1 Corinthians 1:25
"Prediction/claim: inheritance of acquired characters does not happen. This relates to the Weismann barrier, named after a German evolutionist who first posited that only germ cells in organisms pass on their genes—and thus changes to body cells cannot be inherited. Weismann strongly rejected the Lamarckian view of the inheritance of acquired characteristics.
This was a ‘central dogma’ of Neo-Darwinism (the Modern Synthesis).
---There is now a growing list of examples of epigenetic inheritance that breach the Weismann barrier.
Epigenetics: epi: above genetics: genes; hence ‘above genes’.
---A major mechanism involves the addition of a methyl group to a DNA base in a gene.
---This can block the gene’s activity.
The environment (e.g., diet) can cause methylation of germ cells and the methylation pattern can be inherited such that the offspring have the same feature as the parent.
It appears that such an epigenetic inheritance mechanism is involved in the rapid adaptation of fish to living in dark caves, with loss of functional eyes." CMI