I have recently seen and learned how much a person inherits from the genes of their ancestors to include some diseases and personality traits and flaws and tendencies.

A flaw or trait can cause a person to be an addict or a at the mercy of tendencies towards anger, even murder. Do we inherit personality traits? Insanity? Disease?

It is certainly seen in generations of dogs, why not humans?

If this is so, then how much control of who we are do we really have?

Are we just programed organisms at the mercy of our genes and DNA?

Are we just biological thinking machines running on programs?

(I think this thread should have been posted in the science and philosophy forum. I can't move it, so I am going to post this there.)

I think much of what we are depends on our genes. Far more than most people would be comfortable with knowing.

I was born into a very meek and well-behaved family. I'm talking about the extended family including aunts and uncles. For the most part we didn't really have any 'black sheep', or at least the ones that could be labeled as 'black sheep' we're really bad at all, just independent, creative and unwilling to conform. I suppose I might be considered a 'black sheep' in that regard. I certainly questioned the traditional religious beliefs and ulimately rejected them as being false. But clearly that's not a bad act. On the contrary it was something they all should have done!

But when it comes to actually doing bad things no one in my entire family ever did anything really nasty, or if they did they didn't get caught.

In fact, this used to be topic for fireside chats. My uncles were all Christians, yet they weren't stupid in spite of that belief. They actually questioned why it is that our family doesn't seem to want to do anything wrong. The Bible talks about all these 'temptations' yet even the preachers in my family confessed that they don't feel any great need to fight these so-called temptations because they don't feel like doing them in the first place.

If any of my uncles ever cheated on my aunts they either never got caught, or no one ever talked about it. Well, there was one uncle that was famous for cheating on one of my aunts. But in that case the aunt was my dad's sister, and the cheating uncle came from outside the family.

But seriously, from a genetics point of view our entire family seemed to inherit meek genes. So there may very well be something to that. In fact, when I meet people who have a seriously bad attitude I really wonder what their problem is. It could be that it's just in their genes.

So much for the whole judgment day thing. If genes are the reason why nasty people are nasty then how could they be blamed for that?

Take someone like Charles Manson for example. Was that a normally healthy person who chose to be screwed up? Or was that just bad genes?

I think it's clear that all men are not created equal, and those of us who have been created well are very lucky indeed.

And this tosses a huge wrench in any 'judgmental God' picture.

Clearly it works better with karma. But even then it's problematic.

Atheism is probably the only thing that really works perfectly well.

Everything's an accident and some accidents turn out better than others. That certainly makes sense.

Example:

A woman adopts an unwanted child and raises him the best way she can. He is grateful to her and says that if it had not been for her he would have ended up in jail where all his brothers ended up. His father is a certain undesirable personality that can't be relied upon for much. You would think that this young man would turn out better, but at a certain age, suddenly he turns into his father. A total jerk.
Where did the grateful young man go? What happened? It has to be in the genes.

Example:

Three or more generation of abusive fathers... is this learned or inherited. Turns out it has to do with a chemical in the brain that causes short tempers and anger. You can fix it with Prozac which will change a bad guy to a good guy.

But then who are we really? Are we our programing? Are we our genes? And worse yet, are we the drugs we take, the chemicals our brain releases?

Are we merely biological machines at the mercy of our DNA programing and genes? Where is our true free will? How much control do we really have?

(And why are me and James so perfect? )

It's not that clear really. While genetics play a major role in making us who we are, our surroundings also influence us a whole lot.

Nature VS. Nurture

The jury's still out...

I think nature is winning. I have seen cases of identical twins who were raised by different families completely -- and yet had similar tastes, personalities, even smoked the same brand of cigarettes, had the same type of job, like similar foods etc.

Of course they were born on the same day, thus having the same horoscope. Now a good test of this theory would be to study clones who had different up bringings, and were born on different dates.

hmmmmmm

I feel like Astrology has as much relevance as cold readings which has as much relevance as a good strong fart does on the nature of reality.

Science is working toward mapping these traits, perhaps some day we can fix unpleasant parts of our own nature . . . . that wouldn't bother me, as long as people where not discriminated against (gattaca) or forced to change if they didn't want to.

After taking some philosophy courses, this subject was brought up quite a bit. I will admit, that there is a valid argument that we are at the mercy of our genes. But who wants to think that? I mean if I truly believed that, I may as well off myself. That would mean noone has any power over there actions, there is no free will etc. Then what would the point of living be. If every action I do or take, is allready preprogramed in me, I am no longer a unique being, nor is anybody. That would suck.



good question

Mirror Mirror so austere, could he be our clone?
Raised within a test-tube, from the marrow of a bone
Is he one of many, or a just copy of Jack Benny?
Will he murder masses, or pass putrid raunchy gasses?
The answer's blow'in in the wind
His DNA cannot rescind
The scientists have been chagrined
as evil ogres grinned