Genetic theories, I gather, have been cherished academically with detachment.
Genetic
Traits acquired during one’s lifetime – muscles built up in the gym, for example – cannot be passed on to the next generation. Now with technology, as it happens, we might indeed be able to transfer some of our acquired traits on to our selected offspring by genetic engineering.
I suffer from a genetic flaw, which is that my mother was a hopeless Pollyanna.
Give us detailed, testable, mechanistic accounts for the origin of life, the origin of the genetic code, the origin of ubiquitous bio macromolecules and assemblages like the ribosome, and the origin of molecular machines like the bacterial flagellum, and intelligent design will die a quick and painless death.
It’s perfectly obvious that there is some genetic factor that distinguishes humans from other animals and that it is language-specific. The theory of that genetic component, whatever it turns out to be, is what is called universal grammar.
As a species, we’ve somehow survived large and small ice ages, genetic bottlenecks, plagues, world wars and all manner of natural disasters, but I sometimes wonder if we’ll survive our own ingenuity.
I was a very, I think, lonely kid, very introspective. I felt very much at odds with my environment and my culture… Probably a genetic flaw. I can’t really explain it.