[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.