Most habits people form aren’t usually from birth but from experience. My question is, are those habits also engraved into their DNA? If so, how? And are these characteristics inherited by their progeny?
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I think you’re asking if learned experience can be passed down biologically, as opposed to just having to be taught. The answer is yes. For a long time people were sure it was no, so that’s probably what you’ve been taught. The trick is that while your genes themselves (the stuff DNA codes for) may not change their code, it’s actually the expression of that code that makes you. Kind of like it’s not the books in your library that define your education, but the books you read from the library.
With DNA, there’s a thing called epigenetics, where the stands of DNA get extra molecules added to make specific genes easier or harder to express. This happens all the time. Daily rhythms, sleep, diet, activity, and a bunch of other normal things regularly modify which genes are easiest to express, and which are harder. With the library analogy, it’s like some books are out on display up front, and some are in boxes in the back room. The library catalog – your DNA – has not changed, but what readers (let’s think of them as cells or tissues in your body) read and think about is shaped by the librarian’s choices – your experiences.
Now, these modifications happen in sperm and egg cells, just like other cells. So you pass them down to your kids. Severe stresses, especially growing up, make a whole bunch of epigenetic changes that can cause learning disabilities and metabolic challenges (the thought is that the body makes changes to prioritize short term gains and security, but at the cost of long term investments like more brain development, but this is not fully understood). As a result, those born in severe poverty may pass these stress-adaptations along to their kids. Even if those kids are lifted out of poverty, they may still have to undo all that epigenetic modification before they have kids that are not stress adapted. So things like trauma can stay with families for generations.
You really can’t blame people as though they just have free will – we are all products of our environments acting not just on our genes, but through those of our ancestors as well.
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