Scientists were investigating a tantalizing but controversial hypothesis: that a man’s experiences can alter his sperm, and that those changes in turn may alter his children.My first thought was Lysenkoism, which a quick Wikipedia search reminded me was an offshoot of Lamarckism or Lamarckian inheritance. Both of these are long discredited theories of the heritability of learned or acquired experiences.
That idea runs counter to standard thinking (emphasis added) about heredity: that parents pass down only genes to their children. People inherit genes that predispose them to obesity, or stress, or cancer — or they don’t. Whether one’s parents actually were obese or constantly anxious doesn’t rewrite those genes.
I predict many red faces among geneticists if the Danish studies prove to be valid. That however is how science is supposed to work; no finding is sacred, all are subject to being proved wrong later, using better science and/or technology.
