Epigenetics: a busted flush

[jeremyp]

Epigenetics is the idea that changes in your DNA in response to environmental factors can get transmitted to your descendants. It's come up on this message board before as people who are broadly opposed to the standard version of the Theory of Evolution get excited about ideas that seem to show it is not 100% accurate.

We all,, as this study shows:

http://www.wiringthebrain.com/2018/05/grandmas-trauma-critical-appraisal-of.html?m=1

the evidence for epigenetics is actually very flimsy and epigenetics in humans may well not be a thing at all. Even with other species, the effect never lasts for more than a few generations.

[Dicky Underpants]

the evidence for epigenetics is actually very flimsy and epigenetics in humans may well not be a thing at all. Even with other species, the effect never lasts for more than a few generations.

There's a very good summary of the epigenetics matter in Adam Rutherford's "A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived", pp 344-351.
Rutherford's dismissal of New-Age hijacking of such ideas is trenchant:

New Age gurus and gullible journalists cite epigenetics as a way of changing your life, under the false supposition that genes are destiny, and epigenetic changes brought on by life-style choices such as meditation "allows us almost unlimited influence on our fate" (Deepak Chopra)