Telegony: how to get pregnant from one, and give birth from another

What is Telegony?

Telegony is a theory about how hereditary traits are transmitted. If you believe her, then all sexual partners leave a mark in each other's body. This trace can then appear in descendants, even if they were conceived from another partner.

For example, if a woman once dated a dark-skinned man, then many years later she may give birth to a child with dark skin, even if his father is a fair-skinned blond. Especially important from the point of view of telegony is considered the first sexual partner, which affects the memory of the uterus and "fills the USB stick" of its information space.

In principle, the idea is not bad, if you consider it from a different angle: for example, collect all the best "wave DNA" from the coolest men and give birth to children with superpowers. But supporters of telegonia have an argument for this: this is already debauchery, but it does not work.

Where did the belief in telegonia come from?

Telegonia was believed either always, or almost always. Her name is Greek and translates as "born in the distance." Even the Telegon myth exists. Like all Greek myths, it is tragic and a bit absurd.

Science got to this point when Charles Darwin, who is still cited as the undisputed authority in every field, recorded Lord Morton's Telegony experience. on crossing a mare with a zebra. First, striped foals were born from a zebra to a mare. And then, from an ordinary horse, striped foals appeared in places. The experience was recorded from the words of the lord, and although it is not accepted to doubt the words of the lords, he was not drawn to a scientific experiment.

Therefore, in 1889, breeder Cassar Ewart conducted an experiment that was supposed to confirm or deny Lord Morton's striped mare daughter. this theory. There were already more mares, and Morton's result was not confirmed.

Further experiments on dogs, staged back in the 19th century, also did not confirm the telegony process by the Encyclopedic Dictionary of FA Brockhaus and IA Efron. … And the discovery of genes and understanding how they work should have turned telegony into an old myth. But no.

What does science say about this?

DNA knows how to integrate into someone else's. This is true. The principle of creating GMOs is based on this. This is when the properties of plants and animals are changed with the help of plasmids and viruses. Some viruses themselves perfectly integrate into DNA, take the same HIV.

Only it has nothing to do with the conception of a person.

For conception, we have an egg cell, which contains half of the chromosomes. And the sperm, which contains the other half of the chromosomes. When these two halves meet, a zygote is obtained - a cell with a complete set of chromosomes that are necessary for the development of the embryo and fetus, and then the child.

There is nowhere to stick an extra chromosome. Although there are a number of violations, when there are more chromosomes than necessary, or, conversely, fewer. They are connected, most likely, with failures during cell division, and not at all with "extra" information, until that moment somewhere dormant.

In telegony, it is assumed that the chromosomes of the zygote change under the influence of some wave genetics or the memory of the uterus.

Modern science cannot tell how telegony is possible. There is not a single theory that would confirm the mechanism of transmission of hereditary traits at a distance and using the genome (whatever).

All of these beliefs, from inheritance of acquired traits to telegony, should now be classified as superstition. They do not stand up to experimental research and are incompatible with what is known about the mechanisms of heredity and about the predictable properties of genetic materials.

Encyclopedia Britannica

By the way, the egg matures in a non-pregnant and non-breastfeeding woman about once a month. Why, at the same time, the wave memory of the uterus does not immediately fertilize it with genes of sexual partners - it is not clear. But this is far from the only question for telegonia.

Who believes this?

It turns out that there are many. There are especially many popular healers among the preachers of Telegonia, for example, the well-known Zhdanov, Trekhlebov and many other popularizers of a healthy lifestyle, ancient Vedas and divine righteousness. Telegony is used to show the dangers of premarital sex.

An attempt to figure out what research and discoveries the adherents of telegonia rely on showed that they have everything in their piggy bank. In general, everything. Notes handed over to Adolf Hitler on the results of experiments in concentration camps. Developments of the USSR in scientific institutes personally under the leadership of Stalin. Black babies born many years after the youth festival in the Soviet Union.

Unfortunately, since all these studies and data were, of course, classified, there is not a single document to which the Telegony supporters would refer.

Do you have any proof of this?

Apart from the stories from the series "one grandma said," some signs of telegony were found. Revisiting telegony: offspring inherit an acquired characteristic of their mother's previous mate. in flies Telostylinus angusticollis - favorite experimental subjects of all geneticists. True, there was only one study, and flies differ significantly in structure from humans. Scientists only emphasized that perhaps this phenomenon can somehow influence the transmission of heredity in other insect species. But in mammals and even more so in humans, this will not work. Could previous lovers influence appearance of future children? …

All other experiments to test the telegony have failed, and ever since they started talking about it.

What's wrong with telegonia?

It would seem that everyone believes in what he wants, why not some people believe in telegonia?

This is a direct rollback to the Middle Ages, when you could believe in anything, because there was no science as such. The persistent advancement of a debunked theory is regression. This approach to science is unacceptable, no matter what area this science touches. Moreover, we are talking about genetics, one of the most promising industries, which is being researched all over the world (it’s even a shame somehow for telegonists).
They know how to make money on this. Imagine, there are even rituals of cleansing from telegonia.
This is banal sexism. Because the responsibility for the whole telegony and wave genetics is again shifted to the woman. In especially severe cases of telegony of the brain, it is believed that the woman is to blame for the fact that the man looked at her.
In theory, this helps to strengthen the bonds and a kind of "spirituality", but at the same time it interferes with talking about sexuality, about a normal attitude towards one's body and about choosing a partner with whom it will be comfortable and easy to build relationships.

What kind of game?

The game is that telegony can touch everyone. But not in the sense that the children will be like a neighbor looking greasy at his wife. For example, children in textbooks on family life will see a link to an article on telegonia - the science of virginity. Or even the Minister of Health of Chuvashia will notice that seven sexual partners in a woman guarantee infertility.

Lifehacker does not recommend anyone to use this statement as a method of contraception. It is better to choose the desired method from our detailed guide.