The following is an excerpt.
Further, genetic analysis of adaptations that have arisen in evolution (like differences between closely related species of stickleback fish), invariably shows that they rest in changes in the base sequence of DNA (if that kind of genetic resolution is possible). Those changes can be in either “coding” sequences (that moiety of DNA that makes proteins), or “regulatory” sequences (those bits of DNA that regulate the expression of coding genes). There is, frankly, not a scintilla of evidence that adaptations of organisms rests on epigenetic DNA changes produced solely by the environment.
My conclusion: if epigenetic changes are involved in an evolutionary adaptation, they must be coded for in the DNA rather than acquired from the environment alone.
View the original article here: More puffery about epigenetics, and my usual role as go-to curmudgeon
