[Historiopode]

(My interest in evolutionary biology is quite lax, so bear with me if I say something particularly wrong.)

I was under the impression that, in recent years, there had been a small but significant surge of interest in the possibility of epigenetic inheritance, evidence for which had been found in a few studies on chickens, rats and plants. This article seems to explicitly states that no such thing is currently recognized.

Have I been deviated by fringe neo-Lamarckist press releases, are they simply too recent and in need of consolidation, or did Pinker avoid mentioning them for the sake of clarity and fidelity to the most safe, "gcd" theory?

[gort]

I'm not sure how it's relevant to the issue of group selection and altruism; but anyway such inheritance still seems to be relatively rare, as far as I know.

It's interesting that you call it Lamarckian - the epigenetic inheritance system itself would have to evolve in a normal Darwinian way... e.g. if genes get methylated (turned off semi-permanently) and passed down to offspring in this state, one could call that Lamarckian, but the methylation system itself is in need of a Darwinian explanation.

[Historiopode]

I assume it is not relevant, indeed: I was merely asking for comments over an unrelated point that was made in the essay, which is that there are no working Lamarckian mechanisms in biology.

I certainly agree over your second point, which I had considered myself, but that did not seem to be particularly relevant to my doubt.

[gort]

"point that was made in the essay, which is that there are no working Lamarckian mechanisms in biology"

Fair enough - Pinker seems a bit too firm about that.