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Lamarckism and epigenetic inheritance: a clarification

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Abstract

Since the 1990s, the terms “Lamarckism” and “Lamarckian” have seen a significant resurgence in biological publications. The discovery of new molecular mechanisms (DNA methylation, histone modifications, RNA interference, etc.) have been interpreted as evidence supporting the reality and efficiency of the inheritance of acquired characters, and thus the revival of Lamarckism. The present paper aims at giving a critical evaluation of such interpretations. I argue that two types of arguments allow to draw a clear distinction between the genuine Lamarckian concept of inheritance of acquired characters and transgenerational epigenetic inheritance. The first concerns the explanandum of the processes under consideration: molecular mechanisms of transgenerational epigenetic inheritance are understood as evolved products of natural selection. This means that the kind of inheritance of acquired characters they might be responsible for is an obligatory emergent feature of evolution, whereas traditional Lamarckisms conceived the inheritance of acquired characters as a property inherent in living matter itself. The second argument concerns the explanans of the inheritance of acquired characters: in light of current knowledge, epigenetic mechanisms are not able to drive adaptive evolution by themselves. Emergent Lamarckian phenomena would be possible if and only if individual epigenetic variation allowed the inheritance of acquired characters to be a factor of unlimited change. This implies specific requirements for epigenetic variation, which I explicitly define and expand upon. I then show that given current knowledge, these requirements are not empirically grounded.

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Notes

  1. Note that the exact term “inheritance of acquired characters” was not in use before the death of Lamarck himself (Gayon 2006).

  2. Methyl groups (CH3) are added to the bases of the DNA molecule. Usually, hypermethylation prevents gene transcription.

  3. The term “epimutation”, derived from “mutation”, designates a heritable change in gene expression that does not affect the actual base pair sequence of the DNA molecule.

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Acknowledgements

Some of the ideas presented here were first discussed on October 2014 at the IHPST (Paris-1/CNRS) in Paris during the international workshop “How can we redefine inheritance beyond the gene-centered approach?”. I would like to thank Francesca Merlin and Gaëlle Pontarotti for their invitation and all the workshop participants for their insightful questions and comments. I would like also to thank Vincent Colot, Michel Morange, and Adam S. Wilkins for their helpful remarks on successive versions of this paper. During the last stages, my argument benefited from exchanges within other members of an informal discussion group on the boundaries of the concept of biological heredity: Guillaume Achaz, Francesca Merlin, Gaëlle Pontarotti and Livio Riboli-Sasco. I am also deeply in debt to the anonymous reviewers (especially “Reviewer 3”) and Maureen O’Malley, who patiently helped me to improve the present article. Last but not least, the final version was edited by Jean-Yves Bart.

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  1. CNRS, IHPST (UMR 8590, CNRS, Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, ENS), Paris, France

    Laurent Loison

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Loison, L. Lamarckism and epigenetic inheritance: a clarification. Biol Philos 33, 29 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10539-018-9642-2

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