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I'm not sure how it's relevant to the issue of group selection and altruism; but anyway such inheritance still seems to be relatively rare, as far as I know. I
by gort 14y ago
I'm not sure how it's relevant to the issue of group selection and altruism; but anyway such inheritance still seems to be relatively rare, as far as I know.
It's interesting that you call it Lamarckian - the epigenetic inheritance system itself would have to evolve in a normal Darwinian way... e.g. if genes get methylated (turned off semi-permanently) and passed down to offspring in this state, one could call that Lamarckian, but the methylation system itself is in need of a Darwinian explanation.
- Historiopode 14y agoI assume it is not relevant, indeed: I was merely asking for comments over an unrelated point that was made in the essay, which is that there are no working Lamarckian mechanisms in biology. I certainly agree over your second point, which I had considered myself, but that did not seem to be particularly relevant to my doubt.
- gort 14y ago"point that was made in the essay, which is that there are no working Lamarckian mechanisms in biology" Fair enough - Pinker seems a bit too firm about that.