'Lamarckian' mechanisms in darwinian evolution.
Since the Modern Synthesis, evolutionary biologists have assumed that the genetic system is the sole provider of heritable variation, and that the generation of heritable variation is largely independent of environmental changes. However, adaptive mutation, epigenetic inheritance, behavioural inheritance through social learning, and language-based information transmission have properties that allow the inheritance of induced or learnt characters. The role of induced heritable variation in evolution therefore needs to be reconsidered, and the evolution of the systems that produce induced variation needs to be studied.
The Cohn Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Ideas, Tel-Aviv University, Tel-Aviv 69978, Israel; The Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, Wallotstrasse 19, D-14193 Berlin, Germany.
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