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Chapter 8 Genetic vs. Environmental Influences Affecting Evolving Intelligence (6) The gene is the basic unit that contains the ultimate blueprint for the great variety of ways in which intelligence manifests itself in all lifeforms; however, the environment is a potent modifier and plays a large role in determining the ultimate level of intelligence that any organism eventually achieves. Intelligence has become programmed into the genetic code of each organism. All living tissue contains genes made up of DNA molecules that hold the master plan for each of our potential types and levels of intelligence. Genes created us mind and body. A given gene as an underlying basic component of the intelligence system will have many different effects on different parts of the body of any organism.1...All given parts of the body will be influenced by many genes. The effect of any one gene depends upon its interaction with many others.2 In combination, the genes program all organisms, man included, with their inherent, inborn potential intelligence. Our genes contain the coded instructions for building our brains. As animal and plant life evolved, the genes did their best (in advance) to preprogram each organism with rules and advice to cope with as many eventualities as they could anticipate. Only those genes that successfully anticipated problems correctly ended up surviving.3...This resulted in the upward evolution of intelligence through natural selection. Every cell of any organism carries all the genetic information for constructing every part of the organism's body, including the upper and lower limits of its intelligence. Most of this information is apparently suppressed when a cell becomes specialized into a blood cell, nerve or muscle cell.4...Only a tiny fraction of the information stored in the DNA of plant and animal cells is necessary for constructing the organism. The rest is composed of superfluous sequences repeated hundreds if not thousands of times over again.5...The suppression of the superfluous sequences is apparently accomplished by regulatory genes.6...It is possible that rapid changes resulting in new species (punctuated equilibria) could be the result of an abrupt alteration within a regulatory gene, which in turn calls for a novel reorganization of preexisting patterns.7...A single regulatory gene either switches on or off whole sequences of structural genes.8...If this theory is correct then it may be possible for many individuals of a new species to be produced simultaneously.9 Each individual's intelligence can be modified significantly by environmental factors such as diet, educational stimulation, etc., but most geneticists believe that these acquired characteristics will not be genetically passed on to the next generation. Rupert Sheldrake has challenged this concept since he believes that there is now a large body of evidence which indicates that acquired characteristics can be passed on from one generation to the next. Sheldrake cites experiments conducted on fruit flies that he concludes adequately demonstrate this phenomenon.10...He maintains that our present understanding of genetic inheritance, which restricts this process to genes, cannot explain the inheritance of acquired characteristics. This requires some other type of mechanism as could occur with his proposed morphogenetic fields.
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