Mulder poses an interesting point about sunflower seeds in the most recent episode, Aubrey. Scully, as usual, poo-poos it. Read the transcript below:

Mulder: Well, on a basic cellular level, we’re the sum total of all our ancestors’ biological matter. But what if more than biological traits get passed down from generation to generation? What if I like sunflower seeds because I’m genetically predisposed to liking them?
Scully: But children aren’t born liking sunflower seeds. Environments shape them; behavior patterns are taught.
Mulder: There are countless stories of twins separated at birth who end up in the same occupation, marrying the same kind of people, each naming their child Waldo.
Scully: Waldo?
Mulder: Jung wrote about it when he talked about the collective unconscious. It’s genetic memory, Scully.

So, the main question of this episode is: “What makes sunflower seeds so delicious?”

I think that it is the fact that they come from the sunflower plant already roasted and salted. I am given to understand that there are also kinds that are not like this, but I do not want to meet them. I have been confronted with kinds that have an outer husk that must be chewed off and spit on the floor of the Cairo Metro, but I also do not like that kind. I prefer the naturally roasted and organically salted variety.

Why would their be a whole episode about whether or not people like sunflower seeds? Well, clearly there is a deeper message encoded here about how they can cause intergenerational madness in babies born to mothers who eat them. As Scully rightly retorts, children indeed are not born liking sunflower seeds. But sometimes, Scully, they are born with genetic memories that make them carve fraternal and sororal designations in peoples’ chests, I guess.

How do you like them apples, huh, Scully?