[Goober5000]

This is fascinating:

LANDMARK Adelaide research showing that sperm and eggs appear to carry genetic memories of events well before conception, may force a rethink of the evolutionary theories of Charles Darwin, scientists say.

[...]

It paves the way for a review of the work of French biologist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, whose theory that an organism can pass to its offspring characteristics acquired during its lifetime was largely ignored after Darwin’s publication of On The Origin of Species in the mid-1800s, that work defining evolution as a process of incidental, random mutation between generations.

From here:
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/darwins-theory-of-evolution-challenged-by-university-of-adelaide-genetic-memory-research-published-in-journal-science/story-fni6uo1m-1227024901078

[Mr. Vega]

I will shoot the first person who mentions Assassin's Creed.

[Goober5000]

So you'll shoot yourself, then?

[An4ximandros]

Bless the maker and his passing; bless the coming and going of him; may his passing cleanse the world.

[Dragon]

Interesting, it does make sense, but I think some further verification is needed. Genetic memory is indeed an interesting topic, but unfortunately, we still don't understand that too well.

[Bobboau]

I could see a possibility of environment affecting the development of offspring, but "memories"? bull**** I say!

[Goober5000]

A bit of searching reveals a similar study conducted last year:

In the study, which is published in the journal of Nature Neuroscience, the researchers trained mice to fear the smell of cherry blossom using electric shocks before allowing them to breed.

The offspring produced showed fearful responses to the odour of cherry blossom compared to a neutral odour, despite never having encountered them before.

The following generation also showed the same behaviour. This effect continued even if the mice had been fathered through artificial insemination.

The researchers found the brains of the trained mice and their offspring showed structural changes in areas used to detect the odour.

The DNA of the animals also carried chemical changes, known as epigenetic methylation, on the gene responsible for detecting the odour.

This suggests that experiences are somehow transferred from the brain into the genome, allowing them to be passed on to later generations.

The researchers now hope to carry out further work to understand how the information comes to be stored on the DNA in the first place.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/10486479/Phobias-may-be-memories-passed-down-in-genes-from-ancestors.html

[Bobboau]

there is a difference between fear of something and memory of why you fear something.

[Nuke]

even if genetic memory was a thing i dont see it as tearing down the theory of evolution. the rules of survival of the fittest would still apply. it would just mean that the traits which promote survival would come from more than one source. this also doesn't really tread on any new ground either. the whole thing with epigenetics for example.

Bless the maker and his passing; bless the coming and going of him; may his passing cleanse the world.

and for providing one hell of a planetary scale mass transit system.

[karajorma]

I don't see much difference between this and standard epigenetics (Which I've quoted several times in evolution vs creationism debates whenever someone tries to claim science is dogmatic and won't accept new information).

Basically this doesn't in any way refute Darwinism, it's merely a small addendum to the theory. Of course, creationists are going to read this and think it in some way proves them right (It really, really, really doesn't. If anything it proves them more wrong.)

[IronBeer]

Genetics is complicated.

There's a lot more to it than the simple nucleotide arrangement on a gene- there are factors (proteins, physical nucleotide arrangement near the gene in question, probably at least one other thing I can't recall right now) that can change the way a given gene will be expressed.

The article is light on details, but Dr. Robertson's credentials check out. I didn't have much luck looking for the actual published whitepaper for this research, but I would be intensely interested to see the work from first sources.

[MP-Ryan]

Anyone who links this to Lamarck (a) does not understand Lamarck's premises, and (b) doesn't understand genetics.

It's been known for quite some time that methylation patterns and chromatin modelling is passed from parent to offspring.  This research seems to indicate the level of information passed in this manner is much greater than previously thought.  However, that isn't the slightest bit related to Lamarck, who believed that physical changes to the parent organism could be passed to its offspring.

I'm back from vacation, incidentally

[karajorma]

Anyone who links this to Lamarck (a) does not understand Lamarck's premises, and (b) doesn't understand genetics.

Given that many geneticists link epigenetics and Lamarck that's a pretty odd thing to say.

While I'll agree that there are big differences between the two, when you boil them down to their simplest, they are close enough to be worth mentioning together. Lamarck didn't only believe physical changes would be passed on, that's just the easiest example to explain to people. I find it hard to believe that someone as smart as he was didn't believe that behavioural changes were also passed on in this way.

[MP-Ryan]

Anyone who links this to Lamarck (a) does not understand Lamarck's premises, and (b) doesn't understand genetics.

Given that many geneticists link epigenetics and Lamarck that's a pretty odd thing to say.

While I'll agree that there are big differences between the two, when you boil them down to their simplest, they are close enough to be worth mentioning together. Lamarck didn't only believe physical changes would be passed on, that's just the easiest example to explain to people. I find it hard to believe that someone as smart as he was didn't believe that behavioural changes were also passed on in this way.

It's possible, but implying Lamarck is also an implication that natural selection does not play a role in what epigenetic information is passed through the species.  The fundamental difference that led Darwin to his conclusions about evolution and the process of passing information from one generation to another was natural selection, which was not a part of Lamarck's hypotheses.

The findings of this study are consistent with the models in place for evolution and natural selection, and simply indicate more information is transmitted between generations than previously thought... a conclusion which has been accumulating evidence in the field of behavioural genetics for the last decade or so.  I see no need to drag a dead and debunked collection of ideas into it other than some editorial need of journalists to frame this as some startling revelation, when it actually isn't.  Or at least, not nearly as much as the journalism (as opposed to the paper itself) makes it out to be.

What irks me about this is that it's being reported in a manner that say "Hey, a mainstream journalist publication just discovered there's an entire field called behavioural genetics and decided they needed a hook other than the marvelous science it produces to bother writing about it!"

[karajorma]

I think the journalists are really just following the lead of the scientists involved to be honest. Cause the scientists know that natural selection is still involved but love the "Hey! Lamarack was closer than we thought to the truth" implications.

Because it's rather sad fact that a man like Lamarck is better known for his biggest mistake rather than the fact that he was just as much a pioneer in the field of evolution as Darwin was. He got quite a few things right, even Darwin said so. If people want him to be remembered in a kinder light, I have little problem with that.


My problem with the journalists is not that they are mentioning Lamarck, but that they are trying to frame this as Darwin somehow being wrong because Lamarck was also right about something (There's no reason both of them shouldn't get some credit). Or that they are trying to frame epigenetics as something newly discovered when we've known about it for several years.

[Bobboau]

oh, you mean like how every 2-8 months there will be a bunch of articles titled "junk DNA not so junky after all!"

[MP-Ryan]

I think the journalists are really just following the lead of the scientists involved to be honest. Cause the scientists know that natural selection is still involved but love the "Hey! Lamarack was closer than we thought to the truth" implications.

Because it's rather sad fact that a man like Lamarck is better known for his biggest mistake rather than the fact that he was just as much a pioneer in the field of evolution as Darwin was. He got quite a few things right, even Darwin said so. If people want him to be remembered in a kinder light, I have little problem with that.

I suppose I wouldn't either if science journalism wasn't - for the most part - so bloody awful.

[karajorma]

Well that's always been a problem unfortunately. Most lay people simply don't understand science and most news agencies think they can just hire any old journalist and give them a job reporting on science.

[S-99]

I believe that this should be extended further. If you were born to naturally stay away from stuff, there is also stuff to make you angry, happy, and neutral. Makes me think of two things at least. Generations of alcoholics, and generations of people that over react when bees are around (this goes into being afraid of something of course).

[Grizzly]

I will shoot the first person who mentions Assassin's Creed.

Assassin's Creed!