Epigenetics

[peter]

Lamarkism, much derided over the years with talk of girrafe neck-stetching etc, seems to be making a bit of a comeback in the more subtle and scientifically explained form of epigenetics. For decades the central doma of molecular biology (DNA transcribed to RNA translated to PROTEIN) held that what happened in a lifetime (genetically) stayed in a lifetime, but this appears now to be gradually but irrevocably overturned, by an understanding that acquired changes can and do cross the generational barrier in a hereditary manner.
Early indications that something of this sort might be occurring were seen in studies of children born to nutritionally challenged mothers, known to be smaller at birth, but who then carried forward the trait to their own offspring and even into the next generation even though the nutritional deficit was long since passed. In the lab it was also demonstrated that fruit flies could be induced to give rise to offspring with shrivelled wings, and that this too would then be passed on as a heritable characteristic without further treatment.
The term epigenetics, coined to describe and study this phenomena has been applied more loosley and widely than it should have been, and in areas where it shuld not have been, but it's still a major shift in the understanding of how we come to be what we are and should be closely watched. Lamarkism is vindicated and I for one am pleased for him!

[wayfriend]

Ah. The Instant of Reprimordialization.

The key was the interplay between the two formulas, Komodo explained. "Even though all of a bunch's time is spent within the Prewire + Acquired Traits = Identity paradigm, this statement can be said to be meaningless. True identity can never be absolutely glimpsed by a group in the midst of acquiring traits. Immersed in the Great Flow, their passage is eternal, ever changing; they cannot stop and look at themselves. Luckily, an unconditional determination of Identity is not crucial to the growing, healthy Bunch secure within it's Beamic framework. It is only during crisis - a condition that Budd Hazard defines as the Crossroads of Life and Death that every entity must face sooner or later - that a Bunch must conjure a reconfirming vision of itself and it's place in the universe or, failing that, cease to exist."

It was at this crucial moment, Komodo contended, that the symbiosis of his two equations came into play. "A Bunch can only continue in it's P + AT = I configuration for so long," he declared. "At some point the aquisition of traits will become a burden rather than a boon. Development turns to decadence as an entity moves too far from it's original perception of itself. Yet the goal cannot be restoration of days gone by; that has been proved with our failures with the Zoo of Shame. The Evolloo is an endless forward-moving river. The goal of all Bunches is to forge ahead to a new understanding of their nature."

This could only happen, Komodo said, "through willful, symbolic reconnection to the Mainstem." It was then that, like yesterday's skin, the used up, overloaded P + AT = I would be discarded and replaced for a fleeting moment by the searing clarity of P = I. It was at that point - when a bunch internalized who knew how many eons of acquired traits into a new re-incorporated self - that the Evolloo lurched ahead, and Life pushed on. Komodo called it the Instant of Reprimordialization.

-- Gojiro

[peter]

And thus we have it!

[Cord Hurn]

[...]what happened in a lifetime (genetically) stayed in a lifetime, but this appears now to be gradually but irrevocably overturned, by an understanding that acquired changes can and do cross the generational barrier in a hereditary manner.

Further proof that genetics is a depressing subject (although admittedly fascinating).

[peter]

Agreed! It always has such potential for abuse; rarely is an advance made that is not immediately twisted and battered into supporting some politically contentious issue or other.

[wayfriend]

And thus we have it!

Jacobson is suggesting that incorporation of acquired traits into the genome is a response to an adapt-or-die evolutionary crisis. Without such a crisis, acquired traits remain a matter of nurture.