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RoBoyTic t1_iy3wck0 wrote

Reply to comment by lamiscaea in How the Great Depression shaped people’s DNA. Researchers have found that the cells of people who were conceived during the Great Depression, which lasted from 1929 to 1939 and, at its height, saw about 25% of the US workforce unemployed, show signs of accelerated ageing. by MistWeaver80

This isn’t denial of genetic evolution at all - this is epigenetics, which studies changes in gene expression which can be caused by environmental factors. No-one is taking Lysenkoism seriously.

https://developingchild.harvard.edu/resources/what-is-epigenetics-and-how-does-it-relate-to-child-development/

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lamiscaea t1_iy3xet5 wrote

> which studies changes in gene expression which can be caused by environmental factors

Yes, that is literaly Lysenkoism. "Plant seeds in the freezing ground, so the next generation of seeds becomes cold resistant, and nobody in our country will ever starve again"

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RebelWithoutASauce t1_iy3zvmb wrote

I think what you are describing is more accurately Lamarckian thinking rather than Lysenkoism. Lysenko's ideas were inspired by Lamarck's, but he also believed that all organisms helped each other so they should be crowded together. So he would suggest extra seeds be grown in the same plot because the plants would help their comrades.

But yes, the idea we are discussing bears some similarity to Lamarck's ideas. The big difference is that epigenetics has proposed and observed chemical mechanisms to explain it. Another difference is that Lamarck believed anything could evolve with the correct selective pressure, but epigenetic action is only an activation of already-evolved traits.

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lamiscaea t1_iy7obxc wrote

Lamarck was accidentally wrong. Lysenko ignored observations that didn't match his ideological worldview. We're currently much closer to Lysenko's than to Lamarck's reasoning. Just look at the accompanying Nature article. There is more text about politics than about the actual science.

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