Marjorie Pfennig Posted May 22, 2016 Share Posted May 22, 2016 I was watching this program in Aus (where i live) last night called "Dna Nation" which is about three celebrities (Ernie Dingo, Julia Zemiro and IanThorpe) who have their DNA taken and their heritage traced back 2000,000 years. It's quite interesting but they kept talking about how DNA tells you "where you come from" and "who you are." i don't know about all of you but while i find it interesting i don't think it tells me a lot about who i am. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gord Barentsen Posted June 3, 2016 Share Posted June 3, 2016 I saw it last weekend. One thing that stood out to me was that they were really really pushing genetics and science as the way to find out "who you are." I guess they have to do that as part of the show's intrinsic self-promotion, but as someone sensitized to the at times overprivileging of science in Western culture it always rubs me the wrong way. 1 Quote When a book and a head collide and a hollow sound is heard, must it always have come from the book? -- Lichtenberg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marjorie Pfennig Posted June 20, 2016 Author Share Posted June 20, 2016 i think you're harder on the show than i am but i agree..like what bearing does it have on my life if there was a serial killer in my family?! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Graham Barnett Posted October 20, 2016 Share Posted October 20, 2016 I agree...well, it's hard for me to imagine what my response might be if I had an ancestor who was a serial killer or rapist or something like that, but in general, why should I care about what my ancestors did? Quote 'That's why they call it the American Dream, because you have to be asleep to believe it.' - George Carlin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gord Barentsen Posted December 14, 2016 Share Posted December 14, 2016 On 20/06/2016 at 8:17 PM, Marjorie Pfennig said: what bearing does it have on my life if there was a serial killer in my family?! I think one can say this logically, but nevertheless I think there are lots of people who are rather superstitious about what goes on in their family lines - irrespective of what "science" has to say (another way of saying that people invoke "post-truth realativism" when it suits their prejudices!). In other words, there are distinctly religious dimensions to familialism (if that's a good word for it). I wonder if psychology really is the ur-"science" Freud and Jung thought it was - personal psychology seems to trump(!) objectivity as the predominant paradigm through which "truth" is filtered. Except that the way most people deal with their own personal psychologies I'd hardly call it "scientific." Quote When a book and a head collide and a hollow sound is heard, must it always have come from the book? -- Lichtenberg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ruby Posted December 18, 2016 Share Posted December 18, 2016 On 20/06/2016 at 8:17 PM, Marjorie Pfennig said: what bearing does it have on my life if there was a serial killer in my family?! but I mean how do we know that it doesn't have any bearing? maybe "serial-killer"ness is part of an evolutionary adaptation? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gord Barentsen Posted October 2, 2017 Share Posted October 2, 2017 I was talking about DNA with someone just recently and telling them the story below reminded me of this thread. I seem to rememeber reading something about how someone who underwent a complete marrow transplant ended up having two - count 'em, two sets of DNA in his body! That would mean that a tissue sample from this person would return one set of DNA and a marrow (or blood?) sample would return a different one entirely. I wonder the degree to which this throws the proverbial wrench into simple forms of DNA identification? Quote When a book and a head collide and a hollow sound is heard, must it always have come from the book? -- Lichtenberg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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