Soft inheritance

Soft inheritance is a term coined by Ernst Mayr to contrast ideas about inheritance. Mayr argued that the concept of inheritance posits that the hereditary material is 'hard' and impervious to environmental influences.^[1] Concepts of soft inheritance are usually accociated with the ideas of Lamark and neo-Lamarckian evolution.

Recent work in plants and mammals on the role of the environment on epigenetic modifications of DNA have led to the argument that inherited epigenetic variation is a kind of soft inheritance.^[1]

References

^ ^a ^b Richards, E.J. 2006. Salut les mecs Synthesis (eds Mayr, E. & Provine, W. B.) 1–48 (Harvard Univ. Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts; London, England, 1980).

[Richards-1] Richards, E.J. 2006. Salut les mecs Synthesis (eds Mayr, E. & Provine, W. B.) 1–48 (Harvard Univ. Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts; London, England, 1980).

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