• Question: can people with the same or similar genetic dna share memorys or pain?

    Asked by cygex44 to Ben, Jony, Katharine, Mark, Peter on 19 Nov 2011.
    • Photo: Katharine Schofield

      Katharine Schofield answered on 17 Nov 2011:

      I’m not a geneticist… but I would say the answer to this is no. DNA is something you’re born with, whereas memories and pain are things you experience as an individual and are all down to environmental factors.
      Although, it’s likely that if you share DNA with someone that you’ll have some shared memories, they’re family after all.

    • Photo: Mark Basham

      Mark Basham answered on 17 Nov 2011:

      I think there have been a lot of studies, and none of them show that there is any connection.

      I think it comes under some of the things that the Randi Challenge cover, Basically there is a 1million pound prize for anyone that can prove things of this nature, such as telepathy or stuff like that. Nobody has every managed to claim it, but you can read more about it here 🙂

      http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/1m-challenge.html

    • Photo: Jony Hudson

      Jony Hudson answered on 18 Nov 2011:

      Hi cygex44,

      that’s an interesting question.

      I guess it’s partly a question of what you call a memory. Certainly, animals (including) humans are born with skills that they got from their parents, but without learning them. So these skills are built in to the DNA. That’s not quite a memory, but it’s not totally different either. (I saw an amazing nature program about how seals know how to keep a breathing hole in the ice carved out – they just know how to do it without learning).

      There’s a lot of research into how much information is really stored in DNA, and I think at the moment people don’t really know the full answer.

      (Also, I wonder, have you been playing Assassin’s Creed lately?!)

    • Photo: Peter Williams

      Peter Williams answered on 19 Nov 2011:

      do you mean if one of them feels pain then so does the other, even if they don’t know what’s happening to the first?
      No, that’s errant nonsense.

      Do twins react similarly to the same events? Well that seems plausible.
      The brain is extremely complex and we are only just beginning to try and understand how it works. It’s not my area of expertise, but i’m certain it will be very important in the coming years.

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