Seeing “Lamarckian” More Positively: The Use/Disuse Paradigm Increases Understanding

Epigenetic inheritance and evolution: a historian's perspective

“…Until the mid-2010s, the few results available [28], and often cited, were also highly controversial [29]. Yet, recent discoveries in Caenorhabditis elegans [30], if confirmed, strongly suggest that in some cases, RNA-mediated inheritance could be very close, in its functioning, to a genuine Lamarckian process [31,32]. It remains to be known how frequent this mode of inheritance could be beyond the specific case of C. elegans.…”

We Should Not Use the Term “Lamarckian” as It Is Often Used in Opposition to “Darwinian”

“…In her highly interesting commentary “Seeing ‘Lamarckian’ More Positively: The Use/Disuse Paradigm Increases Understanding,” Sophie Veigl criticizes some aspects of my editorial about the misuse of the predicate “Lamarckian” in describing a range of phenomena . Let me first say that I was really pleased with the fact that my editorial triggered such an overall thoughtful response and interesting video, accompanying her article.…”

“…A moment of reflection would lead to the conclusion that for prokaryotes IAC actually is inescapable. Thus, the “protein phosphorylation state” would constitute another example of heritable changes that do not involve DNA, such as the changes in “prions, chromatin, and small RNAs,” mentioned by Veigl and I want to point out here that I only used the more constrained definition (“DNA‐encoded”) because it befitted the examples I was discussing in the editorial. In the case of adaptive (acquired) immunity (found, e.g., in vertebrates, insects, as well as in C. elegans ), researchers did not use IAC descriptions because of the strict separation of the germline in “higher” eukaryotic organisms, even though the system translates exquisitely precise information regarding the outside world at cell‐system and molecular levels.…”

Unmiraculous? Yes. Ancient? Probably not. (Response to DOI 10.1002/bies.201700041)

“…We Should Not Use the Term "Lamarckian" as It Is Often Used in Opposition to "Darwinian" Dave Speijer In her highly interesting commentary "Seeing 'Lamarckian' More Positively: The Use/Disuse Paradigm Increases Understanding," Sophie Veigl [1] criticizes some aspects of my editorial about the misuse of the predicate "Lamarckian" in describing a range of phenomena. [2] Let me first say that I was really pleased with the fact that my editorial triggered such an overall thoughtful response and interesting video, [3] accompanying her article.…”

“…A moment of reflection would lead to the conclusion that for prokaryotes IAC actually is inescapable. Thus, the "protein phosphorylation state" would constitute another example of heritable changes that do not involve DNA, such as the changes in "prions, chromatin, and small RNAs," mentioned by Veigl [1] and I want to point out here that I only used the more constrained definition ("DNAencoded") because it befitted the examples I was discussing in the editorial. In the case of adaptive (acquired) immunity (found, e.g., in vertebrates, insects, as well as in C. elegans), researchers did not use IAC descriptions because of the strict separation of the germline in "higher" eukaryotic organisms, even though the system translates exquisitely precise information regarding the outside world at cell-system and molecular levels.…”