Inheritance of ADAPTIVE acquired characteristics

“But some research suggests that events in our lives can indeed affect the development of our children and perhaps even grandchildren - all without changing the DNA.”

The issue of events in an individual’s life affecting their children and grandchildren is only part of the dogma against inheritance of acquired characteristics. There must also be a natural selection action . Both Darwin and LaMarck have theories of natural selection.

So , the context of the event in the individual’s life that affects offspring must be that there is an adaptive problem. Not only that : the adaptive problem must be the event that affects the change in the individuals body that is passed on to progeny ! AND the change must be the solution to the adaptive problem. That’s what happens in the giraffe stretching it’s neck fictional hypothetical. How did the giraffe evolve a long neck ? By solving an adaptive problem : it was naturally selected for . LaMarck had an evolutionary Natural selection theory , too. Darwin dabbled in LaMarck’s theory ; Engels too in “The Role of Labor in the transition from Ape to Man”.

The dogma against inheritance of acquired characteristics came about with the discovery that new phenotypes arise due to genetic mutations ( of course, Darwin and LaMarck did not have the theory of DNA as the method of inheritance and variety of types in a species) And that mutations that give rise to phenotypes that adapt to a problem in the struggle for existence occur _randomly_in relation to the adaptive problem they solve . Here , I finally figured out, randomly means they are not caused by the adaptive problem that they solve. .

The giraffe example contradicts this because the adaptive problem-food being too high up to reach with a short neck- causes the giraffe to stretch its neck ; the problem causes its own solution, so the solution does not occur randomly in relation to the problem it solves. None or very few of the epigenetic examples even mention an adaptive problem . The ones that do don’t clearly prove their claim. Some say the new phenotype seem to be generally maladaptive .

The dogma’s name should be changed to inheritance of _adaptive_ acquired characteristics .

Charles Brown

http://take10charles.blogspot.com/2022/01/epigenetics-is-not-inheritance-of.html cb at 7:07 AM