| Whether it was "over-interpreted" or not -- some stressors methylate genes, and those mutations are passed on to descendants. Does surviving the holocaust count as a stressor? Yes. Would going through that probably involve a bundle of stressors, of which some are likely to produce epigenetic mutations? Likely. The author of this article is in the business of writing papers that are anti-trans-generational epigenetic inheritance. The author either doesn't believe it is possible, or doesn't believe to have seen evidence for it yet. It's a useful counterpoint to the majority opinion, tho it's very much the opinion of someone peddling a particular line that happens to be the line their in the business of writing papers about. The most interesting thing in this study was that the descendants of those who had experienced the holocaust seemed to have become more immune to the stressors their ancestors faced. That's a pretty clear case of the genome responding by becoming more fit, the occurrence of which has evolutionary advantage. |
So because the conclusion of the original study is probably sort-of-maybe okay-ish, we can excuse the shoddy research that was performed to get to that conclusion? I don't think that's how science works.
The final paragraph of the post reads
> Every week there are uninterpretable epigenetics studies published, the Holocaust study is merely one of many, these authors are merely following prevailing beliefs in over-interpreting their data. However, every such study damages the ‘brand’ of epigenetics a little more. If we want human disease epigenetics to be sustainable as a field of research, we have got to start to do substantially better in designing, executing, interpreting, reviewing and funding these studies.
Being afraid that bad research might damage the reputation of the entire field of epigenetics doesn't seem like something I'd worry about too much if I didn't believe in epigenetics as a valid object of scientific study.