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Look into epigenetic inheritance. This is a mechanism by which environmental factors cause inheritable modulation of genes, which themselves are unchanged. Meth
by ridgeguy 4y ago
Look into epigenetic inheritance. This is a mechanism by which environmental factors cause inheritable modulation of genes, which themselves are unchanged. Methylation (attachment of methyl groups) of DNA is one such mechanism.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transgenerational_epigenetic_inheritance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transgenerational_epigenetic_i...
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41437-018-0113-y https://www.nature.com/articles/s41437-018-0113-y
- _dain_ 4y agoYeah but it has absolutely no explanatory power for sociological phenomenon. People want it to be true, but there's just no there there. https://razib.substack.com/p/you-cant-take-it-with-you-straight https://razib.substack.com/p/you-cant-take-it-with-you-strai...
- ridgeguy 4y agoThanks for this link, it's an interesting and informative post. Gives me an additional PoV to consider.
- dragonwriter 4y ago> Yeah but it has absolutely no explanatory power for sociological phenomenon That's a nice broad generality, but it doesn’t seem to be true. For instance, on the specific subject of thw thread, epigenetic changes related to chronic stress have demonstrated to have evidence of both (1) some intergenerational transmissibility, and (2) a role in alcoholism.