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Earlier quoted context omitted.
> That is a fairly simple question. The answer to it should be simple too. "Is P equal to NP" is also a simple question.
The answer should be simple, too -- either yes or no. OP did not imply proving it would be simple.
This relates to policy because it addresses the question of whether we carry epigenetic baggage from prior generations. For example, trauma that our parents, or grandparents experienced could lead to behavior modifications and poorer outcomes in us. If that is the case, it has profound public policy implications.
This relates to policy because it addresses the question of whether we carry epigenetic baggage from prior generations. For example, trauma that our parents, or grandparents experienced could lead to behavior modifications and poorer outcomes in us. If that is the case, it has profound public policy implications.
In order for this supposed oddly specific effect to have policy implications, it would have to be simple to identify which individuals are impacted and by how much. And it would have to be impossible to identify such individuals except by looking at their family history.
And there would have to be some policy action that is uniquely beneficial to those people.
This relates to policy because it addresses the question of whether we carry epigenetic baggage from prior generations. For example, trauma that our parents, or grandparents experienced could lead to behavior modifications and poorer outcomes in us. If that is the case, it has profound public policy implications.
What policy implications? Obviously wealth, class, race, nationality, and genetics are all highly heritable, what's one more twig on the pile of the birth lottery?
(As if first time mothers didn’t have enough to worry about - stop stressing so much, it could lead to long-lasting irreversible changes to your fetus!)
* Standard biology disclaimers: this is not the only way this happens, this varies across species and time, nature has no master plan. “Some of the time some genes have some amount of their expression modified somewhat by some mechanisms that are somewhat responsive to some part of the cell’s environment sometimes.”
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There has been aruably a more serious blow to the pure Darwinian evolution (this is all epigenetics, after all): non-random occurrence of useful mutations in populations exposed to particular diseases. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40854136/
I don’t really see that as anti-Darwinian. Those genes successfully attach themselves to a new organism and provide advantages such that they are selected for in the population.
So Lamarck wasn't entirely incorrect either. Darwin would have been fascinated by these results.
If it's inheritable wouldn't that make it by definition genetic?
I think that nowadays "gene" refers only to a subset of a nucleic acid. Sequences of ACTG (or ACUG in the case of RNA) only, and only in that organism's chromosomes. If you inherit a virus from your mother, for instance, I think most would call that non-genetic inheritance, even though viruses have genes too. Same goes for methyl and acetyl markers, transcription factors, nutrients, toxins, and whatever else comes al…
Epigenetics is one of those things that seems wild until you pull the camera back a bit. A cell is affected by and responds to its surroundings - this is not controversial. In eukaryotes, this is usually done by way of altering gene expression - up- or down-regulation by means of chemical markers on the cell’s DNA which are created or removed by enzymes which are activated or deactivated by certain substances in the…
This is plainly not plausible. "Irreversible" doesn't play well with the length of time humans have been a thing.
Epigenetics is one of those things that seems wild until you pull the camera back a bit. A cell is affected by and responds to its surroundings - this is not controversial. In eukaryotes, this is usually done by way of altering gene expression - up- or down-regulation by means of chemical markers on the cell’s DNA which are created or removed by enzymes which are activated or deactivated by certain substances in the…
>>> (As if first time mothers didn’t have enough to worry about - stop stressing so much, it could lead to long-lasting irreversible changes to your fetus!) This is plainly not plausible. "Irreversible" doesn't play well with the length of time humans have been a thing.