Anyone here study biology? How do biobros generally view these

what the fuck do you even mean

epigenetics is a well characterized, well studied field. there's lots of open questions, sure, but it's not controversial by any means

>>8575678
Of course its controversial.

>>8575678
I mean people who reject the modern synthesis to varying degrees of extremity, or who reject the Weissman barrier.

>>8575694
I think everyone understands by now that the Weissman barrier isn't absolute, as we can plainly see from all the viral DNA that clutters up our genome, the controversial part is to what extent genetic information can enter the genome from the environment.

>>8575731
It's exactly that controversy that interests me, particularly in the case of respectable/credentialed biologists who are really open to neo-Lamarckian stuff, transgenerational epigenetics, neo-vitalism

>>8575736
>neo-vitalism
Nobody believes in that shit outside of Amurrca.

>>8575736
Well, I can't tell you much more than what the professors in my department think, but most of them are pretty skeptical of the more outlandish papers.

The idea that things like starvation or nutrient deficiencies can affect the epigenome of offspring is completely uncontroversial; everyone believes it because we have loads of data going back decades: shepherds and cattle ranchers have been able to successfully use starvation during the early trimesters of pregnancy to create lambs that would fatten more efficiently, and a cohort study using medical records from after Dutch famine during WWII showed that hunger in the mother during pregnancy can cause obesity in the offspring later in life. These observations have been backed up by studies in mice that found that methylation in a particular gene was behind this phenomenon. I would say that, on this end of the spectrum, where the mechanism is relatively simple, the effects are relatively straightforward, and the literature is substantial, there is very little controversy.

On the other end of the spectrum we have shit like this: http://www.nature.com/neuro/journal/v17/n1/abs/nn.3594.html

Where they exposed a mouse to a smell, shocked it, and then observed differential methylation of the corresponding olfactory receptor gene in the F1 generation, indicating that the shock had somehow affected expression of the gene in the offspring. When this paper was recent I remember a lot of my professors were very skeptical, saying they weren't sure if it would ever be replicated and doubting whether this kind of thing actually goes on in nature to an appreciable degree or is just a freak nonoccurence with no real evolutionary significance. Since then there have been a few other papers that demonstrate similar interactions in other species, and I've included some papers below, but most remain skeptical.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5155215/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4982694/

>>8575781
But America is the nexus of modern biomedical research.

>>8575815
Thanks for the thoughtful reply, man. I am an amateur at the actual science, as opposed to rarefied epistemological stuff that is never really representative of practicing science (vocal minorities etc.), so it's very helpful in figuring out where the two meet.

>>8575837
To be honest I don't think most geneticists spend a lot of time ruminating on the epistemological underpinnings of science, though they really should because it's very interesting and also a nice break from the technical stuff. We had a guest lecturer during our seminar from the philosophy department who talked about Aristotle and how he was basically the first biologist. Did you know that one-third of Aristotle's writings were treatises on zoology? But the impression I got talking to my friends after we took the mandatory research ethics course was that serious reflection on the philosophy and ethics of science is pointless because what really matters is just following the rules and jumping through the proper hoops to get published (and I can't really fault someone for taking that approach, given how busy everyone is.)

>>8575819
You know, I've been meaning to mention this for a while, but I find it pretty ironic that America can be both the center of the world's most cutting edge research and the harbor for the most vacuous, idiotic rhetoric and ideologies/theologies which exist in the world today.
Makes you think about how heterogeneous the country really is.

>doing philosophy of science
>without actual knowledge of "normal science"
End yourself

>>8575863
I agree with you completely, and that's where my interest really is.

I also definitely think that history/philosophy of science people get too big for their own britches though. I study it as an offshoot of phenomenology, but I get the impression that a lot of HPS people are just looking for easy excuses not to study science itself. Like that pretentious XKCD comic where everything is just applied something, except for math, which is fundamental.

There's still this attitude left over from the 60s when stuff like Kuhn, Hanson, and French theory exploded, and everyone was chomping at the bit to dismantle positivism. But it just leads to lazy scholarship, or people showing off that they read Kuhn's 70 page book once.

>>8575876
I agree, but this is just a side thing for me out of personal interest. I'm more interested in conceptual change and the phenomenology of it than with actual science.

genes can be actively transcripted or blocked from being transcripted.

the state of these genes can be passed on to the offspring. there is tonnes of hard evidence for this

Why couldn't you just google "epigenetics" and learn the first thing about it instead of memeing buzzwords and trying to frame it as a "philosophy of science" question ?

philosophy students are so worthless and intellectually handicapped I swear

>>8575906
The thread already covered this, but you're also misreading the OP's question. Why would you bother typing so much if you didn't even read the topic?

>>8575678
>it's not controversial

yes it is

>>8575868
In America the over achiever and successful are put on a pedestal and the unsuccessful are used as examples on why not to fuck up

this is unlike Europe where systems try to support most people

>>8575948
This is what the OP asked.
>How do biobros generally view these ROGUE NEO-LAMARCKIAN, KNOWN EPIGENETICIST! types?


It's like asking "how do biologists view these types who believe that DNA is a double helix ??"

It just shows that he doesn't know the first thing about it and seems to believe that it's somehow fringe or up for debate.

very shameful and embarrassing.

>>8575815

>tfw took class on epigenetics at Emory and had Dias come and lecture us one class about that paper

>>8576947
Did he have any interesting comments to add?

genes can influence the genotype but the way in which they are regulated via methylation or histone modification can be affected by previous generations (mostly the mother) and what the offspring experience in their lifetime

this is sort of a neo-lamarckian view on the matter it's not as far fetched as when they said that a horse stretches his neck and all his children are now giraffes

but yeah transgenerational epigenetics are awesome I'm trying to do something with my mealybugs by looking at the gene expression of nymphs and how its affected by the mother being switched from one host to another without the children experiencing an actual switch

>>8578650
>"genes can influence the genotype"

Welcome to /sci/

>>8578678
Sorry meant phenotype

I hadn't had coffee