“No matter how much knowledge and wisdom you acquire during your life, not one jot will be passed on to your children by genetic means. Each new generation starts from scratch.”

—  Richard Dawkins , book The Selfish Gene

Source: The Selfish Gene (1976, 1989), Ch. 3. Immortal Coils
Context: Genes do indirectly control the manufacture of bodies, and the influence is strictly one way: acquired characteristics are not inherited. No matter how much knowledge and wisdom you acquire during your life, not one jot will be passed on to your children by genetic means. Each new generation starts from scratch.

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Richard Dawkins 322
English ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author 1941

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