Our genes are the most important variables we have in our bodies. The environment impacts this and our genes in interesting ways. It’s always very interesting to see how our genes and the environments in which we live affect each other. With the right genetics, we can have certain traits, like height or athletic ability, but not necessarily other traits that seem to be influenced by other factors.
With a genome that’s 50% human and 50% alien, there’s no guarantee that we’ll have the right genetic traits to survive the vacuum of space—it’s too much of a risk. So we need to be aware of the environment we’re in and the genes we have in our bodies.
The idea of a genetic-environmental loop is an interesting one, since we can’t predict what will happen, but it shows that our environment is still in control of our biology. In the real world, we can’t do that. We can’t predict what might happen, but we can still change our environments to either encourage or discourage certain behaviors.
The idea is that we are genetically programmed to either thrive or die in certain environments. If we survive the vacuum of space and get selected to live on a particular planet, that’s the environment we will live in. From there we will be able to choose which traits we will carry into the new environment. It’s an interesting idea, but I think it’s more of a “what happens in the real world” type of thing…
Well, we don’t really know that the environment we will be living in is actually the environment we’ll be living in. This is called “genotype-environment interaction” or GEI. Its a little more complicated than that but basically, a gene may be inherited that can either help or hinder the development of a certain behavior. So for example, if a child inherits a gene for courage, this gene can determine which kind of environment is the one they will be living in.
The problem with genotype-environment interaction is that we don’t really know what the environment will be like. Genotype-environment interactions are difficult to test in the lab since we don’t know exactly what the genes do in the environment. In that sense, the environment is as much a mystery as the person living in it.
Yeah, that’s a pretty huge problem. Our behavior is not a mystery, but the environment is a mystery to us. If you think about it, it makes sense that we would have different behaviors in different environments, but we don’t. We can’t go out and find a new environment and see how it works out. There is no scientific, objective way to test this in the lab.
There are a number of factors that contribute to personality, but the environment is probably at the top of the list. If you look at the genes of our ancestors, they are pretty varied. Some have a big personality impact, while others dont. The genes are also inherited, so some people inherit their behavior from their parents, while others inherit theirs from their grandparents or great grandparents.
You can read more about the genes and how they contribute to personality in an article I wrote on the topic.
It’s interesting to me that we have these behaviors that show up in our genome. We’re all born with a set of behaviors and traits that we try to develop over time. Some people start with a set of behaviors and traits, while others have a more flexible set. People can have the same traits, but they may not have the same behavior. So if we look at the genes of our ancestors, it’s not surprising that our behaviors are varied.
