I dont understand how instinct is transferred from parent to the child through genetics. How can a memory or behaviour be stored in genes? For example a snake has the instinct to hiss but how was that transferred from the parent to the child through genes? And how does it go from being just a genetic memory to actually go into the brain of the new animal and make them perform that behaviour?
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I think there’s quite a bit assumed by the word “instinct.” The reality is that most of the behaviors we think of as inborn are actually partially learned and partially determined by environmental factors. While genetics might predispose an “instinctual” behavior to exist, that behavior might not be expressed unless there is adequate opportunity for it to develop in an environment. This link provides a good discussion of how our understanding of instinctual behavior has changed over the last century.
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5182125/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5182125/)
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