an understatement! This piece seems to
    simply restate the old nature-vs-nurture debate, misunderstanding half of
    it, and presenting it as if it were some strange, new discovery. I don't
    see any new biological information in this piece. This seems to be basic
    genetics and environment. However, some of the statements and conclusions
    seem off-the wall.

    --
    Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, IAM, GSEC, IBMCP
    <www.HarveyNewstrom.com> <www.Newstaff.com>
    


    This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri May 30 2003 - 10:29:59 MDT