However, Assassin's Creed ALSO has some quite interesting content about exploring the past through the memories of your ancestors using SCIENCE. So let's take a critical eye to it, shall we?
The Set-Up
You, as Desmond Miles, explore the memories of your ancestors through the use of a super whizzy sci-fi machine called the Animus. This machine accesses these memories by delving into your genetic code, where the memories of your ancestors are stored, as part of your DNA. But how accurate is this genome exploration? Can this really be done?
The Science
Short answer: No.
Longer answer: Still no, but there's still something interesting there. Let's start at the beginning.
DNA, as you probably already know, is the building blocks of life. It determines what colour eyes we have, what colour hair, how tall we are, all that stuff is written down in our DNA. We inherit our DNA from our parents, with 50% coming from your mother and 50% from your father during conception and so on. You know this stuff. Onto memories.
There's two kinds of memory; long term memory, and short term memory. Short can hold things for a few seconds to a minute or two, without having rehearsed them. All of our sensory interactions with the world are stored in our short term memory, if only for a few seconds. Short term memories are formed biologically through the depletion of various neurotransmitters (messaging chemicals in the brain), which leaves a specific pattern on the neurons, acting as a memory trace. These traces decay very quickly when the neurotransmitter is replenished.
Long term memory is formed in a slightly different way. Put simply, the repeated triggering of neurons in the brain causes the release of proteins that in turn trigger the development of new neural pathways. These connect the neurons that have been firing more regularly. It's a confusing process that can only be properly explained using very dull scientific terms, but it boils down to this: long term memories are formed by the creation of new neural pathways.
So, dragging ourselves laboriously back to where we started, how does this relate to Assassin's Creed and jumping into your ancestors life for a bit? Well, as we now know, memories are formed through neurotransmitter depletion or formation of new pathways. One of these, neurotransmitter depletion, only lasts a couple of minutes at best, so that can't be encoded in our DNA, there's not enough time, or even room for it to all fit.
Secondly, long term memories and new neural pathways. Now you can see how this MIGHT work. The formation of new pathways could change our DNA to encode for these new pathways from birth. Sadly not. DNA, under normal circumstances, doesn't change in accordance to our bodies. Think about it. If I go to the gym every day, and became incredibly strong, I don't then have children who are already super strong (unfortunately).
In fact, this idea of inheriting changes made to the body during life formed the bases of a theory put forward by French naturalist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck in the 19th century. He suggested that by constant use of a certain body part in life, animals would pass down the beneficial changes to their offspring. This was actually the first theory of evolution, and dispute it being inaccurate, marked a major step on the way to the formation of the modern theory of evolution.
So there we have it. The science of Assassin's Creed well and truly debunked. We won't be able to go plunging into our DNA to live out the lives of our ancestors. And since most of them wouldn't be Assassins anyway, I'm actually okay with that.
The Science
Short answer: No.
Longer answer: Still no, but there's still something interesting there. Let's start at the beginning.
DNA, as you probably already know, is the building blocks of life. It determines what colour eyes we have, what colour hair, how tall we are, all that stuff is written down in our DNA. We inherit our DNA from our parents, with 50% coming from your mother and 50% from your father during conception and so on. You know this stuff. Onto memories.
There's two kinds of memory; long term memory, and short term memory. Short can hold things for a few seconds to a minute or two, without having rehearsed them. All of our sensory interactions with the world are stored in our short term memory, if only for a few seconds. Short term memories are formed biologically through the depletion of various neurotransmitters (messaging chemicals in the brain), which leaves a specific pattern on the neurons, acting as a memory trace. These traces decay very quickly when the neurotransmitter is replenished.
Long term memory is formed in a slightly different way. Put simply, the repeated triggering of neurons in the brain causes the release of proteins that in turn trigger the development of new neural pathways. These connect the neurons that have been firing more regularly. It's a confusing process that can only be properly explained using very dull scientific terms, but it boils down to this: long term memories are formed by the creation of new neural pathways.
So, dragging ourselves laboriously back to where we started, how does this relate to Assassin's Creed and jumping into your ancestors life for a bit? Well, as we now know, memories are formed through neurotransmitter depletion or formation of new pathways. One of these, neurotransmitter depletion, only lasts a couple of minutes at best, so that can't be encoded in our DNA, there's not enough time, or even room for it to all fit.
Secondly, long term memories and new neural pathways. Now you can see how this MIGHT work. The formation of new pathways could change our DNA to encode for these new pathways from birth. Sadly not. DNA, under normal circumstances, doesn't change in accordance to our bodies. Think about it. If I go to the gym every day, and became incredibly strong, I don't then have children who are already super strong (unfortunately).
In fact, this idea of inheriting changes made to the body during life formed the bases of a theory put forward by French naturalist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck in the 19th century. He suggested that by constant use of a certain body part in life, animals would pass down the beneficial changes to their offspring. This was actually the first theory of evolution, and dispute it being inaccurate, marked a major step on the way to the formation of the modern theory of evolution.
So there we have it. The science of Assassin's Creed well and truly debunked. We won't be able to go plunging into our DNA to live out the lives of our ancestors. And since most of them wouldn't be Assassins anyway, I'm actually okay with that.
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