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Science from Away: Epigenetics and “Inheritance of Acquired Characteristics.”

By Mark M. Green (sciencefromaway.com)

What is the fate of personally acquired characteristics? Do they die with individuals or do they extend – at times at least – beyond the boundaries of the individual’s life into the life of succeeding generations?” This question appears in The Inheritance of Acquired Characteristics, by Paul Kammerer of the Institute of Experimental Biology of the University of Vienna, and translated into English and published in New York in 1924.

The whole story of Dr. Kammerer deserves the status of a great mystery novel. He died of a gunshot to the head under mysterious circumstances at the age of 46 in 1926, two years after his work was discredited by finding that the biological samples apparently proving his theory, that acquired characteristics could be inherited, were altered to fit the theory. He was called a fraud and his death was called a suicide. However, there is reason to believe that Nazi agents tampered with the samples. Kammerer was hated by the Nazis for his socialist-communist views. He was planning to move to the Soviet Union to head an important laboratory in Moscow where his ideas were greatly accepted since they supported what was called the Lamarkian theory of evolution. The Soviet leaders saw in Kammerer’s work and in the ideas of Lamarck, a scientific basis for their actions: newly acquired characteristics of the Russian proletariat, allowed by the revolution, would be inherited by generations to come and lead to a new world order.

Jean-Baptiste Lamarck was born in 1744 in northern France to a family of soldiers and won distinction as one before he became a naturalist. Lamarck’s name is long associated with an evolutionary idea. He is credited as one of the first to propose evolution by which the form and diversity of life changes with time. His ideas were well known to Charles Darwin, who in fact, at one time, held similar ideas under the name of pangenesis. Darwin wrote about Lamarck: He first did the eminent service of arousing attention to the probability of all changes in the organic, as well as the inorganic world, being the result of law, and not miraculous interposition.”

Lamarck’s theory saw evolutionary changes arising from use and disuse (a giraffe’s neck, a farmer’s muscles, the eyes of an animal living in pitch black cave) leading to changes in the individual that were then passed on to their offspring and so on to their descendents, an idea expressed in the title of Kemmerer’s book and the focus of his discredited work. Kemmerer was what is called, a Lamarckian and Lamarck’s ideas have long been cast aside by the scientific establishment. In spite of Stalin’s favoring Lamarckian theory, Lamarck’s ideas led to no better result in the Soviet Union, which allowed a murderous charlatan, Trofim Lysenko, to carry the banner of acquired characteristics.

Yet in fact, many scientists today see a correspondence between Lamarckian and Darwinian ideas. After all, both theories call for response of the species to their environment as critical to the evolutionary changes even if Darwin’s theory, up to recently, is better supported by modern biology: random changes in the genome, that is, mutations, sometimes lead to improvement in the ability to survive and prosper, which gives advantage to the changed individuals. However times are changing for Lamarck and even Kemmerer.

Here’s a heading from Science News published on September 3, 2009: “Early 20th Century Evolutionist May Have Discovered Epigenetics,” which reports research that resurrects Kemmerer’s reputation and asserts the truth of his experimental results.

What is epigenetics? It is long known that genes are turned on and off by mechanisms that are internal to the species. How else could every cell in the body contain the same DNA and yet take the different forms cells must adopt – muscles, brain, skin, hair etc. How could the fertilized egg become the fetus without different chromosomes taking their turn at control? Epigenetics describes the chemical changes to DNA and the way that DNA is stored as controlling the evolution of the fetus into the fully formed baby. However now, scientists are finding that the external environment and the behavior of many forms of life, including humans, are also capable of causing chemical changes to DNA. An article in the September 5, 2009 issue of The Economist, titled Don’t blame your genes, is all about these DNA changes, about epigenetics. Here we learn of research demonstrating that overeating fats and sugars, while it does not change the basic sequence of the DNA (which is identical in every cell and unchanged since conception) nevertheless does cause chemical changes to the DNA. Certain genes can be turned on and off leading to changes in the cells, which can lead to diabetes.

All of this is surprising enough but science has now taken the next step in research that demonstrated that several of these epigenetic changes in DNA can be passed on, that is, inherited. There is every reason to believe that many more of them will be uncovered, Here’s a heading from Technology Review published by MIT: “A Comeback for Lamarckian Evolution?” The article answers yes based on epigenetic discoveries. Biologists increasingly realize that evolutionary processes are controlled not only by changes in the sequence of bases in DNA (Darwinian) but also by chemical changes within that sequence (Lamarckian).

Welcome back Monsieur Lamarck and watch out you young folks still bearing children – what you do and where you tread may affect the genetic inheritance of your descendents.

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